It is undoubted that Shopify is the leading website builder in the eCommerce platform. Though proven to be an ideal solution, there are several features that Shopify needs to improve. This article has recommended six of the best Shopify competitors concerning both hosted and open-source solutions.

Shopify is one of the most used eCommerce platforms in 2020. It is currently hosting nearly 1.5 million users worldwide, and it has shown limitless potential in growing.

However, due to several restraints in features, Shopify is not always the best option for online businesses. First, the nature of a hosted eCommerce platform won’t allow users to customize their Shopify stores thoroughly. Shopify only offers a limited selection of SEO features. Thus, users have to rely heavily on third-party apps or add-ons. Moreover, a Shopify store’s maintenance cost is considerably high, especially for newcomers and small businesses.

If you are looking for a replacement for Shopify, this is the article for you. In the following post, we will recommend our TOP 6 Shopify competitors as well as their prominent features and drawbacks.

Stay tuned!

Best Shopify Competitors: Open-source Platforms

Unlike hosted eCommerce solutions, open-source carts are free-of-charge to download and install. However, users still have to pay for several additional factors, including a hosting provider, a domain name, and an SSL Certificate to maintain their website.

Another notable advantage of open-source shopping carts is the complete flexibility and control over the website. They allow users to access and modify the source code to their liking. As a result, using this type of platform requires a great knowledge of development and technology.

If you are willing to invest time and financial resources on your website, here are our recommended Shopify competitors for open-source platforms.

1. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a digital plugin that transforms your WordPress site into an online store. Previously introduced as WooThemes in 2008, WooCommerce has quickly attracted 4.4 million users across the globe. It is no doubt that WooCommerce might be an appropriate replacement for Shopify.

WooCommerce Pros

• Flexibility and Customizability: WooCommerce grants users unlimited space for customization and flexibility. Store owners will have access to over 500 official extensions on their Marketplace, ranging from Store Management (Tax, Accounting, Customer Service,…), Marketing (Social, Multi-channel,…) to Payment and Shipping. These extensions include both free-of-charge and paid options. Moreover, each app displays a ranking system on a five-star basis for reference so that users will have a better understanding before installing. With extensions and plug-ins, users can further enhance their online businesses.

There are over 500 apps and extensions available on WooCommerce Marketplace

• Security: WooCommerce is also well-known for its high level of security. This platform releases updates regularly; your store will be kept up-to-date with the latest cyber-security features. In addition, WooCommerce doesn’t require transaction fees for third-party payment, whereas Shopify charges up to 2.9% for each payment by online credit card.
• SEO Friendliness: Another outstanding feature of WooCommerce is the ability to customize URLs to support SEO. While Shopify doesn’t permit users to edit their links, WooCommerce users can modify them from the dashboard. Furthermore, WooCommerce automatically enables Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on their free template to boost your website load time; no third-party application is needed.

WooCommerce allows users to modify their products’ URL and SEO title

WooCommerce Cons

• Limited theme selection: While Shopify offers 73 themes on their app market, WooCommerce only provides three free options and 20 premium ones.
• Technical skills needed: Using WooCommerce is not challenging work. However, so as to fully utilize this eCommerce platform, users might need to have in-depth knowledge of both WordPress and WooCommerce.

2. Magento

Magento has earned a solid reputation as one of the best eCommerce platforms over the years. It has been home to several famous global brands, such as Nintendo, The New York Times, and The Body Shop. These are the reasons why Magento could be one of the best Shopify competitors.

Magento Pros

• Impressive security features: Designed for medium-to-large businesses, Magento provides users with top-notch security features. It has a dedicated Security Center to monitor security risks as well as to detect unauthorized access to your site. Magento also equips their site with PCI Compliance and Signifyd to further enhance the protection of the payment process.
• Diverse integrations, apps, and add-ons: One of the reasons that make Magento a giant in the eCommerce platform market is its extensive features. There are over 3,500 applications available on Magento App Market, divided into nine different categories so that users can quickly look for what they need. These applications cover most aspects of an eCommerce site, including Site Optimization, Reporting & Analytics, and Payment & Shipping.

Magneto offers a wide variety of apps and add-ons

Magento Cons

• Complicated installation: This is perhaps the significant barrier to deciding to use Magento. Though the installation is linear and straight-forward, it requires a strict procedure. Some people might find this process tiresome and hard to follow. Here’s our step-to-step guidance to make your installation easier.

(Embed video Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSo2x9N9Swk)

3. Prestashop

There’s no doubt that Prestashop is gradually gaining a foothold as a credible Shopify competitor. With over ten years of experience in the eCommerce market, Prestashop has hosted nearly 700,000 websites worldwide.

Prestashop is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms in the world.

Prestashop Pros

• Multilingual websites: Prestashop is one of the minor website builders that support more than one primary language without third-party app integration. This feature may come in handy when you need to globalize your online business. There are 75 language translations besides English available on Prestashop to help with your international plan.
• A significant number of themes: Prestashop supplies more than 2,400 themes on their app market. These templates are divided into 14 distinguished categories based on the product type. There are both free and paid options available, and the most expensive theme can cost up to €799.99.

Prestashop offers an impressive number of website templates

Prestashop Cons

• Vulnerable security: In exchange for access and modifying the source code, open-source carts are more likely to get information bleach and other cyber risks. However, unlike Magento, Prestashop relies on third-party add-ons instead of updating security patches to solve this problem.

Best Shopify Competitors: Hosted Platforms

Consider switching to a hosted eCommerce solution if you are looking for intuitive and less time-consuming options. These platforms will be much more convenient for those who are used to Shopify. Here are our TOP 3 best Shopify alternatives in the hosted cart category.

1. BigCommerce

BigCommerce was established in 2009, and it quickly made quite a name among the most well-known eCommerce platforms. Several leading brands worldwide have adopted BigCommerce for their website, namely SkullCandy, WoolRich, and Ben & Jerry’s.

BigCommerce is trusted by many famous brand worldwide

BigCommerce Pros

• A diverse selection of themes and templates: BigCommerce offers 12 free options for store owners with a tight budget. Each option comes in up to 4 styles to customize. Besides, BigCommerce has over 100 premium templates for those who are willing to invest in website interfaces. These paid options range from $150 to $300.
• Outstanding customer support: BigCommerce pays close attention and care towards its users. Upon registering, users will receive a 10-minute discussion via phone call with BigCommerce support agents to understand your business and how they could help you achieve success. BigCommerce dedicates a virtual Help Center with over 20,000 solutions and 4,000 ideas, along with 24/7 support via email, live chat, and phone call to assist users.

BigCommerce Cons

• Unsuitable for non-techie: Though BigCommerce has introduced a new page builder as an attempt to make it easier for users, setting up a store might be a challenging task for some people. The installation procedure requires adequate knowledge of technical terms. Therefore, eCommerce beginners may find themselves struggling when dealing with the process.

2. Wix

In contrast to BigCommerce, Wix is an ideal eCommerce solution for beginners and non-coders. It’s a cloud-based platform that provides everything you need to create and manage your online store. Wix has been home to more than 4.5 million websites worldwide.

Wix is an ideal website builder tool for beginners

Wix Pros

• Ease of customization: Wix’s most outstanding feature is the linear interface that allows users to modify their site to their personal preference entirely. Wix is a feature-rich tool for website building with a classic drag-and-drop mechanism, granting users access to customize every element on their websites. Don’t worry if you are unfamiliar with web design. Wix offers two website builder tools, Wix Editor and Wix ADI, to assist users.
• Free themes and templates: Wix offers over 100 website templates designated for eCommerce businesses, and all of them are free of charge. These themes are divided into 12 smaller categories and are tailored for different types of products.

Wix Cons

• Limited app market: In comparison with other giants in the website builder market, plug-in is not a strength of Wix. Wix Marketplace only supplies over 200 options for third-party apps and add-ons. The good news is that these apps cover almost everything you need for an online store, from Marketing, Sell Online, Services and Events, to Media and Content, Design Element, and Communication.

3. Squarespace

Squarespace might be one of the earliest comers that shape the eCommerce website builder market. With over ten years of experience, it has proven to be a worthy candidate for Shopify competitor. Squarespace even ranks second in the most popular hosted solution on the entire Internet.

Squarespace Pros

• Informative customer support: Squarespace’s customer support system is available in a diverse platform, including Knowledgebase, Emails, live chat support, Webinars, Forums, Guides, and a Developer Center. The support agents usually provide in-depth and detailed answers to users’ problems. However, the downside of this perk is a longer response time, especially during the peak period.
• Award-winning templates supply: Squarespace earns its reputation for creating professional and elegant website themes. Though there aren’t a plethora of templates on the stock market, Squarespace focuses more on the quality of each theme. Some of them even won Webby awards for the best visual design aesthetic. Users can also utilize the integrated Unsplash and Getty to get free images for your website.

Squarespace Cons

• Limited amount of payment gateways: Squarespace only supports three payment gateways, namely Stripe, Square, and Paypal.

Shopify Competitors: A Summary

There are plenty of Shopify competitors, and each of them has their merits and drawbacks. The choice may depend mainly on the scale of your business and your financial background.

If you are looking for an easy solution without technical skill requirements, you can opt for Wix or Squarespace to utilize their exquisite stock of pre-built themes and templates. However, these options will be more suitable for eCommerce beginners or smaller businesses.

In case your business is up-scaling, consider switching to Magento or WooCommerce. These Shopify competitors might be expensive, but they offer many useful features to grow your online business. It’s worth noting that both Magento and WooCommerce requires an in-depth knowledge of technology and technical skills. They will not be suitable for non-tech-savvy.

Final Words

It is undoubted that Shopify is the leading website builder in the eCommerce platform. Though proven to be an ideal solution, there are several features that Shopify needs to improve. This article has recommended six of the best Shopify competitors concerning both hosted and open-source solutions.Consider migrating to another platform? LitExtension gets you covered. With nine years of experience in the shopping-cart migration field, LitExtension guarantees to provide you an accurate, seamless, and secure migration process. If you have any inquiries or questions, LitExtension is available via live chat, email, and ticket system.

Fintech is a continually growing industry. The vast gap between what consumers can currently do and what they can do is one of the main reasons why the industry is growing rapidly.

According to PWC, in the next 3 to 5 years, slightly more than three-fourths of incumbent financial institutions (77% to be exact) will focus more on innovations to increase customer retention.

New technology always excites people, and Fintech is undoubtedly still at its inception phase. Entrepreneurs who want to do something in tech but aren’t sure of which industry they should focus on should consider going into Fintech.

What exactly is Fintech?

The general consensus about Fintech is that it is a group of disruptive technologies and solutions in the field of finance. Startups are usually the key innovators and leading players in the fintech scene.

The typical organizational structure of startups allows them to produce minimum viable solutions faster than traditional organizations. Startups also focus on implementing agile processes, reducing the time it takes to test their solutions in the market.

Here are a few critical opportunities in Fintech for entrepreneurs:

Peer to Peer Lending

Borrowing and lending are ancient concepts. Previously, the only way to get a loan was through a bank or through friends and family. If you have a poor credit score, you’re not going to be approved to get a loan from a bank. And if your friends and family aren’t doing too well financially, you have negligible options.

Technology has changed the way we view the world and do business. It has also introduced new opportunities for people all around the world.

Companies like LendingClub have made peer to peer lending accessible. People who want to earn by lending do not have to find people on the street anymore. They can go to platforms like Prosper or LendingClub, register as a lender, deposit money, and assess the right people to give loans to.

The main challenge in peer-to-peer lending is the delinquency rate, aka, how many borrowers take loans but do not repay them in time. To counter this, startups will need to improve their vetting processes while setting up contingency plans in case borrowers do not repay their loans.

Peer to peer lending is still a new concept, which is why even with giants competitors like LendingClub, you can still carve out a name for yourself. Find something unique to offer in the niche and market it effectively for the best results.

Personal finance

Personal finance is a booming niche that all tech-focused entrepreneurs should consider getting into.

Today’s consumers are relatively more aware of their finances and are also enthusiastic about financial movements like FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early).

There is still a lot to be done in the personal finance niche. Solutions like Mint help people keep their finances on track, while Acorns and Robinhood are assisting people to invest at their convenience.

These kinds of technologies are breaking barriers and are bringing financial solutions to the people that need them. After all, understanding your audience and making sure to facilitate them with tech like mobile apps, chatbots, and live chat app is something that will ultimately help people enter the world of personal finance.

Personal finance has grown to be a broad field with its own set of problems. Keeping users engaged, maintaining company growth, and constant innovation are still areas that need improvement. New entrants in Fintech can learn from their predecessors and keep these things in mind when developing their own solutions.

Increasing consumer awareness is also something that entrepreneurs in the personal finance industry should proactively be doing. The better your startup is at spreading the good word about tech and personal finance, the more your consumer base, and in turn, your audience will grow.

Digital investments

Investing used to be something reserved for people who were already financially stable. The risks involved in the stock market and the lack of information available to the public made for consumers who were hesitant to invest in anything and who would end up just saving that money instead.

These days, with the advent of smartphones and other mobile devices, information is readily accessible to people. People are also more willing to invest in companies they feel an attachment to. Mobile banking and investing are also on the rise.

Services like Robinhood, Acorns, etc. have given people the ability to invest in stocks and other funds from their mobile phones. Fundrise also offers people the chance to crowdfund and make investments in the real estate sector.

People still want greater variety in the places and niches they can invest their money in. They also want a service that is intuitive to use and has a small learning curve. Understanding your audience’s investment needs is the first step to creating a startup geared for success.

Mobile banking and payment processing

Let’s face it, in most parts of the world; traditional banks are still king. Even if they take steps towards digitization and come out with a mobile app, it is substandard in most cases.

Several startups have already seen a gap in the market and have come out with their own solutions. Monzo (UK based digital-only bank), Atom, Tide are just some of the banking solution providers available on the market today.

Payment processing services like PayPal, Payoneer, TransferWise, have allowed freelancers worldwide to relax and get their payments efficiently.

Other companies like Stripe, Xoom, Square are also making significant headway.

Mobile banking is the future, and the demand for a robust, secure, yet easy to use the app is still high demand.

Conclusion

Fintech is undoubtedly a niche that tech enthusiasts should consider getting into. Even if you are not looking to start a company immediately, working for any of these many startups can prove to be an excellent asset for your later career.

There is still a lot to do in Fintech. Any niche that faces high demand but short supply can be something prospective entrepreneurs would want to look into.

According to Crowdfund Insider, there are at least 67 fintech unicorns (billion-dollar companies) operating worldwide. The next unicorn just might be your future fintech startups.

---

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

My 2020 was colored by the considerable amount of time I spent analyzing data about CSS usage in the wild, for the CSS chapter of the Web Almanac, by the HTTP Archive. The results were eye-opening to me. A wake-up call of sorts. We spend so much time in the bubble of bleeding-edge tech that we lose touch with how the web is really built. Most of the web favors old, stable tech instead of new bling.

CSS-in-JS? Only 2% of websites.

React? Only 4%.

Service Workers? Less than 1%.

Houdini? Practically 0%.

Nobody uses jQuery anymore, right? Wrong. It appears on 83% of all websites! Everyone uses Jamstack instead of bloated CMSes, right, right? Wrong. Static site generators are used in less than 1% of websites, WordPress powers one-third of the Web.

A lot of the code we found could have been written a decade ago. When new tech ends up being used sufficiently to appear in these stats, it’s often because the primary driver is a popular library or framework. Effectively, we (standards folks, browser implementers, etc.) are building tech for tooling authors, who are the ones really building tech for the average web developer. Quite a perspective shift, isn’t it?

---

The post How The Web is Really Built appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

It’s December! Lots of things are published this time of year, like developer advent calendars and organizations reflecting on the past year. We have even our own end-of-year series where we asked folks what they learned in 2020. But we also see lots of research come out around this time. Some of it we’ve already linked up. But let’s round up what we’ve seen so far.

2020 MDN Web Developer Needs Assessment

What it is: An annual, global survey that researches developer needs and how to address them. It surveys 30 stakeholders representing board member organizations including browser vendors, the W3C, and industry.

What it found: Chris Mills summarized the survey’s findings. This the second edition of the annual survey, and this year’s results show that the list of top developer needs hasn’t changed much year-over-year. Things like outdated documentation, cross-browser support, and keeping current with a constantly changing landscape headline the feedback. But it’s worth looking at the raw data because they’re so much of it!

HTTP Archive’s annual state of the web report

What it is: A study that looks at 7.5 million websites and analyzes how they were made, breaking things up into sections including page content, user experience, content publishing and content distribution.

What it found: Robin summarized his highlights, which include CSS gaining more page weight, and that the average site contains three elements as well as six remote stylesheets. That’s just the tip of the CSS iceberg though, because there’s a whole lot more data just on that, not to mention sections on JavaScript and markup.

State of CSS 2020

What it is: An annual look at CSS, surveying developers on the features they use, as well as their understanding of and satisfaction with them. Survey co-founder Sacha Greif rounded up his own findings last year, which was the first year of results.

What it found: Tailwind CSS is getting popular! calc() is in the mainstream! position: sticky; is being used more in layouts! Grid is being used roughly 20% more than last year! It’s way too easy and fun to geek out on this stuff.

GitHub’s 2020 State of the Octoverse

What it is: This is sort of GitHub’s internal review of activity, providing status on the number of users, repos, languages, and whatnot. But those numbers sort of reveal interesting things about our work-life balance, communities, and general activity.

What it found: It’s neat to see 60+ million new repos and 1.9 billion contributions in the past year, but the insights that arise from developer activities on GitHub are the most interesting thing in this report. For example, GitHub saw a huge spike in activity in February and March as the Covid pandemic became widespread, with developers putting in more time and working longer hours — possibly a sign that more side projects were born. They also reported a decrease in work activity on weekends, while seeing a rise in open source activity — again, possibly pointing to side projects.

Google’s Year in Search

What it is: A report that the search giant releases each year highlighting top search terms, breaking them down into categories, including News, People, Actors, Definitions, Recipes, and more.

What it found: Sure, this report isn’t directly related to front-end development, but it’s sort of nice to be in touch with the zeitgeist of such an odd year. The video that accompanies the report sorta views like a Google commercial, but it’s still a good look back at what people cared about most (or most often?) in the year — sorta like a high school yearbook.

Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020

What it is: A survey of 65,000 developers that looks at the technologies they use and how they use them.

What it found: TypeScript surpassed Python as the second most beloved language after Rust. Roughly 90% of respondents say they visit Stack Overflow when they’re stuck on something (which seems right for a Stack Overflow survey). More than 15% of folks say Stack Overflow is more welcome this year compared to last year, which is an interesting metric. Lots more is in there, of course!

Angular Developer Survey 2020

What it is: A survey of 30,000 developers about they experience with the framework.

What it found: This report was interesting to me, not because I use Angular on lots of projects (I don’t), but because the folks who responded indicated better documentation as a top need, which seems to follow that HTTP Archive’s annual state of the web report.

JetBrains State of Developer Ecosystem 2020

What it is: A survey of nearly 20,000 developers by JetBrains, maker of the popular PhpStorm IDE.

What it found: They state the key findings up front. JavaScript is the most widely used programming language, Python is the most studied, and websites re the most common type of app that people are building.

The WebAIM Million 2020

What it is: An evaluation of the accessibility of the top 1 million and over 100,000 additional interior pages. What are those top million sites? The include ones from the Majestic Millions list with additional page analysis coming from the Open PageRank Initiative and Alexa Top Sites.

What it found: The report literally uses the word “dismal” to describe the results. And the report only analyzes detectable accessibility issues — there’s no qualitative assessment that would certainly reveal more insights. The study detected 60,909,278 errors, or roughly 60.9 errors per page. Yikes. Brushing up on the data and its findings is a good idea so we can all help improve that bleak picture.

CodinGame 2020 Developer Survey

What it is: A survey of 20,000 developers, covering learning, skills, languages, and demographics.

What it found: This report measures a lot of the same stuff as other surveys in this compilation, but it also has a “Work & Happiness” section that’s super interesting. For example, developers tend to be happier with their jobs if they have either a PhD or no formal education at all — all other forms of education fall flat after that. Also, developers in the U.K. (7.4), Canada (7.38), and the U.S. (7.33) report the highest levels of work satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10. Developers who work in the manufacturing, aerospace, and finance sectors tends to be least happy.

LinkedIn 2020 Workplace Learning Report

What it is: A voluntary survey of 6,607 working professionals that evaluates their career priorities, challenges, and motivations.

What it found: Again, not exactly a web-focused study, but it found that folks rated “mobile coding and development,” “engineering and coding” and “cloud computing” as the lowest priority skills across all industries. The fact that LinkedIn Learning has a deep library of material and the ability to track the things people are watching and learning makes this feel pertinent. But maybe it’s nothing. Either way, those results gave me a little pause.

HackerRank Developer Skills Report

What it is: Insights on developer skills based on feedback from 116,648 developers — exactly what it says on the tin.

What it found: There’s some interesting stuff in here, like results on what coding language people first learned to write. But it’s the finding that “full-stack” developers are this year’s “most in-demand talent pool” that catches my eye. We talk a lot about what it means to be “full-stack” in this industry, and given the ongoing murkiness of the term, I’m just not sure what not means when 38% percent of hiring managers cited it as their top priority.

Microsoft IoT Signals Report

What it is: A study on the growth, evolvement and use of the Internet of Things, a term used to describe physical objects taking on Internet capabilities, say a watch, lightbulb, refrigerator, or whatever. The study polled about 3,000 people with a 20-minute online survey.

What it found: This report is kinda fun because it tracks the IoT customer lifecycle, from learning and trying to purchasing and using. This study found that 91% of companies are adopting are using and producing IoT products, compared to 85% in 2019. The report also sheds light on the emerging use of AI and Edge Computing, including some considerations and implications for using them.

Developer Economics Survey

What it is: You know, they seem to do lots of surveys — like two a year — then break those out into several individual reports. It looks like 30,000 developers participated recently and they glean insights about developer trends and tools.

What it found: To be honest, I didn’t look. You’ve gotta be a member of the community just to get in, and even then, it’s more of a push to take the survey than actually view the results. Whatever. Maybe the findings are awesome and you feel like going through the process.

UpWork’s Freelance Forward 2020

What it is: The very first survey by UpWork to check on the current state of freelancing, including the effect Covid has had on it, and what we might be able to expect in the future.

What it found: Out of 59 million freelancers (across all industries), 10% paused work as a result of the global pandemic, where 61% of those still freelancing have the amount of work they want or more. The report also concluded that freelancers are actually better equipped to weather the pandemic than non-freelancers. As a freelancer myself, this not only resonates with me personally but rings true with my own experience this year.

UXTools.co 2020 design tools survey

What it is: Taylor Palmer personally surveyed more than 4,000 designers to find out what sort of tools they’re this year to bridge the physical gaps left by the rise of working from home.

What it found: Some obvious things of course, like Zoom and Slack. But the report breaks things down into categories, showing the top tools for certain work. Like, whoa, Figma sure is a big player for everything from user flows to UI design. I knew it was big (and I use it myself) but I still figured other tools were bigger, especially for Mac. It pretty much dominated every category measured by this survey, even which tools designers are most excited to use or try.

Postman’s 2020 State of the API Report

What it is: A survey of 13,500 developers that measures who is developing with APIs, what sort of work they’re doing with them, and how APIs are evolving.

What it found: Basically, the state of API usage is super duper strong. I had a hunch that was the case without looking at the report and I’d bet my bologna sandwich that you did too. It also found that 70% of developers consider documentation to be one of the top four criteria for adopting a particular API, which goes back to MDN’s findings. Documentation is a big need!

Ionic Framework 2020 Developer Survey

What it is: Ionic polled it’s own customer base to get insights on how the developers who use the framework (1) actually use the framework, and (2) what sort of things are important to them and the way they work.

What it found: Well, it confirmed Angular’s own report that Angular grew year-over-year and is the most popular app framework — it’s interesting to see just how much it’s used compared to newer frameworks, like React and Vue, both of which saw near identical growth and usage according to this survey. It’s the newer things that get talked about most, right?

Mailchimp’s 2020 Annual Report

What it is: A look at the company’s stats for the year.

What it found: Well, this is all data related directly to Mailchimp and its customers. But still cool to see numbers like 33,635,013,935 emails sent by customers., and that $314,646,819 was generated from automated abandoned cart emails. Og, and ? was the most popular emoji used in email subject lines. Now you know.

Campaign Monitor’s Ultimate Email Marketing Benchmarks for 2020

What it is: Campaign Monitor’s updated benchmarks for email marketing, based on an analysis of 30 billion emails sent in 2019.

What it found: Tuesdays have the highest email open rates, but the highest unsubscribe rate as well. It also found that open rates declined across all industries (13.9% vs. 14.9%). In short, email benchmarks are largely the same.

---

Wrapping up

Phew, quite a list! But even so, there are many, many other reports out there. In fact, if you know of any not covered here, please leave a comment so we can link ’em up.

And there are more reports to come! You can actually participate in the 2020 State of JavaScript survey and the 2020 WordPress Annual Survey now, or at least at the time of this writing.

---

The post 2020 Roundup of Web Research appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

I really appreciate a real-world walkthrough of a technology. Not only in what that technology does, but why it was chosen and how it worked for a team. Anybody can read the docs, but what you know after years of real-world usage is far more valuable. Hugo “Kitty” Giraudel:

I want to properly reflect on the choice of going with Fela instead of any other CSS-in-JS library you might have heard of.

I’d never heard of Fela before. To me, the most interesting part is the “atomic” output. It looks like it combines all uses of unique property: value pairs into a unique class and then applies all the necessary classes to the necessary DOM node. I’m sure the result of that is some pretty gnarly looking class output. (I’d suggest putting reasonably named styling hooks on things too, for humans.) But I would think that the chunk of CSS that gets generated and applied to the page is ultimately as small is it can be as it contains nothing repetitive. That’s one the advantages of any well-configured atomic class workflow: tiny CSS.

Direct Link to Article — Permalink

---

The post Retrospective on Fela appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

Images take up to 50% of the total size of an average web page. And if images are not optimized, users end up downloading extra bytes. And if they’re downloading extra bytes, the site not only takes that much more time to load, but users are using more data, both of which can be resolved, at least in part, by optimizing the images before they are downloaded.

Researchers around the world are busy developing new image formats that possess high visual quality despite being smaller in size compared to other formats like PNG or JPG. Although these new formats are still in development and generally have limited browser support, one of them, WebP, is gaining a lot of attention. And while they aren’t really in the same class as raster images, SVGs are another format many of us have been using in recent years because of their inherently light weight.

There are tons of ways we can make smaller and optimized images. In this tutorial, we will write bash scripts that create and optimize images in different image formats, targeting the most common formats, including JPG, PNG, WebP, and SVG. The idea is to optimize images before we serve them so that users get the most visually awesome experience without all the byte bloat.

This GitHub repo has all the images we’re using and you’re welcome to grab them and follow along.

Set up

Before we start, let’s get all of our dependencies in order. Again, we’re writing Bash scripts, so we’ll be spending time in the command line.

Here are the commands for all of the dependencies we need to start optimizing images:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install imagemagick webp jpegoptim optipng
npm install -g svgexport svgo

It’s a good idea to know what we’re working with before we start using them:

• ImageMagick: works with all kinds of raster images
• webp optimizes WebP files
• JPEGoptim optimizes JPG/JPEG files
• OptiPNG optimizes PNG files
• SVGO and svgexport are Node packages that optimize SVG assets

OK, we have our images in the original-images directory from the GitHub repo. You can follow along at commit 3584f9b.

Note: It is strongly recommended to backup your images before proceeding. We’re about to run programs that alter these images, and while we plan to leave the originals alone, one wrong command might change them in some irreversible way. So back anything up that you plan to use on a real project to prevent cursing yourself later.

Organize images

OK, we’re technically set up. But before we jump into optimizing all the things, we should organize our files a bit. Let’s organize them by splitting them up into different sub-directories based on their MIME type. In fact, we can create a new bash to do that for us!

The following code creates a script called organize-images.sh:

#!/bin/bash

input_dir="$1"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
fi

for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*" );
do
  # get the type of the image
  img_type=$(basename `file --mime-type -b $img`)

  # create a directory for the image type
  mkdir -p $img_type

  # move the image into its type directory
  rsync -a $img $img_type
done

This might look confusing if you’re new to writing scripts, but what it’s doing is actually pretty simple. We give the script an input directory where it looks for images. the script then goes into that input directory, looks for image files and identifies their MIME type. Finally, it creates subdirectories in the input folder for each MIME type and drops a copy of each image into their respective sub-directory.

Let’s run it!

bash organize-images.sh original-images

Sweet. The directory looks like this now. Now that our images are organized, we can move onto creating variants of each image. We’ll tackle one image type at a time.

Convert to PNG

We will convert three types of images into PNG in this tutorial: WebP, JPEG, and SVG. Let’s start by writing a script called webp2png.sh, which pretty much says what it does: convert WebP files to PNG files.

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
fi

# for each webp in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.webp" );
do
  dwebp $img -o ${img%.*}.png
done

Here’s what happening:

• input_dir="$1": Stores the command line input to the script
• if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then: Runs the subsequent conditional if the input directory is not defined
• for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.webp" );: Loops through each file in the directory that has a .webp extension.
• dwebp $img -o ${img%.*}.png: Converts the WebP image into a PNG variant.

And away we go:

bash webp2png.sh webp

We now have our PNG images in the webp directory. Next up, let’s convert JPG/JPEG files to PNG with another script called jpg2png.sh:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
fi

# for each jpg or jpeg in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.jpg" -o -iname "*.jpeg" );
do
  convert $img ${img%.*}.png
done

This uses the convert command provided by the ImageMagick package we installed. Like the last script, we provide an input directory that contains JPEG/JPG images. The script looks in that directory and creates a PNG variant for each matching image. If you look closely, we have added -o -iname "*.jpeg" in the find. This refers to Logical OR, which is the script that finds all the images that have either a .jpg or .jpeg extension.

Here’s how we run it:

bash jpg2png.sh jpeg

Now that we have our PNG variants from JPG, we can do the exact same thing for SVG files as well:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

# png image width
width="$2"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$width" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify image width."
  exit 1
fi

# for each svg in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.svg" );
do
  svgexport $img ${img%.*}.png $width:
done

This script has a new feature. Since SVG is a scalable format, we can specify the width directive to scale our SVGs up or down. We use the svgexport package we installed earlier to convert each SVG file into a PNG:

bash svg2png.sh svg+xml

Commit 76ff80a shows the result in the repo.

We’ve done a lot of great work here by creating a bunch of PNG files based on other image formats. We still need to do the same thing for the rest of the image formats before we get to the real task of optimizing them.

Convert to JPG

Following in the footsteps of PNG image creation, we will convert WebP, JPEG, and SVG into JPG. Let’s start by writing a script called png2jpg.sh that converts PNG to SVG:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

# jpg image quality
quality="$2"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$quality" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify image quality."
  exit 1
fi

# for each png in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.png" );
do
  convert $img -quality $quality% ${img%.*}.jpg
done

You might be noticing a pattern in these scripts by now. But this one introduces a new power where we can set a -quality directive to convert PNG images to JPG images. Rest is the same.

And here’s how we run it:

bash png2jpg.sh png 90

Woah. We now have JPG images in our png directory. Let’s do the same with a webp2jpg.sh script:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

# jpg image quality
quality="$2"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$quality" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify image quality."
  exit 1
fi

# for each webp in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.webp" );
do
  # convert to png first
  dwebp $img -o ${img%.*}.png

  # then convert png to jpg
  convert ${img%.*}.png -quality $quality% ${img%.*}.jpg
done

Again, this is the same thing we wrote for converting WebP to PNG. However, there is a twist. We cannot convert WebP format directly into a JPG format. Hence, we need to get a little creative here and convert WebP to PNG using dwebp and then convert PNG to JPG using convert. That is why, in the for loop, we have two different steps.

Now, let’s run it:

bash webp2jpg.sh jpeg 90

Voilà! We have created JPG variants for our WebP images. Now let’s tackle SVG to JPG:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

# jpg image width
width="$2"

# jpg image quality
quality="$3"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$width" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify image width."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$quality" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify image quality."
  exit 1
fi

# for each svg in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.svg" );
do
    svgexport $img ${img%.*}.jpg $width: $quality%
done

You might bet thinking that you have seen this script before. You have! We used the same script for to create PNG images from SVG. The only addition to this script is that we can specify the quality directive of our JPG images.

bash svg2jpg.sh svg+xml 512 90

Everything we just did is contained in commit 884c6cf in the repo.

Convert to WebP

WebP is an image format designed for modern browsers. At the time of this writing, it enjoys roughly 90% global browser support, including with partial support in Safari. WebP’s biggest advantage is it’s a much smaller file size compared to other mage formats, without sacrificing any visual quality. That makes it a good format to serve to users.

But enough talk. Let’s write a png2webp.sh that — you guessed it — creates WebP images out of PNG files:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

# webp image quality
quality="$2"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$quality" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify image quality."
  exit 1
fi

# for each png in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.png" );
do
  cwebp $img -q $quality -o ${img%.*}.webp
done

This is just the reverse of the script we used to create PNG images from WebP files. Instead of using dwebp, we use cwebp.

bash png2webp.sh png 90

We have our WebP images. Now let’s convert JPG images. The tricky thing is that there is no way to directly convert a JPG files into WebP. So, we will first convert JPG to PNG and then convert the intermediate PNG to WebP in our jpg2webp.sh script:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

# webp image quality
quality="$2"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$quality" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify image quality."
  exit 1
fi

# for each webp in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.jpg" -o -iname "*.jpeg" );
do
  # convert to png first
  convert $img ${img%.*}.png

  # then convert png to webp
  cwebp ${img%.*}.png -q $quality -o ${img%.*}.webp
done

Now we can use it like this to get our WebP variations of JPG files:

bash jpg2webp.sh jpeg 90

Commit 6625f26 shows the result.

Combining everything into a single directory

Now that we are done converting stuff, we’re one step closer to optimize our work. But first, we’re gong to bring all of our images back into a single directory so that it is easy to optimize them with fewer commands.

Here’s code that creates a new bash script called combine-images.sh:

#!/bin/bash

input_dirs="$1"
output_dir="$2"

if [[ -z "$input_dirs" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directories."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$output_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an output directory."
  exit 1
fi

# create a directory to store the generated images
mkdir -p $output_dir

# split input directories comma separated string into an array
input_dirs=(${input_dirs//,/ })

# for each directory in input directory
for dir in "${input_dirs[@]}"
do
  # copy images from this directory to generated images directory
  rsync -a $dir/* $output_dir/
done

The first argument is a comma-separated list of input directories that will transfer images to a target combined directory. The second argument is defines that combined directory.

bash combine-images.sh jpeg,svg+xml,webp,png generated-images

The final output can be seen in the repo.

Optimize SVG

Let us start by optimizing our SVG images. Add the following code to optimize-svg.sh:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
echo "Please specify an input directory."
exit 1
fi

# for each svg in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.svg" );
do
  svgo $img -o ${img%.*}-optimized.svg
done

We’re using the SVGO package here. It’s got a lot of options we can use but, to keep things simple, we’re just sticking with the default behavior of optimizing SVG files:

bash optimize-svg.sh generated-images

The result can be seen in the repo at commit 75045c3.

Optimize PNG

Let’s keep rolling and optimize our PNG files using this code to create an optimize-png.sh command:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
fi

# for each png in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.png" );
do
  optipng $img -out ${img%.*}-optimized.png
done

Here, we are using the OptiPNG package to optimize our PNG images. The script looks for PNG images in the input directory and creates an optimized version of each one, appending -optimized to the file name. There is one interesting argument, -o, which we can use to specify the optimization level. The default value is 2 **and values range from 0 to 7. To optimize our PNGs, we run:

bash optimize-png.sh generated-images

As we can see, OptiPNG does a great job optimizing the images. We can play around with the -o argument to find a suitable value by trading off between image quality and size. Check out the results in commit 4a97f29.

Optimize JPG

We have reached the final part! We’re going to wrap things up by optimizing JPG images. Add the following code to optimize-jpg.sh:

#!/bin/bash

# directory containing images
input_dir="$1"

# target image quality
quality="$2"

if [[ -z "$input_dir" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify an input directory."
  exit 1
elif [[ -z "$quality" ]]; then
  echo "Please specify image quality."
  exit 1
fi

# for each jpg or jpeg in the input directory
for img in $( find $input_dir -type f -iname "*.jpg" -o -iname "*.jpeg" );
do
  cp $img ${img%.*}-optimized.jpg
  jpegoptim -m $quality ${img%.*}-optimized.jpg
done

This script uses JPEGoptim. The problem with this package is that it doesn’t have any option to specify the output file. We can only optimize the image file in place. We can overcome this by first creating a copy of the image, naming it whatever we like, then optimizing the copy. The -m argument is used to specify image quality. It is good to experiment with it a bit to find the right balance between quality and file size.

bash optimize-jpg.sh generated-images 95

The results are shows in commit 35630da.

Wrapping up

See that? With a few scripts, we can perform heavy-duty image optimizations right from the command line, and use them on any project since they’re installed globally. We can set up CI/CD pipelines to create different variants of each image and serve them using valid HTML, APIs, or even set up our own image conversion websites.

I hope you enjoyed reading and learning something from this article as much as I enjoyed writing it for you. Happy coding!

---

The post Converting and Optimizing Images From the Command Line appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

I’ve learned to be more comfortable not knowing. “I don’t know”, comes easier now. “I don’t know anything about that.” It’s okay. It feels good to say.

Whether it’s service workers, Houdini, shadow DOM, web components, HTTP2, CSS grid, “micro-front ends”, AVIF… there are many paths before us. This list doesn’t even broach JavaScript frameworks and libraries. Much of this tech isn’t even novel in 2020—but together act as a clapperboard cueing in me a familiar fear of missing out or imposter syndrome.

How does someone stay current, let alone learn something new? I am reminded of a comment made by Melanie Sumner recently:

Anyone else feel like paying attention to any specific area of development causes the other skills to rust?”

To achieve deeper understanding in a topic, one must seclude themselves to a focused path, etching only a tiny arc on the complete circle that is the web. Mastery of a subject comes with it both the elation of achievement and an awareness of the untraveled, much like Matt Might’s The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D. Piercing or expanding the boundaries of our own spheres of knowledge is exhilarating, yes. But as Melanie observes, it’s a bit like reaching a remote mountain peak only to see more summits stretching out to the horizon. It’s a solitary place, not without reward, but not easily replicated. You must make that next trek from the bottom once more.

The seclusion is as physical as it is mental, given the challenges a global pandemic puts us in. Gone are the meetups, the watercooler moments, the overheard new thing. It was hard enough to ask for help when I could physically tap someone on the shoulder and interrupt their flow. Strangely, it feels more difficult to strike up a call or chat when I’m stuck. Everyone is at the same time a click and a mountain away.

I’ve learned to push through this tendency to seclude and embrace my teammates’ talent. Where I used to enjoy taking a heads-down day to research a problem, I now try to shareout in nearer-to-real-time my findings. The feedback loop is tighter. I’ve adjusted the internal clock that tells me when I am spending too much time on a problem. The team exists to help one another. We’ve set aside time to pair program, mob, and demo. These plans are not without occasional setbacks, however.

For today’s misadventure in programming, I present two typos in a single 26 character line of code, that I need to run through CI to an ephemeral environment and then test within a Windows VM running IE11 in order to verify.

I am a lead engineer…

— Brian Muenzenmeyer (@bmuenzenmeyer) December 7, 2020

Or the time when we got stuck on a bug for 4 hours, only to have fresh eyes glance at the stack trace and find a new path in the span of 15 seconds.

Our more collaborative patterns create a union of skillsets too. We combine arcs of knowledge across the tech we need. We can unblock each other faster, like long-haul truckers tag-teaming a journey. Shared understanding helps us retain context and communicate with less writing. Working more closely on even the mundane has led to change. For example, that engineer that gives me regex tips every time? Where I once bristled, or leaned into their experience, gave way to preemption. “I don’t know how to do that” turned into better and better ideas where to take my first steps. I’d expanded the circumference of my skillset a teensy bit more, journeyed a bit up a new mountain, a guide to help me see the trailhead.

I still walk alone sometimes, and that’s where I can do some of my best work. But I have a better awareness of what I don’t know, and a working realization that my team can go further together than one of us individually. I fret less at the peaks I haven’t explored yet, and am more eager than ever to ask others if they know what’s over there.

---

The post “I Don’t Know” appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

You can support CSS-Tricks by being an MVP Supporter.

As the first round of vaccinations against COVID take place, we’re finally seeing a light at the end of this long, dark tunnel of global pandemic.

Even so, lockdowns and social distancing measures will be around for a while longer. And truthfully, the impact of COVID has likely accelerated the inevitable shift to e-commerce.

People will always want to shop in person, but building out a simple online version of your brick and mortar retail store will probably help you survive and grow in the future. The process for setting up an ecommerce site isn’t necessarily complicated, but it does require a bit of elbow grease. If you’re not sure where to begin, you’re in the right place! Let’s dive right in.

Get your website sorted out.

The first place you want to begin the process of establishing an online shop is to launch your website. Depending on how much technical knowledge you have (or don’t have) and how much budget you have (or don’t have), this may be something you decide to outsource or delegate. One of the first things you’ll do is choose a domain name. Ideally, it should be optimized for local SEO and include some reference to your region, city, or even neighborhood. Including a place name, like sandiegoboardgames.com or melbournecoffeeaccessories.com, can give you an automatic step-up in getting found organically.

Pick a platform

These days, there are a plethora of options when it comes to DIY websites. Platforms like Shopify, Wix, Squarespace and WordPress all make it easy to design one without too much knowledge. They will even take care of the process of picking a domain and hosting. This article isn’t focused on the pros and cons of each of the different platforms, although I would trust any of those four to function at a relatively high level based on your needs.

The only thing I don’t recommend is hiring someone to build you a custom website. There simply is no need. As a general rule, the less sophisticated the back end of your website is, the easier it will be in the future to adapt. Think about it like the nails and screws that go into many of the fixtures and furniture in your house: they’re all standardized, because if they weren’t you would need potentially infinite different tools to remove and replace them. Websites work the same way. Sticking with a major platform will mean that in the future, should you decide to do a major overhaul of your site you won’t need to crawl through lines of custom code (or more likely, pay someone else a lot of money to do it for you).

Pages and Design

Once you’ve picked a platform, it’s time to move on to the meat and potatoes of building individual pages for your site. You’ll also want to think about branding. Besides uploading an identical logo to match your retail store, consider elements like font choices, color schemes, and even the tone of voice you use in your company blog (more on that in a second). These are critical to brand consistency.

The pages you should focus on will vary depending on what you sell, but a few that tend to be necessary no matter what type of business you have are as follows:

• Contact page. This should list your business address, best email/phone number for contact, and operating hours. Embedding a map showing where you are in town is commonplace on contact pages, and definitely worth doing. You can add a contact submission form here to make it easier for people to ask questions about products or store opening times, for example.

• About Us page. People do want to know about you, but it’s actually more about telling them why your brand/product aligns with what they want.

• Product/Shopping page. This should go without saying, but you want your website visitors to buy from you, right? Here’s where you list your wares for sale. Adding a photo and a one-line description to a product description isn’t going to cut it. If you don’t know much about this sort of thing, this article will show you how to create killer product pages.

• Blog. This is the last fundamental item that any decent website should have. Your blog is a chance for you to offer useful, engaging material to your customers. If your store focuses on selling high-end cookware, the blog would be a great place to share recipe ideas, tell stories about the unique manufacturing characteristics of the brands you retail, that sort of thing. Blogs are useful because they help customers find you. If you have the most amazing bread pudding recipe in the world, someone searching for the perfect home-madebread puddings halfway across the world may find your website and end up signing up for your email newsletter (here’s how to design effective newsletters). Eventually, they may buy something from you because you have established yourself as a trustworthy, authoritative source on a subject that matters to them. That’s the magic of blogging, summed up in a paragraph!

Once you’ve designed these pages on your website, don’t forget to integrate it–usually with the click of a single button–with any pre-existing social media accounts you have. You’re really close to being able to launch. In fact, you could probably go live at this point. But how are you going to accept a credit card payment?

Payments

That’s the next step: payments processing. Ideally, you want to allow customers to pay in as many ways as possible. Not everyone has a credit card, so having PayPal enabled is useful. For some shoppers, the insane convenience of one-click Amazon, Google or Apple Pay is itself an incentive to hit the buy button and will probably decrease your abandoned shopping cart rate. The question of who to negotiate with for payments is relatively simple. If you already have a merchant account and can add on a virtual payment gateway, that might be the best call. The easiest thing to do with payments is continuity. Shopping around is worthwhile if you have a bad credit card processor/have had issues in the past with them. But make sure to bundle retail/online accounts, because it’s a lot simpler that way.

A quick note: Depending on the software platform you choose to build your website on, you may not get an option to choose the merchant provider. For example, Squarespace allows you to accept payments using either Stripe or Paypal.

At this point, if you haven’t already you can make your website visible to everyone, and you can begin taking orders (of course, there are no guarantees this will happen immediately).

Set up analytics

You’ll want to establish some basic KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to track how your site is doing. Google Analytics is going to be a must-have tool. Depending on your level of savvy, this may be a task you decide to delegate to someone else. Here are five simple metrics that you should measure, so that you have some benchmarks to see how business is doing over time:

• Learning about who your customers are, and how they found you. Analytics will help you track how many people have visited your website, whether they found you through organic search, a social media post, or an email. You can aso track how often your content (this is why blogging is important) gets shared on social media or forwarded to others via email. CTR, or Clickthrough rate, is a good baseline metric for seeing what content gets the most inbound traffic per click. You measure it by dividing total clicks by total number of impressions.

• Conversion rate is perhaps one of the most fundamental metrics you have. By dividing the number of sales you make by the total number of visitors you have, you’ll see what your conversion rate is. There is no one-size-fits-all ideal conversion rate number. It depends on a number of factors, like cost, seasonality, number of forms that a customer has to fill out, etc. What’s most important is that you track this number and try to determine what might cause it to go down, and what might cause it to go up.

• Measuring retention over time is another key metric. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is arguably the one you want to pay the most attention to. For most businesses, returning customers are the lifeblood of their income. You probably already have regular customers in your retail store. Losing one of them is a bigger blow than losing a one-off customer. If you already have a good track record at bringing in repeat customers, don’t fix what ain’t broke! But if you think there’s room to improve–and analytics can help you determine if that’s the case–then these real-world examples of customer retention might be worth trying.

With payments up and running, a blog that’s producing high-quality content, and analytics that track how customers find you and interact with your business online, hopefully, you’ve made your first sale. When that happens, you have one thing left to do: ship it to your customers.

Set up shipping accounts, and you’re done!

If you’ve never handled commercial shipping before, the first thing you should do is establish a saved customer profile with one of USPS, UPS, FedEx, or DHL. You possibly will need just one, but certain factors such as dimensional weight may require that you create a user account for two of the major carriers.

The reason why it’s worth the time to do this is because you will be able to save a lot of information that can be tedious and downright time-consuming to write out every single time you ship a package. Having an account with any of the major carriers will allow you the convenience of doing things like printing out shipping labels from your home office or store, rather than going into the Post Office or UPS store to do it from them.

You may also receive discounts for shipping as a registered customer, although as you (hopefully) start picking up more ecommerce sales, you might reach the point where you decide that it’s worth outsourcing order fulfillment altogether. The pros and cons of doing that are worth discussion in an entirely separate article, but it boils down to the fact that if you’re packing and shipping anywhere at least 10 orders per day, that time you’re spending may be better put to use on other aspects of your business. Plus, a third party fulfillment center will be able to negotiate better shipping rates for your business because of the sheer volume of packages that they ship every day.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: If you’re reading this article, it’s because you’ve got a long road ahead to becoming an ecommerce giant. By starting an online store, you’re taking an important first step along that path. Good luck!

The Covid 19 pandemic hit the world like an unexpected hail storm with gargantuan severity and the effect is still being felt by everyone. The deadly pandemic does not spare anyone and people from all walks of life are at risk. Apart from the health risk, the outbreak has posed to be a serious threat for businesses of varying types and sizes. It is not only the MNCs and giant companies operating across the continents that have been impacted by it. The small and midsized businesses, badly hit by the pandemic and its after-effects, are struggling for survival. As the world gradually returns to normalcy, it is time the small businesses try to learn some key lessons from the situation.

Takeaways for the small-sized businesses from the pandemic

Flexibility is the key to survival

The small businesses must learn how to be flexible if they have to survive in a pandemic struck the world. How flexibility in the workflow will be implemented can be planned and that may not be the same for every business. Some companies have benefitted by introducing rotational shifts in the workplace. Working from a home mode that has been embraced by many big companies can be followed by the small ones too. However, in some instances that may not be viable for small entities. Flexibility can be introduced in other ways too. For example, small ventures can be flexible about payment modes, online booking, arranging customer pick-ups, etc.

Online presence is vital

Nearly every business that has to sustain in a competitive scene has a website but that alone may not be enough in a pandemic situation. Even if a company is small, it needs to be more present online. It can be done in many ways. One is hiring a website developer to build a professional website. If the funds don’t allow it, leveraging social media like a Facebook or an Instagram page can also help generate more sales online.
Post the lockdown triggered by the Covid 19 pandemic, millions of people managed to get the supply of foods and medicine through websites and mobile apps. When people cannot go out of their homes to buy things and avail services, they resort to the web. An app can prove to be a savior in such situations. Or, if you’re in the service business, consider creating an online course that trains your customers on how to do some of the things that you usually do for them. It may seem counterintuitive to train your customers, but oftentimes they won’t do as good of a job as you do and they’ll be more willing to hire you after seeing how much expertise your craft requires

Customer and staff safety is of utmost importance

After the outbreak of Covid 19 on a global scale, thousands of businesses were compelled to halt their operations for some time and others even had to close permanently. These included small local businesses, start-ups, and midsized ventures. When they gradually resumed operations amidst the lockdown, the companies that focused on safety aspects raced ahead of others. The prime examples are the medicine delivery and food delivery companies. They focused on maintaining health standards at the workplace, educating their staff on following key safety protocols, and assuring the customers about safety. They tweaked their apps and sites to make the customers aware of these aspects. This worked well and the customers relied on these companies big time. This can be followed by small companies for wooing skeptical customers.

Going digital can benefit everyone involved

The transition to digital technology is not exactly new. Worldwide, millions of companies including the small ones are embracing digital technology in many ways. However, the unexpected outbreak of Covid 19 made it clear that embracing digital technology is the only way to survive. A lot of businesses are now encouraging customers to use digital modes of payment such as debit cards and wallets, UPIs, etc. Cash transactions are no longer encouraged. Interior design firms and packers and movers’ services have introduced an online survey of client premises over physical assessment for safety. Small businesses can also benefit from deploying similar tactics.

Adaptation helps a business survive

Adapting according to the situation can help a company survive. It has been made clear by the pandemic and resultant lockdown. A section of companies that were forced to suspend their core operations switched to operations allowed in a pandemic situation and managed to float. There are eateries that had to stop dine-in services. However, they managed to sustain itself by offering curbside pickups and home delivery services. Of course, they added sanitization as a part of their services.

Other key tips for small businesses to sustain in a pandemic

Putting A Focus On Customer Service – If you want your venture to remain on a growth track, focusing on customer service quality is important. In a pandemic struck situation, it becomes even more important. The customers are stressed and worried and reassurance from a service provider can make them happy. Walking an extra mile in such situations to keep the customers happy can make a large difference. Even an acknowledgment stating your company is doing its best to offer customer service with a reduced workforce can work.

Communication Matters A Lot – When the pandemic hit the world and led to an unexpected shutdown of major services, everyone was in a state of confusion and panic. The companies that made extra efforts to communicate to the customers managed to survive and race ahead of the rivals. For a small business, it is absolutely important to keep communication channels open. Using social media platforms and apps to let the customers know about measures taken by your venture can work well.

Tweaking The Expenses Is Vital – As a matter of fact, the large-sized companies and MNCs switched to aggressive cost-cutting measures to sustain in the post-pandemic scenario. Many of them slashed the salary of their employees and switched to layoffs too. The small ventures may also resort to some cost-cutting measures to stay afloat in similar situations. While laying off may not work everywhere, spending less after advertisements and finding cheaper vendors can be tried out. A small eatery may think of reducing the number of dishes on the menu and offer popular items, for example.

Taking Feedbacks Is Useful – It is a fact that a majority of businesses, including the SMBs, were not prepared for the severe onslaught of the Covid 19 pandemic. They adapted to new methods and working plans to survive the after-effects of the outbreak. However, the transition is not always buttering smooth! While switching to new operational modes and service switching, facing certain hurdles is inevitable. Some such hurdles include coping with irate customers, delays in product delivery, the safety of staff, etc. So, small companies can start taking feedback from the customers and their staff. Taking feedback will help the companies realize the pain points faced by both their customers and employees. They can thereafter tweak their working strategies to eliminate those hurdles.

Slow And Steady Works – While the lockdown is being lifted worldwide, it will still take a long time before life returns to normalcy, for sure. It is time for the small businesses to adopt a slow and steady approach rather than getting in a mad race to woo the customers. They also need to plan and prepare well for similar such onslaughts in the future. A bit of saving and developing an emergency fund can be immensely helpful in the long run.

Summing it up

The pandemic has come as an unexpected huge blow to everyone, including the SMBs. However, it has also served as an eye-opener for many! Adversity can be overcome when you manage to keep your cool amidst stress and think logically. Adapting to changes is the key to survival in this context. Small businesses need to be flexible, plan strategically, and be open to embracing changes to survive in such situations.

---

Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash

Looking for the best new CMS plugins to take your website to the next level? Well look no further.

In this post, we’ll cover a list of the best new CMS plugins for December 2020. This article will include useful plugins for WordPress, Shopify, Craft, and Joomla. Let’s get started…

WordPress

OptiPic images optimization

OptiPic is a simple WordPress plugin that allows users to easily optimize and compress images.

The plugin also returns the WebP versions of images if the web browser supports it; if the web browser does not support WebP images, OptiPic will return a compressed version of the image. It also returns responsive images on mobile screens when the website is opened on a smaller device.

The image compression and WebP conversions occur in the background, so images load fast. The plugin takes advantage of caching to speed up load times.

Haglit for WooCommerce

Haglit is an AI-powered sales chatbot plugin for WooCommerce stores. The plugin allows customers to negotiate the price of products on your online store.

Haglit enables customers to haggle with a chatbot to get a personalized discount directly on the product page. In physical brick and mortar stores, conversation and haggling help to increase conversion rates and sales. Haglit allows you to bring that same interaction to your WooCommerce store. Customers can negotiate discounts and sellers can increase sales using Haglit’s discount algorithm.

The plugin is very easy to set up. All you need to do is sync Haglit to your WooCommerce store and set the maximum discount that will be allowed for a particular product. After publishing your settings, Haglit will take care of turning visitors into customers.

Brosix Live Chat

Brosix Live Chat plugin allows you to easily add live chat support to your WordPress site. It provides instant communication with your site’s visitors.

The plugin is easy to set up and use. All messages between customers and customer agents are encrypted. There is also a dedicated chat room on Brosix for your agents. Brosix has a mobile application for phones/tablets, a web application that works on all web browsers, and desktop applications for computers. The plugin comes in three availability options for agents and several color icon options.

Brosix offers two plans; a free plan that allows only one agent and a premium plan with more collaboration and administrative features.

Rankchecker.io

Rankchecker.io is a free tool from Google that allows you to monitor your website’s ranking on search engines. The plugin allows you to check search engine rankings for multiple keywords on Google’s SERPs. Rankchecker.io can check keyword rankings for any country or language.

Bitcoin Widgets

Bitcoin Widgets is a payment gateway plugin for WordPress users. It allows your customers to pay for goods using bitcoin.

You can receive the bitcoin payments directly to your crypto-wallet. Customers can also pay for goods with a bank card. These are the currencies that are supported: USD, RUR, EUR, UAH, INR. KRW, TRY, GBP, BRL, AUD, HKD, and TWD.

To collect bitcoin payments, just add your wallet address for payout. The payment transfers usually happen within 30 – 60 minutes depending on the network. There is also no processing fee.

Remove Emoji CSS and JS

Remove Emoji CSS and JS is a simple plugin that allows you to remove emoji CSS and JS from your WordPress website. Removing these CSS and JS scripts will help improve the performance and speed of your website.

Using the plugin is straight forward. Just install and activate the plugin to remove emoji CSS and JS from your website.

GuardGiant

GuardGiant is a security plugin that stops hackers from logging into a WordPress website. The plugin uses a modern approach to make sure that genuine users are not locked away from their website. When a genuine user successfully logs into a device for the first time, the plugin treats the device as trusted. So if a user has failed login attempts on a trusted device, they are directed to ‘Lost Password’ forms instead of being completely locked out of their account.

Users will receive alerts when someone logs into their account from an unrecognized browser or device. Some of its features include brute force protection and detailed logging of all login attempts. The plugin also obscures login errors so that hackers cannot detect valid account names.

The plugin is easy to use and the default settings are already optimized to keep hackers away.

Schema Integration

Schema Integration is a lightweight plugin that makes it easy to add schema markup to WordPress websites.

The plugin will automatically add the structured schema.org data markup in the recommended JSON-LD format to your website in seconds. The plugin supports multiple schema.org types. You can add the schema types anywhere on your site. All the schema types in the plugin are valid when tested on Google Structured Data Testing Tool.

Setting up schema using the plugin is easy. All you need to do is select the schema type you want and fill in the desired fields. The plugin will take care of the rest.

Promo Video Maker

Promo Video Maker is an effective WordPress plugin for creating professionally designed videos for your business. The plugin allows you to turn static images into videos.

Some of the features in the plugin include free video templates, licensed audio tracks, and a free library with over 1.4M assets. The plugin comes with an easy to use editor. It easily integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. You can also manually embed the videos on any web page. With Promo Video Maker, you can easily create advertisements and testimonial videos to promote your products and services.

Backup Migration

Backup Migration is a WordPress plugin for creating a backup of your site. All you need to do is install the plugin and click on “Create backup now”. The plugin allows you to schedule backups. You can also determine which exact files or databases you want to backup. The plugin is free to use.

Joli FAQ SEO

Joli FAQ SEO is an easy-to-use plugin for creating multiple FAQs pages.

The plugin comes with a one-page drag-and-drop FAQ builder for creating fully responsive and mobile-friendly FAQ pages. The plugin is very great for SEO. It does not use jQuery in the front end. The plugin’s JavaScript file size is 4kb minified and the CSS file size is 6kb minified. You can customize the FAQ page to fit your website’s theme. The pro version integrates with WooCommerce and has an instant search bar.

Shopify

QuizToAction

QuizToAction is a simple Shopify plugin that allows you to catch the attention of your store visitors using interactive quizzes. At the end of each quiz, you can add a call to action. Currently, the plugin only allows email subscriptions as the call to action.

UGC Shoppable Customer Content

UGC Shoppable Customer Content plugin makes it easy to get user-generated content from your customers. With the plugin, you can invite your customers to share photos of their purchases through an on-site upload or email submissions.

The plugin comes with a widget so that you can display the UGC on your store. You can review the photos before they are uploaded. During the uploading process, the customer is asked if their photo can be shared on social media. If their answer is “Yes”, you can share the photo on social media through a shareable icon on the platform.

Checkify

Checkify is a simple Shopify plugin that makes it easy to add a terms and conditions checkbox to your cart page. You can also add age verification and any customer agreements required by your store. No code is required to install the plugin. It uses a one-click install and will appear immediately after installation.

It is compatible with all browsers and Shopify themes. Checkify will show a warning if a customer tries to check out without checking the checkbox.

Craft CMS

Hop Reveal

Hop Reveal plugin gives Craft site editors a quick visual cue on which server-side they are working on, development, staging, or production. You can choose what to name or color the labels. The plugin also allows you to view key environment variables that will be useful during development.

Donkeytail

Donkeytail is a field type in Craft that allows you to quickly and easily content manage points on images.

Donkeytail is compatible with GraphQL. It also works with all content types including entries, categories, assets, users, variants, and products. You can use Donkeytail to showcase multiple products within an image.

Joomla

Ol Content Modal

Ol Content Modal is a Joomla module that allows users to display articles, K2, or custom items on a popup modal. The extension also allows users to show full articles in a popup window; use a navigation arrow to move from one article to the next.

Mx contact

Mx contact is a responsive Joomla module that allows you to add a custom contact form to any page on your website. The extension is great for collecting customer feedback and contact details. The contact form can either appear on a wall or as a popup.

Ruxin QR Code

Ruxin QR Code allows you to add QR codes to your Joomla website. The extension allows you to set your QR size, display custom links, set the background color and put a footer label. You can also show your logo or label in the center of the QR code.

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source