Indian E-Commerce market is predicted to be one of the strongest economy according to the recent industry report, ‘E-commerce: A boon for the current economic downturn‘. “By the end of 2011, the e-commerce market in India had clocked close to Rs 50,000 cores.” it says. The current e-commerce market in India is around US$ 10 billion and has the potential to grow between $125 billion – $260 billion by 2024-25.

It proclaims, ” Today, consumers across urban India are confident enough to make purchases that exceed Rs 20,000 – 25,000 up from Rs 2,000 – 5,000 range in the recent past”. According to the report, “it estimates business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce, including both retail e-commerce and online travel
sales, will total to $18.7 billion in 2012, a growth of 21.9% over the previous year.”

The key reasons for the success of e-commerce are summarized below.
Shopping 24×7:
E-commerce open doors for shopping anytime where customers can make their shopping at ease anywhere and at any moment.

Reduced operational cost:
Online Business avail less infrastructural investment and associated labour costs which drives up the profit margin. In turn its benefited to the customers in the form of discounted pricing.

Easy to compare:
Easier and quicker to compare the prices of the goods online. One can explore products across global markets via e-commerce.

Safe & secure:
Online Payment method must be reputable and trustworthy. In India, all payment transaction providers are required to comply with the security requirements laid out by the Reserve Bank of India making the system more robust and reliable.

Increased reach for the merchant:
The customer finds the venture across geographic markets, the merchant too is able to display his product to customers in new territories that are now connected by the online network.

Social media trend:
With the growing support of Socialmedia the businesses have now begun to engage their customers by promotions, sales and new products are increasingly showcased through such channels and mobile apps.

These e-commerce developments may have been accelerated by the global economic downturn which may be driving consumers to find new ways of reducing their costs of living. The e-commerce landscape will continue to evolve rapidly as even more new start-ups are launched addressing existing and new market opportunities.

Facebook, once only known for social gatherings and reconnecting with friends on the web, is beginning to look like a huge online marketplace and a great platform for building a brand and interacting customers. As e-commerce and online business swell to new heights, smart entrepreneurs are taking advantage of networking opportunities to help brand their business, build targeted traffic, and increase sales. There are a few different ways to use Facebook to make more revenue for your X-Cart store.

1. Deliver on the fundamentals of commerce. It is necessary to deliver on the basics,which are: product, price, in stock, fast checkout, and fast delivery to use Facebook
2. Facebook ads aren’t great. People using social networks don’t have purchasing intent. So Facebook ads might be great for brand advertising, but not for converting people into purchases.
3. You can do conventional marketing, but that’s not enough. Most X-Cart sites use their Facebook Pages for traditional marketing, like on sales and deals, pushing discounts to their fans. Another thought is to give your Facebook fans early access to new products. There’s nothing wrong with that and you can do it, but it’s not enough.
4. Engage your customers. Building a two-way communication and community becomes a reward for social media marketing, but it’s worth repeating and engage your customers. Talk to them. Get them to contribute. Respond to them. Pay attention.
5. Have great content – and the best content is user generated. Run an active program to encourage your customers to interact with you. Powerful content is great marketing, and the best content comes from your users through reviews. Encourage your customers to post reviews of your product, and highlight the best ones.
6. Integrate Facebook into your site.Unlike Facebook Page, integrate Facebook into your site also makes your customers more engaged and push out to their friends.That means Like buttons above the fold on each product, allowing people to connect with Facebook to post reviews.
7. Most important – experiment! This is very early days for Facebook commerce, so try things out! Don’t be afraid to try new things and see how it works.

Looking for a X-Cart Facebook Automation module for your X-Cart Website then you are in the right place. X-Cart Facebook Automation module helps you to promote your products, Increase Site Traffic,Rapidly Increase Niche Facebook fans, Automated facbook updates, Stay active in participation and Saves your time. For further informations feel free to contact us at sales @ mercuryminds.com.

E-commerce is the technical term for buying and selling products or services. E-commerce site can attract the visitors if it is able to cater to the requirements of the users in a convenient manner. For sites that exist primarily to sell products, it‘s very easy to look at sales and have a measuring stick to use when evaluating the success of the website. However, there are many number of factors that can influence the success of an e-commerce site, and identifying areas of strength and weakness is not always so simple. People do site promotion, SEO, affiliate marketing, and many other things but the goal is same to get clients and sell the products or services of the company.

1. Search Engine Optimization

• Search engines are much better at indexing static pages, and don’t do a good job of following hyperlinks that contain query strings. SEO friendly URLs help them to be indexed.
• Ability to add HTML titles and META tags, meta description and meta keywords for search engine optimization.
• Google sitemaps help webmasters to get their new stuff crawled by Googlebot faster than before.
• Auto-generated keyword-rich URLs based on product and category names

2. Site Management

• Administration permission roles and users
• Independent Systems develops sales tax calculation by state and zip code in designated states
• Automatic upgrades when hosted in data center
• Entries can be posted with an expiry date to display content that will automatically expire; ideal for mentioning sales and specials, etc. Advanced content management system for informational pages

3. Marketing Promotions and Tools

• Flexible price management with ability to restrict by product and price-level (retail, wholesale) : Percent discount, Fixed amount discount and Free shipping
  
• Entries can be sorted by Recent, Most Commented, Most Viewed.
• Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts
• RSS feed allow users to subscribe to your content feeds.
• Support for multiple product feeds
• Send to a friend

4. Shopping cart

• Customer management
• Product management
• Variety of payment and shipping modules
• Order receipt emails
• Ability to use SSL secure layers for ordering process

5. Checkout

• SSL security
• Express/guest checkout
• Address book
• Automatically apply customer balance to order
• Sales tax by state, country, municipality based on zip code

6. Content Managed Pages

• Add unlimited pages to your website
• WYSIWYG product description tools
• Create unlimited web forms
• Customizable navigation
• Organize your pages into unlimited sections (categories)

7. Security

• PCI-DSS Compliant and CISP Certified Level 1
• Daily backups
• Multiple database version backups
• Fail over/cluster hardware firewalls
• Biometric access control to data center
• Free BSD operating system

8. Content Management (CMS) Components

• Add/edit/delete unlimited categories, products and information pages on your site.
• Dynamic categories
• Easy-to-use product navigation
• Product detail page
• Related items
• “Best Sellers” facility
• WYSIWYG content tools

9. Multi store:

• Manage more than one store for the same product, at different price, in different language, for different locations, and from same admin panel
• To deal with different products or different brands of a certain product
• Higher chances of giving customers what they are looking for.
• Gives you a lot of inbound links coming from your niche sites.

10. Reporting:

• Sophisticated ready-to-go reporting, no need to add any code to your web pages
• Track abandon rates and where customers abandon in online shop
• Tracking Sales, Payment, Shipping Options and discount Codes
• Report on Detailed visitors including new vs returning
• Products can be searched/filtered and added to the order.
• Currency can be selected per order.

A good e-commerce provider will be able to handle all of the back-end programming that you‘ll need to start selling online. The company you select should be able to help you organize your product catalog, provide a database of shipping information, and track customer orders. Do you need an online store that you can manage yourself? We can build your e-store and give you the best solutions to manage your Online E-commerce store. Our development staff will be happy to discuss custom development services at “sales @ mercuryminds.com” to meet your needs.

Smifu is an online camera store with world famous specialty camera and image products and accessories retailer for those with any interest in cameras, photography and video-related products will find a tremendous selection of quality, brand-name merchandise at greatly reduced prices. We proudly announce that MercuryMinds is the Official Technology partner for www.smifu.com, New Zealand. It can be overwhelming to find digital camera equipment and accessories, especially online. Check out our great range and pricing to thrill you! Smifu retails a comprehensive range of Digital cameras & camcorders, Camera Lenses,Camera accessories ,Memory cards & storage and Tripods . At the new digital camera website you’ll have a customer service experience very rarely found online. Besides, you’ll find the ordering process to be quick and hassle-free. Most products come with Smifu’s 12 months RTB (Return To Base) and Free delivery is offered by Smifu for orders over $150

Smifu supports the banner management module which slides in the home page of the same, and we have also configured magic zoom functionality for products to have a clear look and feel. And the site is enabled with DPS online Payment method with which the customers can pay for their orders purchased easily and securely. If you are looking for something special, you can find anything using our new advanced search. You can save more with the special price offered for all products available online. As a new online store, we expect our customers to be satisfied with their experience navigating the site to find their product and in actually making their purchase. Select from a large range of camera products from Canon, Nikon,Olympus, Sony, Pentax and many other major manufacturers. We do accept VISA, SOLO and Master card.

MercuryMinds, is an Ecommerce mentor with years of experience in development and online retailing. Magento in our minds is one of the best open source Ecommerce solutions available to date. From creating professional websites with good layout, upgrading your current website with Magento, integrating third party solutions, Custom Ecommerce Solutions to Magento Website Maintenance etc. MercuryMinds provide many Magento related services. Including Design & Customization, Integration, Module Development, Programming, Hosting, Server Setup & Migration, Upgrades, Support & Maintenance, Payment Gateway Integration, Database Importing & Exporting and Product input/Data Entry .We cover many services associated with Magento Shopping Cart.

PowerReviews is the most widely deployed review platform in the world with an exclusive focus on retailers and brands. Recently Google announced the “Google Product Reviews Program,” which will begin featuring full-length product reviews and user ratings from participating retailers & manufacturers wherever it’ll help users with their shopping, including in Google search results & advertising programs. On Google Product Search, for e.g., we’ll feature your logo alongside representative reviews from your site, increasing brand exposure for your web store at a key point in the conversion process.

“PowerReviews,” a leading provider of customer reviews, as a partner to this program, to share premium user generated product review content from client sites. Ratings and review content will appear wherever it’s relevant for shoppers, including Google search results, Google Product Search, and Google advertising programs. PowerReviews social commerce solutions support more than 1000 retailers and brands on over 3,500 websites. In 2008, PowerReviews released In-line SEO™, which optimizes user-generated content for search and has been proven to significantly increase product page search traffic. Recognized as the customer reviews Solution Leader in the Internet Retailer Top 500 survey, PowerReviews works with over 1000 retailers and brands on over 3500 websites, including Staples, Drugstore.com, Gardener’s Supply, Diapers.com, Callaway and Jockey

Now, the company is extending its search suite by giving retailers the ability to automatically feed full-text product reviews to Google, increasing brand exposure for the retailer, while providing consumers with immediate access to opinions from other customers as they research and complete purchases. The study conducted by PowerReviews and the e-tailing group found that fifty percent of all overall shopping (in-store on the web) involves researching products online first. What’s more, the majority of shoppers (57%) begin research with a search engine. With this new offering, we continue to help retailers and brands leverage their product reviews by increasing traffic and exposure from Google.

Google Product Reviews helps retailers capture purchase-ready searchers at every stage of the shopping process and will be able to offer the full Google Product Reviews program to all of its clients, enabling retailers and manufacturers to attract more customers by leveraging reviews across all relevant Google properties. PowerReviews operates Buzzillions. Com, and works with over 1,000 retailers and brands on over 3,500 websites.

Want to implement PowerReviews at your Xcart or Magento store? Contact our sales team at sales@mercuryminds.com for more details.

We can do what we can do which we can, things can not be done/improved which is out of our control at the moment.

Objective to anyone: Keep our business run (Do not spend much time in worrying, use the time effectively into productive).

What We can Do:

• Use Buy Now buttons/Billing system to get the funds. This will not be reversed. (But do not initiate withdrawal of funds using Bank accounts until you come to know the withdrawal problems with RBI are solved)
• Importantly, arrange funds to live your life this month, assuming you will get your money at the end of this month, also prepare the backup plan for next month.
• Start keep contacting the clients to whom the money is sent back, get in touch with them, explain the situation, create a buy now buttons for them, ask them to make the payment such way. (In this case only, you will come to know what the client situation exactly now, are they willing to pay back (do not run away), whether they got the funds back etc). It is your responsibility to keep in touch with your customers, keep updated them about the issue, they should not be in a confused state. Now, most of our customers (to whom the money was sent), feels we, Indians are not good enough, doing personal business which are not legal, for that reason, PayPal is doing such things. We need to talk to the client & explain, we are legal, doing business in a good manner, saying, this is the glitch with PayPal. This will ensure the customer confidence on your business. (No one realizes indirectly it affects our customers confidence, trust towards our services). Because, they are from US/UK/somewhere, they do not have any problem with PayPal. so, they may think, we are not doing good.
• Funds withdrawal: All the withdrawals are reversed to PayPal account at the moment. You can initiate a withdrawal using “eCheck option”. This is valid & you can get your money. Please note that “You can’t encash your payment directly. You need to deposit into your account & collect them”. This process will take 8-10 days completely.
• Also try to promote the issue “PayPal holds our money, deposited into our account that is worth of millions”, not the issue ‘PayPal do the reversals’. The way media looks/projects two issues in a different way (If you say Someone ICICI/SBI/PayPal do not give us the money that is in our account, holds all the customers money due to their glitch, the total amount is worth of 1K crores, definitely, the media will turn their attention.) If We talk about reversals, the media will feel, it is happening within the bank policy changes, that we can’t do much. Promote “PayPal holds 1K crores & not responding to the customers”, it will certainly get the attention of media.

What we can’t do:

• Reversals are happening (note that the reversal time taken depends on the queue in the system & the timezone of the payment made). This is not the fault in the PayPal system. PayPal officially do this without any announcement. No matter whether it is business/premier/personal accounts,if you are from India, it happens. No matter which method you use (Service, goods, eBay, shipping address etc). The only thing the reversal do not happen is “if the payment made using Buy now buttons/billing system”.
• All the withdrawal initiated after Jan 28th is on hold by PayPal India. The funds are cleared from PayPal US & arrived to PayPal India. Due to the problem between RBI & PayPal India regarding, PayPal India can’t transfer the funds to customers account using NEFT. (This is how PayPal withdraw works: PayPal US releases the funds to PayPal India using Federal Bank in US. As soon as it is done, “the status will be changed automatically to “Completed”. This will take 24 hours maximum. PayPal India releases the funds using NEFT to corresponding Indian banks). The reason of Jan 28/29/30/31 are delayed is, they arrived to PayPal India on or before 31st. But, due to holidays of 30th & 31st, unfortunately, they can’t process on Feb 1st which is the official date of RBI to stop such processes. Update: All the funds are reversed back to PayPal account.

We know that 36 percent of the scientists at NASA are now Indians, but did you know that India will become number 1 source of PHP developers soon. In a research report released by PHPClasses, number of PHP developers in India has been steadily increasing in the last few years.And soon we will replace the current United States as the main resource for the PHP development.

If we look at the figures regarding the users in PHPClasses site US-based developers stands at the top with 11.8% of the total number of users followed by INIDA with a percentage of 10.5% running behind in the race are Brazil and Germany with 5.22% and 4.66%.An interesting fact to note is that few years back USA ruled the charts with 20% of all users whereas INDIA account for only 3%.

When we look up at this drastic change it is not possible to locate at the exact reason why this happened.But the fact that the developing a site in INDIA is quite less than what the US and the European market charges can not be denied.If the growth remains in the same pace we will have lots of companies developing php based sites and products like X-cart, Magento, OSCommerce etc. However the report also states that the number of certified professionals in INDIA are very less compares to the US and European countries.