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Special Considerations for Streamlining Mobile Checkout on WooCommerce

While the data tells us that many sites are seeing more mobile traffic than desktop traffic, conversions on mobile devices still lag far behind.

Today we’re going to look at some things you can do to make it easy for mobile users to convert to paying customers on your WooCommerce store. As you try these suggestions, remember to A/B test them for your site. Just because they worked for others doesn’t mean that they’ll have a positive impact on your particular checkout process.

Make Form Fields Easy

Mobile devices have this great thing called a software keyboard. That means that if we accurately identify our form fields, mobile users will be presented with a keyboard that’s appropriate to the data that needs to be entered.

Streamlining mobile checkout by making form fields easy

As you can see above, WooCommerce does this by default when it identifies an email field. To make it easier to enter my email, the @ symbol readily accessible, rather than being hidden behind another set of keys.

Other fields to review are the Zip/Postal Code fields and phone number fields. If you want these fields in a particular format, it’s best to pre-program the format, rather than leave it up to the user. More than once, my checkout has been denied because one of the fields was incorrectly formatted. It’s already annoying having to switch back and forth between letters and numbers on a phone keyboard. So, don’t frustrate your users further by forcing them to enter the data you want in an exact format.

Your users should never have to deal with this. Take the time to write some JavaScript to format the field how you want after their done typing, or handle the formatting server side. Any other option is putting an extra burden on your user, making them less likely to purchase.

Format Field Errors Well

Have you ever clicked “checkout” after wading through form fields only to be greeted a stack of errors the site says you made? WooCommerce is just as guilty of making users hunt for issues with their checkout information just as any other platform out there. Sure, they provide that little red * beside required fields, but if you miss one, all you’re going to get is a big red box at the top of the page. You’re on your own to hunt down the issue with the notification provided.

mobile checkout by formatting field errors well

There are a couple of better approaches to this system, with my favorite being validating the fields as you enter them. Don’t make the user wait, show them right away if the field is right or not.

The second option I like is showing the field errors directly inline. That means when you have an error, highlight the field in red and explain what the issue is in the same view. If you want the implement this, Business Bloomer has a great tutorial on adding errors inline with WooCommerce fields. I’ve used this on a few client sites and have been very happy with the results.

Don’t Hide your Checkout with Notifications

While you may be able to get away with some upsell tactics on a desktop checkout experience, it’s far too easy to ruin a mobile checkout experience. Touch targets are often far too small, and sometimes even off-screen when popups display on mobile devices.

smart offers for mobile checkout

Instead of popups or other visual clutter, look at Smart Offers to increase your total order value. Rather than asking a user to add something to their cart before they’ve made a purchase, Smart Offers asks them after they’ve completed their initial checkout action.

Check Reachability

Research exists on how users interact with their phones, but I have yet to find anything on how gender affects phone interaction. This is a critical gap in research since women, in general, have smaller hands than men, potentially affecting reachability. Since programmers are overwhelmingly male, this means that the people building online stores aren’t testing the reachability of their interfaces for 50% of the population.

Testing how people interact with your checkout form is crucial to ensuring that you have solid conversions. But, don’t fall into the trap of only testing with those that are convenient. Make sure that you put effort into testing across a broad spectrum of hand size and device size.

With one client, there was pushback on tweaking the checkout for smaller hands because they didn’t have a broad base female customers that purchased on mobile. I convinced them to make a few small tweaks to help make the checkout process better for smaller hands, and within a few weeks, we saw an increase in the purchasing by female customers from their mobile devices. We didn’t see female customers before, because the checkout wasn’t built with them in mind.

Site Speed

Another consideration you need to take into account for mobile checkout is understanding site speed in the context of where your target market is. While users in cities will get 4G speeds, rural users may only have 3G connections and severely limited data plans.

Even looking at the countries you are targeting can mean you need to think about different things in terms of site speed. In Canada, we have decent speeds, but anemic data plans compared to many other places in the world.

When you’re developing your mobile checkout experience, make sure you test it on throttled internet connections. It’s fairly easy in Firefox and Chrome.

wifi and mobile checkout

 

If you’re testing on Safari, then you’re going to have to look at a 3rd party tool like Charles Proxy or install the Network Link Conditioner tool for xCode to simulate slower connections. You can even use this tool in conjunction with your iOS test device to throttle the live connection as you test your site on a properly mobile device instead of a simulated one in the browser.

Make sure you test your site against the slow connections that your users may have, instead of checking only against the connection you have at work.

Visible Trust Marks

A trust mark is an image from your SSL provider or some other icon that shows you have a secure and trustworthy payment provider. Often these are relegated to the bottom of a site for desktop users, but it’s worth reevaluating where you put them for your mobile layout.

For one client I worked with, we experimented with putting them small right at the top of the checkout. That way, when the user came to the checkout on their phone, the first thing they saw was the small marks that said we had a secure site without malware on it. This small change produced a 1 – 2% increase in conversions, which adds up to a bunch of extra earnings over the year.

Password Filling Applications

One of the final ways to help increase users completing your mobile checkout process is to make sure that any user account fields work with tools like 1Password, Dashlane, and LastPass. Passwords are enough of a pain sitting in front of a full keyboard, but they get even worse when you enforce secure passwords that require switching back and forth between the different keyboards.

auto fill password with a password application

Testing this is fairly easy; Grab a free copy of all the above tools and put your password into them. Then, try to checkout using them to fill in any passwords or user fields that are in your checkout form. Don’t forget to use each of these applications to create an account at checkout as well.

Possibly the worst mistake you can make here is blocking the ability to copy and paste passwords into your account fields. This is how password applications work, and any user that is creating secure passwords is highly likely to leave once they see they can’t add their nice long random password in without manually typing it.

Building a good checkout process is crucial to having a profitable eCommerce site. And, with the rise in mobile purchasing, it’s even more important to make sure that you provide a top-notch experience to mobile purchasers. By working through the steps here, you can make sure that you do provide an excellent experience for your mobile users. They’ll be happy, and you’ll convert more purchases, which makes you happy.

Build a High-Performing WooCommerce Store

Create a store that converts traffic with Hostdedi Managed WooCommerce Hosting solutions. They come standard with Jilt to help you recover abandoned carts, performance tests whenever you need them, and the platform reduces query loads by 95%, leading to a faster store.

The post Special Considerations for Streamlining Mobile Checkout on WooCommerce appeared first on Hostdedi Blog.

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What are PHP Workers and Why You Should Care

Have you ever browsed through your favorite coffee shop’s website and as you check out with that new order of coffee, you end up getting a 504 error after a delay?

Or maybe you were browsing your favorite sports website and as you try to load the next page, it takes a while to load and comes back with a timeout error?

These situations are frustrating, and not what we expect when we look at a site. In both cases, the cause may be not having enough PHP workers allocated to a site. Without enough PHP workers, a site can’t process all site requests that come in if there are a higher number of them. It’s not a good situation, as site speed is incredibly important for converting visitors to sales leads and customers.

What is a PHP Worker?

A PHP worker is essentially a mechanism that handles requests for a website that require back-end processing. Generally, any non-static or cached files that require processing are handled by PHP workers.

This is usually active tasks like an inventory check on a specific item or it could be something as complex as viewing and listing all prior orders for a customer. When a PHP worker is started, it remains persistent until processes are completed or certain conditions are met.

Think of PHP workers as a check-out line at a grocery store where each item that is to be scanned is a PHP process.

If you only have one PHP worker (one checkout line) then everything must go through that single checkout lane, and the cashier can only work through one order at the time. PHP workers can limit the number of concurrent, or simultaneous, transactions on a site. As previously mentioned, if you have only four PHP workers (four checkout lines) the site can only process four transactions at once.

However, this does not mean that the fifth customer (PHP process) or beyond does not get processed. PHP processes are placed in a queue for the worker which means it processes the first request in line then moves onto the next PHP process in the queue. In other words, a long line forms and people start waiting.

Luckily, PHP workers process the information faster than grocery store cashiers. They work very quickly and can clear many and most processes within milliseconds. By having only a few additional PHP workers, you are able to have many more concurrent processes that can be run at one time, meaning more customer orders can be processed at once.

What Happens When You Have Too Few PHP Workers

Let’s say you have only two PHP workers on a site and you have several plugins and a heavy theme. Those two PHP workers will constantly be used only to process plugins and theme processes leaving a queue to build up immediately for new page requests from visitors to your site.

If you are running an ecommerce site on top of this, it will only increase the queue amount. Much like customers waiting in line, some PHP processes will abandon the line. Processes that are not written to abandon the line, or time out, and will sit and wait. Then, they will begin to put a much higher load on server resources. It’s like the checkout line is now wrapping around the block!

PHP processes on a WordPress website can be as simple as the submission of a contact form or a request to geolocate a visitor based upon their IP or zip code.

For eCommerce websites, this can look a little different. Items such as new orders being processed, carts, and customer logins would all utilize PHP workers. The products or descriptions will usually be cached so that generally would not require a PHP process for viewing. Having only three to five PHP workers means that you can only have that many simultaneous transactions on the website and that the PHP workers will process requests in the order they were triggered (just like a shopping line).

How To Lighten The Load For Your PHP Workers

A common problem area to start with for PHP workers is having too many plugins and heavy themes. You can generally help alleviate issues caused by a bloated website with these tips:

  1. Add site caching with a plugin
  2. Reduce external calls to remote sites
  3. General site optimization

Site optimization can get complicated, especially with sites that experience heavier traffic which requires more attention to detail. Generally, the larger the site, the more efficient the site must be in the way it requests its styles, products, orders, and customers. This way, you utilize the PHP workers for general site functionality less and PHP workers can process what matters – your traffic – effectively.

Hostdedi plans come with enough concurrent users for even the largest of sites to manage traffic.

With Hostdedi, you already have 20 concurrent users as part of an XS plan. This increases in increments of 20 as you move up to the XXL plan (which has 120).

Other managed application platforms offer anywhere from two to four PHP workers in introductory offerings. Hostdedi Managed WordPress and WooCommerce also have server-side caching built-in which helps minimize the use of PHP workers to process static content, allowing the PHP workers to process requests from the people who matter most: your customers.

Maintain a Faster Site with More PHP Workers

PHP workers can manage thousands of processes each, however; many factors come into play, including:

  • How many exterior calls are they making?
  • How many plugins are competing with inquiries to the database?

Additionally, adding PHP workers to a site will also increase the resource allocation being used from the server. The more PHP processes running, the more RAM and CPU allocations will be needed, thus creating heavier loads on the server and having as much optimization as possible can reduce that server load. PHP workers are key, but they are not magic, one-size-fits-all solution.

The more plugins (even inactive ones), the more PHP workers are utilized to process non-static requests. The same applies to heavily featured themes. For this reason, it is always a good idea to use caching and a CDN to help reduce the task load for PHP workers. This will optimize your site to process customer requests in the fastest manner possible.

  Start your WooCommerce store knowing that it’s ready to handle traffic requirements. Learn more.

The post What are PHP Workers and Why You Should Care appeared first on Hostdedi Blog.

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How Can Ecommerce Help Reduce Transaction Costs?

While ecommerce stores can reduce transaction costs, and so the overhead of running a business, transaction costs still have enough of a presence to chip away at your profits.

Transaction costs traditionally refer to any cost incurred by an entity that maintains or processes the exchange of currency for goods and services. It is not necessarily synonymous with business overhead, defined as the sum of all expenses attached to the day-to-day operations of your business, though transaction costs contribute to it. 

What is Transaction Cost in Ecommerce?

The big pro of ecommerce is reduced transaction costs and overhead for both merchants and consumers. Merchants without a physical storefront need not bother with cashiers, warehousing, rent, or the limitations of their geographic location. Consumers, too, enjoy less overhead because online purchases require less time spent browsing and no need to bother with crowds, traffic, or gas. 

However, ecommerce stores are not immune to overhead, and a sizeable portion of this overhead comes from transaction costs. 

In online stores, transaction costs include fees and expenses associated with the following :

  • Credit cards Customer using credit card online
  • Payment gateways
  • Ecommerce platforms
  • Returns and exchanges
  • Shipping

Let’s take a closer look at each.

Credit Cards

Credit cards are a creature of convenience for many consumers, which is why merchants accept the fees. In theory, the cost of not providing a credit card payment option—lost revenue—exceeds the cost of processing fees.

These fees represent the cost of the infrastructure making such transactions possible, and involve numerous parties. The credit card processor, credit card association and the issuing bank all look to get paid for the effort.

These fees are determined by your risk profile, interchange rates, and various other factors. You pay a percentage of each transaction, a per-transaction dollar amount, or a combination of both (for example, 1.80% + $0.10). In addition, some cards may incur a flat monthly charge. 

Typical Cost Breakdown by Card Type

Card type Per-transaction fee
American Express 2.5% to 3.5%
Discover 1.5% to 2.3 %
Mastercard 1.5% to 2.6%
Visa 1.43% to 2.4%

Many online retailers accept these fees as part of the cost of doing business, but some choose to disallow credit cards in their stores and avoid the fee. 

Payment Gateways

PayPal, Stripe, Square, Authorize.net, and the like are payment gateways that handle your customers’ credit card payments. paypal logoFor a fee, they transmit the card data from their payment portal to the credit card processor.paypal logo

It is somewhat less convenient than a credit card because it requires the customer to 1) create an account for that payment gateway if they don’t already have one, and 2) log in to that account during checkout. Both prolong the process, and long checkout times tend to produce abandoned shopping carts. These represent a constant source of irritation in an industry where the worldwide cart abandonment rate in 2018 was at 75 percent (Statista). 

PayPal, a popular choice, is one of the more expensive options. PayPal charges a flat base rate of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction (4.4% plus fixed fee for international). While numerous other options are available, PayPal offers brand recognition that other options may not. As with credit cards, payment gateways charge a mix of percentage, per-transaction flat rates, and monthly fees.

Ecommerce Platforms

Ecommerce platforms are the lowest-hanging fruit of store-creation. Relatively simple to deploy and customize, they remove multiple barriers to entry that would otherwise require a developer. Inventory tracking, payment, coupons, shipping, and countless other features are easily made available to your shoppers.

As you might expect, Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and other platforms want to get paid, and these fees are in addition to fees incurred by credit cards and payment gateways.

WooCommerce Shopify BigCommerce
Transaction fees None 0.5% to 2% unless using Shopify Payments None
Account fees Free, plus hosting (upwards of $7 per month) $29 to $299 per month $29.95 to $249.95 per month
Payment Options Many Many Many
Customization Unlimited themes; may require dev assistance 10 free themes; others require $ 7 free themes; others require $

Returns and Exchanges

Although this is outside of the initial transaction, the threat of chargebacks involves the same payment entities and therefore warrants inclusion.

A refund is a voluntary return agreement between the customer and the merchant. A chargeback occurs after a customer asks a bank or payment processor to forcibly undo the purchase. If that bank or processor investigates the complaint and deems it valid, they forcibly withdraw money from the merchant’s account.

It is designed as a failsafe against dishonest merchants, but any customer dissatisfied with your product and return policy can make use of it. Merchants can dispute the claim, but if the claim sticks, they often pay an additional and expensive fee.

Shipping

Although shipping falls outside of the direct purview of “payment processors,” it’s essential enough for ecommerce to be Semi in transitconsidered a transaction cost. Complicating the matter is the general expectation of rapid time-to-delivery. Gone are the days of “please allow 6 to 8 weeks of shipping, and good riddance. 

You may be tempted to simply pass these costs along to your customers, but exercise caution. Most customers expect to pay shipping, if reasonable. Even so, if you can find a way to offer free shipping, it will encourage customers to spend more at your store.

How to Reduce Transaction Costs

While transaction costs are unavoidable, here are some measures to take beyond just throwing up your hands and taking your lumps.

Know your needs, then shop around for non-credit card payment providers 

As noted above, you have multiple options. The time you spend learning about your options will save you money. If your store uses a specific application like Magento, WooCommerce, or something similar, engage the community, and even consider attending a larger expo like MagentoLive or WordCamp. If your store does considerable volume, you also may be able to negotiate lower rates with banks and credit card companies.

Look for options, but remember the cheapest service may not be the best solution. Investigate the service’s reputation for support, security, and reliability before committing.

Once again, however, removing the in-store option to pay via credit card will likely irritate some customers. 

Pay respect to customer service

Brand loyalty lives and dies on the hill of customer service. Taking extra steps to keep your customers happy. It will helpprevent costly chargebacks and provide the organic, cost-free marketing otherwise known as positive word-of-mouth. 

support scrabble tiles

The definition of “good customer” service has risen in the age of ecommerce. It need not necessarily be “24/7/365,” but most customers expect:

  • A prompt response, usually within 1 business day
  • A response that doesn’t sound like a script
  • An honest effort to remedy the issue
  • An apology in some shape or form
  • Reasonable transparency

If you’re unable to consistently provide all of the above, it may be time to hire someone that can. It’s a “symptom” of growth and a good problem to have. Embrace it. Resist the urge to outsource the cheapest option available, as you want your representatives to know your product and the fundamentals of customer service.

And if you’re unwilling to provide all of the above… good luck. You’re gonna need it.

Ship smart

Shipping is arguably the biggest cause of transaction cost in ecommerce, as every transaction demands it. As noted earlier, free shipping is a powerful incentive. Even reduced shipping will help your conversion rate. Try some of these tactics to reduce shipping for yourself and your customers:

  • Negotiate with your carrier. The more you ship, the more you save. 
  • Use third party insurance. Carriers generally charge first-rate prices for second-rate coverage. Stick with third party insurance companies, who tend to provide much better value. 
  • Watch for fees. Don’t let yourself be surprised by charges for Saturday delivery, delivery signature, and fuel surcharges. Know before you ship.
  • Use online shipping. Order and print your postage online and it’s almost always cheaper and quicker than doing it all over the counter.
  • Use size-appropriate packaging. Use the smallest you can without compromising the integrity of the product.
  • Buy shipping supplies in bulk. Buy in bulk online. That one-time expense translates to long-term savings.

 

Need other ways to prep for the holiday season? See our Black Friday Ecommerce prep Guide.

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20 Ways to Get Your Store Ready for Black Friday

It’s not too late to start circling the wagons the holiday season. Here’s 20 ways to make the most of your Black Friday that don’t involve new code or massive retooling. Use one, or all, or mix and match for maximum effect.

#1 Enable Hostdedi Cloud Auto Scaling

One of the main arguments to go cloud is flexible, on-demand scaling. Auto Scaling temporarily assigns more resources to your site when there’sHostdedi Auto Scaling an unexpected uptick in concurrent users, defined as users actively engaging with your content (as opposed to “idling” on your site). 

How much does it cost? Not much, unless your site suddenly experiences a prolonged surge in traffic. All Hostdedi Cloud accounts get 12 free hours of Auto Scaling. Beyond that, you’re billed only for what you use in 10-minute increments. The cost depends according to your plan, but range between $0.03–$0.16 cents per increment. 

To put it into perspective, a store with a plan charging $0.10 per increment, using 24 hours of Auto Scaling, would incur an additional charge of $14.40 ($0.60 per hour X 24 hours). This makes it a cost-effective stopgap measure against unexpected surges in traffic, though extensive use usually points to a need for a service upgrade.

#2 Add Product Bundles to Your Store

Package complementary projects together and offer a small discount. As noted by a Harvard Business School study, customers are quick to perceive value in bundles, IF the business in question continues to offer “standalone” units. In the study, Nintendo reported a massive increase in sales when they added bundles (video game + console) to their store, but reported a 20 percent decrease if they sold only bundles.

How much does it cost? Only the “cost” of the discount, but if a 20 percent discount adds 40 percent sales, then it’s a win.

#3 Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)CDN icon

Shopping is a visual experience. At least 90 percent of all site data transfers involve images, video, and other content that take seconds to load in a browser. A wait of 3 seconds or longer tends to send a shopper elsewhere, never to return. While nearly every ecommerce site can benefit from a CDN, shops with international appeal stand to benefit most. 

How much does it cost? No, but it’s definitely affordable even before calculating the potential cost of lost business. Plans start at $25 per month.

#4 Creating Some Solid Long-Form Content

Yes, attention spans are short, but shoppers are motivated when they’re researching possible purchases. These shoppers tend to be hungry for deeper content, provided it’s free of fluff and filler. The benchmark for “long-form” varies, but generally in the 1200–1800 word range. 

The idea is to give potential buyers a reason to visit and remember your site. The topic can be anything, provided the author’s an expert on the topic and it doesn’t sound like 1500-word infomercial. 

How much does it cost? It ranges between “free” (if you write it yourself) and “more than a few beans” (if you outsource). Outsource with caution. Despite the long-form label, the emphasis should be on quality content, not quantity of content. In either case, having a clear goal and knowing your audience will do much for your cause. 

#5 Check Your SSL CertificateSSL certtificate icon

Don’t wait until zero-hour to discover problems with your SSL certificate. Browsers notify visitors about sites without them, and the warning sends them packing. In most cases, a standard SSL certificate will be more than adequate, and whether or not Extended Validation (EV) certificates provide value is a matter of some debate.

How much does it cost? The annual charge ranges between about $40–$300 per year, depending on the type of certificate. Standard SSL certificates are often adequate, but offer a substantially lower warranty than other, more expensive options. However, Let’s Encrypt is free and will work in a pinch for some websites. Such certificates have various limitations, but they meet the minimum standard of assigning your website the “Secure” browser label and preceding the address with “https://”. 

#6 Implement Live Chat

A properly implemented live chat system can increase sales, customer loyalty, and even reveal flaws in your site design or user experience. If you’re using Magento, WooCommerce, or another popular ecommerce platform, several plug-ins are available and relatively easy to deploy. 

If you’re instead relying on your own platform, it may be best to table starting development until after the holiday at this point.

How much does it cost? Per-month licenses range between roughly $15 to several hundred dollars, with variances for number of “seats,” types of features, and other trimmings. Some, like Livechat for Magento 1, offer a 2-week free trial.  

#7 Kick off a social media campaign

If you’re not already tapping social media for a boost, then you’re missing out. One need not be a Social Media Manager to reap the benefits of

social media examples

Facebook, Twitter, and friends. Run a contest, or otherwise give people a reason to share your product. Showcase your best products and services. Tie in with a discount (see #11) and let digital word-of-mouth do the rest. 

How much does it cost? It’s free for starters, but you’ll reach more eyes by paying for promotion status. On Twitter, these are “Promoted Tweets. On Facebook, they’re ads. Both can pay for themselves, provided you’re willing to put a little time and effort into it. 

#8. Showcase User-Generated Content

Designating a space on your site for honest reviews is a good start, but this really refers to engaging with and showing off your customers’ stories about your product or service. These are authentic testimonials and consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view them than marketing content. 

It takes a little time, but as shown by the below example, it’s not hard. Combine with a giveaway to give it extra traction.

Share your favorite (YOUR_STORE) products with us and you could be featured on our social and website! 

  1. Follow @YOUR_STORE
  2. Post a photo of your favorite YOUR_STORE product
  3. Tag @YOUR_STORE and #YOUR_STORE

How much does it cost? Like all social media campaigns, it can be free, but consider paying for promotional fees to cast a much wider net. 

#9 Create a Cart-Abandonment Email Campaign

The bad news is about 70 percent of all shopping carts never see conversion. The good news is you have a way to bring some of those shoppers back. An effective Black Friday cart-abandonment email campaign is all about timing and presentation. Timing means sending 2–3 emails from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. Presentation means branding that sets you apart from the other marketing emails flooding mailboxes.

Find a perfect subject line, perhaps offer a 10% discount, provide a visual of the item, and include a strong call-to-action, like a BUY button.

How much does it cost? This is more feasible if you already have a graphic designer available, since raw text isn’t a good option. Hiring one just for your campaign might be worthwhile, but if you already have one available, consider making this a priority if you haven’t already.

#10 Use Hostdedi DNSHostdedi DNS icon

If you’re already our client, using our DNS streamlines support efforts and gives your customers a reliable and fast way to find your site. Repointing your domain name to our nameservers is relatively quick and easy, and our support team is more than happy to help.

How much does it cost? If you’re a Hostdedi client, it’s free!

#11 Create Discount Codes

Nearly every major ecommerce platform provides the means to create discount codes. Combined with other options from this list, they encourage sharing between friends and acquaintances, otherwise known as free marketing.

Concerned about overuse? Link the discount to a minimum-spending trigger, as in “spend $75, Get 15% Off” or something similar. Remember you’re not limited to sharing on social media. Also consider email, catalogs, and advertisements.

How much does it cost? Again, it depends on how you view the “cost” of a discount. Most shoppers expect to find discounts on Black Friday, so consider the cost of ignoring discounts. 

#12 Make Sure Your Site is Optimized for Mobile

When was the last time you visited your store on a phone or tablet? Over half of all Black Friday shopping occurs from a mobile device. Most

mobile phone

modern ecommerce applications were built with mobile in mind, but don’t forget about emails, checkout, and any other late-season change pushed by your developer. Even if you’re using Magento 2, avoid surprises and explore the common paths for your visitors, from item-selection to checkout. 

How much does it cost? If you’re using a credible ecommerce solution, your storefront is likely ahead of the game. If your site is a trainwreck on mobile, then it’s time to hustle, and hustling usually means taking a financial hit. Still, it may be better than frustrating over 50 percent of all visitors to your site on Black Friday.

#13 Expand Your Store’s Search Function

Your store’s search function is the equivalent of a store clerk. The less time it takes a customer to find what they want, the more time they’ll spend in your store and the better things they’ll have to say about it afterward.

While many options exist, current Hostdedi Cloud clients using Magento 2 can take full advantage of Elasticsearch, a flexible search engine capable of handling large amounts of both structured and unstructured data. 

How much does it cost? If you’re currently a Hostdedi Cloud client, we provide Elasticsearch for no additional charge. It does, however, require some knowledge of MySQL and the command line interface, so take proper care or contact our support team for assistance.

#14 (Magento 2 Only) Follow Our Optimization Guide

magento 2 icon

Our team sensed a shortage of concrete optimizations for Magento 2 developers, and our Definitive Guide to Magento 2 Optimization was theresult. Filled-to-the-brim with how to get the most from your Magento 2 store, the guide includes proven optimizations for PHP, PHP-FPM, Apache, MySQL, Varnish, as well as benchmarks to back up our conclusions.

How much does it cost? It’s free!

#15 Consider Upsells and Cross-sells for Your Products

Consider implementing up-sells and cross-sells for your products. Upselling is encouraging customers to buy a higher-end variant of their current selection. Cross-selling means making the most of opportunities to sell related products. Most popular ecommerce platforms offer out-of-the-box ways to achieve both, though extensions grant additional functionality.

For cross-selling, borrow a page from Amazon’s book and find a way to present a variant of “Customers who bought this product also bought” to buyers. 

How much does it cost? Similar to #6, the cost of applicable extensions ranges between roughly $10 to hundreds. Ask the community surrounding your ecommerce platform to suggest extensions, which can provide exceptional value for their cost. 

#16 Create Banner Ads for Your Site and Social

One need not be a graphic designer to design attractive visuals. It’s not too early to start promoting Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and many free templates are available online, like Canva, Bannersnack, and many others. A few hours’ work can generate buzz and get you ahead of the game. Consider combining with discounts and promoted social media posts for extra effect.

How much does it cost? Free to less free, depending on whether you enlist the services of a graphic designer, provide discounts, or pay for promotional placement in social media.

#17 Load-Test Your Store

It’s best to know the limits of your site before Black Friday, not during. The results can give you some idea of whether or not to pursue an upgrade, or just rely on something like Hostdedi Auto Scale (see #1). If possible, prioritize the specific URLs of your homepage and checkout page.

If you’re a Hostdedi client and are unsure to do with this information, try contacting our support team first. While some of your issues may require a developer’s touch, you may have other options to help optimize site performance.

How much does it cost? Many free options are available. However, prioritize ones that test for “concurrent users,” which refers to the number of users on your site that are actively engaging with your content. Possible candidates include Load Impact, Flood IO, and Loader, among many others.

#18 Make Returns Easy 

Provide a clear return policy. Try to keep “no hassle” at the forefront, though reasonable restrictions on timelines are usually acceptable. Your policy should give answers to:

  • What items can be returned
  • What items can be exchanged
  • Which items are non-returnable and non-exchangeable
  • What options are available for reimbursement (refund, exchange, store credit)
  • How to ask for a return or exchange
  • Whether customers will pay for return-shipping
  • What condition returns and exchanges can be in to qualify (tags, worn, so on)
  • How long customers from the date of purchase to ask for returns or exchanges 

How much does it cost? Returns are arguably the cost of doing business, so we’re marking this one “free.”

#19 Track Everything

Chances are, your store already has tracking tools in place, though most platforms also provide  various plug-ins available to expand these tools.

web tracking on monitor

The right tool gives you invaluable data about how customers interact with your site: what they buy, where they spend their time, and how long they visit each page. Like any data, it requires analysis to be useful, but even an hour or two can provide actionable information for 2020 and beyond.

How much does it cost? It depends on your platform and how deep down the rabbithole you want to go. Start with what’s already available in your store and go from there.

#20 Check Out Your Competition

Spy on your competition so you can outdo them! We’re not recommending anything illegal or unethical. The easiest way to do so is to subscribe to their mailing lists and social media feeds. Fair warning: resist the urge to take too many queues from them, or you risk the “cookie cutter” effect of being too similar to your competition. Finding the balance between “inspired by” and differentiation will spell success for your store.

How much does it cost? Unless you’re buying from your competitors, it’s free!

 

 

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Hostdedi Amsterdam Data Center Launches Cloud Servers

Four years ago, we expanded our European hosting services to include Amsterdam, arguably one of best-connected cities in the world. Now, we’re bringing the scalability and versatility of Hostdedi Cloud to our Amsterdam data center!

Why Amsterdam Matters for Ecommerce

Amsterdam hosts about one-third of Europe’s data center capacity, and for good reason. In North Holland (Netherlands) and near the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), the combination of geography and technology provides reliable low-latency connections to France, Germany, Scandinavia, and much of eastern Europe. 

The city continues to stand as a center of information technology and ecommerce entrepreneurship, with proven network infrastructure and expansive connectivity to key EU markets. Amsterdam’s history as an international trade hub played will see further exposure this October, when the city hosts MagentoLive Europe, a gathering of 2,000 merchants and developers from around the world.

A Closer Look at the Amsterdam Facility

As a PCI-compliant hosting provider, we apply the same high standards of reliability and security that we apply to all of our data centers. The Amsterdam facility occupies a state-of-the-art data center only minutes away from AMS-IX and uses redundant Tier 1 carriers for dependable connectivity and speed. 

Sixteen generators and 2N redundancy keep the data center ready for nearly every power-loss scenario. As for security, the facility upholds triple-authentication access with biometric readers, as well as 24-hour manned security stations, intrusion detection, and camera surveillance. 

Cloud Services

With the launch of Amsterdam Cloud Services, our clients can expect the same security and performance already present in all of our global data centers. We built this platform to make it easier than ever for your service to grow with your business.All Hostdedi Cloud services include:

  • 24-hour support and monitoring
  • Free migration
  • PCI-compliant cloud hosting
  •  optimized application hosting for Magento, WooCommerce, WordPress, Drupal, and others. 

If you’re a Hostdedi Cloud client, you may also add:

  • Auto Scaling: Ensure your site stays online during foreseen and unforeseen traffic spikes. Be billed only for what you use, when you use it.
  • Cloud Accelerator: Boost your site’s delivery of static content (.jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .js, .css, among many others) to deliver a near-instant experience to your site visitors.
  • Instant Dev Sites: Create dev and staging environments at the touch of a button. Test changes without fear and maintain user security with auto-scrubbing of personally identifiable information (PII).


Questions? Our sales team has answers! Contact them at [email protected] between 9 a.m.– 5 p.m. eastern, Monday to Friday.

 

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Hostdedi Amsterdam Data Center Launches Cloud Servers

Four years ago, we expanded our European hosting services to include Amsterdam, arguably one of best-connected cities in the world. Now, we’re bringing the scalability and versatility of Hostdedi Cloud to our Amsterdam data center!

Why Amsterdam Matters for Ecommerce

Amsterdam hosts about one-third of Europe’s data center capacity, and for good reason. In North Holland (Netherlands) and near the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), the combination of geography and technology provides reliable low-latency connections to France, Germany, Scandinavia, and much of eastern Europe. 

The city continues to stand as a center of information technology and ecommerce entrepreneurship, with proven network infrastructure and expansive connectivity to key EU markets. Amsterdam’s history as an international trade hub played will see further exposure this October, when the city hosts MagentoLive Europe, a gathering of 2,000 merchants and developers from around the world.

A Closer Look at the Amsterdam Facility

As a PCI-compliant hosting provider, we apply the same high standards of reliability and security that we apply to all of our data centers. The Amsterdam facility occupies a state-of-the-art data center only minutes away from AMS-IX and uses redundant Tier 1 carriers for dependable connectivity and speed. 

Sixteen generators and 2N redundancy keep the data center ready for nearly every power-loss scenario. As for security, the facility upholds triple-authentication access with biometric readers, as well as 24-hour manned security stations, intrusion detection, and camera surveillance. 

Cloud Services

With the launch of Amsterdam Cloud Services, our clients can expect the same security and performance already present in all of our global data centers. We built this platform to make it easier than ever for your service to grow with your business.All Hostdedi Cloud services include:

  • 24-hour support and monitoring
  • Free migration
  • PCI-compliant cloud hosting
  •  optimized application hosting for Magento, WooCommerce, WordPress, Drupal, and others. 

If you’re a Hostdedi Cloud client, you may also add:

  • Auto Scaling: Ensure your site stays online during foreseen and unforeseen traffic spikes. Be billed only for what you use, when you use it.
  • Cloud Accelerator: Boost your site’s delivery of static content (.jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .js, .css, among many others) to deliver a near-instant experience to your site visitors.
  • Instant Dev Sites: Create dev and staging environments at the touch of a button. Test changes without fear and maintain user security with auto-scrubbing of personally identifiable information (PII).


Questions? Our sales team has answers! Contact them at [email protected] between 9 a.m.– 5 p.m. eastern, Monday to Friday.

 

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The Best One Step Checkout Extensions for Magento 2

Lengthy checkouts annoy your shoppers and send them to your competition. 

The default checkout page for Magento 2 fails to solve this problem. Fortunately, there’s plenty of extensions in the Magento 2 marketplace that attempt to fix this problem. However, sorting through the available candidates is no small task, so keep reading to help narrow the field.  

What Is One Step Checkout?

Optimizing the shop experience is the most reliable way to increase your conversion rate and prevent abandoned carts.

Properly executed, one step checkout removes the annoying hoops between your customer and the Place Order button. The name of the game is quick, easy, and painless.

An effective one step checkout extension limits the process to one page, and: 

  • Suggests a delivery address
  • Allows customers to add a comment 
  • Includes a field for coupon codes
  • Allows store owners to configure checkout fields
  • Supports varied payment methods
  • Provides clean address, shipping method, payment method, and order review sections 
  • Identifies the shopper’s IP address to expedite future checkouts
  • Optimizes the page for mobile
  • Provides checkout analytics and reports
  • Has a prominent Place Order button

Each of the Magento 2 checkout extensions provided in this article achieve the above. Let’s take a closer look at what each has to offer.

How We Narrowed the Field 

At time of publication, the Magento marketplace has 19-and-counting one step checkout extensions available. We’ve narrowed the field to five options that support the latest stable relase of Magento 2 Community Edition, which is currently version 2.3. This version was released in November 2018, and any extension still not compatible is arguably the victim of neglect by its developer.

If you’re sticking with Magento 1 despite it reaching official end of life in June 2020, here’s what you need to know. If you’re running Magento 2, but not the latest version, we recommend that taking immediate action to patch your store. Unpatched software can degrade your store’s performance and expose your customers to significant security risks.

  When deciding whether or not to purchase support for any extension, remember that support also includes updates to that extension. Keeping your extensions updates is one of the most reliable ways to keep your safe and secure.

Cost: $299
Support: 3 months free, then 12 months for $120
Installation Service: Not available
Front-End Demo
Back-End Demo

Aheadworks front end demo image

Featuring a two-column design, Smart One Step fuels auto-address suggestions with GeoIP  and Google, and allows unregistered guests to make purchases.

If you’re looking to further expand functionality, Aheadworks offers other extensions for coupon code generation, gift cards, reward points, and store refunds. Between companies, extensions don’t always play nice with one another, but you can prevent some headaches as long as you don’t mind fully hitching your wagon to Aheadworks.

Installation service is unavailable, although Aheadworks provides a one-page installation guide.

Cost: $570
Support: 6 mos $105/12 mos $140
Installation Service: $85
Front End Demo
(Back End Demo Not Available at Time of Publication)

OneStepCheckOUT AS front end demo

With 150 reviews in the Marketplace for their Magento 1 extension, One Step Checkout AS has a well-established reputation in the community. This experience comes with a hefty price tag. In theory, however, a good extension will drive sales and provide value over and above the cost of acquiring it.

If you want the streamlined, barebones experience for your shoppers, you can certainly give it to them. The extension also offers CSS compatibility and fully embraces a modular approach to customization. 

If you’re planning to use multiple extensions, OneStepCheckOUT promises easy compatibility. If you’ve enlisted their support service, they also promise to help you integrate troublesome third-party extensions for no additional cost.  

Cost: $199
Support: 6 mos free/9 mos $180/12 mos $300
Installation Service: $99
Front End Demo
Back End Demo

Mage Delight One Step CHeckout Demo image

If you want one-step checkout but don’t necessarily need heavy customization, MageDelight’s One Step Checkout may be a reasonable choice. Customization is limited to field selection and interface color, which will be enough for owners just looking for consistency with their storefront. 

Options like coupon generation, refunds, and other features not already listed in the What is One Step Checkout section will require additional extensions. 

Purchase includes 6 months of free support. 

One Step Checkout by Templates Master (Swiss Up Labs)

Cost: $189
Support: 1 yr Free, then $588/yr
Installation Service: Free
Front End Demo (2-column)
(Back End Demo Not Available at Time of Publication)

Templates Master 1 step checkout demo

The purchase of One Step Checkout by Templates Master includes free installation, 1 year of support, and free integration of third party modules. However, the cost of support after that first year jumps to $588 annually.

As for layout, store admins have full control over checkout fields and can select one, two, or three columns. Four different checkout page skins are included, and it’s possible to customize your checkout page with JavaScript or HTML.

Cost: $299
Support: 3 months free with free lifetime updates/6 mos $79/12 mos $129
Installation Service: $59
Front End Demo
Back End Demo

Amasty 1 step checkout front end demo

One Step Checkout by Amasty has something to offer both layperson store admins and seasoned developers. The former can easily and quickly tweak layout, colors, and fonts. For users wanting more control, the extension provides CSS and LESS support.

Notably, this is the only offering on this list to provide free lifetime updates. 

Advanced options include gift options, header and footer promo information, delivery date and time, and others.

One Step Checkout Extensions At a Glance

Following is a summary of our findings at the time of publication. The policies, prices, or functionality of these products may have since changed. 

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The Many Ways to Check Your Grammar in WordPress

The Many Ways to Check Your Grammar in WordPressJohn McPhee, a renowned writer of non-fiction books and magazine articles, describes in his book “Draft No. 4” the editorial process his articles must pass through before publication in the New Yorker. 

The first phase involves multiple drafts and editing passes by McPhee himself. When McPhee submits the article, there is a conversation with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, which may prompt further rounds of rewriting.

Next, an editor scrutinizes the article line by line, suggesting edits for McPhee to approve. Then, each fact in the article is cross-checked and verified by a professional fact checker. The process culminates with a minute examination of every sentence by one of the world’s most gifted grammatical nitpickers. Altogether, the process can take several months.

And, after all that, mistakes still often find their way into the print edition.

Bloggers and writers who write primarily for the web do not have anything approaching the editorial support structure of a magazine like the New Yorker. They are often their own editors, proofreaders, and fact checkers. 

Until recently, WordPress bloggers who used the Jetpack plugin collection were helped in this task by After the Deadline, a grammar checker that could highlight errors before the writer hits the publish button. Sadly, After the Deadline is no more. It was removed with the release of Jetpack 7.3.

After the Deadline was removed because there are many alternatives on the market. Most are unreliable, but there are a few that can be trusted to let writers know where the embarrassing mistakes lurk.

Grammarly

Grammarly is the best-known and best-regarded grammar checker on the market today. It’s not perfect, but it can spot errors that other checkers miss, and it is available as a browser plugin, a standalone application, and a mobile application on iOS and Android. The browser plugin allows Grammarly to work with WordPress text fields and other web text fields.

One of Grammarly’s best features is how it explains why it has flagged an error, rather than just putting a squiggly line under it and expecting the writer to figure out what’s wrong. It can also fix many errors with a single click.

Grammarly is available both as a free service with basic features and as a paid service with more advanced grammar checking.

Hemingway

Hemingway is less a grammar checker than a style dictator. It highlights what it considers grammatical errors, but its primary goal is simplification. It lets you know when your sentences have become convoluted and flags constructions that are often found in bad writing.

For writers who like to use the full capabilities of the English language, Hemingway can be frustrating. Its idea of clear writing is a little too simple for many, and its standards are arbitrary. McPhee’s articles become a sea of red and yellow when pasted into the Hemingway app (as do the novels of Ernest Hemingway himself). 

But, if you find your sentences tend to be overly complicated and difficult for readers to parse, Hemingway is worth checking out.

Google Docs

Google recently added machine-learning powered grammar checking to Google Docs. As you might expect from Google, its grammar checker is based less on traditional rules of grammar and more on an analysis of how language is used in a large corpus of written material.

Docs is not as harsh a grader as either Grammarly or Hemingway, and it sometimes lets glaring errors like word repetitions through, but it’s a welcome addition to a platform that many WordPress users rely on. If you’re a user of Google Docs and WordPress, you may find the Wordable service useful; it can export documents stored in Google Docs to a WordPress site, which ultimately is much better than copying and pasting.

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5 Craft CMS Plugins You Need To Know About

One of Craft CMS’s greatest strengths is its collection of high-quality plugins. There may not be as many Craft CMS plugins as there are WordPress plugins, but Craft’s Plugin Store, which was introduced last year with the release of Craft CMS 3, offers a satisfying range of functionality to the already feature-rich content management system.

If you haven’t already, we urge you to spend a few minutes exploring the plugin store. In the meantime, here are five of our favorite plugins.

Feed Me

Feed Me is a content importer for Craft CMS. It can import content from many different sources, including RSS, XML, CSV, and JSON. Feed Me allows users to select field mappings for the files they want to import so that they can map arbitrary data to Craft CMS entries, categories, tags, users, and more.

Feed Me is an incredibly useful tool for developers and designers who need to get information from other sources into Craft CMS. Pixel and Tonic, the developers of Craft CMS, thought the plugin was so useful that they bought it.

CodeMirror

CodeMirror is a full-featured JavaScript code editor that can be embedded into web pages. You have seen CodeMirror in action if you have used Adobe Brackets, Bitbucket, Codepen, or the Firefox Devtools. The CodeMirror Craft CMS plugin brings CodeMirror into Craft CMS as a field type so it can be embedded into any page.

Image Optimize

Image Optimize is — as you may have guessed — a Craft CMS plugin that optimizes images. It performs lossless image optimization on several image types, including JPEG, PNG, SVG, and GIF images. Lossless optimization strips metadata and performs other optimizations that reduce the size of images without impacting their quality. The image optimizations are processed automatically.

SEOMatic

SEOMatic is the leading Craft CMS search engine optimization plugin. Like other SEO plugins, SEOMatic adds information to Craft CMS pages to help search engines understand the content. Among the metadata SEOMatic adds are Facebook Open Graph tags, enhanced sitemaps, robots.txt and humans.txt files, and HTML meta tags. SEOMatic isn’t vital to good SEO on Craft CMS sites, but it helps site owners publish content that has the best possible chance of ranking.

Splash

Splash is a helpful little plugin that provides a search interface for the Unsplash image collection within Craft CMS. Unsplash hosts thousands of high-quality images that are free to download and use with attribution. Chances are, you’re using Unsplash anyway, and the Splash plugin is a pleasant convenience for clients. As the plugin’s developers point out, Splash can “stop clients uploading bad images ever again! (Just kidding, of course they will).”

We’ve looked at five plugins of the several hundred top-notch plugins available from the Craft CMS store. If you’d like to learn more about Craft CMS and Craft CMS hosting on the Hostdedi Cloud, get in touch today.

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Is Drupal More Secure Than WordPress?

Is Drupal More Secure Than WordPress?Drupal is widely regarded as a secure content management system, so much so that it is often chosen for sensitive sites, including the sites of many government agencies. WordPress’s reputation for security is not quite as impressive, and we’re all familiar with stories of hacked WordPress sites.

Does that mean it’s fair to say that WordPress is less secure than Drupal?

This is not a simple question to answer because it depends on our answers to other questions: What do we mean by secure? How do we measure security? It certainly wouldn’t be fair to compare media stories about WordPress security with Drupal’s record — there are hundreds of times more WordPress sites than Drupal sites, so you’d expect WordPress to be hacked more.

One possible definition of a secure Content Management System (CMS) is one that is extremely unlikely to be compromised if it is configured according to the documentation and regularly updated. If we accept that definition, then both WordPress and Drupal are secure. No application on the web is ever totally secure, but properly configured and regularly updated Drupal and WordPress sites are unlikely to be compromised.

What Are the Qualities of a Secure CMS?

There are many ways to measure the security of an application, but from the perspective of users, three factors are particularly important.

  • Few vulnerabilities. Software bugs that cause exploitable vulnerabilities should not be a regular occurrence. They’ll sometimes happen because software is complex and humans are fallible, but users should not expect to see their sites regularly hacked because of vulnerabilities in the core application.
  • Vulnerabilities are quickly fixed. When vulnerabilities are reported to the developers, patches to fix them should be released quickly, and users should be informed of the need to update (or updates should happen automatically).
  • Easy to secure. If a content management system is generally used by people without a lot of technical knowledge, then it should be designed to minimize opportunities for users to create security problems. For example, it shouldn’t be easy for people to use a default password instead of a secure password.

It’s easier to compare Drupal and WordPress on some of these measures than others. We can see how many critical vulnerabilities are found and fixed in WordPress and Drupal. We can’t see vulnerabilities that haven’t been discovered or reported — so-called zero-day vulnerabilities — but reported vulnerabilities are a useful proxy for overall risk.

It’s clear that both projects have their share of vulnerabilities, but we can also see that patches are released quickly. Both projects take security seriously and react with haste when vulnerabilities are reported.

Security Beyond the Core

What about WordPress plugins and Drupal modules? The fact is that when a WordPress site is hacked, it’s almost always a plugin to blame. There are 50,000 plugins created by developers of mixed ability who are not equally motivated to secure their code. Drupal too has occasional security issues related to modules, but the Drupal module ecosystem is smaller and more tightly controlled.

There are many high-quality WordPress plugins made by developers who are committed to building secure products, but the depth of the WordPress ecosystem means that the average WordPress plugin is more likely to pose a risk than the average Drupal plugin.

For both content management systems, and WordPress in particular, it pays to be cautious when sourcing and installing modules or plugins. Nulled plugins — pirate premium plugins — are a particular issue in the WordPress world. They are often infected with malware, and once a malware-infected plugin is installed on a site, it’s game over.

Developers Can Only Do So Much

Now we come to the most significant cause of security vulnerabilities for any content management system: its users. As we’ve established, every CMS has vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers at some point in its life. Those vulnerabilities are usually quickly fixed, but the fixes are useless if they aren’t installed. WordPress users who fail to update WordPress and its plugins are probably the single biggest cause of compromised sites. Outdated sites are also a big problem in the Drupal world, albeit on a smaller scale.

Whereas WordPress’ attracts non-technical users, the same is not true of Drupal, which is squarely aimed at developers and organizations that have the expertise to maintain a more complex content management system. However, because users are expected to be experts or at least have some technical knowledge, it’s not as easy to be secure as WordPress.

Updating Drupal and its modules can be a bit of a pain compared to WordPress’s automatic minor version updates, but if you know what you’re doing, it’s not prohibitively difficult.

Drupal or WordPress?

The truth is that both Drupal and WordPress are secure if properly installed, configured, and maintained. The opposite is also true; a poorly maintained Drupal or WordPress site is a gift to hackers.

Drupal has fewer issues with plugin vulnerabilities, but if a Drupal site is left without updates for a couple of years, it’ll be hacked as quickly as an unpatched WordPress site. Moreover, because Drupal is more complex and more challenging to update, a non-technical user may struggle to maintain adequate security.

If you don’t need the power and flexibility of Drupal, then a well-maintained WordPress site is the best option — just remember to keep the site and its plugins updated. If you do need Drupal’s flexibility, then the fact that expert developers choose Drupal for highly sensitive government and corporate sites should reassure you that Drupal can be secured to the highest level.It’s important to understand that security goes deeper than whichever CMS you choose. Both Drupal and WordPress rely on utility software, a database, a web server, an operating system, and more. These must all be maintained and updated too, and that’s the job of the hosting provider. The first step in securing your content management system is to choose secure WordPress hosting or secure Drupal hosting.

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