The 3 Risks of Not Making Your E-Commerce Site Secure

According to the FBI, preventing computer fraud, network intrusions and identify theft are the key priorities of their Cyber Crime branch. Cyber-crime is on the rise as more consumers rely on the Internet and mobile technology to do things like shopping, banking and investing. As illustrated below, insecure e-commerce sites will result in serious risks and financial losses.

Vulnerability to Hackers

Everyone is aware that websites, networks and email accounts are vulnerable to hacking attacks. However, more and more consumers are primarily accessing the Internet through their smart phones. As a result, hackers are taking advantage of the lack of mobile security technology standards to target smart phones. According to Computer Weekly, Blue Coat Systems’ research shows that mobile attacks are becoming more common and malicious. For example, one of the most infamously popular methods is cyber-blackmail, when mobile ransomware penetrates and takes over a user’s phone. In order to unlock their phone, the user is required to pay money or divulge personal information. In addition to this, spyware is the second most popular malware program. After it surreptitiously installs itself on the user’s phone, spyware programs will monitor online habits, behaviors and preferences. Therefore, online consumers are naturally apprehensive about e-commerce sites that appear suspicious. When they arrive at the check-out page, they may not end up purchasing because they aren’t sure if credit card information will be safe. The best way to overcome this problem is through having well-recognized security certifications that will dispel any consumer concerns over financial and identity theft. For example, a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) will encrypt consumer information the moment it’s entered on the website. In order to raise consumer awareness, be sure to provide visual clues and colored icons that alert online consumers when they are in a secure or insure part of the website.

Data Breaches

According to technology magazine Wired, mobile giant T-Mobile recently suffered one of the biggest data breaches in business history. T-Mobile had contracted with credit rating agency Experian to perform credit checks on potential customers. However, savvy hackers stole the personal information of approximately 15 million people. This included basic information, such as names and birthdays, and encrypted sensitive information, such as social security and drivers’ license numbers. While there was no financial or banking information, there is still plenty of information for cyber-criminal to commit identity fraud. Online identity theft is the biggest risk of unsecure e-commerce sites. Consider the fact that online consumers must submit both personal and financial information in order to make a purchase. Therefore, an unsecure site is a gold mine for unscrupulous hackers to target. After stealing the personal data, they can sell every victim’s personal information for anywhere from 50 to 100 dollars through underground, online black markets. Once dishonest individuals obtain this information, they can do anything from open a mortgage to apply for credit cards.

Business Interruptions 

As mentioned above, hackers that breach websites can steal information for personal gain. However, as a result of this, customers and the public will lose confidence in the company. For example, in just one night, T-Mobile lost the confidence of 15 million current and potential customers. Assuredly, there will be millions of potential customers who will avoid doing business with T-Mobile in the future. Consequently, insecure e-commerce sites may result in a serious PR debacle that will need the expert assistance of a costly reputation management to restore consumer and investor confidence. 

Keep in mind that a massive data breach or loss of consumer confidence over insecure websites will disrupt business, drive customers away and reduce revenue. There may be other unforeseen financial costs, such as legal fees or IPR lawsuits. There may also be other problems, such as strained partner relationships or government regulatory body investigations.

In summary, an insecure e-commerce site is a recipe for PR, operational and financial disaster. Companies can minimize these risks through following standard online security protocols, investing in cutting edge security programs and incorporating online risk management into executive strategic planning.

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Top Ecommerce Tips To Implement For Better Online Customer Experience

Quality goods are no longer sufficient to stay competitive in the digital era. Nowadays consumers have many buying options to choose from and tend to stay loyal to the brands that provide exceptional customer experience. According to Forrester, 73% of consumers would like to buy more where they had a positive customer experience. What exactly you can do to win customers and improve relationships with customers across the entire customer journey? What kind of new tools you can incorporate into your business processes to achieve higher level of customer satisfaction and increased up-selling opportunities? Read on for some Top Ecommerce Tips…

To stay competitive, you should craft strategies taking into account what is trendy and upcoming.

If you are not aware of the emerging trends in the ecommerce field, here are some suggestions to help you revise the basics to achieve superior customer support experience for your online store:

Software for managing online communities

One of the most cost-effective ways of strengthening relations with customers is to build active and supportive community of brand advocates. Online community software solutions can help brands to build and manage their communities online. Such web-based tools, like www.getsatisfaction.com can help you facilitate the conversations between brands and customers, provide a more engaging support experience, build better products reviews, increase SEO and, finally, improve customer loyalty.

Combination of big data and CRM

Another trend to watch for in the ecommerce space are tools that help companies examine the large volumes of data to help them in making data-driven decisions. When taking into consideration customer data, big data refers to large amounts of either transactional data or analytical data. With the help of CRM the information can be structured in various ways for the different purposes: design, pricing decisions or demand forecasting. Ecommerce businesses struggle to make sense of big data because of its volume, the speed in which it should be collected and the great variety of channels it encircles. While big data technology is cheaper due to the open source tools, main spending is connected to CRM implementation to collect and analyze a complex data. The CRM solution is required to have powerful data collection capabilities as well as the ability to get the information from different sources, like bpm’online CRM does.

Multiple sales channels

Nowadays customer browsing is not limited to a single website so ecommerce business owners can consider setting up multiple storefronts to get new clients and better manage customer service. The idea is to welcome customers from multiple channels, building sites for the different target audiences.  When online stores are ready to create multiple storefronts, www.shoppingcart1.com can be an example of the software solution that support multiple storefronts.

Free Return

Free shipping has always been appealing for online shoppers. Now free shipping and free return is a proven tactic to turn buyers into repeat customers. Amazon.com was the first store who offered free shipping and return as part of their loyalty program, but in most cases, the consumer still has to pay for return shipping. Offering free return shipping is one of the hottest ecommerce trends, which is becoming popular now among customers. If an online store can offer free returns, it can show the customers not only the confidence about the products, but also the flexibility and great attitude towards customers.

Online shopping has been growing and retailers should look for new reasons to attract shoppers to spend more. As technology continues to rapidly evolve, ecommerce business might employ more sophisticated tools and facilities to make online shopping a lot more efficient and engaging for their customers.

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[Event] New Dublin WooCommerce Meetup to Bring Woo-Entrepreneurs Together

Wikipedia states “WooCommerce is an open source e-commerce plugin for WordPress. [..]  Launched on September 27, 2011,[3] the plugin quickly became famous for its simplicity to install and customisation and being free in nature. [..] In May 2015, WooThemes and WooCommerce were acquired by Automattic, operator of WordPress.com and core contributor to the WordPress software. [..] For the 2nd week of March 2015, Trends indicated that WooCommerce ran on 24% of e-commerce sites online with total downloads reaching 6.7 million.”

But as a Woo-lover and Woo-developer, numbers don’t really mean much. The more entrepreneurs I meet in town, the more website owners I speak to, the more social media addicts I “talk” to, WooCommerce is sure to become the biggest provider of Ecommerce functionalities in the next few months.

Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has just acquired WooCommerce, included its worldwide staff of 50+ people, for an amount that is close to $30,000,000. Now, that is what you call an investment!

With 7million downloads worldwide, we’ve decided to start a Dublin WooCommerce Meetup.

Upcoming WooCommerce Meetup: 12 August

 

The first event saw approximately 25 entrepreneurs attending, all from different backgrounds (web designers, developers, ecommerce entrepreneurs, WordPress enthusiasts). Realex Payments kindly sponsored venue and….. drum roll… free drinks!

Good news is – we’re running our WooCommerce Meetups every 2nd Wednesday of the month, in Dublin 2 (and specifically in the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, 7 Clare Street).

Or next appointment is on Aug 12th (RSVP here by Aug 11). We’ll discuss:

  • best practices for WooCommerce/WordPress website hosting
  • hosting platforms: who is using what, for how much, and what the feedback is
  • website speed: hosting and caching plugin recommendations
  • backing up and security: tips and suggestions to keep our websites secure and 99% hack-proof

Why is this WooCommerce Meetup important to me?

The main obstacle being faced by web developers, graphic designers and website owners is… TIME.

You would agree with me if I said WooCommerce is easy and fast, however this only applies to basic ecommerce functionalities. There are hundreds of free and premium plugins, thousands of themes, millions of PHP snippets available to accomplish advanced tasks.

So, TIME is money and we wish we had some extra hours a day to run the whole process smoothly!

This month, we’ll discuss openly about hosting providers, hosting plans, website speed, backup and restore planning and whatever is related to the best practices of “starting with the right foot“.

If you charge a considerable amount of money to develop WooCommerce websites, or if you’re investing in your next WooCommerce website, it’s extremely important to select the best hosting options before starting with the development.

When is the next Dublin WooCommerce Meetup on?

Happy Woo-Entrepreneurs of Dublin while enjoying their Free Drinks On July 8th

Happy Woo-Entrepreneurs of Dublin while enjoying their Free Drinks On July 8th

As already mentioned, we’ll be meeting in the Dublin Chamber of Commerce at 8pm on August 12th.

We asked Blacknight, Letshost, SpiralHost, Digiweb and other companies to attend so we’ll see if they’re brave enough to attend and answer our questions!

For sure, there will be myself, recently appointed WooCommerce Meetup Organiser by WooThemes/Automattic, and several other entrepreneurs such as website owners, designers and developers. In the first event, 2 great guys drove down from Cork to attend – so there is really no excuse if you live in Dublin!

To register (it’s free of course, plus Realex Payments will get you a free drink afterwards!), visit http://www.meetup.com/Dublin-WooCommerce-Meetup/events/223649210 now.

Hope to see you there!

 

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Calling all Innovators & Entrepreneurs, we need your help & your green VOTE !!

As with any Irish technology company, we all suffer unique challenges when growing business internationally. As a country we have a small population so we struggle when trying to make as much noise as our International competitors. Even places we assume are tiny states such as Haiti & Togo have twice and three times our population.

Hence we need your help…

One of our company’s, Surface Power HONE which has developed a revolutionary “daylight” powered Nano-heat engine technology is short-listed (final 18 was judged by experts) for the 2Degrees Champions Award –  “Innovation of the Year” which is the world’s leading collaboration platform and service for sustainable business with over 46,500 members from 177 countries. https://www.2degreesnetwork.com/

Surface Power HONE has nearly 7,000 installations of this patented technology over 8 countries to date and it has been kept fairly secretive until recently. The technology was field tested in the West of Ireland & New Zealand as the daylight levels are some of the lowest in the OECD. In short, it replaces the use of oil and gas for heating and cooling with free daylight. Have a look at LIVE customers on our website such as the UK National Health Service running their hospital’s central heating on free “daylight” (sounds mad but true !!)

The next phase of the 2Degrees “Innovation of the Year Awards” is a voting stage which will reduce the final 18 to 5 for the big awards ceremony and we need your help and your vote. 

Although already in the short-list of 18, we are the only Irish Technology company in this shortlist and are up against huge players such as Nestle, General Motors & B&Q.

You can vote for us by clicking the link below to get us into the final 5 and we thank you in advance for that vote. Be sure to tweet it afterwards using the link so we can personally send you a thank you tweet. Go raibh maith agat as do chabhair.

Best Regards, John Quinn, CEO. (Twitter – @johnquinn_irl )

Read our story and VOTE from below.

https://www.2degreesnetwork.com/groups/2degrees-community/resources/surface-powers-nano-engine-harvests-light-generate-heating-and-cooling/

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