Ecommerce Business develops rapidly day by day. In a recent research, global e-commerce sales set to grow 25% in 2015, and it promises to continue to increase through years.

The constant rise of this market draws much attention from people. It makes a highly competitive environment. You can offer quality items at a great price, or build up an awesome online store, but it’s not enough. To make your online business outstanding rather than the others, the determining factor is improving your customer service. 

Note that, “a happy customer will tell one or two people, but an unhappy customer will tell 10". For online business, an unhappy customer might not just tell 10 people, they can write a negative review on your site, criticize you on your forum, write on their blog,..... And I guess you don’t know exactly how many people will get negative information about you.

Here I am sharing some of my real experience as well as my research about the ways to improve customer service on the e-commerce site. Hope they are helpful for you.

• • Collect the customer’s feedback: One of the most critical things to develop your business is to understand what customer think about your brand, your products as well as your service. From it, you will have a real look to find out accurate strategies for  improving and developing process. You can collect customer’s feedbacks by making a short survey like Survey Monkey  or creating a poll like Advanced Poll.

• Useful FAQ’s page: Let’s gather the common questions people may have about your products or your service at FAQ’s page. It will make your customers easy to find the answer without contacting you. I guess both you and your customers will save a lot of time for responding and waiting.

• Diversify contact form: If FAQ’s page can not cover all of the questions your customers have, let’s make them easy to contact you. Instead of making a boring contact form, offer them some choices such as  live chat, send email, skype contact or free call.

• Personalize your email message: Sending the email to your customers will keep them in your business loop. Just send emails with customer’s own name. Instead of saying “Dear beloved customer”, you can say “Dear David” or “Dear Thomas”, etc….  It will create a positive effect on your customer’s brain. They will feel more friendly with your email.

There are some good email marketing providers you can reference:

 AcyMailing

MailChimp

Constant Contact

Campaign Monitor

However, the most important thing I would like to mention here is the internal factors. A good mindset of your supporter team will make your customer service better and better.

• Be helpful and informative: Customer supporters need to focus on answering customers’ questions or solving customers’ issues, not focus on redundant information such as how many sales per year, turnover rate,.... In the modern life, your customers are really busy.

• Be patient and willing to listen: When customers complain about your products or your service, let’s listen to comprehend them, then be ready to say sorry whatever you are right or wrong. If you are wrong, find the fastest and easiest way to resolve your mistake. If not, just be patient and polite to explain.

• Be in time: If your customers have any question about your products or your service, let’s reply them as soon as possible, even if you haven’t had an exact answer for their question yet, let them know you are efforting to find out the solution. Your customers will appreciate your efforts.

• Be an expert: To support for your customers well, you need to be an expert in your field with profound knowledge as well as vast experience.

A good customer service will cost a bit of time and money, however, an unhappy customer will cost you the dozens of times by losing a lot of potential customers. Think carefully and act accurately to make your customer service better and better.

Content is the king, it will help you increase the traffic of your site. In the past, there were many times I failed on writing my blog posts and articles. Actually, there was a little bit disappointment, however from it, I gain a lot of lessons. Here I am sharing seven tips from my experience which make you write a great content. I hope they are useful for you .

1. Attractive Title

Almost of time, readers decide whether they will keep reading the article or not once they read its title. A good title will show the soul of your articles and increase the readers’ curiosity.

A boring and unattractive title will decrease the numbers of your audiences. They leave your article at the first glance.

2. Clearly Identify who are your audiences
You need to make clear in mind who are your audiences. For example, identify clearly that you are writing for the people living in the village or in towns, students in the school or the music fans, … so that you will decide the words, sentences as well as the writing style to use.

3. Make your article easy to read
You should use normal words for your article to make it be like a direct conversation with the readers. They will be easy to approach and catch your content.

Let’s write like you talk, it lets readers feel that they are talking with a real person, not a robot. And a more important thing, don’t tell people exactly what you want to tell them. It will keep people reading and want to find the end of what your articles are mentioning.

4. Make a visual content
Let’s make your content visual as you can by adding images, videos or infographic, etc.... A visual content will attract more readers than a text-based content. It will make your blog post or article interesting and help your readers easier to understand what you are writing about.

Moreover, a visual content will help to increase your marketing campaign for sure. Based on the research of marketer Jeff Bullas, articles with images get 94% more views than those without.
Here I show you a demo of the article including a portfolio gallery.

5. Add external links to your articles
To make Google rank your site higher in Search Engine, you need to link your new article to your older or relevant articles. Don’t use “Click Here” for your article to link to the others. Almost of people refused to click on “Click Here” link because they don’t know what the link is.
Let’s use keywords or phrases to link your article to the others.

And I am sure that a popup with redirect confirmation function will make your audiences feel happier and safer with the external links. Redirect Confirmation popup will appear when users click on an external link. The popup includes title, message, return and continue button so that users can decide to go to the external links or keep staying on the current page.

6. Make it special and interesting
There are a lot of articles published per day, so the question is how to make yours more outstanding or special than the others.
I can show you an example to make your article different: Instead of letting audiences leave a comment below the post, just make it interesting by making a poll for example. Let’s ask people a question and show them the answers to choose.
I guess the readers will be interested in this small game and of course, they also love your article.

7. Read, Revise, Repeat
Read your draft to your supportive friends and ask her/ him a series of questions such as could she/he understand what you are talking about? Are there anything missing or are there anything need to be cut off? Is there anything else she/he would like to know from that topic?
Keep those suggestion in mind to decide whether you need to change your article or not. If there is anything necessary, just make a change.

Note that: Don’t try to make your articles perfect because your blog posts or articles are never going to perfect. Maybe there is anything you can change to make your articles better only. The best writers always know when to stop editing their articles, just publish it.

You are maybe owning an online store or maybe planning to open one. The question is how to make your store be effective? How can you do to draw much attention from your customers? Or which keys make a lot of online stores be such successful, bring such high benefit annually, monthly, weekly, or even daily?

Many different factors affect to your online business such as market trend, economy, people, etc,... however, the basic one deciding your success exactly is building up an attractive, effective and user-friendly online store.

Following the useful tips below will guide you through impediments to become a successful online store owner.

Homepage

I am sure that making a good first impression is vital, it means your homepage must be eye-catching, easy understanding and clean & clear. Easy understanding means it’s about few seconds only so that your customers are able to realize properly what you’re selling or what service's you are offering. In almost cases, no customer stays on your site for a long if they feel messy and confused by the unnecessary information your homepage provides. Don’t tell them when your company established or how many members there are in your company at your home page, just put them at About Us page.

A good homepage can link visitors to category page easily. Anymore, Live Chats has the highest satisfaction levels for any customer service channel with 73%. Therefore I suggest you should consider using one live chat module for your site to make quickly interaction to your customers when they have any quick question.

You also can add banners or a popup there to show your marketing campaign or discount information.

Page Category

Categories provide a helpful way to group related products together, and to quickly tell users what a product is about. Therefore, categories also make it easier for people to find your products.

Keep your category page clean and clear though it must bring enough necessary information. They are links to product detail page, product thumbnail (for a lot of cases, thanks to these fantastic thumbnails, visitors can make purchasing decisions before they even see the price or click through to the product page), product name, short description (I mean description is short and clear, it’s optional), rating, price and especially button Call to Action like “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart”.

Having Search module will be easier for visitors to find out products they want.

Product Detail Page

Customers always want to know all information about your products, however these information must be clean and easy to understand. Let’s introduce your product concisely but enough. Necessary information for Product Detail Page is product image, price, rating, detail description, button Call to Action and even field of changelog or link documentation if your products are software.

It’s better if you can add some buttons to your product detail page. These buttons will bring relevant information of your products in which your customer can click to visit if they want. Of course, your customers will totally satisfy with this way to receive all information they need.

In addition, you yourself are able to make opportunity increase your revenue by posting some related products on your product detail page. Sometimes, people don’t know what they want until you show them, so just do everything to show customer as much as products maybe they need as possible.

Easy Shopping Cart & Payment Process

It’s so great when your online store owns clear button Call to Action and powerful shopping cart. Powerful shopping cart means users can be easy to add and remove products, clear to see all products they buy and the total amount of money they have to pay.
Next, care about your checkout page as it’s the final step on people’s shopping journey. Let’s make your customers easy to pay with necessary information only.
At checkout page, your customers can be select a payment method by cash, credit cash, etc…. Or even if you want to sell your products over the world, your customers can pay via PayPal or Skrill Moneybookers, In this case, let’s choose a software which supports for international payment method and help you manage all orders in an effective way.

Promos and Coupon Code
After all, your online shop’s look nice and powerful now. However, what we have just mentioned are necessary conditions to make your shop draw much attention from new customers and as well as bring old customers come back, it needs to have sufficient condition is to develop marketing plans and promotions.

If you launch new products or offer new discount plan, let’s make sure that these information will approach your customer by the easiest and fasted way.

You can hang banners or posters on your site or use popup to show your sale off. Of course, you must control the numbers of popup’s appearance to avoid making your customers upset. I believe customers will be more interested in your site with an attractive and interesting popup window.

Excellent Customer Service
The most important thing to improve the relationship with your customer is to develop customer service. You can not guarantee one hundred percent that customers can use your products without any error or there’s no problem with the delivery process. In those cases, let’s support for your customers well because it is the key to retaining and attracting new customers. As you know, with the rapid spread of social media today, news of bad customer experiences can spread quickly. It will directly affect to your brand.

In conclusion: The more efforts you spend for your online store, the more benefit you get from it. Keep in mind the useful tips above to make your online store more and more successful.

“Jingle bell ! Jingle bell ! Jingle all the way”

This song  makes Christmas’s atmosphere comes sooner and sooner. Surely you are planning to decorate for your house, your Christmas tree, to prepare for Xmas gifts, Xmas cards as well as Xmas parties.

So, what about your website? It will be so great if your site is also filled with Christmas because it will make a great opportunity to increase your business in this shopping  season.

I would like to share with you some tips as well as some free Joomla extensions and templates that make your website will be more attractive and more outstanding on this holiday.

1. Make your website snowy

Mention about Christmas is when people think about snow flakes, snowmans. Therefore, your website will be closer with the appearance of snow

This is not difficult to create snows on your site when you download and install Snow Falling module on your backend. This module is free and very easy to set up.The module amazes your website visitors with colorful snowflakes of which various configuration options are customizable.

Get Free Snow Falling ! Demo

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2. Countdown Timer

It will be awesome if you can remind your customers that they have only the number of shopping time left.on your website.

Smart Countdown is a awesome free extension by Alex Polonski. This component supports for multiple languages and you can display more than one countdown in the same page with individual setting.

Get Free Smart Countdown ! Demo 

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4. Design Christmas Popup.

You intend to run an advertising program, a promotion campaign or you want to give your dear customers some Christmas wishes, Christmas messages. It will be more effective when you show your customers a popup with all the great content you would like to give them.

Mega Popup from ExtStore team helps you to give your customers fast and attractive messages. With this component, your site will display a popup with great design and functions  Mega Popup shows your products, news, notices, advertisement as well as events on any pages that you want and help you to increase the traffic of your site. With this component, you can create a Xmas popup which bring your messages to customers.

Get Mega Popup ! Demo

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4. Use Christmas Template

Here I will show you some Xmas Template for Joomla. They are not only free but really attractive

JSN Boot 

JSN Boot is a free template from JoomlaShine with Xmas style and a lot of great features. You can easily re-decorate your website within 4 color variations, 5 menu styles, 40+ template parameters, responsive design and more

Get Free JSN Boot Template ! Demo

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Free Christmas Time Joomla Template

Christmas Time is a eye catching free Joomla templates provided by Site Ground. It supports both two and three-column layouts. The design layout supports multiple module positions that you can use to enhance your site appearance. It will help your customers feel closer with your website at Xmas.

Get Free Christmas Time ! Demo

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5. Design Topbar

Logo is the symbol which represent for your brand. Let’s bring some Christmas atmosphere  into it with the shadow of Xmas trees, snowmans or snow flakes to make your site awesome on this holiday.

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6. Redesign logo based on Christmas topic.

Logo is the symbol which represent for your brand. Let’s bring some Christmas atmosphere  into it with the shadow of Xmas trees, snowmans or snow flakes to make your site awesome on this holiday.

 ***

I believe your website will draw much attention from customers on this holiday. Just be free to share your ideas as well as your experiences regarding to this topic by comment below.

You are having an idea to build a Joomla website and want to use some extensions to support for it. With the thousands of Joomla extensions, you have ever wondered how to choose the best one. Here I share you my experinces. they may be useful for you to create a great website.

Clarify your needs: Which field of extension do you want to use?

You need to clarify which field you want to use a Joomla extension in, Eg: the field of E-Commerce, Access and Security, Marketing, Contact & Feedback,.... You must have your main purpose clearly in mind. Doing such a thing will help you to avoid choosing extensions which are far from your aims.

It is so great when JED has classified the functional group extensions. You only need to search keywords for extensions you want on JED.

How to realize a good Joomla extension?

Your target is to choose the best Joomla extension for your website, I recommend you follow the total steps in this blog. It will support for you find out the good one.

- Features

You should research whether extension you are choosing have almost of features you want and how many other features it includes. Other features are quite important because maybe they are not immediately useful for your site, but will be valuable in the future 

If unfortunately that extension doesn't include one or two feature as you expect, let's get in touch with extension provider and ask them if they can do custom work for you with extra fee or free.

You also should visit extension's demo to have a closer look about the way that extension displays.

- Documentation

The correct and detailing documentation is critical and necessary. It is so great to find out the answers for your questions for yourself. A good documentation will save a lot of time for you and developers.

- Support

How many channels can you use to contact with support team?. Many contact channels mean your question will be solved more quickly. The support channels can be ticket system, community forum, live chat and social media,.... You also need to consider whether the developer team are ready to do custom work for you. A extension will be more perfect when it includes some features as you expect.

- The release of new version

The regular release of new version shows the improvement of a extension as well as developer's commitment. So, please choose the extension which has the frequent appearance of the newer version. 

- Other's reviews

Other's reviews will help you have a closer look about extensions you want to choose. They will show you the real experience about features and the efficiency of support team. You need to care about the quantity of reviews of that extension and then read carefully the content of those reviews.

Lifetime for supporting and updating extension

Please consider the lifetime of support and update for your subscription. You can ask the seller some questions: "How long do I receive the support after purchasing your extensions?" or "How long is my subscription valuable?" or "Can I update newer version with extra fee or free?". Finding out the answer will help you have a specific plan for your subscription.

Refund policy

Sometimes, after purchasing an extension, you realize that extension is not suitable for your website or it doesn't include functions as you want. In those case, whethe you can request extension provider a refund. or not. It is necessary for you to research the refund policy of that company.

I hope the above tips will help you choose the best and the most suitable Joomla extensions for your website.

If you have any comment or any other idea which are relevant to this topic, please kindly share with us. They will be useful to explore together.

Because of our target to give you the best Joomla extensions, there are a lot of new versions are released on ExtStore. Here we show you the instruction to upgrade new versions which is supported by Joomla, it is easier for you.

Please every time we update our extensions, upload the combine file at first of product files ans update right version number, you will receive a update notification.

Get Download ID

To be allow to upgrade new version, firstly you need to get your download ID

Go to ExtStore, click My Download => Login

Your download ID will be placed in the box, please copy this ID and go to the next part.

Current Version Confirmation

Using your download ID to confirm you are using your current version.

From backen, choose Extensions => Plugin Manager, search System - ExtStore Extension Update Helper.

Click on System - ExtStore Extension Update Helper to enter your Download ID. Remember Enable to activate this plugin

After these steps, you have permission to update new version.

Update New Version

On backend site, go to Extensions => Extension Manager => Choose Update option.

Search and choose extensions you want to update then click Update button

After all. a message informs that the new version is successfully updated will appear on the screen and the new version number will be automatically placed in the version option.

The process of upgrade is completed, now, it is time for you to explore the new features and experience the various of bug fixes. The new versions will meet your desires and bring a lot of value into your business. 

Advanced Portfolio helps you create portfolio on Joomla websites easily even if you don’t have technical skills, time or a huge budget. This extension offers two options: the free version supports Joomla 3 only while the pro version supports both of Joomla 2.5 and Joomla 3, plus tons of amazing features. However, whether you use pro or free version, sometimes you will need quick tips to better use Advanced Portfolio.

1. Change word “All” and its background color

+ To change word “All”, just edit com_advportfoliopro_filter_all=”All” to com_advportfoliopro_filter_all=”Whatever” in file en-GB.com_advportfoliopro.ini
+ To change background color of “All”, just search line 55 in file style.css, then edit #2DA0CE to #newcolorcode in:

+ You can also edit text of color of “All” by editing #FFFFFF to #newcolorcode

2. Opacity of information overlay

You need to find file default.php in path: views\projects\tmpl\default.php
+ Search code:

+ Change to

+ Changing rgba(0,0,0, 0.5) determines to what degree the information overlay reveals the layer beneath it (opacity).

3. Widen/Narrow gaps between images

Still in file style.css
+ Search
.projects-wrapper .column-5 {
width: 18.4%;
}
+ Change width to fit your needs.

4. Back to previous page

To add “Back” button to each project, search in file: views/project/tmpl/default.php, then add code:

5. Turn off navigation arrows

Again, we need to find file style.css. Search .project-nav .prev-project & .project-nav .next-project, then remove background property.

Joomla users come from different countries all over the world and many of them don’t speak English. To benefit more users and contribute to Joomla community, we are calling translation works for all ExtStore extensions.

I like to contribute my translations

If you like to contribute your language files as a translator for our Joomla extensions, we would be more than happy to accept you! Being a part of this project, you will enjoy special benefits from us. We will select high quality translation works to publish on the official ExtStore website.

Cool! Where should I begin?

You can contact us via email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and mention which language you would like to translate. If you have any query, please feel free to send your questions to the same email address.

You have a question about ExtStore product, but don’t know what to do? No need to worry! With smooth support process, you can find the best answer quickly and easily.

While waiting for next changes of ExtStore services in the coming year, you can browse through the following Infographic. Hope you could find useful information and know how the process works.

What do you think about our infographic? Just feel free to leave your comments here. You are also welcome to share the infographic on your own blog or website.

Both of commercial and non-commercial websites need the Contact page because it is one of the best ways to get in touch with website visitors. Fortunately, Joomla has a default component that allows you to create a simple Contact Us page with just a few clicks.

Create a Contact item

In the Admin Panel, go to Components > Contacts then hit the New button to create a new Contact page.

Write all the information that you want to show on the Contact Us page. Make sure that you entered a valid e-mail. Once the information are filled, click on Save button.

Show Contact Us page in Joomla Menu

For example, we want to link Contact Us page in the Main Menu. Go to Menus > Main Menu > Add New Menu Item. Click to choose Menu Item Type.

Next, choose Contact > Single Contact

Hit the Select button to choose one Contact and click Save.

That’s it!

Even an end-user can complete all the steps easily. Let’s try it now!