Today, we’re thrilled to announce Small Business Community, a new experience built from the ground up to help you interact with your services, quickly and easily find answers to your questions, and participate in conversations with fellow Small Business users.
Here are a few new Community features you can start taking advantage of today:
Forums: Now you can easily connect with your fellow store owners and website administrators. We have forum topics for all of our services, as well as areas to discuss marketing and promotion, business operations, and more.
Ask a Question: Not finding what you need? Chances are that someone else has encountered the same issue and is willing to share their learned tips with you. Click the Ask a Question button on any Community page to get help from your fellow users.
System Status: Keep an eye on upcoming system maintenance, service outages, and more. Affected by one of the listed issues? Just click the Me Too button to be automatically notified when it’s resolved.
These are just a few of the new features that Community offers. We’d love for you to visit and experience it for yourself.
The busiest shopping days of the holiday season are behind us – so how did customers shop online? Last month, Yahoo’s Aabaco Small Business team shared a breakdown of the devices, operating systems, and browsers used by customers when analyzing 60 million checkout server requests. Last week, we took a look at checkouts that happened specifically during the shopping period from Black Friday to Cyber Monday to see if there were any big changes in how people shopped over the holiday weekend.
Overall, customers’ checkout habits last weekend mirror our original data, reinforcing that while it’s important to make sure your site is mobile friendly, you can’t forget that many still prefer to checkout from a computer. When looking at devices used last weekend, there was a slight increase in mobile checkouts: 40% happened from a mobile device during the holiday shopping weekend, compared to 34% earlier this year. That said, desktop/laptop continued to be the overall preferred device by customers, with 59% of checkouts happening on a computer during Black Friday to Cyber Monday (down slightly from 65% in our original study).
When analyzing browser use, Safari was up slightly (33% compared to 29%), while Chrome wasn’t as popular with customers during this shopping weekend (27% compared to 30%).
There were slight shifts when breaking down operating system use: Windows dropped from 50% to 44%, while iOS jumped from 22% to 26%.
After reading through this data, you might be interested in knowing how your customers shopped last weekend. We’ve got you covered! Head to the Insights tab on the Live Insights page – there you’ll find three graphs labeled “new” that will give you a breakdown of the type of devices you get the most revenue from, the type of devices you get the most orders from, and the device type and browser your customers use when visiting your site.
We hope all of this information helps you focus your efforts on the right areas of your ecommerce business through the holidays and beyond.
Aabaco Small Business subscribers interact with their control panels often, sometimes multiple times per day. Since the control panels see such heavy use, it’s important to us that they are attractive and intuitive. That’s why we’re pleased to announce new versions of our Email and Domain Control Panels.
The Email Control Panel has an all-new, single-page interface that simplifies common management tasks like adding and deleting email users, aliases, and more–all without waiting for another page to load. Have a look at our intro video below:
The Domain Control Panel has been completely redesigned from the ground up to dramatically reduce page load times–10 times faster than the previous version! Like the Email Control Panel, the all-new Domain Control Panel boasts a single-page design and more intuitive layout. Oh, and did we mention it’s mobile-friendly, too?
We’re thrilled to offer these enhancements, and would love to hear your thoughts. The Email and Domain Control Panels each have a Feedback link in the upper-right. Let us know what you think!
A bit about Brandon:
Brandon Yowell started as an Aabaco Small Business support representative more than
9 years ago - he might have even helped you with your online store! He’s since
worked as an Escalations Technician, and currently manages our Help
Pages. Brandon likes words.
The holidays are right around the corner, and while you’re making your list and checking it twice to ensure you have a smooth and successful holiday sales season, make sure you’re focusing your efforts on the right areas of your ecommerce business. The Aabaco Small Business team recently analyzed over 60 million checkout server requests, which counts each time a checkout page is loaded, across our Merchant Solutions platform during a two week timeframe, and while it’s been widely reported that mobile accounts for about half of all traffic to online stores, our data shows that when it comes to customers checking out, 65% of that happens from a desktop or laptop.
In this smartphone-obsessed age, it makes sense to put resources into making sure your site is mobile friendly. But as our data shows, you can’t rule out the possibility that most of your holiday sales may come from customers sitting in front of a computer. Ensure a smooth checkout experience for these shoppers and use your available canvas to reduce abandonment with these conversion optimization tips.
Next, let’s look at which operating systems we see across those 60 million checkout server requests.
While there’s a general tendency to focus on iPhone/iOS for mobile friendliness, Android can’t be forgotten about, as 12% of all sales came from customers using that operating system. Make sure to test your whole shopping process beginning to end on Android every so often - especially with the major version updates so as to not lose that valuable customer base.
It’s amazing how the browser market share has changed over the years. Today, Chrome dominates the overall browser market, but when looking at the data in our analysis, Safari accounts for an astoundingly higher percentage than its general market share might indicate. Likely, this is due to the rise of the iPad and larger iPhone screens. Also, it’s worth mentioning that “All others” in the above browser frequency chart is still almost a million sessions split between 155 other browsers. That’s a lot of ways to view your site, so make sure you place test orders in many different combinations of browser and devices, so you can please as many customers and get as many orders as possible!
A bit about Phil:
Phil Grier is a 8-year veteran of
the Aabaco Small Business team, he has spent much of this time working
with our retailers to improve their online stores and increase their
sales.
I recently had the pleasure of hitting the road to visit a couple of Aabaco Small Business’s long time retailers in-person, ProtuningLab.com and Authenticwatches.com. As their account manager, I enjoyed checking out their businesses and chatting about all-things small biz face-to-face. Thanks to these customers for welcoming me to their headquarters. Check out more about how the trip went below.
Protuninglab.com
Protuninglab.com has been with Aabaco Small Business since 2009. It offers a wide range of auto parts and accessories including body kits, blow off valves, extended studs, and more. The company’s mission is to bring consumers the highest quality auto accessories and performance parts at the most competitive prices possible.
While I was there, I did an on-site consultation with Philip, the owner of Protuninglab.com, to provide recommendations on conversion best practices to improve the store’s already impressive performance. Additionally, I reviewed the store’s back-end operation to ensure everything was working well. Finally, I was treated to a tour of the company’s facilities and warehouse.
Authenticwatches.com
Authenticwatches.com has been with Aabaco Small Business since 2001. It’s a family owned and operated business dedicated to offering Swiss-made luxury watches at competitive prices, and has been an authorized dealer of high-end watches and jewelry since 1979. The key to the company’s success? The team feels strongly that it’s the way they treat both their online and offline clients – like family.
I’ve enjoyed working with the owners of Authenticwatches.com, Berj and Shant, for over a decade. During my visit, I was able to spend time reviewing their online business and providing actionable insights on ways to increase their conversion rate. I also spent time going over recently released features such as Single Page Publish that have been beneficial to the business. Finally, I was able to give Berj and Shant a sneak peek on some upcoming features that they were really excited about.
The visit was capped off with lunch at a nearby restaurant where Berj gave our team some Texas Hold’em tips!
A bit about Vince:
Vince Dinh is a Sr. Account Manager with over 17 years of experience in the ecommerce industry. Prior to joining the Aabaco team, he was the General Manager for his family business for 7 years which gave him a wealth of real-world small business experience. Vince has helped thousands of merchants successfully grow their online businesses.
