Recently southern part of India, received heavy rainfall causing floods. Worst rains it has received in 100 years. The rainfall has exceeded normal limits by over three times. According to Wikipedia, more than 450 people have died, and over 1.8 million people have been displaced. Damages and losses are estimated to be more than $3billion.
In this article I will explain you how retention rate works. Retention rate reflects the numerical estimate of the level of customer retention. It is relevant for every business, not only for e-commerce. It plays a special role when an e-commerce shop has repeat sales or works as a subscription model.
The level of customer retention shows how satisfied customers are and how business is developing. If you manage to keep more customers, it will lead to the rapid growth of the business.
How to calculate the Retention Rate?
The retention rate (RR) is calculated using the following formula:
RR = ((CE-CN) / CS)) x 100, where:
CE = the number of customers in the end of period;
CN = the number of new customers for a period;
CS = the number of customers at the beginning of a period;
For example, you start the month with 100 clients, and by the end of the month you have 105 clients (15 canceled their contracts and you’ve got 20 new clients).
Using the formula above, we get: ((105-20) / 100)) x 100 = 85%
That means that 85% of the customers continue to use your services.
Why RR is so important?
Retention rate – is an accurate indicator that shows how loyal and satisfied your clients are.
Couple days ago Google (now Alphabet) sent a patent query about the “needle-free blood draw”. The idea is to patent a system of blood draw and insert it in wearable electronics. According to the Alphabet the procedure lasts for couple seconds and pain-free (system sends a gas into a barrel containing a micro-particle that pierces the skin. Once blood is released from the skin, it’s sucked up into the negative pressure barrel.
The Company announces that it enables to collect small portion of blood enough to conduct a glucose test, so it makes, if released, be a indispensable for diabetics.
Indeed the number of people with diabetes is huge in US and it can open a valuable door for new business. But again and again we are prompted to raise the personal data issue: what will be happening with blood samples? Where the base of samples will be stored? Just inside the device?
What Do You think, guys?
Internet users can now make 3D-walk through the Olbia – open-air museum. With 360-degree panoramas of the virtual museum visitors will see the ancient ruins and archaeological sites. The journey is accompanied by images, videos, sounds and fun facts.
As part of the tour are invited to visit two museums and a variety of locations of ancient Greek colony, marked on the map. On the territory of the ruins of the fortifications, urban neighborhoods, area-agora, tombs, workshops and a necropolis.
The “Olbio. The open air museum “is implemented in the framework of” Digital conversion of Mykolayiv region. “Mykolaiv region has a great potential in the field of leisure and tourism, so tourism sector will be the main component of the “digitization”, said Director of Public Relations with the authorities Ukrainian Oleg Yakymchuk Google.
The program “Digital conversion of Mykolayiv region” is to increase the investment and tourist attractiveness of Mykolayiv region with the help of modern technology. It is also planned to hold seminars for civil servants, which will talk about the role of digital technologies in the life of the city.
It’s a second huge project that was done with Ukrainian authorities and IT giant.
Even some five years ago, the phrase “Chinese phone” was associated only with something counterfeit or not good enough quality. But recently, enterprising Asians claim to be good, and even the leading smartphones. In particular, when the OnePlus project started, his main idea was – to produce the ideal machine for the price and quality, while having Chinese ancestry.
Advantages of the new brands that they have not yet developed a persistent advertising position from which they can not move a single step, and thus much easier to adapt to the market, fashion and new trends among consumers. It is easier to do something fresh and unexpected.
So, OnePlus launched a new and strange advertising campaign. On Facebook, company posts a post with the inscription – “We are working on the perfect gift for your friends, non-geek” and attached a photo. In the picture a black background hand holding something black, shaped like a mobile phone and an inscription – «Think different», like anything but ad dubbed scandalous. It’s all in the slogan, which formerly belonged to from Apple.
Media immediately erupted with angry articles and accusations of plagiarism. But, I think, in the PR-department of OnePlus sit not fools. It was possible to invest a lot of money in new individual slogan order very expensive company promotion, sit bite your elbows, because not all advertising has gone well. And you could do something like this, pour into Facebook, and all the world’s media do you advertise with pleasure, just sit and watch.
Incidentally, the scandalous PR on Facebook Chinese did not stop there. Then there was information that they have stolen up closer to Apple, than someone who once could afford. They decided to dress up iPhone, what proudly proclaims on its homepage.
Case for iPhone 6 and 6S for $ 19.99, which is carefully preserve gadget intact. It is made of the same plastic Black Sandstone, as the smartphone OnePlus 2 and crowned with the logo “1+”. Along with the cover comes complete invitation to purchase OnePlus X Ceramic or, if lucky, a gift certificate for OnePlus X. In honor accessory even made a moving promotional video.
And here attention!
A huge number of websites, newspapers, magazines, public, ordinary users OnePlus threw stones for such advertising. Like, they stole a slogan, and even contrived cover to cover the apple logo and pose as normal the next iPhone OnePlus, so if a company advertises a future smart phone, it has already lost.
I’ve been reading these articles, and thought – and what a smartphone OnePlus going to let that under him to bring this company, because the last OnePlus released in November? Information about the prepared new smartphone I have not found, but noticed identity photos with advertising «Think different» and demonstration photo cover for the iPhone.
“Scandalous advertising next smartphone” from OnePlus not treated this next smartphone, because it is not in sight. Advertising was created just under Case for the iPhone, which, together with, gives the buyer the opportunity to acquire more and OnePlus X, if necessary, as smartphones are sold by invitation only. Accordingly, so the slogan was chosen Apple. Of course, OnePlus thus draws attention to itself and its products, but not as many people think.
The original – yes, strange – yes, mystery, yes – but not scandalous. OnePlus simply duped hundreds of news sites.
Technology is changing everything, therefore, how is going business and labor market to look like in the nearest decade? “Irish Independent” prepared 10 world professions on the basis of Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN) report. EGFSN is a group of experts, who counsel the Irish government on the matters of labor market. They forecast the further need for data analysis and the skills that are connected with it. Moreover, they see a huge potential in so called “Sharing economy”, which is now being tested by startups like Uber or Airbnb.
There is a lot of garbage in space and they are dangerous for communication satellites. Scientists plan to start “Pac-Man” satellite, which will be cleaning and the specially trained astronauts should be ready in 5 years.
Because of cybercrimes a lot of companies and private persons already lost a lot of money, therefore, cybercrimes investigators are and will be needed.
A lot of companies fight to cut the expenses as much as possible and that is why the demand for virtual assistants, who provide online administrative and technical support for customers, will increase.
DHL drones already function on the islands of North Sea and other companies like Google or Amazon are preparing for making this step as well, therefore, controllers of drone air traffic will be needed soon.
Photonics is a development of electronics, which uses photons instead of electrons. Surgical instruments, computers for high-speed communications, and measurements of pollution – all will depend on photonics very soon and here is a place for photonics engineers.
Tesla already has produced cars in accordance with sustainable transport, the next step are trucks.
Data collections are already huge and they will just grow bigger. Despite the innovated tools for analysis, the human factor is irreplaceable. Thanks to analysts companies are able to understand the gathered data and know how to make money out of it.
Portable technological devices will have a huge influence on remote monitoring of patient’s health. Thanks to that health service will have more data, which will enable faster and more effective diagnose and treatment process.
According to forecast until 2030 the amount of people with cancer will increase to 21,7 million, and the number of deaths to 13 million. The new proposal of fighting with this disease is so called “Calculation Pathology” (C-Path), which will analyze and assess the images connected with cancer; however, the human factor will be vital.
Businesses like Uber, Airbnb, Nimber or TaskRabbit will be changing the private sector of economy. Thanks to focusing on small services like cleaning, assembly or home repairs people will be able to make money way faster.
Do you agree with EGFSN? Or maybe, in your opinion, there will be more prominent business to invest in and professions that will be more needed then these 10?
Source: http://tvn24bis.pl/ze-swiata,75/a-moze-kosmiczny-smieciarz-10-zawodow-przyszlosci,570975.html
How often do you send a message to someone and immediately regret it? Sometimes we accidentally send a message to the wrong person, do typos or simply write too much under the influence of emotions. It is for these situations Viber released update 5.6.5, which allows you to delete the message sent to the recipient device, whether he read it or not.
Delete message can be for a single user or a group. Viber automatically ask the sender wants to delete a message for all or just for yourself.
Another innovation that brought 5.6.5 update – an increase of uploaded files up to 200 MB. Besides, now to the messages can be attached documents, presentations and other file types that were previously not supported.
Update to get the device to iOS and Android. All iOS users can now send files directly from iCloud. But a set of new features the most expanded for users running iOS 9 – now they can reply to messages straight from the notification center, without having to open the application.
For years, decades we have been going online to purchase, music, electronics, books and literally anything you can imagine. We should be quite familiar with shopping online, however, in this so familiar environment, trust is still an issue, if not, the issue in the e-commerce sphere.
I will be looking at the German and Polish e-commerce market. One of the most developed e-commerce market in the EU and Poland, the fastest growing e-commerce market in the EU. Both markets full of opportunities. What can the Polish market learn from the more developed and established e-commerce market in Germany? A lot, but let’s look at the issue of trust that I mentioned earlier.
A representative study sponsored by the D21 Initiative and the “Federation of German E-commerce and Mail-Order-Companies” reveals that 96% of people questioned already ordered something online. Furthermore, customers prefer shops that have been rated by other users positively, the companies are based in Germany, they are certified shops and customers do not have to pay in advance. Another interesting fact, 47% of people that have never purchased online before or rarely said that the fear of misuse of their private data is the reason why they have not made purchases online.
All these facts point towards one issue – trust. Trust is the conversion rate booster and literally the only thing that stops your users from becoming loyal customers. Trust is a rather complex construction of the human mind, usually established over longer periods of time and repetitive interaction between the parties involved. However, this will not work for first time customers. Providing excellent service and constant communication with your existing customers will help to build a loyal customer base, users that have not been customers previously will need some extra convincing to make their initial purchase in your shop.
How do we convince these potential clients that we are a trustworthy shop with excellent customer service and an uncomplicated and well-designed customer experience? First things first, the e-shop itself should be clearly structured, transparent and the order process should be as easy and uncomplicated as possible. There is a variety of elements to look at, starting with product presentation, pricing, legal representation of the shop, contact center, customer data required and last but not least an FAQ and terms of service section. Interesting fact, only about 30% of German online buyers claim to not read the “AGB” or terms of service, which is usually a very long and boring document written in legal German. This shows once again, people want to be assured that in case things go south, they are safe and backed by a legal framework and they can deal with a “real” company, with an office, hopefully located in the same country.
Customers at this point are looking to build a trustworthy picture of a shop themselves; the shop has to just facilitate that process. Let the customer find what he is looking for, offer a world-class return policy and easy shipping. Certificates like “Trusted Shops” and SSL security can help to build the image of a safe shopping environment.
Certificates like Trusted Shops try to offer a guarantee for the reliability and trustworthiness of shops. People do actually look for this kind of reference on a webpage in order to build trust. A trusted shop and SSL certificate are therefore highly recommended and relatively affordable in their implementation.
Even though trusted shops tries to provide a European certificate, I think there is still room for improvement. The European E-Commerce and Mail Order Trade Association (EMOTA) is working on an own certificate, however, personally, I see here a lot of room for improvement and a stronger image and reputation, as well as higher level of recognition are required to give these certificates the desired effect. Internationalization of e-commerce seems to be still developing, as customers are highly suspicious of foreign companies on the e-commerce market. Even though, we imagine the internet as borderless space. This is especially challenging for foreign E-commerce shops that would like to enter e.g. the German market.
This is also a call out to European law makers to facilitate the development in e-commerce and provide a truly international e-commerce marketplace with a common set of rules, regulations and customer protection acts.
The Polish e-commerce market is not mature yet, which provides a lot of opportunities for e-commerce, as well as supporting functions like Logistics to benefit of the developments in the fastest growing e-commerce market in Europe. Trust is in fact a major issue in Poland, since there is still a large amount of the population unfamiliar with e-shops or even the internet in general. The market will have to educate and build trust to the customer. Certificates are not as widely spread and do not have the recognition, even though trusted shops entered the Polish market a while ago. As a lot of people are not online yet, especially in the older demographics, it is crucial to use a combination of online and offline tools to give people a feeling of trust in companies that do not have a physical shop. E-commerce leaders are so far almost without exception a combination of online and brick-and-mortar stores. This will certainly be one of the biggest challenges for the Polish e-commerce market in the future.
