We’re Maropost-India, a 2022 Great Place To Work certified company and Canada’s 4th fastest growing tech company as named by Profit 500! Our Software as a Service Marketing Cloud technology provides organizations with a single platform to connect with customers via marketing automation, mass and transactional email, social media, mobile messaging, landing pages, and ecommerce

Maropost

maropost

In the e-commerce realm, Shopify has long dominated as a key player, becoming nearly synonymous with online retail. Boasting a plethora of features, integrations, and customization options, it's no wonder that businesses large and small have flocked to the platform. However, Maropost has recently emerged as a compelling alternative, capturing the attention of users in search of a more tailored solution. : Vested Interest Disclosure The author is an independent contributor publishing via our . Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYOR brand-as-author program So, why are users now gravitating towards Maropost despite Shopify's prominence in the industry? Let's dive into the discussion and uncover what sets Maropost apart as an e-commerce contender. First, it's important to note that up until very recently, Maropost and Shopify were very different platforms. While Shopify is primarily an e-commerce platform, Maropost focuses on marketing automation and customer engagement. For those looking for a platform to help manage marketing campaigns and improve customer engagement, Maropost was always the better choice. Founded by Ross Andrew Paquette in 2011, Maropost quickly became a leading marketing automation and customer engagement solutions provider. The platform offered (and continues to offer) an integrated suite of tools that can help businesses manage all their marketing channels in one place, including email, SMS, social media, push notifications, and more. Recently, however, Maropost has revealed a new, unified platform that offers much more than just marketing. Having acquired several new businesses recently, including Australian powerhouse Neto, Maropost Commerce Cloud has become a B2B and multi-channel e-commerce platform that provides an all-in-one solution for e-commerce, inventory management, order management, and shipping labeling. It also now offers Advanced POS software with outstanding omnichannel features (formerly Retail Express) as well as a best-in-class site search capability (formerly Findify) which offers AI-powered search, merchandising, recommendations, and collections. Given this shift, it’s no wonder merchants are flocking to Maropost in greater numbers than ever before. Another key differentiator of Maropost lies in its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. The platform includes predictive analytics and machine learning algorithms to help businesses personalize their marketing campaigns and improve their targeting and segmentation. This leads to higher conversion rates and a better ROI on your marketing spend. Maropost is also scalable – it can handle businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. The platform is highly customizable and can be tailored to meet the specific needs of each business – and more merchants than ever are starting to take note. At the end of the day, however, whether Maropost is truly a better fit for you than Shopify depends on your specific needs and goals. Shopify performs well as a comprehensive e-commerce platform. But if you're looking to improve your marketing automation, customer engagement, platform capabilities, POS software and/or your e-commerce site search, the new, unified Maropost seems to be the way to go. To learn more about Maropost, go to or follow on socials via , and . www.maropost.com LinkedIn Facebook Instagram

Deep Dive: Is Maropost a Better Alternative to Shopify?

Inmersión profunda: ¿Maropost es una mejor alternativa para Shopify?

Analyse approfondie : Maropost est-il une meilleure alternative à Shopify ?

डीप डाइव: क्या मारोपोस्ट शोपिफाई करने का एक बेहतर विकल्प है?

詳細: Maropost は Shopify の優れた代替手段ですか?

Mergulho profundo: o Maropost é uma alternativa melhor ao Shopify?

Tìm hiểu sâu: Maropost có phải là giải pháp thay thế tốt hơn cho Shopify không?

深入探讨：Maropost 是 Shopify 的更好替代品吗？

221 Stories To Learn About User Experience

Let's learn about via these 47 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Shopify /Learn Repo 1. What I learned from interviewing at Twitter, Webflow, Netlify, and Shopify The week after a rejection email is tough. My brain recreates the interview looking for mistakes and inserting thoughts that I will never be good enough to work 2. How to Auto-Generate Promotional Graphics for your New Shopify Products This tutorial will teach how to auto-generate promotional graphics each time you add a new product to your Shopify store. 3. How To Setup Shopify`s Billing API One of the most common mistakes of beginning Shopify app developers is to assume that the Shopify app store will handle pricing and billing for them. Learn how to add billing code to your app to prevent selling it for free. 4. Snackable Business Model Breakdowns - Maven.com Snackable Business Model Breakdowns of Maven.com Maven is a platform that enables instructors to launch and run their cohort based classes successfully. 5. THE BRANDNUDE STANDARD FOR PRODUCT SEARCH I’m not calling myself a hero, but you may after reading this 6. Why the Hottest News at Bitcoin 2022 Was Not About Bitcoin This year’s Bitcoin 2022 in Miami came after the legalization of Bitcoin in El Salvador in September last year bringing the announcement of Shopify integration 7. Side Hustles for Software Engineers to 3x their Income This article discusses the best Side Hustles for Software Developers to earn additional income. 8. 5 Essential SaaS Tools for Ecommerce Startups: Shopify, Oberlo, Canva, ShipStation, and Grammarly Ignorance is bliss but in business, it can cost you a lot. Learn about the best SaaS tools to help your small business grow. A useful read for beginners. 9. 5 Trends That Show Where eCommerce Is Heading in 2021 Contributing significantly to eCommerce and its spiking sales levels, consumer habits, behaviors, and shopping trends in the USA are changing. And this change is not about to stop anytime soon, with post-Covid trends in eCommerce continuing to place further benefits on this sector and those that take advantage of these trends. 10. I choose Magento over Shopify as an eCommerce consultant Compare the world's most popular eCommerce platforms, Magento and Shopify to develop your own online business to scale to next level edge. 11. 8 Startups That Became Tech Giants via Ruby on Rails Ruby on Rails is an established, battle-tested technology that served as an excellent framework for software developers. But what’s the secret behind the success of Rails? One good reason is that ever since it appeared on the tech scene, it’s been part of projects launched by companies that have become some of the fastest-growing and largest startups we’ve ever seen. 12. You Should Migrate Your E-Commerce Website to Shopify Plus Instead of Magento 2 A huge number of Magento merchants migrate to Shopify Plus, and we review the key reasons for this so you, too, can upgrade your online retail with confidence. 13. 7 Shopify Alternatives to Create an Online Food Delivery Platform Top Shopify alternatives restaurateurs must consider to develop their online food delivery platform. 14. Delete-This Can't delete story from dashboard. To be deleted. 15. Shopify Store Backup Strategy: 3 Ways to Keep Your Business Protected This article will discuss some ways you can backup your Shopify website and protect your business from potential disasters. 16. Using Shopping Apps to Boost Profits Small e-Commerce Entrepreneurs By launching an app, you could increase retention rates, take care of your customers’ private data, and provide them with a better shopping experience. 17. Deep Dive: Is Maropost a Better Alternative to Shopify? In the e-commerce realm, Shopify has long dominated as a key player, becoming nearly synonymous with online retail. 18. Shopify's Shop Pay: What it is and How it Works Learn what is Shop Pay and apply the service to elevate user experience and make checkout quicker for repeat customers. 19. Is Shopify Oxygen Hydrogen Right for Your ECommerce Business? What are the most common challenges when building an e-commerce system on Shopify? Let's start with standard Shopify theme templates. 20. Shopify Video Apps Lead Online Retail Sales Growth for SMBs With more than one million small businesses currently using Shopify (the third-largest online retailer in the U.S. after Amazon and eBay) there’s another growth happening right now. 21. Top 5 Shopify Development Companies in the USA Top 5 Shopify Development Companies in the USA 22. Shopify vs Magento – Which One to Choose For Your e-Commerce Website? Choosing the right eCommerce platform for business means finding the right balance for your requirements. We will compare two platforms - Shopify vs Magento. 23. The Best Shopify Wholesale Apps for 2022 The Best Shopify Wholesale Apps for 2022 24. Using Open-Source Software to Disrupt Marketplaces “Disruption innovation,” a term coined in the mid-90’s, is used to describe a phenomenon where small business owners can build simpler, lower-priced products to take on less agile, established companies who have begun to focus on enterprise sales. 25. Shopify vs. BigCommerce: Which is the Better Platform for 2022? BigCommerce and Shopify are two of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market. The question is: which one will be better in 2022? 26. ECommerce APIs: How to Set Up the WooCommerce API & Shopify API Here you'll find out how to integrate well-known eCommerce APIs: Shopify and WooCommerce. With this guide, you'll be able to apply them to your online store. 27. Is it Time for Small Businesses to Go Online or is it Too Late? With our store in that cool neighborhood strip-mall, no local competition, and lots of foot traffic, life was good, and many couldn’t see the need for a fully implemented online commerce. 28. The Technical SEO Challenges of Shopify and How to Overcome Them Shopify is wonderfully simple, but that can also be a curse as small eCommerce shops start to face increased competition from incumbent brick and mortar stores. 29. Top 10 E-commerce Website Designs for 2020 What pulls customers to an E-commerce store? 30. How To Start an Online Store Without Taking The Knock Pandemic has affected more than 200 countries throughout the world. It impacted the global economy severely and global stock markets have suffered drastic falls due to the outbreak. According to Statista, almost 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars have been lost in economic output. People got locked down in their homes and that was the only way to stay safe from the deadly virus. Stores, restaurants and shopping malls were closed and there was no business at all. 31. 5 Shopify Alternatives that Make Ecommerce Simple for Beginners In 2004, Tobias Lutke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Luke established an online website to sell snowboards. They tried a bunch of online store builders but were not satisfied with the status quo. So, they decided to build a tool that could operate their website. Soon, they realized that the tool was more powerful than the website's business. And hence, Shopify was born. 32. 6 Best Zendesk Alternative Software for ECommerce in 2021 The best Zendesk alternatives for anyone in the e-commerce business. Comparison of 6 customer service tools. 33. An Introduction to Shopify and Embedded Fintech Stacks A lot has been written about Shopify’s potential as an Amazon alternate. Ben Thompson’s post on Shopify as a platform does a great job of justifying the growing value of Shopify in the commerce ecosystem. It is Shopify and not Walmart/Best Buy that is Amazon’s closest alternative and by far the easiest way for a seller to start selling online - more than 1,000,000 stores are already selling through Shopify. 34. WooCommerce vs. Shopify for Dropshipping Business We already discussed the principles of the dropshipping and risks related to it. Although it indeed carries risks, it’s a developing eCommerce form. It is involving more people on three sides: buyers, intermediates, and producers. 35. How to Forecast Purchase Orders for Shopify Stores Using Open-Source Use the open-source integrated machine learning in MindsDB and the open-source data integration platform Airbyte to forecast Shopify store metrics. 36. Mexico is A Good Alternative to China for E-Commerce Fulfillment Getayuda offers Ecommerce stores a seamless bridge to transact with Mexican factories that can match the price and quality of their production. 37. PPC Prep for the Holidays: Google Shopping Ads Features To Use For Your Shopify Store The partnership allows Shopify stores to directly link to Google ads, simplifying merging product inventory and payment options between Shopify and Google. 38. How Technology Companies Have Reinvented Their Business Models During Pandemic Times The primary misunderstanding about business innovation, which leads to inaction is believing that reinventing or innovating your business starts from technical implementations. 39. Top Shopify Dropshipping Themes for Different Business Niches I won’t surprise you if I say that a convenient website that works smoothly is a must-have if you deal with dropshipping, right? 40. 5 Online Business Ideas You Can Start From Home (Ecommerce) In the wake of the recent global Coronavirus pandemic, most of us have gone into self isolation to protect ourselves, our loved ones and others. 41. 11 Reasons To Build Your Next E-Commerce Websites On Shopify 11 Reasons Why Shopify Web Designers Love To Build E-Commerce Websites On Shopify including the theme store, customization, and more. 42. An In-Depth Look at Shopify Plus: The Last E-Commerce Monolith Platforms like Shopify Plus offer headless capabilities, but the real magic is in modular commerce technology. 43. 10 Best Shopify Apps Used by Online Stores Making Over $10 Million The market offers jillions of Shopify apps. It’s no surprise. But here’s the catch. You will have to find the best Shopify apps that fulfill the requirements of your eCommerce store. 44. Top 3 Ecommerce Website Development Platforms [2021] Popular Ecommerce Website Platforms to develop an online store with cart,  payment gateway, SSL, and hosting in 2021 are Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento. 45. How You Can Drive Traffic To Your Shopify Store No matter if you’re just starting out with your first store, or are running a multi-million dollar enterprise, every eCommerce entrepreneur has one question that never leaves their mind: 46. How to Build a Shopify Integration A how-to guide to building a Shopify integration with the Shopify API in low-code. We go over how to create a private app, connect it to Shopify and query data. 47. 10 Ways You Can Make Money Online From Your Home The idea of starting your own business from home is exciting. Although it requires time and a little investment, starting out isn't that difficult. Thank you for checking out the 47 most read stories about Shopify on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

47 Stories To Learn About Shopify

100 Stories To Learn About Online Shopping

356 Stories To Learn About Ecommerce

Let's learn about via these 81 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Ecommerce Business /Learn Repo 1. Share Your #Ecommerce Story and Win from $1,000! This writing prompt is for the eCommerce enthusiasts - from developers and architects to product managers, engineers and more! 2. Headless vs. Composable Commerce: And the eCommerce Oscar Goes To... Composable Commerce Is Headless Commerce On Steroids 3. The Online Shopping Trends of the Future How will eCommerce look in a few years? Discover the future trends of the industry and transform your online business! 4. How to Start a Dropshipping Business on Walmart Are you thinking of dropshipping on Walmart? Here are five pieces of advice before you start. 5. Believing in the Power of Ideas: Startup Interview With Paul Wilcox Co-founder of The Hatchit Marketplace talks about their buy and sell platform for online businesses and why they are excited about the benefits of AI. 6. The Most Promising eCommerce Business Ideas for 2022 Considering the demand and opportunities to expand here are the top eCommerce business ideas to start with in the year 2022. 7. How AI Can Help eCommerce Survive and Thrive in 2023 Has eCommerce become AIcommerce already? 8. How to Leverage Predictive Analytics in Your eCommerce Businesses Predictive analytics is able to predict which customers are most likely to churn or which products are most likely to be returned. Here are 6 other use cases. 9. 2022's Top 5 eCommerce Website Design Trends In this article, learn about the current best web design trends to keep your eCommerce website ahead of the competition. 10. Improving eCommerce Product Discovery with Recommendation Engines Find out how eCommerce stores can improve product discovery for customers with the power of AI-enabled recommendation engines. 11. 5 Steps To Build Your Dynamic Pricing Engine With the emergence of online platforms, B2B businesses have had to reconsider their pricing strategies. But, these same technologies help the organizations create dynamic B2B pricing models that bring substantial profits if implemented correctly. For example, an integrated sales and B2B pricing software can help sales reps negotiate with customers and reduce the processing period. 12. Technology Has Led to the Boom of DTC E-Commerce; Here’s How to Take Advantage The very nature of the internet has drastically changed the way startups try to reach their customers, with many e-commerce brands deciding to bypass traditional resellers entirely so they can have greater control over their customer experience. 13. 3 Common Misconceptions of Running an E-commerce Business for First-Time Entrepreneurs Three common misconceptions about running an e-commerce business and their corresponding realities. 14. Machine Learning: Role in Pricing And Inventory Optimization If you want to make the right pricing and inventory decisions, then an AI-powered analytical solution is your best investment. Here’s why. 15. How the Implementation of AI in E-commerce can Boost Your Business This article is about the benefits of artificial intelligence in eCommerce. It provides a futuristic approach to artificial intelligence in e-commerce business. 16. eCommerce Marketing: Actionable Tactics to Drive More Sales eCommerce marketing strategies help companies in driving traffic to their platform, eventually converting it into paying customers. Read more on the blog. 17. Bricks-and-Clicks, or Why Omnichannel Is the Future of Retail In-store and online retail have always stood in passive opposition to each other, but in the first quarter of 2019 this confrontation took an especially dramatic turn. Multiple mass media outlets published articles with agitated headlines like “It's Official: "Clicks" Have Topped "Bricks" (CBS News) or “Online Shopping Overtakes a Major Part of Retail for the First Time Ever” (CNBC), which proclaimed the final surrender of bricks to clicks. 18. How Bearbottom is Rising Above E-Commerce Challenges 4 keys to having your brand stand out in DTC and eCommerce. Rise above the challenges of ecommerce with customer experience, team, and technology. 19. The History and Perks of Third Party Logistics Software in Warehouse Management 3rd Party Logistics Software can be a powerful tool in managing your online business by consolidating much of the logistics under one easy-to-use site. 20. Can Your Team Be as Powerful as the Justice League? Surround yourself with people much smarter than you, keep them happy, take care of them, let them know that you see them as important, amazing people, and they 21. Tracking the COVID-19 Impact On E-commerce Companies As all of us are trying to fight against the fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a lot of talk in the e-commerce industry about the imbalance of meeting the demands of consumers for groceries and other essentials. Many families in America, India, and Europe are trying digital e-commerce services for the first time. 22. How 3PL is Changing eCommerce Supply Chain Dynamics Outsourcing supply chain and logistics to the 3PL providers have proved to be helpful for businesses. They offer various services for improving processes, risks mitigation, and saving resources. 23. 6 Marketing Strategies to Win Back Abandoned Cart Users Practical marketing techniques to bring back abandoned cart users 24. The Digital Shopper: 4 Retail Tech Trends That Will Stay Post-Pandemic Retailers are perfectly poised to adapt with ease as we move into a post-pandemic world, having experienced such a necessary yet dizzying acceleration in digital transformations over the past year. 25. 5 Ways Conversational Commerce Can Help Your Business Conversational commerce (or conversational marketing) is a marketing method that allows brands to strike a conversation with their consumers via chat apps 26. Price APIs: The Steps for Driving Successful API Strategy Implementing a successful price API strategy can be highly beneficial. Organizations want to capitalize on the price API market and drive innovation & revenue. 27. Hyperlocal Marketplace Platform: How Does the On-Demand Hyperlocal Delivery Model Work? Customers have gained enough experience with online shopping. Their expectations keep increasing day by day. Now all they expect is to have a fast delivery. This is assured only by the hyperlocal delivery business model. 28. An Introduction to Selling Multichannel: 5 Essential Tips Multichannel retail or eRetail is selling through more than one channel (such as your website or on eBay) and getting your products in many different places. Often the easiest way is to get onto various marketplaces, such as Amazon or Fruugo. 29. Online Retail Innovation: Here's What 2021 Has In Store For Payments After The Digital Boom In 2020 The significant shift towards online shopping has been accompanied by the increasing adoption of digital payments. 30. How Big Data Can Help Personalize Your Ecommerce Store Data is everywhere. Every single detail you have ever provided online – from your address to the advertisements you’ve clicked on –is stored by browsers and applications. 31. Pro Tips for an Outstanding eCommerce Website Design Want to design a perfect ecommerce website that helps score sales? Here are some pro tips that will help you. 32. 11 Reasons To Build Your Next E-Commerce Websites On Shopify 11 Reasons Why Shopify Web Designers Love To Build E-Commerce Websites On Shopify including the theme store, customization, and more. 33. How Artificial Intelligence Backs Up eCommerce Businesses to Grow 10X Faster Futuristic eCommerce trend alert! AI has been used to improve the shopping experiences of consumers and improve the efficiency of retail operations. 34. 5 Quick Tips To Boost Your Ecommerce Sales Learn the top five methods that you can use to quickly boost your ecommerce sales. 35. How to Use Intent-Based Promotions to Drive E-commerce Revenue This article is aimed at business owners and marketing professionals looking to advance their customer engagement and sales strategies. 36. 2020's Two Best Magento Extensions to Boost Store Sales Magento is the most popular platform that offers huge flexibility and extensive support to merchants all over the globe to grow their online business. 37. E-Commerce Dropshipping: The Risks As the owner of My Small Store, I receive many requests to dropship our luxury handbags. I feel honored, yet, I decline all of the requests. Let me explain the risks associated with E-Commerce Dropshipping. 38. Sofary Lighting Founder on Why Staying Close to Technology Is the Key to Success Part-time entrepreneur leads a successful company to 567th on the INC. 5000. How did he do this and how did technology play such a big roll? 39. Using the Magento eCommerce Stage to Grow Your eCommerce Business Want to start your eCommerce business in 2022? Here is the detailed checklist of how Magento will help you to grow your e-commerce business. Must read! 40. Deep Dive: Is Maropost a Better Alternative to Shopify? In the e-commerce realm, Shopify has long dominated as a key player, becoming nearly synonymous with online retail. 41. How to Turn Your E-commerce Site into a Profitable Venture Many people start ecommerce store but only a few succeed. In this article we have mentioned actionable tips to achieve your marketing and sales goals. 42. Digital Platforms or Digital Products | An Entrepreneur’s Dilemma Digital platforms and digital products are two of the biggest e-commerce developments. They are used by entrepreneurs to increase their brand's reputation and b 43. 7 Things Ecommerce Businesses Should Do to Maximize Customer Engagement Maximizing customer engagement is a core goal for any ecommerce website. You want to make as many sales as possible in as little time as possible. 44. Avoiding The Last-Mile Delivery in E-commerce Businesses The term Last-mile delivery refers to the last stage in the order delivery process. Here, the order is transported from the distribution facility to the customer’s location. It is the most crucial stage for an eCommerce business to ensure a good shopping experience and eCommerce fulfillment. 45. How Headless Commerce Can Improve Customer Experience Do you know how does headless commerce improve customer experience? Here, we explained 4 benefits of why headless commerce is better for customer experience. 46. Top 10 E-commerce Website Designs for 2020 What pulls customers to an E-commerce store? 47. The Future of E-Commerce: The Top 5 E-Commerce Trends in 2021 As E-commerce is rising rapidly and drastically, it is also changing repeatedly. To stay in touch with the changes, here are the hottest 2021 E-commerce trends. 48. Benefits of Migration to Latest Magento Version It has been officially announced that Magento 1 rounded off its support on June 20, 2020, which means that new features and updates are no longer delivered for this edition of the platform. How will it affect your business? Staying with Magento 1, you are likely to experience: 49. The Impact of AI in Demand Generation is Exemplary. Here’s all You Need to Know About it. AI does all three of these and generates more demand for B2B businesses. If you wish to dig in & know more about using AI in eCommerce read this article. 50. Best eCommerce Marketplace Platforms to Start An Online Business in 2022 I’ve created a list of top eCommerce platforms that you can consider to start your business, and if required, conduct an in-depth research. 51. Unstoppable Future of eCommerce Business (Survey) E-Commerce is a versatile business opportunity. It is a trend that changes with time. Therefore, a business needs to cope up with changes in e-commerce to grow sales. There are too many eCommerce businesses mistakes to avoid that everyone has to learn. 52. Amazon's Financial Future: Expansion Plans, Leveraging AWS, and Investment in Customer Loyalty Amazon reports slower-than-expected Q4 growth, but Prime and AWS boost revenue. The company removed 18000 job roles but aims for long-term growth. 53. From Mad Scientist To Bruce Wayne: A Founder's Fight To Protect The Mind MUD\WTR is a disruptor in the anti-caffeine and pro-mushroom movement. An underdog up against significant dominance and entrenched cultural norms. 54. Using Shopify 2.0 to Build a Successful Online Store Selecting a suitable platform to establish your online business is a monumental effort in the world of E-commerce. 55. How to Monitor a Bagisto e-commerce in Real-Time using Inspector Hi I'm Valerio, software engineer from Italy and CTO at Inspector. 56. Is it Time for Small Businesses to Go Online or is it Too Late? With our store in that cool neighborhood strip-mall, no local competition, and lots of foot traffic, life was good, and many couldn’t see the need for a fully implemented online commerce. 57. 5 Marketing Techniques to Increase Sales For Your New Ecommerce Business in 2021 Starting an Ecommerce Business in 2021? Check out these top 5 ways to market your newly formed Ecommerce Business and get to your first 500 Customers. 58. Why eCommerce Sites Need Background Checks Formal credit checks are typically associated with scenarios such as creditworthiness, insurance, employment/pre-employment screening, tenant screening, firearms purchases, and due diligence before business decisions. Interestingly enough, less-formal public records reports are used in many unconventional ways to navigate through the new normals brought on in the post-pandemic world. 59. 5 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Checkout Process Converting a user to a customer isn’t easy. So why lose them because of an optimize checkout process? 60. The Fine Balance Between Internal Product Vs. Customer-Facing - Tales From a Software Engineer Get the inside outs of working as a software engineer on internal products
vs customer-facing application for e-commerce companies in this 1950+ word post. 61. Shopify vs. BigCommerce: Which is the Better Platform for 2022? BigCommerce and Shopify are two of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market. The question is: which one will be better in 2022? 62. 6 Effective Tips For Content Creation in eCommerce Businesses Any e-commerce business has lately realized the importance of building a robust social media presence. And that is achieved primarily by creating quality content. However, other avenues such as e-commerce business websites or video platforms can thrive through creative and engaging content. 63. How Product Reviews Encourage Customer Conversations Learn Why analyzing customer insights from product review data can help companies make better strategic decisions 64. Challenges Facing an eCommerce Startup, And How To Overcome Them Challenges Facing an eCommerce Startup, And How To Overcome Them 65. 9 Proven Steps To Optimize eCommerce Product Pages That Sell The best eCommerce product pages will not only convert at rates significantly higher than standard conversion rates but also increase the average value of the purchase by ensuring that the prospects are well-informed and engaged. 66. How to Easily Install Magento on Your Server Do you want to launch your online store project using the Magento CMS? Discover our complete tutorial on installing and configuring Magento on a server. 67. What Your Customers Want out of your eCommerce Store? It’s not always an easy job to run an eCommerce store. There are different B2C and B2B relations involved. You have a store to set up, products to upload, a business to promote, orders to fulfill, payments to manage securely. 68. Establishing Order is Profitable Product catalogs play a vital role in improving the user's overall experience, especially when it comes to eCommerce businesses. 69. Magento Development for Business Owners: 5 Questions to Ask Building an ecommerce business with Magento is a challenge, but an exciting one. This sophisticated PHP-powered platform requires a deep web development expertise but, as ecommerce developers at Iflexion admit, this pays off with top-of-the-line results apart from having a modern, self-sufficient webstore. To lead a Magento project to success, business owners need to meticulously analyze their goals and match them with what Magento has to offer. 70. 7 Effective Ways to Boost Your eCommerce Business with Helpdesk 7 powerful ways to boost your eCommerce business. Customer support is crucial to retaining customers and earning loyalty to eCommerce Business. 71. PPC Prep for the Holidays: Google Shopping Ads Features To Use For Your Shopify Store The partnership allows Shopify stores to directly link to Google ads, simplifying merging product inventory and payment options between Shopify and Google. 72. How Can an API-Based Web-To-Print Solution Benefit E-Commerce Businesses? Successful integration of a W2P solution can help an organization in various ways. First, it allows their clients and prospects to place orders quickly and easi 73. How to Create A Ecommerce Website like Ebay: Features & Business Model How does eBay work? The question raises many entrepreneurs and also who plan to set up businesses like eBay. Here the detailed guide before start like eBay. 74. How to Use Facebook Lookalike Audiences to Grow Faster Online Phew. Maybe you’ve moved your small business online, either with some landing pages or an ecommerce store. You’ve started building an email list of customers that want to hear about your latest offers. Maybe you’ve even set up Google Ads to advertise to people who are searching for what you’re selling. 75. Our Outreach Setup That Grew an E-Commerce Store to 2.5M ARR [How We Did It] This article is a step-by-step guide on how to get quality data, set up your email accounts, and follow up at a scale of 100k emails per day with a 95% inbox rate. 76. 3 Factors To Consider When Evaluating Private Label Manufacturers In this article, we’ll cover the three areas to focus on when choosing a private label manufacturer to work with. They are Communication, Testimonies & Pricing. 77. Social Commerce Has Taken China By Storm: Why not India? Social commerce is the fastest-growing segment within the relatively mature e-commerce segment in China. Pinduoduo does almost $145B in annual GMV on top of sales by Alibaba and JD. 78. How to Sell Goods Online: 6 Tips to Prepare for the 2021 Holiday Shopping Season With Q4 underway, now is the time to prepare your online ecommerce store for the 2021 holiday season. Here are a few things you can do to be ready. 79. 21 Important KPIs to Leverage to Optimize Your E-Commerce Sales The last two years has accelerated the growth of the E-Commerce sector. With such rapid growth, finding the right KPIs is a challenge that many businesses face. 80. From Selling Drugs to Delivering Panties by Drone: How to Hack E-Commerce in 2022 In his book ‘What the Dormouse Said’, John Markoff mentioned ARPANET as the seminal act of e-commerce. 81. Top 30 Ecommerce Development Companies in 2020 Ecommerce is not the future of retail—it is its reality. According to a Pew Research Center survey, eight in ten Americans prefer shopping online, which means that online stores have become a powerful tool in the hands of go-getting business owners. This fact means that the idea of opening your own online store is not bad at all. Thank you for checking out the 81 most read stories about Ecommerce Business on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

81 Stories To Learn About Ecommerce Business

Ecommerce has become more important as a number of people are turning to the internet to find products and services. Ecommerce is likely to generate around per year by the end of 2022. In addition, it is estimated that will be through ecommerce by 2040. $5.42 trillion in sales 95% of all purchases Therefore, you need to take action to optimize your website and marketing to increase sales. Here are the top five methods that you can use to quickly boost your ecommerce sales: 1- Build Brand Awareness Growing your brand awareness improves trust, SEO, and repeat purchases. Thus, the more people know about your brand, the higher the chances for your sales to grow. To build brand awareness, follow these methods: Use online advertising, such as Google ads and social media ads to promote your brand. It allows you to be seen by your potential customers. Run online ad campaigns: for your audience that educates and genuinely helps them. It helps you to establish yourself as an authority in your industry. Focus on quality: Create quality content Increase your engagement with your customers by replying to your comments on social media, blogs, or forums. Get involved in the conversations. Engage with your customers: Create accounts on different social media accounts, such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter and showcase your products on these platforms. Be present on social media: Optimize your ecommerce store for search engines. It will help you to increase organic traffic on your website. Improving your SEO allows you to rank higher on search engines. Focus on your SEO: There are also other methods that you can use to build your brand awareness, such as running contests and giveaways on social media platforms, introducing a referral program, building links back to your target pages, and engaging with niche communities online. 2- Create an Email List Email marketing is still one of the best ways to drive traffic and generate sales. Email marketing helps you to retarget people, send promotions, and build a community. In fact, you are likely to receive an average that you spend on email marketing. return of $42 for every $1 Here are the three ways to build an email list: You can add popups to your website. Trigger them when a customer spends a certain amount of time on your website. You can also trigger them when a customer scrolls down the page to a certain point. Pop-Ups: Another way is by adding an opt-in checkbox during the checkout process. As these customers are already providing their email address to order, there is a higher possibility that they may click the checkbox giving permission to add them to your list. You can also add an opt-in incentive that will encourage them to complete the purchase as well as get a subscriber. and simplify the overall checkout process. It also helps to understand which text, buttons, color, etc drive customer actions. Opt-in checkout at checkout: Microinteractions help to optimize UX design You can add email sign-up forms in your website’s navigation or footer. Include them on pages where visitors are inclined to look for additional information about your brand. Email sign-up forms: 3- Add Custom Scripts Ecommerce scripts make it easier to get your ecommerce store onboard with all features and functions. Adding custom scripts improves the functionality of your ecommerce store. The multi-vendor ecommerce script allows you to display various collections of products and services. Script libraries such as offer custom scripts to simplify your store needs and improve the overall UX. PHP Jabbers Here is how you can add a custom script: In the Maropost Commerce control panel, select the ‘Settings & Tools’ option. On the ‘Setting & Tools’ page, select Custom Scripts. The ‘Custom Scripts’ page presents all current scripts installed. Edit existing scripts here. You can also select ‘New’ to add a new custom script. Enter the ‘Name’ of the script you are installing. Paste your code into the relevant section, such as page header, page footer, registration confirmation, and purchase confirmation. On completion, click on the ‘Save’ button. Now, your custom script is installed and ready to function on your website. 4- Provide Different Payment Options (Hint: Consider Using Blockchain) Sometimes, customers give up their purchases because their preferred payment option is unavailable. Therefore, it is important to provide different payment options to your customers. Do not just limit yourself to MasterCard and Visa. Ensure to include the ones that are mostly used by customers on websites. Some of the payment options are: Apple Pay Amazon Pay Samsung Pay Google Pay Besides, nowadays, there is a possibility of having blockchain as a payment option to encourage blockchain enthusiasts to buy from your online store. Blockchain is by offering several advantages that traditional payment gateways do not offer. revolutionizing the ecommerce payment system Using such payment options makes the check-out process convenient and that in turn helps to increase your ecommerce sales. 5- Retarget Your Visitors on Social Media on social media is a great way to keep the first-time visitors or those who leave your website without making a purchase. Retargeting your visitors Here are the methods you can use to retarget your visitors: Use Facebook pixel to detect who has visited your site and whether they made a purchase or not. After detecting those visitors, you can target your social media ads toward those visitors. If there are some visitors who clicked on certain products but did not make a purchase, then you can use social media to promote those products to them and offer limited-time or quantity discounts. There are also certain cases in which the visitors fill up their cart but leave without making a purchase. To those customers, you can offer a bonus if they complete their purchase. You can also provide links to certain products, maybe top-selling ones, on your social media platforms. Final Thoughts If you want to increase your sales or your sales are starting to slow down, you need to implement innovative ways to market your products and services on your ecommerce site. In such a case, the above five tactics will help you improve your ecommerce sales. Moreover, add photographs of your products, use video demonstrations to show your customers how to use your products, offer discounts, invest in promoting and advertising your products and services, create a sense of urgency, and ensure your website is secure.

5 Quick Tips To Boost Your Ecommerce Sales

JSON in Swift: What You Need to Know

For those trying to get into , the question of how to spend your time most efficiently for learning always comes up. There are a seemingly unlimited number of books to choose from, online courses to navigate, YouTube videos to scroll through, and articles to scan. But many developers get stuck in what’s called “Tutorial Hell” where they jump from one tutorial to the next, unable to break the cycle. That’s why I want to share these C# project ideas for beginners that’ll help put an end to that. software development In my opinion, building software is one of the best ways to learn. That doesn’t mean that the other things I mentioned aren’t helpful — I write articles, create videos, and publish courses to help people learn! But I think that these should be supplementary as you focus on building software. Let’s jump into these project ideas for beginners and get you started on building something! C# 1 – Build a Chatbot Building a chatbot is a great way to experiment with AI and ! You’ve probably noticed AI is getting a ton of attention unless you’ve been disconnected from civilization, so that means there’s a steady stream of new interesting things to look into. natural language processing I like working with the Azure OpenAI offering, which you can check out here: . When ChatGPT was getting a lot more attention early on in its launch, I even went ahead and created some C# APIs and videos on using them! Azure OpenAI Service Now, I’m no longer a fresh software developer. I haven’t been for 20 years or so. But I still thought it was a fun and exciting project to work through because it was interesting — and that will be a common theme here. You want to work on things that you find interesting so that they keep you engaged. Even a simple chatbot can be built in a console which allows you to focus on how to follow an API spec and send/receive web requests/responses. If you reduce the problem space to just calling the API properly, you can start to add in more fancy features from there. 2 – Develop a Mobile App With Maui There was a period early on in the C0V1D times where I found myself with some downtime and wanted to learn. I teamed up with a friend and we tried to build a mobile app together for fun using Xamarin (RIP). I purposefully chose different pieces of technology that I didn’t know so that I could learn about them, but I stuck with C# as my programming language. This allowed me to have some level of comfort as I went on to learn other things. This may not be the same situation for you because C# is probably new to you — but that’s okay! Maybe Maui as a tech stack is new, and C# is also new… But you could make an app about something that you really love. Maybe you like cars, or sports, or video games… Make a simple app about those things so you can greatly simplify that part of the creative process. Focus your energy on the technical parts you’re trying to learn about. Mobile app development can get difficult in some situations because of the need for specific platform knowledge. You may need to understand how to build native UI components, how to handle different device resolutions and sizes, and other situations. Maui aims to simplify a lot of this, but depending on what you’re building there could be some fun gotchas. 3 – Create a CRUD Application Many of the applications you’ll go on to build will need to use a database at some point. So instead of building an ENTIRE application that uses a database at one point, why not just focus on building a bit of code that can interact with a database? Creating a CRUD application is a fundamental part of many applications and services, allowing you to Create, Read, Update, and Delete data stored in a database. Using .NET technologies like Entity Framework Core, you can build an application that efficiently interacts with a database — even if it’s just a console application that allows you to do these operations! I even started documenting how I was building a Blazor app backed by Entity Framework Core: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZjQJkDYQ8I&ab_channel=DevLeader&embedable=true To implement CRUD operations in C#, you can start by defining a model for your data object, such as a person or product. You could follow an entity framework tutorial to show you how to set up your connection to the database! See, not all tutorials are bad – Just have a use for them first. Once connected, you could have a console app that lets you perform the CRUD operations. You could build upon this by instead writing a REST API that calls into this same code! … But that sounds like it might be part of the next section. 4 – Design a REST API Creating a RESTful API is a great way to allow other applications to access your data or functionality. This involves designing endpoints that return or manipulate data depending on the HTTP method used. For example, a GET request could be used to retrieve data, while a POST request could be used to create new data. For our learning purposes, you really don’t need to design this for anyone else to use in practice — but you can try it out to prove it works! And these days, it couldn’t be any easier to create a working web app with RESTful functionality in ASP.NET Core. Seriously! Check out this video to see how to get minimal APIs working in under 5 minutes (4 minutes and 19 seconds to be exact): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyBhV9pWRg8&embedable=true Here’s a bit of example code that shows how we could create a REST API for books — especially convenient if you worked on the CRUD example before this one using Entity Framework Core: using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using System.Linq;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Replace with your actual database configuration
builder.Services.AddDbContext<BookContext>(opt => 
    opt.UseInMemoryDatabase("Books"));
// Add services to the container.
builder.Services.AddEndpointsApiExplorer();
builder.Services.AddSwaggerGen();

var app = builder.Build();

// Configure the HTTP request pipeline.
if (app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
{
    app.UseSwagger();
    app.UseSwaggerUI();
}

app.MapGet("/books", async (BookContext context) =>
    await context.Books.ToListAsync());

app.MapGet("/books/{id}", async (BookContext context, long id) =>
{
    var book = await context.Books.FindAsync(id);
    return book != null ? Results.Ok(book) : Results.NotFound();
});

app.MapPost("/books", async (BookContext context, Book book) =>
{
    context.Books.Add(book);
    await context.SaveChangesAsync();
    return Results.Created($"/books/{book.Id}", book);
});

app.MapPut("/books/{id}", async (BookContext context, long id, Book updatedBook) =>
{
    var book = await context.Books.FindAsync(id);
    if (book == null) return Results.NotFound();

    book.Title = updatedBook.Title;
    book.Author = updatedBook.Author;
    book.Price = updatedBook.Price;

    await context.SaveChangesAsync();
    return Results.NoContent();
});

app.MapDelete("/books/{id}", async (BookContext context, long id) =>
{
    var book = await context.Books.FindAsync(id);
    if (book == null) return Results.NotFound();

    context.Books.Remove(book);
    await context.SaveChangesAsync();
    return Results.NoContent();
});

app.Run(); 5 – Build a Game This one hits home for me because this is how I started. I’ll start by saying I am awful when it comes to creating anything graphical. It’s just not a thing I’ve ever been great with — so creating games was a bit scary. But the reality is, I was never interested in creating visually appealing games, I was fascinated by building out game mechanics. If you poke around on my blog and even some of my early YouTube videos, you can see that I even used video game creation to try and get more comfortable with content creation — it’s because it’s something I know and have experience with. And that’s only because I used it as a way to about different ways to code, how to refactor, and how to integrate different technologies. practice and learn You can build games in Unity using C# and you can build games in Godot with C# as well. But my first games were completely text-based. You really don’t need to do anything fancy to make a basic game. If you find jumping into the game engines is too difficult right away, dial it back and try making a text-based game. You could build a console trivia game with multiple choice. You could build rock paper scissors. There are probably even some card games that could be done on the console! In my opinion, writing games is an awesome way to learn about different algorithms. You get the opportunity to start thinking about how you’d translate logical rule sets into code! 6 – Integrate with Third-Party Services Integrating with third-party services is a powerful way to extend your .NET application’s capabilities beyond what your team can provide. This can include social media platforms or publicly accessible APIs. These APIs enable this integration, providing a defined interface for your application to interact with, and often they’re well-documented to tell you exactly how to use them. I mentioned earlier in this article that I was using APIs for working with Azure’s OpenAI services — so that’s one such example. But you could search the internet to see if there are public data sources you could connect to maybe for weather information or something else. One of the earlier a REST API, and this is going in the opposite direction! Maybe after you get some practice calling other third-party APIs you can go back and check the REST API you built. How could you improve it and refactor it? projects was about building 7 – Create a Full Website or App! At this point, I’ve provided you with 6 C# project ideas for beginners that you could try to tackle. But what you may not have noticed is that each one of these could be a potential piece of a bigger application, and each of those pieces could come together in some form or another to build something more complex! You could use your knowledge gained from building a simple CRUD app and building a REST API to get started with the basics for a back-end web server. From there, you could consider if you need to integrate with other third-party data to supplement what you have for what your web server can do. You’ll want to decide if you go down the path of using something like Maui for building mobile applications, or perhaps . There are even Maui/Blazor hybrid options to explore! something like Blazor for building the front-end to your website The game concepts you may have learned if you tried out a project like that will help you think about what interesting algorithms you’ll want to provide in your service. And that first AI example with the chatbot? Now you’ll have some ideas for how you can even integrate something cool and shiny like AI into what you’re building! Wrapping Up C# Project Ideas For Beginners The most important parts that you want to keep in mind when working on projects are: You’re learning new things You feel engaged in what you’re learning You’re having fun You’ll mess up along the way. You’re going to have to rewrite and refactor code. Some code you write you’ll be embarrassed about even a week later. But every bit of that is helping you progress forward and learning how to write software. You need to put in the reps to get better, and this is how you do it! This is how you get out of tutorial hell! If you enjoyed this article, for more content like this to your inbox, and to keep up to date. subscribe to Dev Leader Weekly for free check out my YouTube channel

Escape Tutorial Hell - 7 C# Project Ideas For Beginners

The Crystal Crypt

Honey Moons and All Things Come to an End

THE SYMPATHY OF LADY SUNDERBUND

Optimizing Database Operations With OpenTelemetry 

Microservices can help any organization achieve its goal of increasing agility by addressing critical factors such as improving team autonomy, reducing time to market, cost-effectively scaling for load, and avoiding complete outages of the applications. As organizations break their monolith applications into microservices, one of the major hurdles they encounter is identifying database dependencies. Database sharing can be a complex and time-consuming challenge to solve. Databases do not allow you to define what is shared and what is not. While modifying a schema to better serve one microservice, you might inadvertently break how another microservice uses that same database. Additionally, it’s often difficult to identify the data owner and locate the business logic that manipulates the data. In this article, we’ll explore how we might use OpenTelemetry to identify the components that share the same database and database objects, such as tables. Observability and OpenTelemetry: The Basics Before we build our demo application, let’s lay a foundation by discussing observability and OpenTelemetry. What makes an application highly observable? . A system is said to be highly observable if its internal state can be inferred by studying its output at any point in time For example, an observable mobile app that interacts with multiple services can reconstruct a transaction that produces an error response, so that developers can identify the root cause of the failure. An observable application collects three types of information for every transaction: Record of individual events that make up the transaction. Logs: : Record of aggregates of events that make up the transaction. Metrics Record of the latency of operations to identify bottlenecks in the transaction. Traces: What is OpenTelemetry? is a system that generates logs, metrics, and traces in an integrated fashion. OpenTelemetry defines a standard to capture observability data. The OpenTelemetry data model has several key components. OpenTelemetry Attributes Every data structure in OpenTelemetry is comprised of attributes, which are key-value pairs. The OpenTelemetry standard defines what attributes any component (such as an SQL client or an HTTP request) can specify. Events Events are simply a timestamp and a set of attributes. You can record details such as messages and exception details against an event. Context Context comprises attributes that are common to a set of events. These are two types of contexts. (or ) defines the location of events. Their value doesn’t change after the application executable starts. Examples include the name or version of the service or the library name. Static context resource (or ) defines the active operation that contains the event. The value of span attributes changes when the operation executes. Some common examples of span attributes include the start time of a request, the HTTP response status code, or the path of the HTTP request. Dynamic context span In a distributed transaction, the context needs to be passed to all the associated services. In such cases, the receiver service uses the context to produce new spans. A trace that crosses the service boundary becomes a and the process of transferring context to other services is called . distributed trace context propagation Logs Logs are events that only accompany resources. One example of this is the event emitted when a program starts up. Traces Events can be organized into a graph of operations associated with resources. A trace is a graph that presents the events related to a transaction. Metrics An event might occur several times in any application, or its value might change. A metric is an event whose value can be the count of related events or some computation of the value of the event. An example of a metric is the system memory event, its attributes are usage and utilization. To learn about the concepts of OpenTelemetry in detail, refer to the . documentation Using OpenTelemetry to Identify Database Dependencies We discussed earlier that OpenTelemetry prescribes the attributes that the various components of an application should capture. The specification for attributes that should be part of the span covering a database client call is . Many popular languages provide out-of-the-box instrumentation libraries that collect telemetry for database operations. documented on GitHub For this demo, we will use the in coordination with for telemetry storage and analysis. .NET SQLClient instrumentation for OpenTelemetry Lightstep Let’s discuss the architecture of the demo application to understand the path that the telemetry takes to reach Lightstep. We’ll focus our discussion on traces alone, as they are sufficient to identify the dependency between databases and components of a monolith. However, any enterprise application should generate relevant logs and metrics in addition to traces for complete visibility. First, we will instrument our monolith application with the OpenTelemetry SDK to emit observability signals. While instrumenting the application is a manual process for .NET applications, automatic instrumentation is available for applications built with languages such as Golang or Java. We use the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP) Exporter, which is included with the SDK. The exporter lets us send data directly to a telemetry ingestion service. OpenTelemetry platforms such as Jaeger and Lightstep aggregate the traces to help you draw insights. Once integrated with the SDK, the various parts of your application, such as the ASP.NET Core request handler and SQL Client, automatically start producing traces with relevant information. Your code can generate additional traces to enrich the available information. In the case of .NET, the OpenTelemetry implementation is based on the existing types in the namespace as follows: System.Diagnostics.* represents an OpenTelemetry tracer responsible for producing . System.Diagnostics.ActivitySource Spans represents a . System.Diagnostics.Activity Span You can add attributes to a span using the function. Also, you can add baggage using the function. The baggage is transported to the child activities, which might be available in other services using the W3C header. AddTag AddBaggage After instrumenting your application, you can run automated tests or allow users to use your application to cover all the interaction paths between the application and database. Demonstration Let’s create a simple monolithic Employee Management Service (EMS) modeled as an . Our API will have the following endpoints: ASP.NET Core minimal API : Records the hours worked by an employee on a project. POST /ems/billing : Fetches an employee’s hours on different projects. GET /ems/billing/{employeeId} : Adds an employee to payroll. POST /ems/payroll/add : Fetches the payroll data for the employee. GET /ems/payroll/{employeeId} You’ll notice that the monolith serves two distinct domains: billing and payroll. Such dependencies might not be very evident in complex monoliths, and segregating them might require significant code refactoring. However, by studying the dependencies, you can uncouple them with little effort. The complete source code of the EMS application is available in . this GitHub repository Spinning up the database First, we start a SQL server instance in docker: docker run \
-e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" \
-e "SA_PASSWORD=Str0ngPa$$w0rd" \
-p 1433:1433 \
--name monolith-db \
--hostname sql1 \
-d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest We use the following SQL script to create the EMS database and the tables used by our application: IF NOT EXISTS(SELECT * FROM sys.databases WHERE name = 'EMSDb')
BEGIN
  CREATE DATABASE EMSDb
END
GO

USE EMSDb

IF OBJECT_ID('[dbo].[Timekeeping]', 'U') IS NULL
BEGIN
  CREATE TABLE [Timekeeping] (
    [EmployeeId]      INT  NOT NULL,
    [ProjectId]       INT  NOT NULL,
    [WeekClosingDate] DATETIME NOT NULL,
    [HoursWorked]     INT  NOT NULL,
    CONSTRAINT [PK_Timekeeping] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([EmployeeId] ASC, [ProjectId] ASC,  [WeekClosingDate] ASC)
  )
END
GO

IF OBJECT_ID('[dbo].[Payroll]', 'U') IS NULL
BEGIN
  CREATE TABLE [Payroll] (
    [EmployeeId]   INT   NOT NULL,
    [PayRateInUSD] MONEY DEFAULT 0 NOT NULL,
    CONSTRAINT [PK_Payroll] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([EmployeeId] ASC)
  )
END
GO Implementing the API service Next, we write the code for the API endpoints. We replace the boilerplate code in the Program class with the following code: var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddScoped(_ =>
    new SqlConnection(builder.Configuration.GetConnectionString("EmployeeDbConnectionString")));
var app = builder.Build();

app.UseSwagger();
app.UseSwaggerUI();

app.MapPost("/ems/billing", async (Timekeeping timekeepingRecord, SqlConnection db) =>
    {
        await db.ExecuteAsync(
            "INSERT INTO Timekeeping Values(@EmployeeId, @ProjectId, @WeekClosingDate, @HoursWorked)",
            timekeepingRecord);
        return Results.Created($"/ems/billing/{timekeepingRecord.EmployeeId}", timekeepingRecord);
    })
    .WithName("RecordProjectWork")
    .Produces(StatusCodes.Status201Created);

app.MapGet("/ems/billing/{empId}/", async (int empId, SqlConnection db) =>
    {
        var result = await db.QueryAsync<Timekeeping>("SELECT * FROM Timekeeping WHERE EmployeeId=@empId", empId);
        return result.Any() ? Results.Ok(result) : Results.NotFound();
    })
    .WithName("GetBillingDetails")
    .Produces<IEnumerable<Timekeeping>>()
    .Produces(StatusCodes.Status404NotFound);

app.MapPost("/ems/payroll/add/", async (Payroll payrollRecord, SqlConnection db) =>
    {
        await db.ExecuteAsync(
            "INSERT INTO Payroll Values(@EmployeeId, @PayRateInUSD)", payrollRecord);
        return Results.Created($"/ems/payroll/{payrollRecord.EmployeeId}", payrollRecord);
    })
    .WithName("AddEmployeeToPayroll")
    .Produces(StatusCodes.Status201Created);

app.MapGet("/ems/payroll/{empId}", async (int empId, SqlConnection db) =>
    {
        var result = await db.QueryAsync<Payroll>("SELECT * FROM Payroll WHERE EmployeeId=@empId", empId);
        return result.Any() ? Results.Ok(result) : Results.NotFound();
    })
    .WithName("GetEmployeePayroll")
    .Produces<IEnumerable<Payroll>>()
    .Produces(StatusCodes.Status404NotFound);

app.Run();


public class Timekeeping
{
    public int EmployeeId { get; set; }
    public int ProjectId { get; set; }
    public DateTime WeekClosingDate { get; set; }
    public int HoursWorked { get; set; }
}

public class Payroll
{
    public int EmployeeId { get; set; }
    public decimal PayRateInUSD { get; set; }
} At this point, we can run the application, test the various endpoints, and look at the records saved in the database. Although the database dependencies of the various endpoints and request paths are clearly evident in this demonstration case, this would not be the case in large applications. Next, let’s automate the process of discovering database dependencies. Adding instrumentation We instrument the application with the and . First, we add the following NuGet package references to the API’s project file: OpenTelemetry SDK SqlClient instrumentation library for. NET <PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry" Version="1.2.0-rc2" />
<PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol" Version="1.2.0-rc2" />
<PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting" Version="1.0.0-rc9" />
<PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AspNetCore" Version="1.0.0-rc9" />
<PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.Http" Version="1.0.0-rc9" />
<PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.SqlClient" Version="1.0.0-rc9" /> The SDK provides us with several extension methods that we can use to quickly plug OpenTelemetry into the request processing pipeline. The following piece of code instruments OpenTelemetry in our API. It will also instrument the to emit verbose telemetry. The telemetry from the is key to identifying the database dependencies in detail. SqlClient SqlClient // Configure tracing
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetryTracing(builder => builder
    // Customize the traces gathered by the HTTP request handler
    .AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation(options =>
    {
        // Only capture the spans generated from the ems/* endpoints
        options.Filter = context => context.Request.Path.Value?.Contains("ems") ?? false;
        options.RecordException = true;
        // Add metadata for the request such as the HTTP method and response length
        options.Enrich = (activity, eventName, rawObject) =>
        {
            switch (eventName)
            {
                case "OnStartActivity":
                {
                    if (rawObject is not HttpRequest httpRequest)
                    {
                        return;
                    }

                    activity.SetTag("requestProtocol", httpRequest.Protocol);
                    activity.SetTag("requestMethod", httpRequest.Method);
                    break;
                }
                case "OnStopActivity":
                {
                    if (rawObject is HttpResponse httpResponse)
                    {
                        activity.SetTag("responseLength", httpResponse.ContentLength);
                    }

                    break;
                }
            }
        };
    })
    // Customize the telemetry generated by the SqlClient
    .AddSqlClientInstrumentation(options =>
    {
        options.EnableConnectionLevelAttributes = true;
        options.SetDbStatementForStoredProcedure = true;
        options.SetDbStatementForText = true;
        options.RecordException = true;
        options.Enrich = (activity, x, y) => activity.SetTag("db.type", "sql");
    })
    .AddSource("my-corp.ems.ems-api")
    // Create resources (key-value pairs) that describe your service such as service name and version
    .SetResourceBuilder(ResourceBuilder.CreateDefault().AddService("ems-api")
        .AddAttributes(new[] { new KeyValuePair<string, object>("service.version", "1.0.0.0") }))
    // Ensures that all activities are recorded and sent to exporter
    .SetSampler(new AlwaysOnSampler())
    // Exports spans to Lightstep
    .AddOtlpExporter(otlpOptions =>
    {
        otlpOptions.Endpoint = new Uri("https://ingest.lightstep.com:443/traces/otlp/v0.9");
        otlpOptions.Headers = $"lightstep-access-token={lsToken}";
        otlpOptions.Protocol = OtlpExportProtocol.HttpProtobuf;
    })); Although the instrumentation is sufficient for us in its current state, let’s enrich the data further by adding relevant traces. First, we define a tracer from which our application spans will originate. var activitySource = new ActivitySource("my-corp.ems.ems-api"); Next, we create a span and add relevant details—attributes and events: app.MapPost("/ems/billing", async (Timekeeping timekeepingRecord, SqlConnection db) =>
    {
        using var activity = activitySource.StartActivity("Record project work", ActivityKind.Server);
        activity?.AddEvent(new ActivityEvent("Project billed"));
        activity?.SetTag(nameof(Timekeeping.EmployeeId), timekeepingRecord.EmployeeId);
        activity?.SetTag(nameof(Timekeeping.ProjectId), timekeepingRecord.ProjectId);
        activity?.SetTag(nameof(Timekeeping.WeekClosingDate), timekeepingRecord.WeekClosingDate);

        await db.ExecuteAsync(
            "INSERT INTO Timekeeping Values(@EmployeeId, @ProjectId, @WeekClosingDate, @HoursWorked)",
            timekeepingRecord);
        return Results.Created($"/ems/billing/{timekeepingRecord.EmployeeId}", timekeepingRecord);
    })
    .WithName("RecordProjectWork")
    .Produces(StatusCodes.Status201Created); We follow the same procedure to instrument the remaining endpoints. Connecting to Lightstep Finally, we need an API key to send traces to Lightstep. We start by . From the Project settings page of our account, we find the Token, which will serve as our API key. creating an account We copy the token and paste it in the file. appsettings {
  "Logging": {
    "LogLevel": {
      "Default": "Information",
      "Microsoft.AspNetCore": "Warning"
    }
  },
  "AllowedHosts": "*",
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "EmployeeDbConnectionString": "Server=localhost;Database=EMSDb;User Id=sa;Password=Str0ngPa$$w0rd;"
  },
  "LsToken": "<Lightstep token>"
} Sending requests Our application is now ready. We launch the application and send some requests to each endpoint. Here is an example of a request that I sent to the endpoint. This request should create a record in the table of the database.' /ems/billing Timekeeping Here’s another request I made to the endpoint to add a record to the Payroll table: /emp/payroll/add When we navigate to the , we can click on the Operations tab to see all the spans Lightstep received from the application. Lightstep observability portal When we click on the operation, we can view the end-to-end trace. By viewing the spans, we can ascertain the sequence of operations for any request. Clicking on the spans brings up its events and attributes, from which we can gain deeper insights into the operation. /ems/payroll/add The final span visible in the trace is , which was generated by our instrumented SQL Client. We click on the span to view its attributes and events as follows: EMSDb We can draw some key insights from the attributes: The name of the database The SQL statement used in the database operation The type of SQL statement (text or stored procedure) The hostname of the service that made the request We find a similar set of details from the child span of the /ems/billing operation. By combing the information from the traces, we can infer the following: Ingress operations (operations that receive the external request) The sequence of activities to fulfill a request, including external service calls and database operations. Database operations involved in each operation. Together, this information is sufficient for us to plan the segregation of services and databases and establish contacts for communication between the microservices. Conclusion This article discussed one of the common challenges that developers encounter while transitioning their monolith applications to microservices. Of all the concerns, splitting a database is a complex endeavor because any service that has access to the database can manipulate it. By using OpenTelemetry, we can identify the dependencies among the various components and between the components and the database. With the knowledge and understanding of our dependencies, we can develop the refactoring plan for our components, planning how they should evolve as independent microservices.

How to Use OpenTelemetry to Identify Database Dependencies

A Guide to Kubernetes Autoscaling Tools with Linode Kubernetes Engine

Maybe you have noticed that there is a lot of fake Binance, Ethereum, Ripple and Bitcoin Cash streams on Youtube lately. The crazy part is that those live streams are on a big accounts with thousands of subscribers. The scammer or group of scammers most likely from Russia started a new scam that is targeting YouTubers. They simply write you an offer to promote their platform on your youtube channel in the form of a preroll video. They want you to download and try out their platform to see how it is and if you are interested. After clicking on the shady link it will take you to their website that is made in a 1:1 ratio with another website from a real company. After downloading and running the program nothing will happen, but in the background, there is a program running. What is the program doing? Screenshot of your PC screen. Text document with all information about your PC. Text document with all passwords saved in your browser + copies your session ID. Download cookies from your browser Gets remote access to your computer without you noticing. All that repeating every 5 seconds. If they get access to your YouTube account they will just turn to rename the account to Binance or Binance announcements, hide all old videos, change profile picture and run a streaming loop with a fake giveaway in the description to scam people of money. This happened to a lot of YouTubers lately. According to unofficial information, it could be over 50+ YouTubers with big fanbases. Because of scammers are able to copy your browser session and cookies they are able to bypass -Step . Two Verification Conclusion Scammers will always look for new tricks and ways to scam people. Sometimes they use people’s naivety or carelessness. If you are a YouTuber be careful and don’t fall for such a cheap trick. It’s not always Binance, sometimes it’s Ethereum or Ripple, but in 90% of cases, it’s Binance. On top of everything, YouTubers can lose their sensitive personal data if they hold them on their PC. One Czech YouTuber lost his ID to a scammer to find selling on the dark web 3 days later. Among accounts that have been scammed are for example that have over 300K subscribers, his account was broadcasting Binance fake giveaway for 3 days before his account was restored, but not everyone is lucky and some can’t restore their accounts. Roth Wellden Be careful, not only YouTubers but everyone because scammers are trying their best. REAL STORIES BEHIND YouTube hacks In this article, we will focus on a real examples of hacked YouTubers. If you want to read the previous article on how the scammers were able to steal those accounts click here. Since my last article, a lot of you asked if this is truly real if those accounts are stolen from the real creators and the answer is YES… According to my observation in most of the cases, we can prove that there was a real person behind that account before. GhostBlock - 589 000 (Article updated to add this story 10.01) GhostBlock hacked! GhostBlock is a famous YouTuber with a huge community and close to 60M views in total. He is doing animated Minecraft videos. Today (10.01) he was hacked and hackers instantly turned ON Binance fake giveaway to scam his community. There are even from his fans that are confused about what’s happening and who’s Binance CZ. videos coming Man…your channel got hacked… What heppend to your chanell😢 WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR CHANNEL?!! What Happen to GhostBlock? Those are just few examples of comments by his confused community. Youtube needs to act fast and precise to stop hackers from taking an advantage of such a huge community. 2. MarcoStyle - 355 000 subscribers Account restored Using Marco as an example we can truly unveil YouTube’s ignorance and slow approach towards creators that are operating on their platform. Marco got his account hacked and it took 2 weeks to restore it. YouTube acknowledges the fact that his account was stolen since day one, but nothing happened to the hacker! He was freely using the account, streaming and scamming Marco’s community that he was building for years. On top of that, they kept the Marcos verified badge ON! Doing scammer a favor to look legit. Marco’s community was scammed of $15,000 in Ripple during the fake giveaway. Eventually, Marcos got his account back after 2 weeks, but the fact that YouTube did nothing to protect his community during the hack is disgusting. Marco’s story was covered in . Forbes 3. RodiL - 327 000 subscribers Rodil is Portugesse gamer, YouTuber and streamer. Three of His accounts were hacked over one week ago. Something that he was building for so long is lost now. He is desperately trying to reach youtube, but it seems like they are ignoring him and his community. Meanwhile the hacker aka. is happily broadcasting scammy giveaway. Brad Garlinghouse [Ripple CEO] This is from RodiL’s twitter Guys, I got robbed! RT THIS POST PLEASE I lost access to my 3 channels, "Festinha do Rodil", "RodiL" and "Rodilzera". When I go to any of these channels, ask me to create a channel from 0, with a new name. That is, they unlinked my channels to another email 4. Roth Wallden - 307 000 subscribers Account restored The story was almost the same as in Marco’s case. Roth Wallden was hacked while downloading software from the scammy email. In his case, the account was held by the hackers for 3 days. According to him, YouTube has acknowledged the hack since day one but did nothing to stop the hacker streaming fake giveaway. Finally, thanks to his constant pressure on YouTube, big follower base and connections he was able to recover his account after 3 days. Not only that his YouTube was stolen it was available on the black market for 0.45 BTC 5. Dollar Selmouni 179 000 Subscribers is a Hispanic musician with an official badge on YouTube. His account is still being held by hackers despite that it was hacked over 1 month ago! Broadcasting fake Ripple giveaways. Right now it seems like the hackers are not using this account to broadcast giveaways, but more likely it’s already on the black market waiting for the “new owner”. How is it possible? That verified musician by YouTube wasn’t able to recover his account? Dollar Selmouni 6. BinNhiTV 165 000 subscribers Group of people mainly kids from Philipines making songs for kids with over 42 000 000 of total views were hacked 5 months ago. The hacker didn’t even bother to delete the old videos. There is a big problem with YouTube that they are ignoring most of the hacks and by doing so they expose innocent communities to hackers. 7. GratakosYT - 128 000 subscribers GratakosYT was doing games clips on youtube, but his account was lost to the scammers. is constantly reporting his hacked account trying to reach YouTube, but with no result so far. Is this bad staff? or just pure ignorance from YouTube? not caring about creators nor their community. It’s clear that the account is hacked yet they are not banning the stream in order to protect the Grakos community. He was forced to create and start all over again. GrakatosYT community the second channel OTHER EXAMPLES OF HACKED ACCOUNTS Thai gaming channel Greek Basketball team with over 10 000 000 total views Malaysian music channel Russian YouTuber Katyusha YouTube artist Savannah YouTube educational channel There are so many more examples, but it’s simply impossible to highlight them all. We can clearly see that YouTube is doing close to 0 to stop those hackers. Creators with a lot of subscribers might have a chance to recover their account thanks to publicity, however, when someone has less than 100K subscribers it seems like YouTube doesn’t even care. For many of those smaller YouTubers its years and years of work and thanks to YouTube, it seems like they lost it all. YouTube’s approach is weird and unprofessional allowing the scammers to stream their fake giveaways even when they acknowledge that the account was stolen. It looks like they are working with the hackers, not against them. Let’s hope that thanks to bigger publicity YouTube will fix this mess soon. Thank you for reading Benjamin from DAO Makers

YouTube Fake Crypto Giveaways Explained - Behind The Account Hacks

So you've developed an impressive rails APP that showcases a gallery of images. Its time to unveil it on the worldwide web via Heroku. Image uploads in a local development environment are currently defaulted to local psql. In production environment (Heroku), a cloud storage service stores images. By popular choice, AWS S3 cloud service would be suitable to host your images. They offer a free plan, but to sign up it requires a credit/debit card. In my experience setting AWS up for image-handling was challenge. If one does not exercise extreme caution; API key and secret will get exposed on Github. Unscrupulous bots are on the prowl for these credentials to exploit compute resources. Hence raking up a hefty bill. Since Heroku does not host pictures, Heroku's addon cloud service  Cloudinary does. It offers a solution to web application’s entire image management pipeline. Cloudinary offers comprehensive APIs and administration capabilities. It is easy to integrate with any web application, existing or new on Heroku. Cloudinary provides URL and HTTP based APIs. Which helps integrates with any Web development framework. As opposed to setting up a separate Cloudinary account. By the end of this article, users will upload pictures over your rails app on Heroku. On the back-end, images uploads to or deleted from Cloudinary. Your rails app displays images hosted on Cloudinary via API exchange. The best part is that Cloudinary will not ask for your credit card to sign up for 10GB free storage. Author’s Assumptions The following assumptions are being made: You are using Heroku to host your rails app
. Heroku CLI is installed on your machine
. Your rails app have been pushed to Heroku. Cloudinary local and cloud setup Edit your Gemfile, add the following line. gem ‘carrierwave’
gem ‘cloudinary’ # ./gemfile Run "run bundle install" to install inserted gems. Login Herokuapp page and click on the app as illustrated below; Navigate to "Resources". Find & select Cloudinary in the search box as illustrated below; Select "Start Plan" for free usage and click provision. You are now redirected to the Cloudinary admin page. Notice generated credentials. Copy cloud name, API key, API secret & Environment Variable. To hide API key and secret, while the resides in Github, we use config variables. First, navigate to settings and click on config vars. Input credentials (CL_ID, CL_key, Cloudinary_URL) as illustrated below; Create a cloudinary.yml file in your ‘config’ folder. Copy and paste the template into new file. Substitute Cloud_name for actual cloud name found in Cloudinary admin dashboard. This configuration specifies credentials as well as other attributes. --- cloud_name <%= ENV[ ] %> <%= ENV[ ] %> cloud_name <%= ENV[ ] %> <%= ENV[ ] %> cloud_name <%= ENV[ ] %> <%= ENV[ ] %> # config/cloudinary.yml development: cloud_name: api_key: "CL_ID" api_secret: "CL_KEY" enhance_image_tag: true static_file_support: false production: cloud_name: api_key: "CL_ID" api_secret: "CL_KEY" enhance_image_tag: true static_file_support: true test: cloud_name: api_key: "CL_ID" api_secret: "CL_KEY" enhance_image_tag: true static_file_support: false Create an initializer cloudinary.rb as below. When rails server starts up, configuration below will take affect. Cloudinary.config config.cloud_name = config.api_key = ENV[ ]
  config.api_secret = ENV[ ]
  config.secure = config.cdn_subdomain = do |config| 'cloud_name' "CL_ID" "CL_KEY" true true end Assuming you have built the image upload feature (as shown in Setup uploader for Cloudinary as below; learn enough tutorial). CarrierWave::MiniMagick Cloudinary::CarrierWave version process => [ , , ] Rails.env.production? Cloudinary::CarrierWave
    CarrierWave.configure config.cache_storage = storage # app/uploader/picture.rb < CarrierWave::Uploader:: class PictureUploader Base include include # Specify dimensions for images to resize to for appropriate display fit :standard do :resize_to_fill 400 400 :north end # Cloudinary will be utilized in production (Heroku) while local psql stored us utilized in development and testing environment. if include do |config| :file end else :file end # Cloudinary public file path to upload and display pictures def store_dir "uploads/ / / " #{model. .to_s.underscore} class #{mounted_as} #{model.id} end # Only files with extension jpg jpeg, gif and png will be uploaded def extension_whitelist %w[jpg jpeg gif png] end end For image upload forms, emulate the following erb form on front-end view; <%= %> <%= %> <% %> # app/views/micropost/_form.html.erb form_with( @post, ) model: local: true do |form| .
. < = > span class "picture" form.file_field , :picture accept: 'image/jpeg,image/gif,image/png' .
. </ > span end For image display, emulate the following erb tag on front-end view; <% @feeds.each %>
.
.
<%= image_tag p.picture.url p.picture? %>
.
.
<% %> # app/views/micropost/_feed.html.erb do |p| if end Now that you are done, push rails app to Heroku and test it. Check out my , to see how it was done. Gitbub Repo

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