Winback

winback

A simple but underutilized way to is by winning back your users who have abandoned their shopping carts. boost your sales It's common for your users to add a product to your cart only to leave during the purchasing process for some reason. These reasons include feeling uncertain about whether they need the product, their desire for lower prices, or a distraction that prevents your user from finally buying. There are other reasons to do with your website design and marketing tactics that could also lead to cart abandonment. Here are a few practical and effective ways you can convince your users to come back and buy your product. With a good strategy in place, you'll increase sales and see better returns on your marketing efforts. Leverage UX/UI Principles Your website design and user interface are two elements that you can control and optimize to boost product sales. Here are a few specific changes you can make to your website to optimize the buying process: Make sure that your website is mobile optimized. People often buy on the go using their smartphones. Do rigorous tests and check that buying from your mobile site is easy Don't force your users to create an account on your site. Enable them to use or guest checkout to complete buying your product social logins Create a detailed summary of the product, shipping time, the buyer's address on the checkout page so that they don't have to go back and check the details Use breadcrumbs or breadcrumb navigation let people know where they are in the buying process. For example, indicate that they're at the shipping address stage, the review stage, and the payment stage By optimizing your website's design and functionality, you ensure that your users don't find a reason to quit their purchases halfway through. Bring Back Users With Push Notifications Often, users need a timely reminder to get them to come back to their abandoned carts. What if you could send them a quick message that appeared to them no matter what website they're on? Push notifications are a powerful type of marketing tool that does just that. To start leveraging this tool, add a push notification plugin to your site. With a solid plugin to aid you, you can send a short and enticing reminder to your user to come back and buy their product.  The added advantage of using push notifications is that you can leverage them to work in many other ways. Use them to share newly published blog posts, send surveys, and carry out other marketing activities. Set Up Abandoned Cart Email Campaigns It's important to automate your marketing strategies as much as possible. And you can do this for abandoned carts by setting up drip campaigns. Drip campaigns are prewritten email templates that launch when certain triggers are hit. Triggers can include when a previously sent email is opened when a user clicks on a link or when a few days have passed after users have abandoned their carts. Sending an email with a reminder is often enough to bring people back to finish buying your products. If you want to improve the rate at which people return and buy from you, add a discount or some additional incentive to entice your users back. Use Live Chat Live chat technology makes it possible for a business to personalize communication in real-time. And scale up this challenging but effective marketing technique too. Set up a live chat option on your website so that when a potential customer revisits your website, you can 'ping' them in real-time. Your customer support staff can then talk to your users and send them the link to their abandoned cart. The advantage of using live chat is that your support team can answer any questions right away. When your visitor talks to real people from your business, it creates a sense of trust. People will be more likely to complete their purchases after connecting with your staff at a more personal level. Create Urgency When your website visitors feel like they can come back and visit your website later, they'll forget about the products they added to their carts and forget all about them. It's critical that you build the feeling of urgency in your communication so that users feel more compelled to finish their purchases. Here are a few ways to build urgency: Use push notifications and social proof apps to display user activities on your site. Showing messages like 'Alex from London just bought this product' creates the feeling that the product is running out. Similarly, notifications that a product is fast-moving or running out will also get people to take action Add messages during the checkout process mentioning how many products are left in stock. When users see that they're checking out one out of two available products, they'll buy right away Create time-bound sales. Add a welcome bar or a special discount offer that has a 24-hour limit or for a longer period of time. Users won't be willing to miss the opportunity to get a good discount, and you'll recover your abandoned cart users Emotions drive people to take action, and for eCommerce businesses, leveraging FOMO and urgency are powerful ways to bring back potential customers and boost sales. Showcase User-Generated Content Everyone wants to feel like they're part of the community or society they live in. This desire plays an important role in social media trends taking off where people do what they see their peers doing. To win back people who've abandoned their checkout process, send them content featuring other people using your product. That is, real people on social media and other platforms reviewing, using, and sharing how they use your product in real life. For one thing, it builds social proof. And for another, it creates excitement and the desire to mirror what other people are doing. You can send such user-generated content to your audience via email campaigns. Or add links that redirect users to a page with user-made posts on your site. When people see real-life examples of your product or service in action, they'll be convinced to buy from you. Conclusion An easy way to increase your sales is to win back abandoned cart users. After all, they did their research and were then interested enough to add your product to the cart. Some users deliberately choose not to buy from you, but many others need a gentle reminder or an incentive to finish their purchase. With the six strategies laid out in this post, you'll find varying effective ways to reconnect with users who quit the checkout process. Use these tactics in different ways to see a boost in your sales and revenue.

6 Marketing Strategies to Win Back Abandoned Cart Users

We bet you have your own “gone customers’ cemetery” of those who once were with you, but have gone and are not planning to return. It’s sad, but you can’t give up: almost half of them are sure to be returned. If a person has interacted with you, they are at least a little interested. Your task is to identify what has affected their trust, make an effort and find out how to get former customers back. Based on our ( ) experience, we prepared a list of tipson how to return customers. Dashly.io How do you know when it’s time for action? There are two key indicators that provide insights into how you are doing with your current customers. They are interrelated and we have talked a lot about them; they are Churn and Retention rates. Churn is those users who have stopped any interaction with you. Retention is your ability to maintain a long-term relationship with your customers. You need to understand that no one is perfect; there will always be users who have not obtained the benefits and left you. This indicator needs to be monitored and acted upon when it gets out of control. This is how the churn rate is calculated: It’s hard to say what churn rate can be considered acceptable. Much depends on the age of the company: in startups, for example, the churn rate is the main issue as it can reach 15%. Gradually, the product finds its audience and the churn rate decreases. It is commonly considered that for SaaS services, the churn rate should not exceed 3%. If you have been working for a long time, and the churn rate is large or even worse, if it’s growing period by period, it’s time to take urgent action. The work on customer retention is also a very important process. It is known that existing customers are ready to spend 67% more than new ones. According to the research conducted by , a 1% increase in the retention rate leads to a 7% increase in profits. There are many ways to retain customers; the most effective for you can only be determined through experience. You should always keep an eye on that metric. Price Intelligently What customers should be returned? It will not be possible to return the client in the snap of a finger: it takes strength, time, and budget. It may happen that you spend a lot, but get a little; the returned client will not pay off themselves. In order not to waste resources, you need to understand who to return, and whom to say goodbye once and for all. The team has conducted research to find out which customers should be returned. To do this, they divided all of the churn customers into two groups: quick-churn and late-churn. MarketingProfs The first group included users who had only been working with the service for a short time and had never become regular customers. The second group was those who actively interacted (extended the subscription, contacted customer support, opted in for additional functions). The results have shown that newcomers are more difficult to return than users who were active in the past: 29% of the first group returned, whereas 53% of the second group got back. Among those who returned, the “old” are 51% more active than the “newcomers”. It turns out that you make the same effort to return both categories, but the results are different. It makes sense to group lost customers by their activity and the duration of interaction with you and build a return campaign depending on it. Figuring out the reasons Before taking action to get the customer back, you need to understand why they left. If they decide that they no longer need your service, trying to sell the same instruments for less is unlikely to work. There are several ways to determine the user’s motive. is a service that allows you to look at your website through the eyes of the user. You can completely track their actions: what sections they look at, where they stop, even how they move the mouse. With its help, you can easily understand what on the website gets your customers interested and where they have difficulties. Fullstory Fullstory also allows you to determine where on the website something broke down or what a customer didn’t like. For example, you can see the buttons that drove the user crazy (they quickly clicked many times on the same place). The report looks like this: are a good way with one very serious flaw. In an email, you can explain the situation, pose a question, start a dialogue, but only in the most daring fantasies of marketers it is opened by absolutely all recipients. In fact, the open rate of about 20% is already fine, although it turns out that the letter was read by only a fifth of the users. Emails is a good way to get in touch with a user who hasn’t visited you in a while and returned. Everybody is used to seeing this standard “Hello, how can I help you?” message in the chat window, so something new is likely to attract attention. An automatic message in a website chat To make your messages more personalized, you can set up user segmentation in the Dashly . For example, you can only start a dialogue with those who haven’t visited you in 2 days, or those who have added things to the shopping cart. online chat A is probably the most effective way, though expensive. By phone, you can find out what did not fit the customer, what they wanted to change, to make them an offer. In the course of the conversation, you will understand the mood of your interlocutor in general, learn about their problems, and offer a personalized solution. phone call Gather responses of your customers and analyze them. If several customers confess they lack a certain function, it is worth implementing it. How to Get back Lost Customers Finally, the fun part. You know it’s time to take action, but it’s not clear which one. There are many different ways to restore the love of the customers; we will discuss the most effective of them in our opinion. Apologize sincerely A small percentage of users go away for no reason; there’s usually a good reason for that, and you might have screwed up somewhere. Try a proven remedy – apologize sincerely. For example, you can describe the situation in an email or discuss it over the phone. This method works well with those customers who have been with you for a long time, and especially if you know each other personally. AppcuesBlog In the email, they offer recipes based on previous orders of this user. Adding an invitation to dialogue here will make it a great return email. Make a present Sometimes a user needs to be “bribed” to come back to you. Offer a promo code, a gift, free delivery, or anything else valuable. But be careful with discounts. , the expert from Price Intelligently, too high discounts devalue your product in the eyes of the customer and also have a tangible negative impact on LTV. According to Patrick Campbell If you find out that a customer lacks some feature they found in a competitor, implement it. Of course, not everyone will like it, but if you noticed that several users need something at once, it makes sense to make an effort and create this function. And one more thing: don’t promise something you can’t or won’t do. Otherwise, you’ll bury yourself even deeper. Offer something new If you’ve released some cool updates, don’t be silent about it in any way. Write an article, set up a webinar or tell about it in an email, and try to attract as many former customers as possible. It is likely that they will be interested in your changes, perhaps they were just waiting for them! It’s definitely worth testing this method. Remind about important things This is rather a preventative measure, but it’s better to overdo something than to not do enough. Set up notifications to let users know when they need to top up their balance, about features that are not connected, and about updates that have been released. Sometimes customers forget and score: the subscription ends, they do not get a hand to extend it, then they somehow distracted and do not come back at all. It is a shame to lose a user just because of inattention, so be sure to inform him that the time of payment is close Sometimes customers forget and skip out on things: their subscription ends, they don’t have time to extend it; then, they get distracted and do not get back at all. It’s a shame to lose a user just because of their inattention, so be sure to inform them that the payment time is close. For example, we have done this pop-up in the : it reminds users that they are about to lose their access to the platform. constructor Make great content I’m sure you still have your customer’s contacts; keep sending emails to them. It is important not to become annoying: one email per week is definitely enough. Here’s another rule: allocate the minimum amount of email space for advertising; your current task is not to sell faster, but to return the attention of a departed customer. Offer them interesting articles, entertain them with hilarious and appropriate (!) stories, share the news with them, and delicately direct them to your website. Getting gone customers back: learning by examples has made a great chain of emails. If one day you decide to download a trial of one of their services, and then do not buy a subscription, here’s what awaits you. Netpeak First, the charming girl wonders why you stopped using the service. Let’s say you’re not taking this email seriously and you’re not responding to it. In 2 weeks, Julia writes again. You start feeling awkward not answering Julia and you write her that the tool was needed for a certain task, now it has been solved and the need has disappeared, but maybe after a while, it will appear again. Julia is glad you finally showed the signs of life, and she writes: The email refers to the service we mentioned in the reply. It turns out that you are first brought into a dialogue, then told more about yourself and offered value (help). The best part is that the letters look personal as if the company manager is really writing to you. Of course, all e-mails prior to your first response are sent automatically, but you have to admit that this is not obvious. service sends such an email to users who have not renewed their subscription: SE Ranking You are reminded that your subscription has expired and all indispensable features of the service are no longer available. Then they offer you a promotional code for a 20% discount and lead back to the website. The friendly tone of the email and the author photo convert a user to return to the website. Social networks taught us 10 years ago: “If you love it, let it go”, but it doesn’t always work. You can and should return gone users; the main thing is to do it correctly. Determine who should be returned, contact them and don’t be intrusive. And then you will get back what is truly yours. (Originally published ) here

How To Prevent Your Customers From Leaving And Win Back The Ones Who Left

93 Stories To Learn About Online Marketing

The shopping cart and order finalization process play a crucial role in any online store. If not properly optimized, these areas can become bottlenecks that lead to cart abandonment. Studies indicate that cart abandonment rates can reach as high as 60-70%, and even higher to around 85% [1]. There are many reasons why customers may leave a site store without ultimately making a purchase. From poor performance to bad design, errors on the site to confusing delivery costs, return policies, and deliveries. Creating online stores requires analyzing many elements, including shopping cart and order summary pages. To improve the customer experience, increase conversion rates, and maximize profits, it is essential to take specific steps and continuously monitor and optimize the online store. Remember: Collect feedback from customers regularly to identify potential issues and areas for improvement. Implement email reminders for abandoned shopping carts to win back customers and address any problems. Regularly check the functionality and performance of the online store. Ensure the online store's performance is fast and reliable. Provide Clear and Valuable Information Make sure that the rules and regulations of the online store are easily accessible and visible to customers. Consider including links to terms and conditions, return policies, and shipping rules in the top menu, footer, or alongside product information. Creating a dedicated Frequently Asked Questions ( ) section or subpage can also help address common customer queries and reduce repetitive inquiries. FAQ Remember: Create dedicated sub-pages for store rules, shipping rules, and return policies. Ensure easy access to information related to regulations, shipping rules, and returns (via links in the footer, menu, and product pages). Include a section or subpage with frequently asked questions (FAQ). Allow Easy and Quick Account Creation Creating a customer account on the online store can provide numerous benefits for both customers and store owners. However, it's crucial to simplify the account creation process to avoid discouraging potential customers. Consider allowing buyers to log in to existing accounts or create new accounts in a simple step on the order page. You can also explore the option of single sign-on (SSO) using external identity providers like or . Google Facebook Remember: Add the option for buyers to log in to existing accounts during the order process. Allow buyers to create accounts quickly and easily on the order page. Explore the possibility of implementing single sign-on (SSO). Streamline the account creation process as much as possible. Ensure Clear, Simple, and Transparent Order Finalization Order finalization should be straightforward and free from unnecessary elements that can lead to cart abandonment. Highlight the steps involved in completing the order and provide easy navigation options for customers to review and edit their information. Consider removing distracting elements like the footer and menu navigation during the finalization process. Simplify the order form by including only essential fields, eliminating duplicate information, and enabling autocomplete features. Adopting a minimalist approach and minimizing the steps required to complete the purchase can help reduce the risk of cart abandonment. Remember: Remove distracting elements from the order summary page (retain cross-selling in the shopping cart but remove it from the order summary, where it makes more sense to introduce up-sells). Include only the necessary fields in the order form. Enable autocomplete fields and provide prompts for address-related information. Provide Convenient and Secure Payment Methods Offering secure and convenient payment methods is crucial for order finalization. Ensure that your online store has an SSL certificate for secure transactions. Consider partnering with reputable payment providers relevant to your market, who offer various functionalities and integrate with popular electronic wallets like Google Pay and Apple Pay. For international payments and multiple currencies, explore options like Klarna, Stripe, or PayPal, which cater to foreign markets and support local payment methods. Remember: Provide proven and secure payment methods from reputable operators. Enable various payment methods, including payment cards, debit cards, bank transfers, and electronic wallets. Assure customers of payment security. Provide Fast, Affordable, and Convenient Shipping Methods Customers expect fast and convenient shipping, and although free shipping may not always be feasible, there are alternative strategies to consider. Set a threshold amount for free shipping on larger purchases, include shipping costs within product margins, or offer an express shipping option for customers who prioritize speedy delivery. Additionally, provide a wide range of delivery options, including courier services and pick-up points, to accommodate customer preferences. Remember: If possible, offer a free shipping option for orders above a certain amount. Provide an express shipping method for customers who require faster delivery. Offer a variety of delivery options, including pick-up points. Ensure Everything Works Regular maintenance and monitoring are crucial for the smooth operation of an online store. Update the store's software regularly, but remember to create backups before making any changes. Proactively check for unexpected errors and ensure that everything is working flawlessly. Continuously analyze data and make thoughtful improvements based on customer feedback and performance metrics. While there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for complex systems like online stores, starting with simple and quick implementation suggestions can yield positive results. Remember that continuous and thoughtful improvement, based on collected data, is the foundation for enhancing the online store's performance. Source: [1] Baymard Institute, 48 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics 2023 (Accessed: 29 June 2023)

Online Checkout Process Optimization: Tips for Better Conversions

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

AI is taking the world by storm. has swiftly become a household name; has gone from relative obscurity to professional use in less than a year, and other AI platforms are quickly making a name for themselves. ChatGPT Midjourney We are witnessing a pivotal point for many industries. s CFO called the rise of AI the ,’ Microsoft in OpenAI, and startup funding in the technology to over 11 billion USD in May. Trading, and more importantly, crypto trading, has not been spared from AI integration. What remains to be seen is whether crypto traders can take advantage of AI. Nvidia’ ‘new iPhone moment invested billions skyrocketed We’ll explore some of the leading implementation trends from the past year, as well as how the industry can prevent the excitement of this new tech from precipitating reckless decisions. Is AI Too Good to be True? It is not unreasonable for industry veterans to treat frontier tech with skepticism. After all, crypto’s promises of mountains of gold often led to Ponzi schemes, fraud, or market collapses. This does not seem to be the case with AI trading. As early as 2018, two Yale economists showed with econometric analysis that cryptocurrency returns could from a variety of industry-specific factors, such as the time-series momentum effect and measures of investor attention. Their studies found that if you have accurate data and know how to analyze it, you are significantly more equipped to outperform the market. When comparing these findings to the capabilities of AI, their importance becomes clear. be consistently predicted Algorithms can analyze large amounts of data to find inconspicuous patterns and execute trades much faster and more frequently than human users. If a human chooses to do day trading manually, they will inevitably lose the efficiency race in the long run. As a species, humans are susceptible to cognitive biases, such as FOMO or loss aversion; a loss of 5% is perceived as much more significant than a gain of 5%. This leads to ‘chasing losses’ to win back what was lost, and more often than not, will lead to suboptimal decision-making. In 2014, a group of scientists to evaluate this effect. They found that only mirror trading (sticking to a predetermined trading strategy regardless of performance) yielded positive ROI. Discretionary trading, on average, led to hasty choices and losses. analyzed 28.5 million deals The Current Trends in AI Implementation Any extensive data analysis or trading strategy needs to be recalibrated to account for market volatility, information events, and other parameter changes. While seasoned full-time traders can afford to engage in constant market research, even they can miss more subtle signals. AI can help to create self-adapting schemes that operate 24/7 and react to the slightest changes in the market. For these aspects, the main developing niche for AI in trading is trading bots. Cryptohopper, one of the largest strategy and bot trading marketplaces, recently rebranded itself with an exclusive emphasis on AI, while the token of SingularityNET, another AI bot marketplace, ranks among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap. DeFi and crypto asset management startups like Quadency are also turning towards AI solutions as a substitute for manual governance. Many seed-stage firms boast of offering their clients an opportunity to create personal AI trading bots and fine-tune them to their levels of risk tolerance and asset class preferences. For now, it is unclear whether they leverage proprietary technology or just integrate ChatGPT into their platforms. AI as the Trader’s Best Friend As AI grows in both sophistication and adoption, it’s important to remember that the technology is not perfect. For example, if a developer fails to notice overfitting while training an AI model, the whole portfolio may be put at risk. While automated strategies may be effective in technical analysis and day trading, they may misstep in more complex tasks like analyzing investor sentiment. Even ChatGPT, with all its popularity and success, puts a disclaimer that its text recognition algorithms are not flawless. One popular compromise is to use AI trading signals but leave the final decision of whether to execute the trade to the investor. An example of this approach is the AI assistant Walbi Lighthouse. This feature leverages AI to automate and accelerate market research, allowing the trader to receive real-time analysis of technical indicators, gauge market sentiment, and compile both influencer tweets and currency-related news in a single digest. In this way, represents an approach that uses the best of both worlds: the power of AI data analysis and the complex rationality of human decision-making. Walbi Lighthouse The Man or the Machine? For now, it’s simply too early to celebrate the AI overtake of the crypto trading sphere, but even if AI bots are unable to replace fully proprietary trading, AI-powered assistants like Walbi Lighthouse are an indisputably positive innovation. Not only will it accelerate access to information and significantly widen the available source base, but also will lower the barriers to entry for beginning investors, making cryptocurrency trading more accessible. Whatever the future holds, AI will be a part of it, and AI assistants represent this technology's first steps toward wider acceptance. Check out the project's and subscribe to its and channels. Want to learn more about Walbi? blog Telegram Twitter

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SECESSION

Day trading is like a fascinating game that rolls chess, poker, and gaming into an exciting package, adds the adrenaline rush of a roller coaster, and flavors it with a few dashes of lemon and a pinch of salt. Trading is a great struggle between illusion and reality, and in many ways, a cruel maze of tricks within tricks. However, if you are one of those who can create a plan, follow a strategy with strong discipline, handle your gambling demons, and accept trading as a profession, you can possibly make it... after 3-5 years of hard study. Trading attracts people who love challenges. However, only a lucky few can stand out of the crowd and make a fortune out of thin air. These people need to have a vast amount of experience, know how to keep their cool in the face of natural greed/fear impulses, and be savvy about the psychology of the masses. They need to gather some initial trading capital, but also have some money in reserve for critical situations and slump periods, because these are statistically proven to happen to all traders - it is just a matter of time and cardinality of trades. Knowing when not to trade, when to take a break and step back is a critical part of risk management. Most of all, you need a working trading system that suits your needs and trading style. If you have all of these, the last piece of the puzzle is to embrace the following tenets: “The goal of a good trader is not to make money; the goal is to trade well.” “Making money is more important than proving to yourself you were right.” “Your effectiveness in trading is proportionate to the hard effort you put into trading.” “The greatest lesson in making money is the experience gained from losing money.” “Try to enter as close as possible to the point where you were wrong. Never fight or question the price action.” “If you have a will to win, you will win. This article is split into two sections. The first part is a window to the life and mind of a master trader with more than 15 years of experience in both crypto-related and regular stock markets. This is the part of the knowledge sharing. The second part introduces you to basic trading products such as spot, swap, or margin. Part 1: What the life of a day trader is like: an interview with a successful cryptocurrency trader, who wishes to remain anonymous. Thank you so much for accepting my invitation for an interview. To kick this off, tell us something about yourself and what led you to trading crypto and the stock markets? I actually didn't get straight into trading at first. I was participating in classical hardware and cloud mining for cryptocurrencies, and then doing some minor investments, which led me into stock market trading. After that, back in 2016, I learned about crypto trading, and I can say it was a blessing, since I could use existing methods used in the stock market that worked pretty effectively in crypto, too. How did your journey start? My first experiences with trading were unusual. I made quite a bit of profit during several week-long periods without any knowledge but inevitably broke the streak then and suffered brutal losses. Many people quit after losses, but in your trading failures, you can gain plenty of experience to become a success. That's why it is important to journal your losses and find what connects them, fix the issue, and move forward. Many people have a great start when they start trading, but they get drunk on early success and crushed a few months later. How were your first trading months? I agree some people do get drunk on trading in crypto because it is such a speculative market, but in the stock market, it's a lot tougher. How many years do you think it could take for somebody to become a successful trader? It depends on the person and their lifestyle. The traits you grew up with can naturally make you a successful trader. So I don't think it's measurable in time, and it's really about who you are that determines how quickly you can adapt to the market. Consider thinking about one's lifestyle habits overall and make game-changing life adjustments such as tuning sleeping habits and adding regular workouts. Sometimes, it is not about trading only but more about building a better life. What was your breaking point from an average trader to a successful trader who can do whatever he wants? Discipline was the only thing I needed to learn. As soon as I realized the importance of discipline and persistence, I started to grow and become what I am today as a trader and as a human being. That and a lot of backtesting. I recommend this to all who are at their trading beginning to add a daily 30 minutes backtesting timeslot to their daily schedule if they really want to improve and boost their confidence when entering trade setups in real-time. What are the key aspects one needs to embrace to become a decent trader? Tough question, but again it can be summed up as discipline, patience, and persistence. Many people fail a couple of times and fall for what's called “revenge trading”, which means irrational trading after you lose, hoping you get lucky and win back the losses quickly. But as you can guess, they will only go further down the spiral most of the time. It is also critical to absorb a lot of knowledge that will help you to create your own opinion. When you start to listen to your inner voice while following the plan, you are on a good path. Only following others simply gets you nowhere in the long run. Then, hide your Profit and Loss (PNL) indicator. (PNL is the difference between profit and loss in trading.) Don't observe the money you may be gaining or losing; trade the setup, not the PNL. What are the most frequent trading demons that could possess a trader and cause account bankruptcy? FOMO (fear of missing out), greed, and not following your backtested trading plan. But if I were more specific, it would go like this: Exited too soon Exited too late Entered too soon Entered too late Taking too much risk Didn't take a planned trade because of self-doubt To fight these demons and get rid of them for good, avoid these pitfalls and give yourself a point for each successful and flawlessly executed trade. You are cured when you have five positive points at each of these. However, If you collect ten bad points for a single item mentioned below and you cannot stop, you are probably doomed to be a non-trader. (Screenshot from 2011 - explaining the Demon Finder principles) Feel free to make a copy of the above-mentioned GoogleDoc and use it. What about the path to becoming a trader? What milestone do we need to pass first before entering the Valhalla of trading? Always try to protect your capital. Trading is one of those professions where you need to have both skills and capital. Without money there is no trading. Also, you need some money to back yourself up. At least a month of paper trading to start. Then, develop 2-3 strategies and backtest them hard on at least 100 samples. Then start with 1% of your capital per trade. You can move this up to 3% per trade but only if your hit rate is about 60%. When you hit a sequence of 4 losses in a row and you feel that you are completly out of the zone, decerease the trading size from 1% to 0.5% until you will get like 2-3 winners that will get you back to the game mode. Of course, there are traders that have 85-90% hit rate. These guys trade big numbers and the only thing they need other than meeting trade conditions is to have enough liquidity. Trades like this usually have from 0.8 to 1.3 R (Risk/Reward Ratio) while not using much leverage. Personally, I found that around 2.5R is my mostly reached﻿ target. What method do you use for trading? I use many things now since I like the effect of pulling a lot of Aces from up my sleeve. I'm always trying to add essential books to my library and use something new here and there. Currently, I trade crypto using Elliott Wave (EW), Price Action (Pat) combined with some basic Candlestick knowledge, and some Moving Average (MA) strategies. But one needs to understand the smart money concepts to create a successful trading method. Some great sources are free to watch on YouTube, such as: PhotonTrading MentFX PhantomTrading In the stock market, it's a bit harder, so I use Volume Price Analysis (VPA), EW, Candlesticks, trendlines, and some chart patterns even though some of them are getting obsolete. It is also good to have a basic overview of the news that moves the market. However, I am not a “news” trader. The capability of reading the market bias is more important than the strategy used, though. Markets tend to seek liquidity that lies in zones of inefficiency. Markets return to these zones to balance themselves. Try to use monthly, weekly, and daily charts to spot those inefficiencies, such as fair value gaps (FVG), equal highs or lows, and other liquidity stores, such as liquidity pockets that form around multiple touched trendlines. When you mark these zones, try to imagine a path the market needs to accomplish to reach these areas before it changes direction or continues further after a pullback. What is your top advice for somebody who wants to be a great trader one day? Do it for yourself, not for the money. Really, the best thing about trading is it can teach you a lot about the values of life that will guide you to a better lifestyle. A better lifestyle then morphs you into a better version of yourself, and as the better version of yourself, you can make the people around you happier. Personally, I get a lot of these values from a fellow named Jim Rohn, who left his teachings for the world to learn from. He was an avid businessman and motivational speaker who amassed a vast fortune from nothing. Then also, don't try to make each day a trading day. Sometimes you can observe the market and not make a single trade since the stars don't align in your favor. Never trade when you don't have an edge. Trading is like poker with one critical difference. In a game of poker, you need to play each hand with cards you got. In trading, you can wait for the proper hand and then trade it perfectly. If you have a will to win, of course. What was your greatest win and your most "redonkulous" fail in trading? Well, my greatest win would have to be everything compounded that I've acquired over time, but the most in one single trade, if I can remember, is 2500% on a leveraged BTC position. I've lost it all before, so nothing can be more of a failure than that. But I believe that failures will give you the experience to succeed. Do you have any more secrets for being a good trader and long-term success? There aren't any secrets. All the information is out there, and most of it is free… However, you need to be passionate about what you do no matter what it is. If you don't like what you're doing, you're not going to be successful in it. That's what I believe, but I do have a passion for the art of trading. And yes, I do like the money that comes with it, but I love the ability to predict. It might seem cheesy, but it's like being a wizard and seeing into the future a little bit. Sure, sometimes I'm wrong, but those times I'm right are just great. Then, of course, learn to anticipate, not participate. Stop chasing pumps or the moves that are already on the go - good traders don't trade because something is moving. Your time to enter this was 5 minutes ago. You can jump into a trade for a quick grab and go, but if you stay in it, you are just sacrificing your capital for somebody else's success. Do the opposite. Start laughing at the chart and be glad that it is going so well without you. Then, prepare to trade the retest, since almost every good entry is retested at some point. Then, you have to learn to have patience with great trades, but also imperial impatience with trades that don't look good or that are eating through your stop-loss (SL) zone. Observe, adapt, execute within a few seconds. It's all about doing non-stop quick adjustments as the situation develops. And lastly, be aware that as a retail trader, you are easy prey for Market Makers (MM), when trading on emotions. To be successful in the market, learn to move with MM, resist their calls to sell, when all they are doing is selling a ticket to “destination fucked” for as many traders as possible before they do the counter move. Defeat the market by defeating your emotions and your urge to trade first. Then, be patient and execute as your backtested setup showed you. That's right. I agree. As an intelligent trader with experience under your belt, you agree that no guru is going to make you rich in the long run, is that right? Exactly. You need to love what you do and be ok with doing it on your own. Only then can you do it for endless hours and still feel full of life and motivation. Tell us about your average trading day. Well, it's just like any other person's day except for the fact that I don't drive to work. I walk across the hall to my office. I wake up at 5 in the morning, take a shower and get to the charts, watch pre-market for stocks, and check my overnight holds for crypto. Then, I do a few hours of trading, and sometimes I don't trade if the opportunity isn't there. I'm only really working for 1–2 hours, and I usually just read until something pops up. Some days I don't even bother checking and go out for the day. I like to keep my life balanced between work and play. What are the most inspiring books you have read? Trading or otherwise! Lots of reading and knowledge from people who have been successful in the field. As a kid, I read The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason, and this was my gateway to more comprehensive books like Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas. For self-improvement, I really enjoyed Master Your Hidden Self by Serge Kahili King and The Truth by Neil Straus. If you could time travel and give advice to yourself before you started trading, what would it be? Don't wish for things but make sure you are doing the maximum to make it happen. And of course, enjoy what you do. If you don't enjoy what you do, it will be hard to get through the part in which you are not profitable, and you will mostly give up. And maybe also that the pain is temporary, while the pride is forever. Well said. The end of the knowledge-gathering section. The next part will introduce you to the world of Bitcoin DeFi trading products that could be considered as an alternative to other DeFi platforms such as Uniswap (Ethereum-based) or Centralized exchanges (which mostly require KYC and deposition of your assets to their control). Decentralized finance (DeFi) is an emerging financial technology based on secure distributed ledgers similar to those used by cryptocurrencies. The system removes the control banks and institutions have on money, financial products, and financial services. Decentralized finance uses the blockchain technology that cryptocurrencies use. A blockchain is a distributed and secured database or ledger. Applications called dApps are used to handle transactions and run the blockchain. Part 2: Find the proper trading playground So, did you enjoy the interview? Are you motivated to go explore, learn and participate in this high-risk/reward environment now? If the answer is yes, then I say good! The following will introduce you to other trading prerequisites and to common trading products. While studying, reading, observing, or doing courses is a vital part of learning, the most crucial part of the learning path of becoming a day trader is getting down in the figurative trenches, and trading—making decisions in real-time, writing notes, and analyzing your trades. To start your trading journey, use a browser-based technical analysis (TA) tool, such as , for paper trading or just as your "trading sandbox" for all your charting observations, and journal entries. TradingView Then, you will need a trading platform with an easy-to-use interface. Start by experimenting with small amounts of real assets. This is the best way to start, as you will experience what it’s like to trade with "real money," even if just a few dollars are on the table. A brief introduction to the world of cryptocurrency trading products or is where you buy an asset you believe in or have researched, with the plan of selling the asset for a profit in the future. 1) Swapping Spot buying allow you to Long and Short, which means you don't buy the asset per se, but put up collateral to take a position on market direction. You make money by forecasting the market's future price. Using leverage (1x-5x) can enhance your profit if you have a technical analysis or fundamental edge. 2) Margin trades NOTE : Very often, you do buy the underlying asset using margin trading. If you use bitcoin as collateral and buy bitcoin on margin, you hold that bitcoin that you purchased. But when bitcoin’s price rises in the future, it is highly likely you will have to sell it to pay back the loan (that you leveraged) but still hold onto the bitcoin 'profit'. It depends if you are trading derivatives or not. Lastly, 3) Perpetual Futures A perpetual futures contract—or perpetual swap—is somewhat similar to an ordinary futures contract in that it allows traders to speculate on the future price movements of cryptocurrencies. The core difference is that perpetual swaps do not have expiration dates. Traditional futures have expiration dates, which forces the price to track the spot price due to arbitrage between the contract and spot price, with the settlement date in view. You can take on the risks and rewards of the spot price movement without actually buying or selling the asset. You cover the risk by supplying margin assets that cover any losses you experience if the price moves against your position. Outro Good luck on your trading journey! Learn from your mistakes. Journal your trades and mostly your aftermath-like observations! If you have a will to win and keep improving, you are on the pathway to success! Don't get discouraged in the first 2-3 years of learning and trading since most traders made it into positive months after five years of active trading. So, don't think about you as a trade you will be in next year, but think about yourself as a trader who needs to be here five years from now, working hard to improve and adapt Remember: -> Stay patient. Also, . Find a trading community, be proactive, work hard and talk about your journey with others. If you simply don't know where to start, I can give you two tips: -> don't be afraid to ask for help 1) of 2) Monthly subscription-based (150 USD) trading group called with many live streams you can watch, many chat possibilities to ask and grow, and a lot of materials delivered by skillful traders you can use to your advantage. However, the best thing is their kind and friendly attitude. Optionally, signup to the Whop platform, from the space of which you can and get a 5 USD bonus. Free discord community Mindo Chroma join Chroma using the following link -> Be rigid in your rules but flexible with your expectations﻿. And lastly, if your trading portfolio is below 1000 USD, . Buy a book, watch a course, practice what you have learned, and journal what you found out. -> invest in yourself and your future success first Don't trade to make money; learn first how to survive, protect your capital, and trade well overall. - Mickey Maler See you in the trenches!

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Our company was started because two college kids had a problem: Our founder has said he’s in the business of giving developers superpowers because APIs can help you solve business problems faster, to both accelerate your career, but also to save time. The faster you automate your job, the more time you can spend doing what you love (like playing NBA Jam, which was pretty important to him at the time ;). they needed to send out physical mail, but they weren’t design or marketing experts, they were developers. Was there a way to do this programmatically? The solution: APIs. That was over 10 years ago, and while we’ve grown a lot, and our product offering has expanded, we still consider ourselves an API-first company offering direct mail automation, designed for developers. We are bringing physical mail into the digital age Direct mail continues to be an integral part of any outreach whether the goal is to inform, attract, retain, or win back customers (or heck, send out holiday cards). 👩‍💻  We provide easy-to-use APIs to automate sending letters, checks, and postcards—creating a personalized mail piece is as easy as creating an email or webpage 📫  We improve address integrity with autocomplete and address verification APIs 🖨  We have a nationwide network of on-demand printers 🔍  We track every single mail piece from creation to delivery We provide APIs that integrate with your favorite programming languages, user-friendly templates, and other digital tools. If “Elixir” sounds like something only Alice would drink, we also have a simple UI to enable almost anyone – technical or not – to create postcards, letters, checks, and more (whether it’s 1 or 1 million). Our network of printers gets your mailpieces printed and in the mail, and we’ll provide visibility along the way. You’ll know exactly what’s working, and what isn’t. That’s why we say we say direct mail: it’s connected, personalized, and measurable. intelligent You mean snail mail? Yup! But our automation transforms legacy manual processes; what used to take months, can now occur in a week. Bringing sexy (direct mail) back It’s not unusual to receive a hundred emails in a single day; email is the new junk mail. But 72% of consumers read direct mail immediately or on the same day they bring it inside their residence ( ), and direct mail has 13x higher response rate than email ( ). source source The tide is shifting and you don’t have to have a full-scale marketing department or direct mail SME on staff to ride the wave. Learn more Engineers, check out & our www.lob.com/Developers API docs Marketers, learn more about automating your direct mail campaigns here Direct Mail Operators, learn more here

Meet Lob

It's earnings season! Netflix and Snapchat began informing markets of their financial performance this past week but the main draw remains to be tech titans, including Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta, who are expected to release details of the billions they generated in third-quarter sales (and perhaps profit too?) in the following days. Netflix's third-quarter net income wasn't anything to sneeze at: the streaming giant posted a cool $1.4 billion in profit but that's not what caught everyone's attention. The company said it added 2.4 million new subscribers to its service, a good 1.4 million above what it had expected. “Thank God we’re done with shrinking quarters,” Co-Chief Executive Reed Hastings said after the results were released. Markets went nuts following the announcement, helping reverse a downward trend in Netflix's share price this year. Industry observers say Wall Street is reassured by the subscriber growth, especially as Netflix gears up to introduce an ad-enabled streaming plan to eat into the global TV business and cracks down on password sharing in the near future in an attempt to make more money. Netflix was trending #49 this week. Snapchat Paints Bleak Picture 📸 Of course, what the market giveth, it also taketh away. And so was the case with Snapchat which continued to be battered by investors in the wake of its third-quarter results. The messaging app sounded the death knell for digital advertising after it painted a bleak picture for the future, noting that it does not expect its revenue to grow year-over-year during the holiday season when marketers typically go full ham on advertising. The announcement is widely being viewed as a glimpse of how inflation is eating into the bottom lines of platforms reliant on digital ad revenue (think Meta, Google, Pintrest) and is the latest in a series of unfortunate events for social media platforms that are already facing intense competition from TikTok and are navigating changes to Apple's privacy rules that makes it difficult for said platforms to display personalized ads, causing billions of dollars in lost revenue. Google ranked #2 this week, while Apple was trending #9 on the Tech Company Rankings. "Alexa, find me a .gif that says bye-bye" 👋 Meta needs to say bye-bye to Giphy, the gif search engine responsible for lightening up almost every conversation here at HackerNoon. After a some-what lengthy spar with the UK's competition regulator, the social media giant has been ordered again to let go of the service over concerns that the $315 million acquisition could harm competition. The UK Competition and Markets Authority first blocked the merger in November 2021, prompting an appeal from Meta which downplayed the competition concerns. But the latest order seals the merger's fate and Meta has already accepted defeat. Meanwhile, Meta's Facebook is threatening to block news sharing on its platform in Canada if the government decides to pass a law that would force digital platforms to pay news publishers. The legislation would be similar to the one passed by Australia last year but remains at an early stage at the moment and will likely go through amendments if it ever becomes law. Facebook ranked #1 in this week's Tech Company Rankings. Its parent, Meta was ranking #12. Ads, Ads Everywhere 🤑 Despite underpaying and exploiting its drivers, Uber is still not able to make a profit. So it's taking a plunge into a completely new space: in-app advertisement. Gone are the days when the internet was meant to be a way for you to freely express yourself, instead turning into this weird dystopia where all anyone ever wants to do is to sell you…stuff. Uber would be following in the footsteps of companies like foodpanda and rival Lyft who have introduced in-app advertisements in an attempt to diversify their revenue streams. Uber ranked #58 in this week's Tech Company Rankings. Twitter's too darn expensive to run, or so Musk believes💸 Now that the world's richest man is close to acquiring Twitter, he has already laid out plans for what he plans on doing first: lay off nearly 75% of the company's staff. Even if Elon Musk somehow decides to wash his hand off of the acquisition, Twitter's current management plans to bring down the axe in an attempt to save about $800 million by the end of next year. Meanwhile, Musk's Tesla announced a price cut in China in an attempt to win back demand for its electric vehicles. "The price cuts underscore the possible price war which we have been emphasising since August," said Shi Ji, an analyst with CMBI, was quoted as saying by Reuters. Twitter was trending #47, while Tesla was trending #73 in this week's Tech Company Rankings. And that’s a wrap! Thanks for reading Tech Company News Brief Issue #21! See y’all next week. PEACE ☮️ — Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon It's earnings season! Netflix and Snapchat began informing markets of their financial performance this past week but the main draw remains to be tech titans, including Microsoft and Facebook parent Meta , who are expected to release details of the billions they generated in third-quarter sales (and perhaps profit too?) in the following days. Netflix Netflix Microsoft Microsoft Facebook Facebook Meta Meta Netflix's third-quarter net income wasn't anything to sneeze at: the streaming giant posted a cool $1.4 billion in profit but that's not what caught everyone's attention. The company said it added 2.4 million new subscribers to its service, a good 1.4 million above what it had expected. “Thank God we’re done with shrinking quarters,” Co-Chief Executive Reed Hastings said after the results were released. $1.4 billion in profit $1.4 billion in profit said said Markets went nuts following the announcement, helping reverse a downward trend in Netflix's share price this year. Industry observers say Wall Street is reassured by the subscriber growth, especially as Netflix gears up to introduce an ad-enabled streaming plan to eat into the global TV business and cracks down on password sharing in the near future in an attempt to make more money. helping reverse helping reverse introduce introduce eat eat cracks down on password sharing cracks down on password sharing Netflix was trending #49 this week. Snapchat Paints Bleak Picture 📸 Snapchat Paints Bleak Picture Of course, what the market giveth, it also taketh away. And so was the case with Snapchat which continued to be battered by investors in the wake of its third-quarter results. The messaging app sounded the death knell for digital advertising after it painted a bleak picture for the future, noting that it does not expect its revenue to grow year-over-year during the holiday season when marketers typically go full ham on advertising. continued to be battered continued to be battered The announcement is widely being viewed as a glimpse of how inflation is eating into the bottom lines of platforms reliant on digital ad revenue (think Meta, Google , Pintrest) and is the latest in a series of unfortunate events for social media platforms that are already facing intense competition from TikTok and are navigating changes to Apple 's privacy rules that makes it difficult for said platforms to display personalized ads, causing billions of dollars in lost revenue. announcement announcement Google Google Apple Apple Google ranked #2 this week, while Apple was trending #9 on the Tech Company Rankings . Tech Company Rankings Tech Company Rankings "Alexa, find me a .gif that says bye-bye" 👋 "Alexa, find me a .gif that says bye-bye" Meta needs to say bye-bye to Giphy, the gif search engine responsible for lightening up almost every conversation here at HackerNoon. After a some-what lengthy spar with the UK's competition regulator, the social media giant has been ordered again to let go of the service over concerns that the $315 million acquisition could harm competition . some-what lengthy spar some-what lengthy spar harm competition harm competition The UK Competition and Markets Authority first blocked the merger in November 2021, prompting an appeal from Meta which downplayed the competition concerns. But the latest order seals the merger's fate and Meta has already accepted defeat . accepted defeat accepted defeat Meanwhile, Meta's Facebook is threatening to block news sharing on its platform in Canada if the government decides to pass a law that would force digital platforms to pay news publishers. The legislation would be similar to the one passed by Australia last year but remains at an early stage at the moment and will likely go through amendments if it ever becomes law. threatening threatening Facebook ranked #1 in this week's Tech Company Rankings . Its parent, Meta was ranking #12. Tech Company Rankings Tech Company Rankings Ads, Ads Everywhere 🤑 Ads, Ads Everywhere Despite underpaying and exploiting its drivers, Uber is still not able to make a profit. So it's taking a plunge into a completely new space: in-app advertisement . Gone are the days when the internet was meant to be a way for you to freely express yourself, instead turning into this weird dystopia where all anyone ever wants to do is to sell you…stuff. exploiting exploiting in-app advertisement in-app advertisement Uber would be following in the footsteps of companies like foodpanda and rival Lyft who have introduced in-app advertisements in an attempt to diversify their revenue streams. foodpanda foodpanda Uber ranked #58 in this week's Tech Company Rankings . Uber Uber Tech Company Rankings Tech Company Rankings Twitter's too darn expensive to run, or so Musk believes 💸 Twitter's too darn expensive to run, or so Musk believes Now that the world's richest man is close to acquiring Twitter , he has already laid out plans for what he plans on doing first: lay off nearly 75% of the company's staff. close to acquiring close to acquiring Twitter Twitter lay off lay off Even if Elon Musk somehow decides to wash his hand off of the acquisition, Twitter's current management plans to bring down the axe in an attempt to save about $800 million by the end of next year. Meanwhile, Musk's Tesla announced a price cut in China in an attempt to win back demand for its electric vehicles. "The price cuts underscore the possible price war which we have been emphasising since August," said Shi Ji, an analyst with CMBI, was quoted as saying by Reuters. Tesla Tesla quoted as saying quoted as saying Twitter was trending #47, while Tesla was trending #73 in this week's Tech Company Rankings . Tech Company Rankings Tech Company Rankings And that’s a wrap! Thanks for reading Tech Company News Brief Issue #21! See y’all next week. PEACE ☮️ — Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon

Uber Still Can't Turn a Profit

Uber aún no puede obtener ganancias

Uber ne peut toujours pas générer de bénéfices

उबेर अभी भी लाभ नहीं कमा सकता

Uber はまだ利益を上げることができません

Uber ainda não consegue gerar lucro

Uber vẫn không thể kiếm lợi nhuận

优步仍然无法盈利

As if the console wars weren't bad enough, now PC gamers have to get into the same dilemma: go for team red or team blue. Yes, ICYMI, AMD finally released the Ryzen 7000 series chips last week in a bid to win back performance nerds over to its side, prompting at least one hardcore Intel fanboy editor here at HackerNoon to switch sides (you know who you are!). Performance-wise, reviews of AMD's Ryzen 7000 series have been largely positive but as The Verge points out, this is only the beginning. While Intel's 12th gen processors are understood to have performed better than AMD's Ryzen 5000 series, AMD's spanking new 7000 series chips are beating the competition (not counting gaming performance, since that's been.. meh). Still, Intel is expected to announce more details about its 13th gen Raptor Lake processors soon, and if they're truly as good as the company says they are, the Intel vs. AMD rivalry will usher into a new age. With so much happening, Intel ranked on the #72 spot. AMD is yet to chart the rankings, but we'll keep you posted when it does. That said, Facebook continues to remain at the top of the tech company rankings for.. we don't even remember how many weeks anymore. Facebook co-founder and future metaverse god (lol?) Mark Zuckerberg told employees last week that Facebook-parent Meta Platforms will put the brakes on hiring and let go of some people, joining the likes of other tech giants who are also taking similar action in light of prevailing macroeconomic conditions. Notably, this would be the first time Meta would be reducing its headcount. Surely, Zuck feels a bit of remorse for the difficult decision ahead? Right? Right!? Absolutely not. Just days after the layoffs story broke, Zuckerberg was spotted in Las Vegas with his entourage to attend UFC Fight Night 211 card at the UFC Apex 🥊. Clearly not willing to rub shoulders with the rest of the world, Zuckerberg is said to have received a private viewing of the matches with no media allowed (his wife wasn't having any of it, though). Just goes to show how unrelatable Zuckerberg is with the average person on the planet. Google Swipes Left on Stadia 🎮 Google pulled the switch on Stadia this past week after noting that the cloud gaming service hadn't gained the traction it was hoping it would. By now, the pattern is pretty clear: things just aren't looking too good economically speaking, so companies are doing what they can to offload businesses and services that just aren't core to their bottomline. According to Kotaku, game devs and Stadia employees alike were blindsided by the announcement. However, a quick glance of the Google Graveyard shows that the company is notorious for discontinuing services either because of obsolescence, integration into other Google products, or lack of interest. As Kotaku notes: "Google’s track record, and Stadia’s own past, call into question whether it was ever properly committed to the ambitious endeavor." Oh well. Google was trending #5 this week. Upwork and the Tale of the $1 💲 Popular freelance website Upwork attracted the ire of one HackerNoon contributor who ran an expose this past week on the company's $1 'conversion fee.' In essence, the company silently updated its terms of service, requiring users to pay a token $1 fee if a freelancer wants to take their relationship with an employer outside of the Upwork platform. A writer who goes by Ghost of HackerNoon posits that Upwork is doing this to find out exactly who is leaving the company's platform so they can prevent other users from doing so. Is that what it means to kill the old ways of working? Upwork didn't say. Staying in Florida? Just Forget the Refunds ⛅ Guests displaced in Florida in wake of Hurricane Ian were in for a rude awakening last week, relying on the generosity of their hosts for refunds if they had booked lodgings using AirBnB. AirBnB, which saw a whopping 7,100% increase in trending interest to land on the #3 spot, refused refunds on short-term rentals because its cancellation policy specifically excludes Florida’s storm season. Yikes! And that's a wrap! Thanks for reading Tech Company Brief Issue #18! If you'd like to see which tech companies are rising and falling in the public consciousness, feel free to head down here. See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️ As if the console wars weren't bad enough, now PC gamers have to get into the same dilemma: go for team red or team blue. Yes, ICYMI, AMD finally released the Ryzen 7000 series chips last week in a bid to win back performance nerds over to its side, prompting at least one hardcore Intel fanboy editor here at HackerNoon to switch sides (you know who you are!). console wars console wars AMD AMD Intel Intel Performance-wise, reviews of AMD's Ryzen 7000 series have been largely positive but as The Verge points out, this is only the beginning . While Intel's 12th gen processors are understood to have performed better than AMD's Ryzen 5000 series, AMD's spanking new 7000 series chips are beating the competition (not counting gaming performance, since that's been.. meh). Still, Intel is expected to announce more details about its 13th gen Raptor Lake processors soon, and if they're truly as good as the company says they are, the Intel vs. AMD rivalry will usher into a new age. largely positive largely positive The Verge only the beginning only the beginning performed better performed better announce announce as good as good With so much happening, Intel ranked on the #72 spot. AMD is yet to chart the rankings, but we'll keep you posted when it does. That said, Facebook continues to remain at the top of the tech company rankings for.. we don't even remember how many weeks anymore. Facebook co-founder and future metaverse god (lol?) Mark Zuckerberg told employees last week that Facebook-parent Meta Platforms will put the brakes on hiring and let go of some people, joining the likes of other tech giants who are also taking similar action in light of prevailing macroeconomic conditions. Facebook Facebook let go let go other tech giants other tech giants Notably, this would be the first time Meta would be reducing its headcount. Surely, Zuck feels a bit of remorse for the difficult decision ahead? Right? Right!? Absolutely not. Just days after the layoffs story broke, Zuckerberg was spotted in Las Vegas with his entourage to attend UFC Fight Night 211 card at the UFC Apex 🥊. Clearly not willing to rub shoulders with the rest of the world, Zuckerberg is said to have received a private viewing of the matches with no media allowed (his wife wasn't having any of it , though). attend attend private viewing private viewing wasn't having any of it wasn't having any of it Just goes to show how unrelatable Zuckerberg is with the average person on the planet. Google Swipes Left on Stadia 🎮 Google Swipes Left on Stadia Google pulled the switch on Stadia this past week after noting that the cloud gaming service hadn't gained the traction it was hoping it would. By now, the pattern is pretty clear: things just aren't looking too good economically speaking, so companies are doing what they can to offload businesses and services that just aren't core to their bottomline. Google Google pulled the switch pulled the switch According to Kotaku , game devs and Stadia employees alike were blindsided by the announcement . However, a quick glance of the Google Graveyard shows that the company is notorious for discontinuing services either because of obsolescence, integration into other Google products, or lack of interest. As Kotaku notes: "Google’s track record, and Stadia’s own past, call into question whether it was ever properly committed to the ambitious endeavor." Kotaku blindsided blindsided announcement announcement Google Graveyard Google Graveyard Kotaku Oh well. Google was trending #5 this week. Upwork and the Tale of the $1 💲 Upwork and the Tale of the $1 Popular freelance website Upwork attracted the ire of one HackerNoon contributor who ran an expose this past week on the company's $1 'conversion fee.' In essence, the company silently updated its terms of service, requiring users to pay a token $1 fee if a freelancer wants to take their relationship with an employer outside of the Upwork platform. Upwork Upwork ran an expose ran an expose A writer who goes by Ghost of HackerNoon posits that Upwork is doing this to find out exactly who is leaving the company's platform so they can prevent other users from doing so. Is that what it means to kill the old ways of working ? Upwork didn't say. Ghost of HackerNoon Ghost of HackerNoon who the old ways of working the old ways of working Staying in Florida? Just Forget the Refunds ⛅ Staying in Florida? Just Forget the Refunds Guests displaced in Florida in wake of Hurricane Ian were in for a rude awakening last week, relying on the generosity of their hosts for refunds if they had booked lodgings using AirBnB . generosity generosity AirBnB AirBnB AirBnB, which saw a whopping 7,100% increase in trending interest to land on the #3 spot, refused refunds on short-term rentals because its cancellation policy specifically excludes Florida’s storm season. Yikes! And that's a wrap! Thanks for reading Tech Company Brief Issue #18! If you'd like to see which tech companies are rising and falling in the public consciousness, feel free to head down here . See y'all next week. here here PEACE! ☮️

Team Red vs. Team Blue

Equipo rojo contra equipo azul

Équipe Rouge contre Équipe Bleue

टीम रेड बनाम टीम ब्लू

チームレッド対チームブルー

Time Vermelho vs. Time Azul

Đội Đỏ so với Đội Xanh lam

红队与蓝队

The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, père is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here: . Volume One, Chapter 20: The Cemetery of the Château d’If [LINK TO TABLE OF LINK] Chapter 20. The Cemetery of the Château d’If On the bed, at full length, and faintly illuminated by the pale light that came from the window, lay a sack of canvas, and under its rude folds was stretched a long and stiffened form; it was Faria’s last winding-sheet,—a winding-sheet which, as the turnkey said, cost so little. Everything was in readiness. A barrier had been placed between Dantès and his old friend. No longer could Edmond look into those wide-open eyes which had seemed to be penetrating the mysteries of death; no longer could he clasp the hand which had done so much to make his existence blessed. Faria, the beneficent and cheerful companion, with whom he was accustomed to live so intimately, no longer breathed. He seated himself on the edge of that terrible bed, and fell into melancholy and gloomy reverie. Alone! he was alone again! again condemned to silence—again face to face with nothingness! Alone!—never again to see the face, never again to hear the voice of the only human being who united him to earth! Was not Faria’s fate the better, after all—to solve the problem of life at its source, even at the risk of horrible suffering? The idea of suicide, which his friend had driven away and kept away by his cheerful presence, now hovered like a phantom over the abbé’s dead body. “If I could die,” he said, “I should go where he goes, and should assuredly find him again. But how to die? It is very easy,” he went on with a smile; “I will remain here, rush on the first person that opens the door, strangle him, and then they will guillotine me.” But excessive grief is like a storm at sea, where the frail bark is tossed from the depths to the top of the wave. Dantès recoiled from the idea of so infamous a death, and passed suddenly from despair to an ardent desire for life and liberty. “Die? oh, no,” he exclaimed—“not die now, after having lived and suffered so long and so much! Die? yes, had I died years ago; but now to die would be, indeed, to give way to the sarcasm of destiny. No, I want to live; I shall struggle to the very last; I will yet win back the happiness of which I have been deprived. Before I die I must not forget that I have my executioners to punish, and perhaps, too, who knows, some friends to reward. Yet they will forget me here, and I shall die in my dungeon like Faria.” As he said this, he became silent and gazed straight before him like one overwhelmed with a strange and amazing thought. Suddenly he arose, lifted his hand to his brow as if his brain were giddy, paced twice or thrice round the dungeon, and then paused abruptly by the bed. “Just God!” he muttered, “whence comes this thought? Is it from thee? Since none but the dead pass freely from this dungeon, let me take the place of the dead!” Without giving himself time to reconsider his decision, and, indeed, that he might not allow his thoughts to be distracted from his desperate resolution, he bent over the appalling shroud, opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and bore it along the tunnel to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, tied around its head the rag he wore at night around his own, covered it with his counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly to close the resisting eyes, which glared horribly, turned the head towards the wall, so that the jailer might, when he brought the evening meal, believe that he was asleep, as was his frequent custom; entered the tunnel again, drew the bed against the wall, returned to the other cell, took from the hiding-place the needle and thread, flung off his rags, that they might feel only naked flesh beneath the coarse canvas, and getting inside the sack, placed himself in the posture in which the dead body had been laid, and sewed up the mouth of the sack from the inside. He would have been discovered by the beating of his heart, if by any mischance the jailers had entered at that moment. Dantès might have waited until the evening visit was over, but he was afraid that the governor would change his mind, and order the dead body to be removed earlier. In that case his last hope would have been destroyed. Now his plans were fully made, and this is what he intended to do. If while he was being carried out the grave-diggers should discover that they were bearing a live instead of a dead body, Dantès did not intend to give them time to recognize him, but with a sudden cut of the knife, he meant to open the sack from top to bottom, and, profiting by their alarm, escape; if they tried to catch him, he would use his knife to better purpose. If they took him to the cemetery and laid him in a grave, he would allow himself to be covered with earth, and then, as it was night, the grave-diggers could scarcely have turned their backs before he would have worked his way through the yielding soil and escaped. He hoped that the weight of earth would not be so great that he could not overcome it. If he was detected in this and the earth proved too heavy, he would be stifled, and then—so much the better, all would be over. Dantès had not eaten since the preceding evening, but he had not thought of hunger, nor did he think of it now. His situation was too precarious to allow him even time to reflect on any thought but one. The first risk that Dantès ran was, that the jailer, when he brought him his supper at seven o’clock, might perceive the change that had been made; fortunately, twenty times at least, from misanthropy or fatigue, Dantès had received his jailer in bed, and then the man placed his bread and soup on the table, and went away without saying a word. This time the jailer might not be as silent as usual, but speak to Dantès, and seeing that he received no reply, go to the bed, and thus discover all. When seven o’clock came, Dantès’ agony really began. His hand placed upon his heart was unable to redress its throbbings, while, with the other he wiped the perspiration from his temples. From time to time chills ran through his whole body, and clutched his heart in a grasp of ice. Then he thought he was going to die. Yet the hours passed on without any unusual disturbance, and Dantès knew that he had escaped the first peril. It was a good augury. At length, about the hour the governor had appointed, footsteps were heard on the stairs. Edmond felt that the moment had arrived, summoned up all his courage, held his breath, and would have been happy if at the same time he could have repressed the throbbing of his veins. The footsteps—they were double—paused at the door—and Dantès guessed that the two grave-diggers had come to seek him—this idea was soon converted into certainty, when he heard the noise they made in putting down the hand-bier. The door opened, and a dim light reached Dantès’ eyes through the coarse sack that covered him; he saw two shadows approach his bed, a third remaining at the door with a torch in its hand. The two men, approaching the ends of the bed, took the sack by its extremities. “He’s heavy, though, for an old and thin man,” said one, as he raised the head. “They say every year adds half a pound to the weight of the bones,” said another, lifting the feet. “Have you tied the knot?” inquired the first speaker. “What would be the use of carrying so much more weight?” was the reply, “I can do that when we get there.” “Yes, you’re right,” replied the companion. “What’s the knot for?” thought Dantès. They deposited the supposed corpse on the bier. Edmond stiffened himself in order to play the part of a dead man, and then the party, lighted by the man with the torch, who went first, ascended the stairs. Suddenly he felt the fresh and sharp night air, and Dantès knew that the mistral was blowing. It was a sensation in which pleasure and pain were strangely mingled. The bearers went on for twenty paces, then stopped, putting the bier down on the ground. One of them went away, and Dantès heard his shoes striking on the pavement. “Where am I?” he asked himself. “Really, he is by no means a light load!” said the other bearer, sitting on the edge of the hand-barrow. Dantès’ first impulse was to escape, but fortunately he did not attempt it. “Give us a light,” said the other bearer, “or I shall never find what I am looking for.” The man with the torch complied, although not asked in the most polite terms. “What can he be looking for?” thought Edmond. “The spade, perhaps.” An exclamation of satisfaction indicated that the grave-digger had found the object of his search. “Here it is at last,” he said, “not without some trouble, though.” “Yes,” was the answer, “but it has lost nothing by waiting.” As he said this, the man came towards Edmond, who heard a heavy metallic substance laid down beside him, and at the same moment a cord was fastened round his feet with sudden and painful violence. “Well, have you tied the knot?” inquired the grave-digger, who was looking on. “Yes, and pretty tight too, I can tell you,” was the answer. “Move on, then.” And the bier was lifted once more, and they proceeded. They advanced fifty paces farther, and then stopped to open a door, then went forward again. The noise of the waves dashing against the rocks on which the château is built, reached Dantès’ ear distinctly as they went forward. “Bad weather!” observed one of the bearers; “not a pleasant night for a dip in the sea.” “Why, yes, the abbé runs a chance of being wet,” said the other; and then there was a burst of brutal laughter. Dantès did not comprehend the jest, but his hair stood erect on his head. “Well, here we are at last,” said one of them. “A little farther—a little farther,” said the other. “You know very well that the last was stopped on his way, dashed on the rocks, and the governor told us next day that we were careless fellows.” They ascended five or six more steps, and then Dantès felt that they took him, one by the head and the other by the heels, and swung him to and fro. “One!” said the grave-diggers, “two! three!” And at the same instant Dantès felt himself flung into the air like a wounded bird, falling, falling, with a rapidity that made his blood curdle. Although drawn downwards by the heavy weight which hastened his rapid descent, it seemed to him as if the fall lasted for a century. At last, with a horrible splash, he darted like an arrow into the ice-cold water, and as he did so he uttered a shrill cry, stifled in a moment by his immersion beneath the waves. Dantès had been flung into the sea, and was dragged into its depths by a thirty-six-pound shot tied to his feet. The sea is the cemetery of the Château d’If. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022, from Dumas, Alexandre. 2022. The Count of the Monte-Cristo. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1184/1184-h/1184-h.htm#linkC2HCH0020 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated: Chapter 20 - The Cemetery of the Château d’If

In 2017, my partner and I launched the first mobile app for children. I took the position of CEO. Because of the lack of a lot of relevant experience, I began to make mistakes almost from the very beginning. I didn’t really know how to “swim,” - yet, I suddenly found myself in the open sea. Nevertheless, even back then, I understood that it is impossible to build a business completely without mistakes. Yes, I did a lot of things, but every time it gave me experience, which I invested in the further development of the project. Let me introduce myself. My name is Mikhail Kotlov. I am a co-founder of , a start-up build around educational applications for children that have been translated into more than 30 languages. Our apps are in the top 10 in the Apple App Store (Kids 5 & Under category) in 40 countries worldwide. We are mainly focused on the European and United States markets, now launching in China. Our product line includes 3 children's applications, an app for parents, a project with online lessons, and an educational animated series "Team Mendeleev". IntellectoKids Today I will share the mistakes that I made while building IntellectoKids, and most importantly, the lessons I learned in the process. Started with the "discovery of America" For many startups, the United States is the most desirable market and main target. I was no exception. Launching IntellectoKids, we thought ambitiously and decided to immediately promote in the United States. In our case, this turned out to be a mistake because advertising in America was more expensive than we expected when planning the budget. In addition, at that time, we did not have enough competencies for successful promotion. Simply put, we weren't ready - and we could do it. Therefore, we quickly changed our strategy and turned to less competitive markets. We have localized the product into Swedish, Spanish, and French markets. It worked: the company began to grow. Of course, then we returned to the USA, but now we had more experience and money, so everything turned out well. Now our applications are very popular in the States. So if you have already tried to storm the US market and failed, do not worry: look at the countries of Latin America and Europe. Perhaps, you will have a better chance there. Locked all processes on me When you only have 8-10 employees, you are thoroughly immersed in everything that happens in your startup. Almost no phone call in the team is complete without your participation. This is not uncommon, and in the beginning, this is the right strategy. However, at some point, the company was already growing in terms of metrics, the team was getting larger, the processes were growing, but the approach stayed the same. This is what was happening at IntellectoKids. I was aware of the smallest details: any problem, any solution passed through me. As a result, I had practically no time left for strategic planning. And the CEO's task is to constantly check the course, anticipating everything several steps ahead. It's good that we have two founders at IntellectoKids, and my partner partially covered this problem. Immersion in routine processes interferes with researching trends and communicating with people from the field. However, this is necessary to keep the pulse on market trends and news. Eventually, new ideas come less often because you are too busy with operations and troubleshooting every small issue. Unintentionally, my behavior looked like distrust for my team. It partly prevented the company's team leads from developing professionally. Until I dared to trust my team, they entirely relied on my opinion and could not become independent "players". As a result: It started hurting business goals; It made the team bored and burned them out Fortunately, it didn’t come to a critical point, and I got it together. We now call the team leaders once a week to discuss global product and marketing issues and adjust the action plan if required. Plus, I do regular one-on-one calls to make sure things are going as planned. This tactic saves resources and avoids distraction through trivial issues. As it turns out, my team is capable of brainstorming ad creatives or controlling the release of a new version of the application without me. Today, the creative team and the development team are now working independently. I would like the same thing to happen over time with all teams, but it takes time to cultivate talent and find candidates with leadership skills in the job market. For example, currently, we are now looking for a competent CMO. As of right now, I take care of the CMO duties as well. Worked with digital agencies There was a time when I thought it was easier to outsource marketing and creativity. I was wrong. Although for many companies the agency is a great option, it turned out that in my case, it was not suitable. The reason is the particular aspects of our niche market. It is difficult to advertise an app for preschoolers. First, you have two target audiences: children and parents. The child needs an exciting product, and the parent needs a useful one. Therefore, it is important to show the educational value of the app, not just the demo of the game. The second difficulty is that parents have a very wide range of interests. When we advertise a children's app, we compete with all products and services of interest to women between the ages of 25 to 55 - this can be anything from match 3 games to beauty salons. We must catch moms' attention in a limited period of time while they are on Facebook. The field of children's applications is quite young. Most agencies do not have a sufficient understanding of how to work in this field. It is very difficult to gain experience in conducting such advertising campaigns if you work in an agency and are not thoroughly immersed in the project, like the guys at IntellectoKids. Therefore, at some point, I had to abandon the idea of outsourcing. I've built an in-house team of creators and marketers who do a better job than agencies. Didn't share ideas "Sitting inside a box" was a big mistake on my part. I did not talk about projects and plans. I was a little afraid that my ideas would be stolen and was superstitious: I did not want to announce any new features until they became a reality. In fact, you are unlikely to come up with something completely new. In other words, there is nothing new under the Sun. So you shouldn't be afraid of collaborations or discussions. By staying silent about your ideas, you rob yourself of the opportunity to get useful feedback. I think I missed a lot of useful comments from smart and experienced people who, at that time, understood business processes better than I did. Moreover, if you don’t share ideas and plans, you will never learn how to make a great product or promote it. In the long run, exchanging ideas and feedback is a lot more valuable than staying silent. Finally, there was a need to raise capital, and I realized that it is wrong to stay silent. One of the founders' responsibilities is to get the attention of potential investors. It means constantly telling people about the company. You never know which contact will invest or direct you to the right investor, so you need to keep your business network informed and excited about your company. When asked for advice, I always say: "Be generous." Share your ideas and news. The established connections will definitely come in handy one day. Didn't develop a recruiting team For three years, I had just one recruiter, and we built up the marketing, development, and product teams together. At the time, I didn’t think about the need to build a recruiting team to optimize the hiring process. The Russian market is not the target market for IntellectoKids; we work little with this category of users. People are not familiar with our product, and practically, not familiar with the company. The fact that we are not heard of significantly narrows our opportunities for recruiting specialists and reduces the number of applications for vacancies. To increase the company's recognition in the Russian job market, we began to engage in PR. Currently, we are working to create our HR brand. But it should not stop there. It's really great in our company: we create high-quality content, work with modern development technologies, offer various pleasant bonuses - from voluntary medical insurance to pay for specialized training. But someone has to “sell” all this to candidates, hunt people from well-known companies, and use non-standard search methods. In this case, you cannot do without a strong recruitment team, so I recently allocated resources to create a recruiting department. Interviewed people incorrectly I didn't always know how to conduct interviews. I thought I was asking the right questions. But in fact, I missed the important details, which subsequently influenced the person's work and his relationships with other team members. These details were mostly values ​​- and if a candidate’s value matched the company values. It is much easier to assess professional skills in a regular interview than soft skills. And it can be difficult to understand whether a newcomer can organically integrate into the team. The simplest example: once, I hired a girl who, as it turned out, was used to swearing at her colleagues. This is not accepted in the culture of IntellectoKids: it’s crazy for us to even raise our voices. Unfortunately, the conversations did not affect, and we had to part ways with that employee. And I had to continue to search for a suitable person for her role. Now I stick to this rule: during interviews, I pay attention to soft skills. If a candidate doesn’t check all the boxes on soft skills, I won't hire this candidate, even if he/she is a genius. After a couple of unfortunate incidents, I decided to dive deeper into the issue and look for a system that would help me hire competent people. One of my acquaintances recommended “The Who method”, as described in the book by Jeff Smart and Randy Street. (See, not being silent and talking to people helps!) The selection process is quite long. On average, it takes two to three weeks from the first interview to an offer. But the method works: during the time that we have been using it, there have been almost no cases in IntellectoKids that a person did not pass the probationary period. So, the system is useful for everyone involved. How does it work? First, the interview is conducted by the recruiter to check whether the person is generally suitable. For example, we check if the candidate’s goals align with the company's goals. Then, we give a test task. With the test task, we obviously check the hard skills. However, we can see how this candidate thinks and how he/she can immerse themselves in a topic. The next step: the team-lead interviews the candidate to see if the candidate has professional skills. The next step is an interview with me. If the candidate is not on my team, I act as a barraiser. Barraiser is an expert invited for an interview who is not directly interested in the candidate. The interview is all about identifying the strengths and weaknesses of soft skills. This is done, among other things, so that both parties understand how comfortable it would be to work together. If the conversation went well, we would collect references from past jobs. Candidates are often intimidated by this point. However, there is no reason to be scared here. We might not extend an offer because of negative recommendations, only when something truly terrible that this candidate has done in their previous job. Finally, after this stage, we extend an offer. It turns out that getting to us is quite difficult. But we have a low turnover rate. Usually, each hire is a win-win match. The main thing is not to be lazy and not to skip any of the selection steps. There were a few times when we didn’t follow each step in our hiring method. As a result, the newcomer either left or got fired. Not enough investment in server development Until recently, our server development was based on part-time employees. We did not have a full-fledged team in this direction. Meanwhile, server-side development is very important for monetization, analytics, and marketing, because all analytical and marketing tools require server-side solutions. Otherwise, it is impossible to draw the right conclusions, analyze the data and understand what is more profitable for you to sell and how to promote the product. The lack of a competent full-time server development team began to hinder the development of our marketing and analytics. And in the end, when it was necessary to grow, we were engaged in the development of server architecture. Actually, we are still fixing this mistake. Stopped running CustDev I started my business researching parenting pain. But at a certain stage of company growth, I stopped further researching on the subject. It was definitely my fault. CustDev must be persistent. First, the needs of your target audience are always changing, and you need to improve your content in accordance with those new needs. Secondly, your product changes, and you need to understand if you are on the right track. We recently started to focus on CustDev again, but due to lack of time, we are not as active as we would like to be. Got stuck on Facebook We researched different promotion channels; our main focus was Facebook. Our ads worked so well; we were tempted to spend our entire marketing budget on Facebook. But through practice, we learned that it wasn’t the best approach. Even when you find the most profitable channel for your product, it is important to use other channels as well. Currently, we are looking for new team members who will be engaged in promotion in Google Ads, influence marketing, CPA networks, and different partnerships. I wanted to get results without investing in the team When we launched online lessons, we needed to look for teachers. At first, I took care of it myself. I looked for candidates myself and attracted the head of the online lessons department. However, real results started to happen when we hired a dedicated recruiter with the appropriate expertise. There are many similar examples in my practice. As a result, I strongly believe in hiring the right people for the task. Instead of dividing new responsibilities between existing employees, who may or may not have enough competencies to succeed with this particular task. If you are trying to reduce financial risks without investing in people, you are still taking risks, the risk of undesirable outcomes. When you get these outcomes, you will think that the reason is in the product itself and in the lack of demand. The chances are that your company simply does not have the expertise that would allow the product to grow. Or maybe your current team doesn't have enough time to devote to the project. In both cases, the solution is to hire people who will only focus on the new task. Staked on game content We develop educational games for children. Previously, the process of creating content was structured as follows: first, the game designer came up with a scenario for the game, and then we "built" learning mechanics into it. During the pandemic, the demand for systematic education of children through applications has grown. The parents wanted the child to not just play and, perhaps, learn a new skill as a bonus. Our target audience needed something more: a product that carries an understandable educational value, and only then, just as a bonus, entertains. Therefore, our apps now help children prepare for school through gamification. First, the teaching methodologist writes an educational program, and only after that, the game designer packs it up and makes an exciting game. This point can be attributed to errors only conditionally since we rebuilt the processes in time. Still, we could have done this earlier; it would only help us gain more users. How I learned and still learning from my mistakes To be wrong in the “right” way, I carefully analyze past experiences and understand: what exactly went wrong; what risks in the future does a particular mistake carry; what opportunities it opens up for me; what can I fix - and how; how can I minimize losses at the same time; what needs to be done so that the mistake does not repeat itself. Also, I advise everyone to read the book by Carol Dweck, “Flexible Mind.” The author of the book, a professor at Stanford University, explores the nature of the fear of mistakes and gives advice on how not to be afraid of new experiences. The book also talks about how we can only learn through our mistakes.

Mistakes I Made While Building an EdTech Startup With 400K Active Users

Today’s customers are smarter than you think. They are capable enough to research your product and make buying decisions on their own. With this in mind, you have to adopt new technologies and learn market trends. You have to understand your customers’ preferences, feelings, and attitudes. For that, you need to do market research. Market research is the core of your every successful business strategy. It’s the one and only way to get a deeper knowledge about your customers, competitors, and most importantly, your employees. And market research is the answer to all your business issues. This will help you to test new products, launch a new service, and identify potential leads. To make your research efforts more accurate, we’re sharing different market research types to make sure you have all the information. Read on to learn more about them. What is Market Research? Market research is one of the essential treasures of any business. It takes you closer to your customers by helping you understand them better. Several businesses use market research to identify their target market, improve the overall experience, and craft a strong marketing strategy that attracts new leads and retains the old ones. Why is Market Research Important? A popular electronic brand falls from grace within the business world. Everyone blamed the new CEO, business strategy, their products, and whatnot! But, the real reason behind the loss of their popularity was the lack of market research. For this reason, the brand failed to understand the new market trends, customer preferences, and advanced technologies. Well, I’m telling you the story of Nokia. Back in 2013, Nokia’s lack of market understanding and innovation was one of the many reasons behind its failure. There’s no doubt that market research is one of the most important parts of a successful business. Without conducting market research, you can’t understand your customers, identify the strengths and weaknesses of your business, or can’t create a solid marketing strategy that works effectively. As a business owner, you have to analyze what your customers want, what their expectations are. And without marketing research, you can’t understand them accurately. Yes, you’ll have a rough idea about their needs, but if you want to dig deeper and win your customers forever, then market research is vital. Here’s why market research is crucial for the good health of your business: Who will purchase my product? What do they expect from my product? Who are my ideal customers? How often will they purchase from me? I know you ask yourself these questions a lot! Because your business’s success depends on the answers to these questions. The more answers you’ll get, the better understanding you’ll get about your business. The answers will help you to know your customers better than your competitors. Conducting market research will allow you to get the full buyer’s persona or customer profile. From the customer profile, you can identify the market size. You’ll get insights on customer demographics, like their age, gender, location, Income, etc. You can use this valuable insight into different marketing, advertising, or pricing campaigns. Stay Ahead of Your Competitors Your competitors have already done their fair share of market research to stay ahead in the game. If you want to win back your customers from your competitors, market research is the ultimate solution. You can identify the key players in the market with the help of . Moreover, you can gather knowledge about competitors’ business approaches, strengths, and weaknesses. These will help you to create effective strategies with more deep knowledge about the market. You can analyze your business gaps, which will be crucial to the growth of your business. market research Test Your Product While launching a new product on the market, you can’t be sure about its success. You can never know whether your customers will connect with your product or not. That’s why testing is vital before launching your product or services in the market world. Don’t make decisions in haste, and look well before introducing your business to the potential customer. With market research, you can identify what strategy is best for your product, What resonates with your potential buyers, etc. This will save you from making any bad decisions or delivering a bad product to the market. Observe Closely to win Trust Getting closer to your customer will ensure your business’s success in the long run. You have to care about your employees deeply to get better results and improve customer experience. Also, gathering information can tell you the reason behind your customers’ behavior. For instance, suppose your customers often leave your website after visiting the service page. You can identify the reason after conducting market research. Now you know what market research is and why it’s valuable for businesses. So, let’s move on to the next point- the different types of market research. Different Types of Market Research There are mainly two types of market research that you’ll come across often- primary research and secondary research. Secondary research means third-party information within the market. In this kind of market research, the research is done by another business or organization, not by you. Some good examples of secondary market research are: Articles Books Videos Infographics White papers Secondary market research is essential to understand your industry. But, if you want to collect deep knowledge about your industry, then primary market research is more crucial. And the examples of primary market research are: Online survey Interview Focus groups Primary market research can help you collect insightful information directly from your potential customers. With this information, you can strengthen your business strategy. Online surveys and polls are great ways to conduct market research successfully. With online surveys, you can get 40% more responses than any other survey method. If you are not sure about your product’s performance or want feedback about service, always ask your customers first. Learn more about the importance of online surveys in our next point- “How to conduct market research with online surveys?” How to Conduct Market Research with Online Survey Online survey is an important part of market research. It lets you analyze your customers’ feelings about your products\services. If you want to get a clear idea about their characteristics, requirements, feedback, and expectations, market survey tools are the answer to all. The primary purpose of online market surveys are: The purpose of the customers’ feedback survey is to gain valuable customer information so that you can retain your old customers and obtain new customers quickly. Surveys will give you a clear understanding of your customers’ purchasing behavior. Whether they’ll buy a specific product from you? Will they spend a certain amount on your new product or not? What do they think about the new feature of your app? You will get answers to all these questions by using an online market survey. Another purpose of market surveys is to gain insightful data. Gathering market data is essential to make major business decisions. You can avoid business risk by making well-informed decisions and marketing strategies. The most important purpose of market surveys is to get feedback and analyze your customer satisfaction levels. This will help you to keep your customers engaged and obtain loyal customers. Different Types of market research surveys: There are multiple types of market research surveys used by companies to gain insightful data. The information collected by market surveys will help you to identify new market trends, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, employee experience, competitors’ research, etc. As we mentioned earlier, there are multiple types of market surveys used by companies. But here will talk about the top five most valuable market research surveys you can run to ensure good profits. 1. Market Segmentation Survey With online market research surveys, you can determine the market size, segment your customers. Segmented campaigns can increase revenue by . By conducting such market research, you can get key information on market growth, competitive positioning, etc. You can also use this type of survey to explore your target market and gather information about audience demographics—for example, age, family income, gender, etc. 750% 2. Purchase Process Tracking Survey How do your customers decide to make a purchase? What factors transform product awareness into sales? You’ll get these answers from conducting a purchase process tracking survey. These types of surveys will give you knowledge about market awareness, market information, inclination, etc. 3. Customer Analysis Survey Customer analysis surveys are extremely important for understanding your customers’ expectations, attitudes, and loyalty. Also, you can measure customer loyalty and engagement based on these online surveys. 4. New Product Analysis Survey If you want to launch a new feature of your product in the market, a product analysis survey will ensure success. You can measure the likelihood of the new feature or product. This market research will help you in the feature development process properly in the future. 5. Market Survey for Competitors Analysis Competitors are always vital for any organization. When you maintain healthy competition with other businesses in your industry, you create opportunities for growth. And market surveys for competitor analysis will make you realize the market view you have relative to your competitors. In addition, you can gather information about their marketing strategist, strengths, and weaknesses. You can use SurveySparrow’s online survey software to conduct market research smoothly. With SurveySparrow, you’ll get myriads of survey templates that will help you create engaging surveys based on your own requirements. Tools for conducting market research Here we’ve compiled a list of tools you can use to conduct online and offline market research surveys. These simple yet powerful features of these tools are extremely popular among several businesses all over the globe. Engaging Survey Software There’s nothing better than using engaging survey software to conduct your market research efficiently. Surveys are one of the best methods to gather information from your customers and employees about your business services and products. Having clarity about your potential customers, buyers’ persona, and solid feedback will make your marketing strategy stronger. Survey software is popular for creating personalized surveys and increasing brand awareness. With survey platforms, you can get Insights from your website, social media platforms, webinars, and emails. SurveySparrow’s survey software is a great . It allows you to create engaging forms and surveys without a hassle. These surveys are conversational and easy-to-use. Most importantly, it offers features like multiple question types, dashboard, customization, embedded surveys, recurring surveys, etc. So, if you are looking for ways to conduct hassle-free market research, SurveySparrow is definitely a great Typeform, Zoho, and SurveyMonkey alternative. Typeform alternative Chatbots for Website Chatbots are the future of market research. As per a study, by 2024, the global market chat is projected to be over $994 million. Several brands are implementing chatbots in every business task. From doing market research to tracking employee service, chatbots are almost everywhere. A chatbot for a website has the power to make your customer journey or employee journey more enjoyable. It is an automated system that’ll guide your target audience via text and voice-based conversation. Using the ability of natural language processing, AI programmed intelligence, you can gather insights deeply resembling a human employee. In addition, a chatbot will never feel tired to ask a follow-up question to your customers as your human employee. And market research is not a one-day work task! You have to make sure your research results are always up to date. That’s why you have to communicate with your target audience constantly. Chatbots are the best solution to engage with your customers without disturbing them frequently. SurveySparrow’s is exclusively made to gather Insightful market data without any programming knowledge. Here we can give you an example of . This San Francisco-based marketing and advertising company de-cluttered its data collection process using SurveySparrow’s chatbot feature. no-code feedbot Deloitte Digital The company was facing challenges while collecting market data with the traditional paper questionnaire. However, the chat-like experience and sleek UI of this chatbot helped them gather 804 survey responses out of 1200 surveyed people. That means a total of 67% completion rate. Profitable, isn’t it? 360 degree feedback software You can spend every bit of your penny on your customers to make them stay, but without your employees’ help, you’ll fail miserably every time. When we talk about market research, the first thing that pops into our minds is customers. We want to conduct market research to gather knowledge about customer preference. But, employee research always remains like a neglected treasure. The reason why your business competitors outperform you is their focus on the development and betterment of their employees. If you want to make a stellar marketing strategy, you can’t ignore your employees. In recent days, employee engagement and satisfaction have both become very popular topics. Businesses all over the globe realize the value of employees. Because, no matter which industry you belong to, people like to do business with people. And happy employees are the most real, relatable, and simple people to attract customers and keep them engaged. That’s why it’s important to use a 360-degree feedback tool like SurveySparrow. With this software, you can conduct an employee assessment to increase productivity and drive growth. From insightful review reports, customized reports to assessment tracker, you can do all at once with this tool. Let’s Wrap it Up Aall things said and done! Here we’ve broken down the importance of market research. Also, we’ve shared our take on the importance of market surveys. From getting a more focused target audience to loyal customers, online and offline surveys are great approaches to collect insights. Asking market research questions not only improves customer satisfaction but also gives you authentic information. So, have you conducted your own market research before? If yes, share your experiences in the comment below. Till then, keep surveying, and keep asking the right questions! Previously published at https://surveysparrow.com/blog/what-is-market-research/

Market Research is the Key to Your Business Success: Here’s Why

Email marketing is a very important tactic used to engage and to nurture your community and contacts. That is because email delivers better than any other channel. Therefore, a healthy email list is vital to any business because it is likely you will lose one-third of your contacts every year through attrition. You may lose your contacts over a specific period of time through unsubscribes, hard bounces, or undeliverable emails. Internet service providers (ISPs), spam monitors, and email security services all set thresholds for what constitutes as "an acceptable email campaign". When your number of bounces, complaints, and spam trap hits exceeds the threshold, your messages can be sent to the spam folder or even blocked. Let’s discuss what we can do to maintain the hygiene of the foundation of an email marketing program – email list. Review Undelivered Emails An email list will constantly change. You never know when you might see an important contact in the undeliverable list with a typo. So, review and investigate from the undelivered mail’s report. If there were misspellings or typos, try to correct it. Remove the emails if the status returned failed permanently; you know that those emails are no longer exist. Re-Engage Inactive Emails There are a number of times your subscribers can become inactive after registering a new account. It is a wise step to monitor your inactive subscribers and try to win them back. Plan for one more win-back campaign to engage your inactive subscribers before removing them permanently like sending out a “We Miss You” or “We Want You Back“ email with a special offer or new features announcement to entice them. Bear in mind, re-engaging your old customers could be a lot easier than acquiring a new customer and may help you turn them into customers. Give A Proper Unsubscribe Link Manage your inactive email addresses properly by providing a one-click unsubscribe email feature after a long period of inactivity. You can also add a simple survey or feedback form on your unsubscribe page to find out the reason they are leaving. Then, you will need to study their behavior to see how you can improve your emails and lists in the future. This will help you to keep your list clean and reduce the bounce rate. Maintain A Clean Email List Don’t forget to maintain a clean email list. People stay because they still show an interest in your services. There are some great tools to help you maintain a clean email list. Pay close attention to the open, click, and delivery rate as well so that you will know how to manage your clean list for the next campaign. Remember to gain insight on what interests your community to keep them engaged. Email list cleaning improves your email reputation and increases email deliverability. If you wish to grow your businesses based on real-time business intelligence, focus on rules of email marketing and analyze the result of every marketing campaigns you have done.

How To Clean An Email List To Improve  Deliverability

Feature Picture: Parasite - Best movie of the decade, in my opinion. As well as 2019 Best Picture according to the Academy Awards . As a born-and-raised Vietnamese, Korean entertainment has always been a constant in my life, both as a teenager and a young adult. We Vietnamese are obsessed with any and everything Korean: Korean makeup, Korean songs, Korean dances, Korean food and of course Korean celebrities. Growing up, it's the Korean celebs that represent the actual standard of beauty to us Viet youngsters, and not the Hollywood stars, the Kardashians of the world. Above: Son Ye Jin (Left) and Hyun Bin (right) representing typical Korean beauty: fair & clear skin, small face, & "natural" makeup. So when I came to America for the first time in 2009, it was quite surprising to me that , is still a pretty much just an Asian thing. Little did I know, the next decade would bring that wave to the US of A and sweeping pretty much everyone off their feet. Korean Wave, or Hallyu Above: a recent BTS concert in Newark, USA. You might wonder: How in the world did we get here? Earlier this week, wins Best Picture alongside 3 other Oscars. It is the first ever non-English film to be nominated let alone win. Back in 2017, and their US worldwide fandom has reached its all time high ever since. Earlier this decade, since. And today, there are a ton of original Netflix content inundating the once American-centric streaming service. Bong Joon Ho's Parasite Korean boyband BTS won Best artist in the prestigious Billboard Music Award and Gangnam Style became the first ever Youtube video to reach 1 billion views and remain in top 5 videos with the most view of all time in Korean So - what exactly happened? Above: A small selection of Korean content searchable on Netflix The rise of Korean entertainment might seem random and sudden and , a "snowflake" overreaction to the criticism against Hollywood/America's lack of inclusivity and pressure from "woke Twitter". to some people But: let me tell you loud and clear, for the people in the back: Korea's artistic creativity has been top tier for decades. And finally, the world is taking notice. While is an amazing masterpiece that (if you haven't watched it yet - lol what are you doing here? then come back to this piece); and BTS is breaking barriers and records after records ( ); in this piece, I'm gonna talk about one aspect of Hallyu in particular that is compelling to so many fans around the globe. If you would like to even begin to understand the sweeping obsession the world seem to have with Korean culture, start with Korean dramas, or . These, simplistically put, are the equivalence of American TV shows. Parasite actually did totally live up to its hype and more Go watch it apparently accounting for .4% of South Korea's GDP every year since 2018 K-Dramas Me ranting on Facebook about my favorite "oppa": Hyun Bin K-dramas, have always held a special spot in my heart. This is a place I reserve for very specific cultural artifacts, such as Disney Princesses, Japanese mangas, the Harry Potter universe, and of course, K-dramas. Above: Actual footage of me and my mom watching Stairway to Heaven circa 2004. The best way I can explain K-drama to someone, especially an American who has never been exposed to any, is this: imagine if Disney Princesses and Princes exist in the real world. You know the story is not real and the characters are too good/naive/idealistic/uncomplicated to be true and yet you can't help but believe. Now throw in phenomenal soundtracks and ambient music (kinda like sort of music) and superb visual effects. There you have it, K-drama in a bottle. that scene from Up Bong Joon Ho explained it the best in : his acceptance speech as winner of Best Director Academy Award The most personal is the most creative - paraphrased from Martin Scorsese Movies/TV shows are, at the end of the day, an art of storytelling. And art is nothing but feelings. A movie's lasting impression on us depends almost entirely on how it makes us feel, not how it's directed, scripted or acted (though the latter definitely contribute to how it makes us feel). And how it makes us feel depend a lot on us as a person - who we are, what have we done in life that leads us to this point, the lens through which we seen the world, and more. In short, the best movies/TV shows to us are also oftentimes the most personal. To me, K-dramas have always been the most powerful at creating a universe of feelings so visceral and beautiful that are oftentimes lackluster in its American counterpart. I say typical, because as with anything in the world, there are always exceptions. At the center of it, are the feelings of , and . Think about what all of these concepts have in common: purity innocence joy Your first love What a mother's willing to do for her child Children's words Dancing without anyone watching Eating delicious fried chicken wings And so on. Watch this and pay attention to how the first kiss happened around 3:20. Masterful. This is from the 2002 classic "Winter Sonata". Korean dramas are extraordinarily skilled at giving moments like these magnifying glasses and spotlight without inevitably infiltrating them with things that would typically sell more in American culture, such as sex, violence, or drugs. Admittedly, these are important and very "real" things. But to put it in a Korean show would be the equivalence of putting a revealing bikini on your beloved Disney Princess (lol except for Ariel I guess. But she's a mermaid so that's okay). While in a typical American show, the characters will often have sex first before even getting to know one another, we rarely or never see any sex scene in a Korean drama. The main star-crossed lovers would spend literally the entire season (measured in days, months, sometimes years) getting to know each other, before even having as much as a first kiss half way through. It's Disney for adults. And it's comforting. K-dramas are centered around precious moments that create "heart-fluttering" feelings, amplified by superb music and visuals. Tears are guaranteed. Swooning at a kind act/romantic gesture is expected. Justice is often reclaimed. Endings are complete and rarely warrant a second season. You leave the room with your heart full, a feeling that "maybe in the end, the world is alright after all." It's a good-natured kind of art form without any guilt. Ultimately, you are aware that the world that these characters live in is something that almost represents reality, but not quite, and that's okay. Now, I won't pretend that K-dramas are just beautiful little snow globes that are so pure, innocent and joyful for their own sake. Absolutely not. At the end of the day, just like all Disney movies & byproducts, K-dramas are built upon a very strong capitalistic foundation of "what sells". Bong Joon Ho, yet again, said it best: With that note, I would like to leave you with my top choice for 10 Korean dramas you should watch, if you would like to get over that " ": one inch barrier of subtitle and be introduced to the wonderful world of foreign cinema/shows 1. Secret Garden 2. The King 2 hearts 3. Autumn in my heart 4. Nine: Nine Time Travels 5. Winter Sonata 6. You from another star 7. My name is Kim Sam-Soon 8. Boys over flowers 9. Queen In-hyun's Man 10. Crash landing on you If you like this story, for more rant like these :) Also, some links in here are Amazon affiliate links, because why not? follow me on Facebook

Hallyu for Idiots: Understand the Korean Wave via Parasite and K-dramas

Cryptocurrency exchanges actively use native tokens for promoting and strengthening their market position. After issuing its own assets, new platforms attract a seed capital, and the ones already experienced get to increase capitalization. As for traders, they receive benefits of interest or good discounts on fees, which in turn represents an effective way for an exchange to expand its customer base. In 2019, new applications of exchanges’ own tokens have emerged, while their price and popularity continued to grow rapidly. The new ( trend became another reason to buy native tokens. Thus, if earlier they only provided the holders with certain preferences, now they are widely used as a standalone investment tool. IEO Initial Exchange Offering) The IEO assets are often available for purchase only for the exchange's own token holders. And practice shows, its rate is usually increased more than by 100% right in the first days after the token sale. By the middle of 2019, more than 20 crypto exchanges have launched its own fundraising platform. The outdated initial coin offer (ICO) was replaced by IEO, which revived the market, marking the end of the crypto winter. IEO: 2019 Cryptocurrency Trend The mechanism of initial exchange offering was applied for the first time by back in 2017 when BREAD and GIFTO token sales raised $6 mln and $3.4 mln respectively. But IEO boom happened in January 2019, after the incredible success of BitTorrent crowdsale held on the upgraded Launchpad. During the campaign that lasted for less than 18 minutes, 59.4 bln of BTT tokens were sold worth nearly $7.2 mln. Binance Binance IEO became an innovative solution adopted by all the members of the crypto market during its stagnation period when users trust was lost and there was no regulator to set the rules of the game. Crypto exchanges managed to win back the investors’ interest by taking the lead in promising projects selection and tokens distribution among the users. Unlike ICO, IEO implies that tokens are sold under the strict supervision of the trading platform, which studies the project thoroughly and assesses its reliability and sustainability. After that, the contract is signed between the exchange and the project leaders. It defines all the key features of the deal including the token initial price, the maximum emission, soft cap, hard cap, and the details of income distribution procedure. Trading platforms are interested in successful crowdsale and long-term investment prospects of the assets. These are expected to boost the income, attract new users, and respectively bring in big money. magazine has identified the following key advantages of IEO model in the current market climate: ForkLog a professional selection of crypto projects by exchanges and token sales regulation; the lack of “gas wars” inherent in ICO - competition between the token sale participants that forced them to set high gas limits to speed up transactions and be the first buyers of Ethereum-based tokens; the fact that exchanges use their own tokens that enable users to carry out transactions within IEO platform without overloading the Ethereum blockchain; loyal token sale conditions – standard requirements to users include verification and a certain amount of native tokens on their inner-exchange account. Today IEO is a key way for promising crypto projects to attract investments. Now, the success of the crowdfunding campaign depends not only on its sufficiency and developers’ effort but on the exchange’s credibility, IEO format, minimal requirements for participants, and project selection approach as well. How IEOs contribute to native tokens’ growth A rise in exchange own tokens’ price is directly related to the ways in which they are used. The success of IEO mechanism generated the market growth. The starting point was the first token sale (BitTorrent) held in the new format by on January 28, 2019. Binance According to a study carried out by , by the beginning of the second half of 2019, 12 out of 30 major exchanges analyzed have their own tokens. 9 out of 12 operators have their own IEO platforms and involve their native tokens in the process. These are Binance, Huobi, Kucoin, OKEx, and others. BDCenter Since the beginning of 2019, the increase of amounted to more than : from in January to in May. Experts believe the rapid growth of the asset to be associated with the exchange development and the activities in which the token was involved in, IEO in particular. During the 5 months of this year, Binance has run 4 successful IEOs, and with each passing token sale, the growth rate of the token only got bigger. Binance Coin (BNB) 260% $6,08 $21,95 Below, you can see the details of BNB dynamics during this period: After BitTorrent IEO BNB price increased by 16,61%; After Fetch IEO BNB grew by 38,79%; After Celer IEO BNB grew by 59,45%; After Matic IEO BNB rose by 47,42%. It’s clear that Binance has picked the right direction to move towards in order to strengthen its own token and increase its capitalization. And IEOs they run have been a help here, too. Over almost two quarters, has shown a growth rate of – from in January to in May 2019. In March, Huobi announced the launch of its own asset listing platform based on HT token. In two weeks, the TOP Network’s hit-and-run crowdsale took place. All 300 mln tokens were sold out in 7 seconds. Huobi Token (HT) 113% $1,11 $2,7 Chinese exchange launched its native token in April 2018. By January 2019 the asset was priced at , and it reached in May. The total growth amounted to . OKEx OKB (OKB) $0,66 $1,61 143% In March, the exchange announced the launch of IEO platform OK Jumpstart. In early April, it was reported that Blockcloud token sale was coming up, and it was held on April 10th. The exchange popularity generated publicity over the event, over a short time before the sale started, the growth rate reached a peak of . OKB 219% Conclusion The emergence of the first IEOs has clearly revitalized the market. The mechanism provided an effective application and justification for native tokens, bringing new money to the sphere. Of course, this tool doesn’t come without shortcomings: exchange platforms’ centralized structure is still very risky in terms of security, while a professional selection of projects isn’t a guarantee of profit for investors. If you have any questions or want to consult on IEO marketing — feel free to get in touch with me and my team  at , where we conduct researches and create Digital Marketing solutions for Blockchain, IT and Startup products. BDCenter Digital Nevertheless, today IEO remains the key way to attract investments – and it will be until some other trend shows up.

How IEOs help Crypto Exchanges boost their Native Token price

One price for everyone! The invention of price tag took place in the 1870's to maintain the fairness of everybody looking to buy the product they love. Dynamic pricing had always been the norm ever since human history. A century back even the ticket for a cinema was charged less for a matinee screening as compared to the usual popular evening shows. Born out of the ‘80's, dynamic pricing is now one of the most commonly used marketing techniques by several industries. Anyone old enough will remember the online commercial where the airline played a major cutthroat with the fares. Then the country`s second-largest carrier “American Airlines” reduced their price up to 70% to pull in customers and win back the customers they had lost. American Airlines’ Super Saver fares Today with AI, would we be moving toward the future where the dynamics of supply and demand will be taken into consideration while a customer makes his first purchase? When we hear the word , it is still easy to imagine a dystopian science fiction future where you could imagine robots taking over the world and enslaving us. But AI is here to make our lives simpler. Isn’t it? The good news is, the need for AI engineers is becoming a raging fire. With such dynamic changes, we’re seeing in the current market, AI experts will rule the world. artificial intelligence In recent years, to track buying trends and to determine more competitive product prices. It has the tendency of offering customers’ different prices based on the external factors and their buying traits. AI has enabled pricing solutions Have you ever realized how Uber, Amazon, and Airbnb are creating an entirely new market and crushing all competitors in the industry? Rapid growth for sure is one thing that is common among these three tech giants. No doubt, dynamic pricing is a major factor that is driving growth and success overall to these companies. We know that dynamic pricing is a strategy company uses to match the supply and demand in the current market. Here’s an example, the fare of an Uber is considerably lower than a normal taxi. However, when there’s a match or a baseball game coming up and the demand spikes, the prices also tend to spike. To watch the game, you need to pay more due to the demand. On the other hand, you will always be able to book an Uber when you need one. The sole reason is simple – since the fares are better there will be more drivers around the ballpark. As people tectivend to leave, the availability opens and the price gradually lowers down. As said by Don Fluckinger, Executive Editor at TechTarget, “AI-assisted dynamic pricing algorithms will be hard-wired into CRM platforms, giving users the ability to automate real-time pricing as per market demand, local events, customer data, etc.” Is this even possible? Getting into this field is not a cakewalk. Everyone knows that the world of artificial intelligence is increasing rapidly. are now yearning for better career growth, most important they’re in-demand in every industry we know of. AI Professionals We’ve heard of dynamic pricing but what exactly is AI-assisted dynamic pricing algorithms? In today’s tech-driven world, ride-hailing companies like Uber have started leveraging their data in real-time. This is the reason why users see different prices in different areas of a city and at a different time of day. This is dynamical because the adjustments have been made based on the real-time data on the supply of the drivers and the predictions on the customer location, the traffic in the area, weather, etc. With real-time data, the running on cloud platforms is being coupled with AI tools which generally takes up the dynamic pricing algorithm and then couples it with state-of-the-art sales automation. Now the dynamic pricing algorithm sets the real-time pricing for several markets such as travel companies to sports and even B2B markets. The concept of AI-powered dynamic pricing is straightforward. CRM software How does it work? The data is collected based on customer behavior such as, The kind of item the customer viewed The number of hours spent on that product or item The kind of products purchased and what are the products that were placed in the basket The location of the customer These real-time data are fed into an AI engine that translates the behavior into a persona and then it tries to predict things for you. One of the major things it predicts is the amount of money you’re willing to spend on that product. To conduct such complex tasks have been claimed to have the expertise of handling such responsibilities. AI engineers Data gathering – data analysis using AI – formulating the optimal pricing calculation algorithm – optimal pricing formulation. This is likely the process that is implemented. The AI-powered dynamic pricing is said to have added an average of 2% to 3% to their customers’ bottom line without any additional administrative cost making up to a 10% boost for other customers. These algorithms have the potential to augment and configure the price quote system. In return, it benefits the salespeople to have a quicker pricing quotation based on the rules on how fast automation closes the deal. Those days are long gone where one needs to sit in front of a system to predict the pricing based on the info from the market. The deeper you gaze, the more you will see how AI is dominating the world today.

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