E-Business
Tips to Increasing E-commerce Sales in 2014
Do you have an ecommerce or online retail store? Have you ever thought about how to increase sales? Are you ready to reach your potentials in 2014? If yes to all then this is a must read: Ecommerce is not about the beauty of the design only, but also ensuring that sales are generated. The first goal is to make potential customers build confidence and trust in buying from your online store.
Your next goal is to ensure that your ecommerce site is easy to navigate and easy to complete an order because customers that go on your site will want not only to get the item they’re looking for quickly, but they would want their purchase to be quick and painless as well.
Below are some tips on best practices to boost confidence, trust and speed up purchasing process that will increase your sales for 2014
Show your online customers you care: Offer customers tailored recommendations of their searches while shopping on your website and send them targeted messages about deals which may interest them according to their buying patterns on your website and also remind them about abandoned shopping carts to show they are noticed and valued.
Build a mobile responsive website: With majority of internet shoppers in Nigeria on their mobile to shop on the go and accessing the web, the fact is 61% of clients who visit a mobile unfriendly website are likely to quit and go to a competitor’s website.
Keep your website updated with Pictures, Image and detailed description of products: It is essential you keep your content updated regularly with appropriate video, image-led and written content of products although it might be time consuming but it is important to be able to run successfully an ecommerce site.
Updating regularly increases your website’s visibility and it makes your site resourceful for customers and keeps them coming back.
Make Important Info Public: Customers are more likely to buy products when they know exactly what they’re getting into; how much they’re paying, when it will arrive, and what to do if they’re unhappy with a purchase.
Easily informing them of information such as the estimated shipping costs, arrival times and return policy make them more at ease with making the purchase.
Provide them with this information early and often. Anything that applies to a particular item needs to be mentioned publicly and obviously on that item’s page. Anything that would boost sales, such as a free shipping discount should be mentioned early and repeated.
Target existing customers: It is tempting at the beginning to focus attention in getting more and more new customers, however, it is evidence that retention is key to business success.
New site visitors often spend less time on websites compare to returning site visitors that often look at more pages per visit on average and are more likely to make purchases as they have built a relationship and credibility with your ecommerce site and are more willing to refer you to more potential clients.
This simply means campaigns which targets existing customers can really pay off – so don’t forget them or assume their continued loyalty.
Use Call to action: Use easily visible and very clear call to action buttons or words that would direct customers to where they are going to purchase or view products on sales or add product to basket. An example of a call to action is “Buy now” or “Click here to checkout”.
A well designed call to action button leads the customer where they need to go and where you want them to go. Make sure to enhance the most important actions; buy button, check out button, and shopping cart button.
Think and Measure Conversion Rate: The rate at which visitors are converted to sales (or to some other key objective) is called the Conversion Rate.
A small change in the Conversion Rate can make a big difference to your return on investment and turnover.
There is much that can be done to improve your Conversation Rate and, when planning your ecommerce website, you should consider everything with Conversion Rates in mind.
Using enticing action buttons, suggestive copy and banners and text links all help you to direct site visitors around your website and to your enquiry forms.
Always ask yourself when planning your website: “Is this going to drive sales?”
It should also be noted that convincing a visitor to sign up to receive Email Newsletters should be a key conversion objective.
Finally, in the business world, your ecommerce website is your number one marketing tool and everything you do online must support this.
A website is the hub of all your online marketing activity, a facility to convert interest into sales.
Much of your other online and offline marketing activity will be encouraging people to visit your ecommerce site. Once you get them there you need to convert those people to tangible sales, or at the very least collect their contact information so you can continue to communicate directly with them.
Tobi Asehinde is the founder and chief executive officer of Vibe Web Solutions Limited, a company poised to providing web solutions to meet web related needs of businesses and helping businesses grow using ground-breaking web and marketing technologies.
We help to setup your ecommerce store from planning stage to implementation stage. Vibe Web Solutions Limited has clients based within and outside Nigeria servicing both business and governmental organisations. He can be contacted via: [email protected]
Microsoft is planning to unveil its new Maia 300 AI chip this fall, potentially as soon as next month, The Information reported on Monday, citing people with direct knowledge of the plans.
The company introduced its Maia AI chip in November 2023 but has lagged rivals such as Alphabet and Amazon in scaling up its in-house chip efforts as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Nvidia’s costly processors.
Google began recognizing revenue from direct sales of its custom AI chips, called Tensor Processing Units, in the quarter ended June, while Amazon has also seen growing adoption of its processors, including its Trainium chips.
Microsoft has been in talks with chipmaker TSMC to secure manufacturing capacity for more than 300,000 units of the chip for delivery in 2027, according to the report. It is also looking to significantly ramp up production and persuade major cloud customers such as Anthropic to adopt the chip.
Microsoft ultimately aims to secure capacity for more than 1 million Maia 300 chips, though component supplies and ongoing capacity negotiations with TSMC could constrain its plans, according to the report.
It unveiled its second-generation Maia 200 in January, built by TSMC using 3-nanometer technology.
Microsoft packed the chip with a significant amount of SRAM, a type of memory that can provide speed advantages for AI systems handling large numbers of user requests.
X has announced plans to discontinue its Revenue Sharing programme and introduce a new Original Content Rewards programme to reward creators for producing original content on the platform.
The social media company announced the changes at the weekend in a post on its X Creators handle, saying the new programme would reward creators who contribute original content.
“Today, we’re introducing the Original Content Rewards Program, a new way to reward creators who bring original ideas, expertise, reporting, creativity, and commentary to X,” the company said.
X said it would stop accepting new enrolments into the Revenue Sharing programme from Friday, while existing participants would continue earning until September 7, 2026.
“Starting today, we’re no longer accepting new enrollments into Revenue Sharing,” it said.
According to the company, existing Revenue Sharing participants will receive three final payouts, with two scheduled for August 14 and August 28, while the final payment for earnings accrued through September 7 is expected around September 11.
X said existing Revenue Sharing participants would begin getting access to apply for the new programme from September 8, subject to meeting its eligibility requirements.
The first payout under the Original Content Rewards programme will be made on August 28, 2026, while existing Revenue Sharing creators who enrol in the new programme from September 8 will receive their first payment on September 25.
Under the new programme, eligible creators will earn from qualified impressions generated by their original content, with payments made every two weeks.
X defined qualified impressions as unique impressions from Premium users on the Home Timeline feed, where at least 50 per cent of a post is visible.
On the other hand, “The following are excluded from qualified impressions: impressions from the same account counted more than once per post; paid, promoted, or artificially generated impressions; and fraudulent impressions,” it said.
To qualify, creators must be at least 18 years old, live in a country where the programme is available, maintain an account in good standing and have either a personal or vusiness account.
They must also subscribe to X Premium, Premium+ or Premium Business, have at least 500 verified followers and record at least 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users within the previous 90 days.
X said creators must also regularly post original content to remain eligible.
“We want to recognize creators who break news, share expertise, tell stories, create entertainment, and contribute meaningful perspectives to the conversation,” the company said.
The platform said original content could include threads, videos, memes, graphics, illustrations, reporting, analysis, commentary and reactions that add meaningful value to existing conversations.
It said creators who use content produced by others would need to add meaningful commentary, context, analysis, humour or creative transformation for such posts to qualify.
“Building on existing conversations is a core part of X, but simply reposting someone else’s content is not enough,” it said.
X said minor edits such as cropping, filters, borders, watermarks, speed adjustments or simple text overlays would generally not qualify as meaningful transformation on their own.
It also warned that content copied or substantially reproduced from another creator, content downloaded and re-uploaded from X or another platform without being the original author’s, automated content, disinformation and misleading content would be ineligible.
The company said accounts that violate the programme’s requirements could be temporarily or permanently removed from it, depending on the severity of the violation.
It added that creators would be responsible for ensuring they had the necessary rights, permissions or licences to use content created by others.
“Original content is content you personally create that reflects your own voice, perspective, expertise, or creativity,” X said.
The company said the new programme was intended to reward creators who make the platform more valuable by bringing original ideas and perspectives to its conversations.
“The Original Content Rewards Program is designed to reward the creators who start them, shape them, and move them forward,” it said.
National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has introduced so-called Nigeria’s Certified Cloud Register, regulatory framework developed under the agency’s National Sovereign Cloud Initiative to determine which cloud providers are authorized to handle sensitive data, such as banking records.
In effect, from October, NITDA requires banks, fintech companies and other regulated organisations to source cloud infrastructure providers from a national register of certified firms approved to host sensitive financial and government data.
The Certified Cloud Register, is expected to strengthen data sovereignty, improve regulatory oversight and support the implementation of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) data localisation policy, which takes effect on January 1, 2027.
Under the framework, banks, fintechs, government institutions and other regulated entities will be able to verify whether cloud service providers, data centre operators, managed service providers and Artificial Intelligence (AI) infrastructure companies have met NITDA’s certification requirements before entrusting them with critical digital workloads.
The initiative is expected to provide regulated institutions with a standardised process for selecting cloud infrastructure providers that satisfy Nigeria’s technical, security and regulatory requirements.
According to NITDA, the framework establishes “a common national standard, an independent assessment process and a public register of approved providers that banks, fintechs and government institutions can rely on when selecting cloud infrastructure partners.”
The register is expected to become a key compliance tool ahead of the CBN’s directive, which requires all payment transaction data generated within Nigeria to be stored and processed locally, effective from January 1, 2027.
The policy applies to deposit money banks, microfinance banks, mobile money operators, payment service providers, switching companies and other financial institutions.
The certification regime is also expected to reshape Nigeria’s cloud computing ecosystem, making regulatory approval a major requirement for cloud providers seeking to handle sensitive data for regulated industries.
Figures cited by NITDA showed that Nigeria’s 10 largest banks spent about N177.91 billion on information technology in the first quarter of 2026, representing a 31 per cent increase over the corresponding period last year.
A sizeable portion of the investment currently supports cloud infrastructure hosted outside Nigeria, a trend the new certification framework is expected to address by encouraging greater utilisation of compliant local infrastructure.
NITDA said the certification programme will apply the same technical and regulatory standards to indigenous cloud providers and international hyperscale operators, creating a level playing field for all companies seeking to provide cloud services to regulated sectors.
The agency also disclosed that more than 85 per cent of Nigerian businesses currently rely on cloud services, with the majority using infrastructure hosted outside the country.
It said the new framework is aimed at improving confidence in Nigeria’s digital infrastructure while promoting local capacity and enhancing oversight of critical national data.
Speaking on the objective of the initiative, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director-general of NITDA, said the programme is designed to strengthen Nigeria’s position in the global digital economy rather than exclude foreign technology companies.
According to him, the initiative is intended “to redefine the terms under which Nigeria participates in the global digital economy rather than isolate the country from international technology providers.”
The Certified Cloud Register forms part of broader efforts by the Federal Government to deepen digital trust, strengthen cybersecurity and ensure that critical financial and public sector data are managed in line with Nigeria’s evolving data governance and sovereignty objectives.
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