According to Accenture data, 91% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that offer relevant recommendations and deals, and this element of personalization can be championed through strong customer journey analytics.

How can your brand take its customer journey analytics to the next level? And what will the future of CX look like? Let's delve into how to take extra care of your customer journey:

Care for Qualitative and Quantitative Data

The best customer journey analytics are driven by crisp, accurate, and expansive data. This raw data is the key to understanding your customers, but you must create a clear process for gathering and compiling your data from the appropriate marketing sources, channels, and localities.

For the most comprehensive overview of your customer journey, you need to find a synergy between qualitative and quantitative data. These datasets are defined as:

• Qualitative Data: This type of data is far more contextual, and helps brands to understand the ‘why' and ‘how' surrounding customer trends. Examples of qualitative data include feedback forms, customer surveys, and user testing.
• Quantitative Data: This refers to more voluminous metrics such as website visits, bounce rates, and sales figures. Platforms like Google Analytics typically excel when it comes to leveraging more quantitative data.

When it comes to aggregative qualitative and quantitative data, marketing data aggregation tools can be a great way of uniting various metrics and utilizing them to generate a more holistic overview of your customer journey.

Unify Customer Data Effectively

By unifying your qualitative and quantitative data in one place, a centralized digital system can automate the process of matching and merging data across multiple different platforms. This can help to save time and uphold higher levels of accuracy when it comes to database management.

Today, as multi-channel purchasing becomes increasingly commonplace, customer journey analytics have become more complex across industries. However, automation can empower each aspect of your service to deliver consistent brand experiences.

In the age of digital transformation, your insights must stem from more than just sales metrics. By unifying data effectively, you can add much needed context to your customer interactions and discover what's driving their behavior.

Behavioral Segments Can Deliver Retention

Your customer journey analytics can be optimized further by utilizing behavioral segments to yield more information about specific customers rather than aggregating large swathes of data alone.

Churn may be inevitable for many businesses, but early lifecycle churn, such as when a customer cancels a service within a 30-day window or returns a product the next day, can be harmful because it indicates that the brand hasn't been able to recoup its customer acquisition cost.

Behavioral segments can help you to better examine your sales and marketing funnel to analyze churn at the early, mid, and late-lifecycle stages for your customers. This will pave the way for more targeted marketing and reinforce the core value of your product on a more consistent basis.

This is likely to pave the way for increased customer investments in your brand with the help of journey analytics to shed more light on up-sell and cross-sell opportunities across your services.

Hunting For Your ‘Eureka' Moment

Every successful customer journey involves a ‘eureka' moment where they finally understand the value that your product will bring to them.

These moments are so important that failure to reach them will inevitably lead to them navigating away from your brand, possibly forever.

Unified customer journey analytics can help you to understand where your ‘eureka' moment is most likely to be through spotting where purchase intent takes over from the evaluation stage in a customer's journey across your various channels.

Identifying and amplifying your ‘eureka' moment across channels is likely to generate more conversions and leverage better retention rates.

Unlocking the Future of CX Analytics

We've already been offered a taste of what the future will look like in terms of recent developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning. These innovations will move into the world of customer journey analytics to deliver more focused insights for businesses in real time.

AI and machine learning have the potential to analyze big data focused on customers as they are generated to identify patterns and insights that more traditional segmentation may miss.

This can pave the way for new and more focused segments while refining existing ones and creating more accurate customer profiles.

For example, brands will be capable of segmenting customers based on their past purchase behavior, website engagement, social media usage, and a series of other metrics that can be accessed with the help of artificial intelligence.

Platforms like ZoomInfo, a B2B database and sales intelligence platform, utilizes machine learning to deliver more focused segmentation based on the respective industries in which clients are based, company size, and various other metadata that can shape more focused retention measures.

This level of focused segmentation can help marketing teams to more effectively target their prospects and leverage more personalized campaigns based on the individual needs of each segment.

As digital transformation continues to ramp up the difficulty in outmanoeuvring competitors online, the ability to fine-tune and supercharge brand customer journey analytics will be essential in retaining customers for longer.

The post How to Supercharge Your Customer Journey Analytics for Optimized Retention appeared first on Datafloq.

The Time Trap

Lengthy Updates

One of the common pitfalls is the expansion of individual updates. What should be a brief progress report can morph into a detailed monologue, consuming valuable time and leaving team members restless.

Lack of Focus

Without proper guidance, Daily Standups can lose focus, veering into unrelated discussions. These tangents not only waste time but also dilute the purpose of the meeting.

Unproductive Discussions

While collaboration is key, unproductive discussions can arise, causing the meeting to spiral into a forum for complaints rather than a strategic planning session.

The Perils of Monotony

Routine Updates

Repetitive updates create monotony, leading to disengagement. Team members may start viewing the standup as a mere formality rather than a valuable synchronization opportunity.

Boredom and Disengagement

Monotonous meetings contribute to boredom, resulting in disengaged team members. This lack of interest can hamper creativity and problem-solving.

Impact on Team Morale

A monotonous routine can affect team morale. The enthusiasm that Agile methodologies aim to foster may dwindle, resulting in a less cohesive and effective team.

Strategies for Improvement

Streamlining Updates

Encouraging concise updates ensures that team members focus on the essential points, preventing the standup from becoming a lengthy report session.

Implementing Time Limits

Setting strict time limits for each team member encourages brevity and ensures that the meeting stays on track.

Introducing Variety

Injecting variety into the standup can break the monotony. Alternating formats or introducing occasional standup games can make the meeting more engaging.

Technological Solutions

Project Management Tools

Utilizing project management tools allows for real-time updates, reducing the need for lengthy verbal updates during standup meetings.

Automated Reporting

Automation can streamline reporting tasks, freeing up time for meaningful discussions rather than routine updates.

Virtual Standup Meetings

For remote teams, virtual standup meetings provide a structured platform for communication without the constraints of physical presence.

The Human Element

Facilitating Open Communication

Creating an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing challenges fosters open communication, making standups more valuable.

Encouraging Collaboration

Promoting collaboration during standup meetings can lead to innovative solutions and a stronger team dynamic.

Recognizing Achievements

Acknowledging individual and team achievements during standups boosts morale and reinforces a positive team culture.

Overcoming Resistance

Addressing Team Concerns

Addressing concerns and feedback from team members ensures that the standup evolves to meet the team's needs.

Providing Training and Resources

Offering training on effective standup practices equips team members with the skills needed to make the most out of these daily meetings.

Monitoring and Feedback

Regularly monitoring the effectiveness of standups and gathering feedback helps in continuous improvement.

Real-Life Success Stories

Companies That Revamped Standup Meetings

Explore success stories of companies that identified standup challenges and successfully revamped their daily meetings.

Improved Productivity and Team Dynamics

Highlight the positive outcomes, such as increased productivity and improved team dynamics, resulting from effective standup strategies.

Lessons Learned

Share valuable lessons learned from companies that navigated the challenges of daily standups and emerged with stronger, more efficient teams.

The Future of Standup Meetings

Emerging Trends

Explore emerging trends in Agile methodologies and standup practices that promise to shape the future of these daily meetings.

Continuous Improvement

Emphasize the importance of continuous improvement in adapting standup meetings to the evolving needs of dynamic teams.

Flexibility in Agile Practices

Discuss the growing recognition of the need for flexibility in Agile practices, allowing teams to tailor standup meetings to their unique circumstances.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while the Daily Standup is a cornerstone of Agile practices, its effectiveness can wane if not managed carefully. By addressing the time traps, monotony, and incorporating strategies for improvement, teams can transform their standup meetings into valuable collaboration sessions.

The post You’re Wasting Time With Your Daily Standup appeared first on Datafloq.

However, technology and data-driven solutions present promising ways to tackle this complex issue and reduce food waste in homes, grocery stores, restaurants, and across the supply chain. 

One company using data and technology to combat food waste is Foodiaz, a personalized recipe and meal-planning app. 

I spoke with Foodiaz CEO Nicholas Nedelisky to learn more about how they are using data analytics and algorithms to help consumers reduce food waste. A key challenge is the sheer amount of food spoilage that happens in consumers' own kitchens. 

According to Nedelisky, “The majority of food waste happens at home. We didn't want to bog down users with hours of pantry management and updating expiration dates every time you shop. Instead, we made it as simple as possible to use up ingredients that are about to spoil.”

To accomplish this, Foodiaz focuses on seamlessly integrating into users' cooking routines and subtly influencing their behaviors regarding food freshness and spoilage. 

Nedelisky explained, “Our goal is to keep the app frictionless by staying away from onerous tasks and keeping the experience fun and intuitive.”

Rather than requiring users to input expiry dates or inventory all their groceries, Foodiaz passively tracks what users are cooking and buying. It then gently nudges users towards recipes that feature ingredients they already have on hand that are close to spoiling. 
 

Personalization is Key

This personalization and passive tracking of users' habits is key to Foodiaz's approach. As Nedelisky noted, “A lot of the personalization comes directly from users specific pantries. The ingredients they choose tell us a lot about what kind of recipes they are looking for.” 

Foodiaz supplements this direct user input with sophisticated AI that monitors user behavior across the app, from recipes viewed, favorited and actually cooked. This allows Foodiaz to learn about each user's taste preferences and recommend recipes tailored specifically to their purchasing and cooking history.
Importantly, Foodiaz also allows users to specify dietary restrictions like gluten-free, dairy-free or vegan. According to Nedelisky, “If you choose to buy great, healthy, whole ingredients, I can without a doubt find great recipes tailored to those ingredients. This applies to restrictions such as gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, etc.” 

Users can further customize with filters for calories, carbs, sugar and more macros if they desire. This integration of user-provided data, observed usage patterns, and personalized algorithms powers the “Foodiaz learns what you like” feature at the heart of the app.

Grocery Integration

In addition to recipe recommendations, Foodiaz also integrates with grocery shopping by partnering with major grocery chains. This provides another data point – users' real-time grocery purchases – that improves the app's ability to suggest recipes using items they already have. However, rolling out this grocery integration presented challenges, as Nedelisky explained: “The biggest hurdle in all of this is incorporating the major grocery systems and APIs into a single interface.” 

By syncing with users' groceries, Foodiaz can incrementally build an inventory of their pantries. This makes recommendations even more tailored while seamlessly helping users eat food before it goes bad. Nedelisky stated they are nearly finished fully implementing this grocery tech nationwide.

Powered by Data Science

Behind the scenes, Foodiaz leverages data science and algorithms to enable this personalization and inventory tracking. While Nedelisky was understandably reticent to reveal proprietary technical details, he noted their tech stack relies on Google's Firebase platform to ingest usage data and identify trends. He also discussed how their models improve with scale, stating, “Currently, our model does better at scale as we can learn more holistic information, but I am sure we will make adjustments as we monitor the algorithm's performance.” 

Foodiaz is powered by an intelligent data backend that continually optimizes its waste-reducing suggestions based on real-world usage patterns. The algorithms examine both individual user behaviors as well as broader eating habit trends across its user base. This allows for a feedback loop where the product continually improves its waste reduction capabilities even as Foodiaz scales to more users.

Tackling Waste Across the Supply Chain 

While Foodiaz focuses on reducing household food waste, data-driven technologies can also make an impact across the broader food system. For example, analytics and IoT sensors can better track perishable inventory at restaurants, grocers and across supply chains. Machine learning algorithms can optimize ordering and human decision-making to minimize over-ordering. Predictive analytics can increase the accuracy of demand forecasting and production planning.  

Meanwhile, computer vision systems can automatically inspect food for freshness and quality control both pre and post-harvest. And blockchain solutions can provide transparency into supply chain bottlenecks that lead to spoilage. Even simple barcode scanning apps allow stores, restaurants and consumers to digitally log inventories and expiry dates to minimize waste. 

The potential of data-driven food waste solutions also extends into logistics, where route optimization algorithms minimize spoilage during transport. Big data helps retailers identify popular items to stock and price promotions to increase sales of perishable items close to expiring. And digital marketplaces connect consumers with discounted food that would otherwise be landfilled.

Ultimately, waste occurs across the entire food ecosystem. But advanced analytics opens up new possibilities to identify previously hidden waste patterns across this complex system. Artificial intelligence can then optimize systems, tailor recommendations, and modify behaviors throughout the supply chain to cumulatively reduce global food waste.

The Bottom Line

Food waste is an immense challenge globally, but also a major opportunity for technology and data to make a positive impact. As demonstrated by Foodiaz's use of data personalization, there are compelling waste-fighting solutions available today. And continued innovation in this space can help reduce food waste at scale. 

Technology provides insights to raise awareness of the problem, while analytics enables data-driven action across homes, businesses, and supply chains worldwide. With sufficient investment and adoption, data-powered tools provide reason for optimism that we can create a smarter, more sustainable food system with far less waste.

The post Reducing Food Waste with Data-Driven Solutions appeared first on Datafloq.

MVP pricing depends on many factors, including MVP‘s audience, target industry, intended platforms, technologies applied, team composition, and more.

Drawing on examples from our portfolio, we can say that developing an MVP can cost anything from $50,000 for a web app with an open-source AI engine to $100,000 and more for an IoT-powered solution running on custom AI algorithms.

It is important to remember that the final MVP development cost should be assessed individually. If you have a product idea in mind and are wondering how much it might cost you, contact our experts – and we'll estimate the MVP cost for you.

Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb, Uber – these and other great products didn't start off as the fully-fledged platforms we know today. Instead, they embarked on their journeys as MVPs.

An MVP, or a minimum viable product, is the version of a new product with just enough features to satisfy the initial market demand and user expectations. Its aim is to validate the concept and generate feedback for further development.

Let's take Instagram, for example. Before it became a global hub uniting millions of people, businesses, creators, and many more, it started as a simple photo-sharing app. The MVP version allowed users to snap photos, apply filters, and share experiences with friends. It was a focused offering that resonated with users who wanted a sleek and intuitive way to share visuals. Over time, Instagram's creators expanded the platform, adding features like direct messaging, video sharing, and advanced editing tools.

This example proves: starting with a version of a product that has just the right amount of features to catch early adopters is faster, cheaper, and less risky than developing a full-blown solution.

But how much does it cost to build a working MVP?

Well, it depends. Based on the estimates from our MVP development portfolio, we could draw a range of $50,000 to $100,000 and more. Your specific numbers will most likely vary – depending on the number of factors, such as an area of usage, target industry, an intended platform, and more.

To learn more about MVP cost constituents and get familiar with the pricing of real-world MVP development projects from ITRex's portfolio, carry on reading.

A quick intro: what's the difference between an MVP, a prototype, and a PoC and what should you opt for?

An optimal path to take depends on your goals and where you find yourself on the product development timeline.

The goal of a PoC (Proof of Concept) is to demonstrate that a concept is technically or economically feasible. You usually build a PoC early in the project to determine whether you should pursue the idea further. You want to build a PoC if you're hunting for initial investments to fund your startup or want to get a buy-in from enterprise executives.

A prototype, in turn, is a preliminary model of a product that is mainly used for demonstration purposes. It's usually clickable but not functional. The focus is, thus, on testing out user flows and design choices.

The key function of an MVP, as said above, is to inform development and get the feedback from early adopters. An MVP is usually built later on the product development journey.

While these concepts aren't mutually exclusive, they all play a role in influencing MVP cost. A software development project might involve creating all three, but at different stages of project planning, with each aspect having its impact on MVP pricing.

Why consider building an MVP?

Building an MVP instead of a full-blown product can let you achieve the following goals:

• Build confidence in the product: Starting with an MVP, you can test the market and make an informed decision about whether to develop the product further considering MVP pricing.
• Gather early feedback: You can use feedback from early adopters to refine the product and make it more appealing to the target audience.
• Make the most of their time and resources: Building an MVP doesn't require as much resources as a full-featured product, while it can start bringing ROI right away
• Attract investment: An MPV proves that you have a solid product concept and can execute on it, which makes it more likely to win investments.

If you want to learn more about what makes a successful MVP and how you build one, continue your research by reading this article.

What factors make up the total MVP cost?

We have identified eight factors that influence the final MVP pricing.

Factor 1: Product audience

The cost of development for B2B and B2C software can vary significantly.

B2B solutions, like CRM, ERP, or financial management systems, are usually intended for a smaller and more specialized target audience. But don't let this fact trick you into thinking that it's cheaper to craft a B2B product. B2B software solutions are usually more complex and boast a large number of specialized features, which often adds to the overall MVP cost.

Meanwhile, B2C software solutions, such as messaging apps, social media platforms or games, are aimed at a larger yet more general audience, which can help reduce the overall development costs. B2C solutions are usually simpler in terms of functionality, which makes them less expensive to develop.

Factor 2: The complexity of the solution you're eyeing to create

The complexity of the envisioned solution impacts the price of an MVP, too. While the essence of developing an MVP boils down to keeping the set of features limited, the complexity of those features varies from solution to solution.

For a property booking website, for example, you would probably concentrate on listing properties, enabling bookings, and managing user profiles. Given the straightforward nature of this idea, the cost of its MVP will probably stay within manageable boundaries.

In turn, crafting a mobile app for pet owners seeking reliable sitters involves a more specialized need. Its MVP revolved around user profiles, search filters, establishing a secure communication channel, and initiating pet sitting requests. In this case, MVP development might involve a bit more intricate functionality to ensure a smooth user experience.

Here's another example to top it off. Crafting an MVP of an AI-powered mirror that replaces a personal coach like we did at ITRex is not merely a software endeavor. The MVP still called for implementing custom software and underlying infrastructure. Consequently, the MVP costs for such an innovative solution can be significantly higher due to the complex requirements.

Factor 3: Intended platforms

Whether you are developing a web, a mobile or an embedded software application affects MVP pricing, too.

Generally, developing a mobile application is more expensive compared to a web application. It is usually due to the fact that mobile platforms call for more intricate features and have to meet higher safety and security requirements to be approved by app stores. Moreover, mobile developers have to balance functionality against the limited capabilities of mobile devices, which might call for more specialized developer skills.

Web apps, in turn, can be built using content management systems and web application builders even without much technical expertise.

When it comes to developing embedded applications, their MVP costs tend to be higher as the total cost of developing such an app is additionally affected by the cost of hardware and firmware, as well as more complex customization and integration.

Factor 4: Technologies applied

The choice of technology for front-end and back-end development, as well as for database development, will impact the final MVP price, too, as different technologies have different levels of complexity and call for different skill sets.

This way, for example, resorting to a popular, well-documented front-end framework, say, React or Vue.js, is likely to be less expensive compared to a less common or a more complex one. The same goes for back-end and database development. Similarly, customizing existing technologies or developing custom solutions from scratch gets more expensive than relying on off-the-shelf technologies.

Infrastructure costs are a substantial component of MVP pricing, too. Server, storage, bandwidth, scaling – these and other costs have to be accounted for when estimating MVP pricing. To put it into perspective, IoT solutions typically rely on cloud infrastructures. Such solutions generate a considerable volume of data that needs to be processed, stored, and managed – often in real time, which can turn out to be quite pricey. To optimize MVP development costs, it is essential to set up the infrastructure in an optimal way, say, adjusting the number of server calls and configuring data caching.

Needless to say that developing an innovative solution featuring AI, IoT, RPA, or other modern tech requires more investments than crafting, say, a messaging app – calling for a noticeable increase in MVP pricing.

Factor 5: Target industry

Certain industries, like healthcare or banking, have specific compliance requirements that any software must meet in order to be approved for use in that sector.

It translates into a more extensive planning phase, often with external subject matter experts involved. Additionally, software solutions for regulated industries require special approaches to data management and call for fail-proof security. Consequently, the cost of developing an MVP for a regulated industry is more expensive compared to crafting a solution for the general use.

Certification is also considered a major factor behind the cost of industry-specific software. The numbers might get even higher for devices. For example, as we've pointed out in our article shedding light on the costs of IoT, the price of a certificate for a simple electronic gadget (including devices that rely on wireless connectivity) starts from $10,000.

Similarly, developing an MVP for a highly competitive industry, will end up being more expensive due to the need for more research and development resources required to stand out in a saturated market.

Factor 6: Project size

Software development projects fall into several categories depending on the planned scope of work, which influences MVP pricing, too:

• Small projects. Limited in scope and complexity, small-scale projects are usually of short duration and do not take up more than three months. These projects do not require learning new technology and in practice are often limited to tweaking and tuning an existing solution.
• Medium projects. Typically lasting from three to six months, medium-sized projects usually feature a set of well-defined deliverables and presuppose building a standalone solution, rather than introducing tweaks. Some unfamiliar work might be involved.
• Large or enterprise-grade projects. Taking up from six months to several years, these projects typically presuppose building solutions that require integration with multiple systems and have security and database components. They often call for more rigorous security, error handling, and logging features. Project risks are medium to high.

Factor 7: Team composition, skill level, and hourly rates

MVP development cost depends on the size and composition of the software development team, as well as the rates of the team members.

Depending on the project scope, the team for MVP development can span from the minimum of three people for small-scale projects to the optimum of six for medium-scale projects and even more for enterprise-grade implementations.

The experience and expertise of the team members is another factor contributing to the final MVP cost. Naturally, junior specialists with less than two years of experience are less costly to hire than mid- and senior-level specialists with up to five and more than five years of experience respectively.

The hiring model influences the cost of MVP as well. Assembling and sustaining in-house teams is typically more expensive than partnering with an MVP development services provider. Though the cost for the latter can vary, too, depending on the team's location.

As we've shown in our blog post about estimating the cost of software development, the median developer hourly rates vary as follows depending on the region:

Source

Factor 8: Integrations with third-party systems

It is rarely so that a software solution operates in isolation. Most likely, you will have to integrate your software with enterprise systems and third-party services. Take a delivery application. To offer a pleasant user experience, it would need to be synced with maps, an ecommerce store's database, a payment system, and even a weather app. The number and complexity of the planned integrations will affect the cost of MVP development.

And while some services and systems provide convenient, easy to use APIs, others (say, legacy enterprise systems) require coming up with custom integration solutions that may take up more development effort and time.

So, how much does an MVP cost?

Take a peek at some projects from the ITRex portfolio.

Project 1. AI-powered litter box catering for cats' health

Short description: The innovative solution helps pet lovers gain insight into their pets' wellbeing by examining cats' feces with customly trained AI algorithms.

The smart litter box is equipped with a proximity sensor and smart camera. The proximity sensor detects a cat in a box, while the smart camera records the defecation process and sends the footage to the cloud for further processing.

Cloud-based AI algorithms analyze the footage and make predictions about a cat's health based on cat behavior, defecation time, as well as feces consistency and color. The information about a cat's wellbeing, along with recommendations on improving its health, is then sent over to the cat owner's mobile app.

Duration: 2,5 to 3 months

Project 2. OCR solution for a logistics company automating document processing

Short description: The application allows the client's employees to save time spent on manual document processing.

The goal of the project was to develop an optical character recognition (OCR) solution that would recognize and index batches of incoming documents and seamlessly integrate the solution into the customer's existing document processing system.

Duration: 2 months

Project 3. AI-powered art generator

Short description: The client, a renowned visual artist, approached ITRex to create a proof of concept for an AI solution capable of generating new paintings based on his existing works. The solution needed to be completed within a six-week timeframe – in time for an upcoming exhibition.

In the initial development phase, a team of two machine learning engineers and a full-stack engineer crafted a full-screen web application and integrated it with Midjourney, an AI service specializing in image generation. The solution had the ability to produce high-resolution, 1,024 x 1,024 visuals, all based on the input images fed into the underlying neural network.

Looking ahead, given that the proof of concept is well-received at the exhibition, we're planning to further enhance the solution. This might involve architectural changes, such as transitioning from a locally deployed AI engine to a cloud-based infrastructure.

Duration: 1,5 months

Project 4: Post-ambulatory care solution

Short description: A startup with the goal of becoming a leading middleware provider for post-clinical patient care across the USA approached ITRex to craft a solution that would improve post-ambulatory rehabilitation.
The solution is centered around receiving a patient's electronic medical records from their care provider, conducting a comprehensive analysis, crafting an optimal post-discharge care plan, as well as coordinating appointments with relevant specialists.

The MVP version is designed for simplicity and does not yet include a back office. Consequently, such features as statistical analysis and settings are planned for further releases.

Duration: 2 months

To sum it up

Determining MVP costs involves considering various factors, such as the project's audience, intended platforms, technology choices, and more. However, the ultimate cost of developing an MVP is unique to each project.

If you have an idea in mind and are curious about its potential pricing, reach out to ITRex experts for a personalized MVP cost estimation.

The post How Much Does an MVP Cost in 2023? appeared first on Datafloq.

• Adobe Commerce pricing varies significantly from one store to another. A store's total cost depends on many factors, including Adobe/Magento edition, hosting, web store customization, extensions and add-ons, payment service fees, digital marketing efforts, post-deployment maintenance, and more.
• You can set up a basic online store based on the Magento Open Source edition for less than $5,000, while a large Adobe Commerce Cloud store will cost you at least $200,000.
• Hire an experienced SEO professional to take care of organic marketing, optimize your web store, and invest in security and maintenance. This will save you money in the long run.

It's a challenge to accurately estimate the total cost of development and ownership of Adobe Commerce/Magento website as it depends on the features that you want to include, your hosting options, and the level of support that you want to have after deployment. Even your monthly revenue plays a role in Adobe Commerce pricing.

Even if you opt for Magento Open Source, the free version of the Adobe Commerce/Magento content management system, you will still have to pay. You might still hire an Adobe Commerce development partner or purchase Magento extensions to enhance your store's functionality and appearance, deploy, and maintain your store. And if you opt for a paid edition of Adobe Commerce, you might be put off by the high Adobe licensing fees or the costs of enhancing your own infrastructure – even if it helps you save money in the long run.

To help you choose what suits you best and avoid overpaying for eCommerce website features that you will not use, we decipher Adobe Commerce pricing. This article explains what each Magento/Adobe Commerce edition includes, and gives an overview of the key factors contributing to the final costs.

What is Magento/Adobe Commerce, and which editions are available for your consideration?

To answer what Adobe Commerce is, let's first go back to Magento, which is an open-source eCommerce platform released back in 2008. Later, this platform was upgraded to Magento 2.0. And in 2018, Adobe Inc. acquired Magento, officially renaming it to Adobe Commerce three years later. You can find more information on the benefits of Adobe Commerce on our blog.

Adobe Commerce/Magento offers three editions that you can choose from. Each one has a unique set of functionality and support system. The open-source (community) edition is free to use, while the other two require licensing fees.

Let's find out what each edition has to offer and how much it will cost.

Magento Open Source (Community Edition)

This edition is free to download and install. If you have a solid technical background, you could probably set up your store by yourself. But most likely you will need to hire a Magento development team to configure and maintain your website.

For user interface options, you can either explore pre-built themes, look into community theme options, such as ThemeForest, or hire a designer and front-end developers for a customized user experience.

Additionally, you will need to select your hosting option like GoDaddy or Bluehost and pay anything between $2.95 and $730 in monthly fees, depending on how much traffic your website gets.. Also, you will likely purchase extensions and third-party integrations, which will further increase the total costs. And don't forget about security. For instance, the open-source Magento edition is not compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). To protect your customers' credit card data, you will need to enhance website security at additional expenses.

We will explain the factors affecting the total costs in more detail in the next section.

Magento Open Source only allows you to work on a B2C basis. Here are some of the core features that your web store will get with this edition:

• Product configuration and pricing
• Multistore capabilities
• Checkout, payment, shipment
• Order management
• Optimization for mobile-based shopping
• Catalog management
• Basic site search
• Limited SEO options
• Multiple languages and international website support
• Coupons and promotions
• Instant purchase
• Basic analytics and reporting, such as Google Universal Analytics

This edition enjoys strong community support. You can use freely available forums if you face technical difficulties during the development process. However, this approach can be too slow to resolve urgent matters. So, keep in mind whether you can afford to disable a particular feature or take your entire store down while you are looking for a solution to a technical problem.

Best suited for:

Small and mid-size B2C business owners.

Adobe Commerce

This Adobe edition requires you to pay license fees depending on your annual gross merchandise value (GMV). Adobe Commerce is suitable for both B2C and B2B merchants. It's a powerful platform that gives you access to more advanced features than Magento Open Source, such as:

• Business intelligence (BI) dashboards
• Customer loyalty programs, such as gift cards and private sales
• Customer segmentation for targeting offerings
• Marketing tools
• Product recommendations
• Visual merchandising
• Automatically installed updates
• Tax calculations

In addition to the exclusive functionality, this edition makes you eligible for Adobe technical support and offers a more robust and secure environment than the Magento Open Source version.

Similarly to the open-source edition, Adobe Commerce is also self-hosted, so you'll have to take care of the hosting yourself. If you have a server infrastructure, you can decide to host on premises. Otherwise, you can opt for hosting in the cloud.

Even though this is not a free version, you might still need to hire professional developers to further customize, enhance, and optimize your store for better performance.

Best suited for:

Medium-size and large businesses with more advanced needs and complex operations.

Adobe Commerce Cloud

The main benefit of Adobe Commerce Cloud is that you don't need to worry about hosting, as your store will be hosted on the provider's cloud (either AWS or Microsoft Azure). The cloud vendor will back up your data and will restore it in the case of hard drive damage or anything like that. In return, you will pay higher licensing fees than for Adobe Commerce.

This edition offers all the advanced features of Adobe Commerce, in addition to some exclusive functionality that will enhance your web store's appeal and performance, such as:

• Easy deployment
• Real-time performance monitoring
• Timely updates and security patches
• Fast page loading with content delivery network (CDN)
• Cloud availability up to 99.99%
• And more

Best suited for:

Large retail businesses handling enormous amounts of sales who are looking to outsource hosting, security, maintenance, and performance monitoring.

Feature comparison of different Magento/Adobe editions

Factors affecting Adobe Commerce (Magento) pricing

Licensing costs

As was mentioned earlier, Magento Open Source is free to use, while the other two editions are available for a license fee, which you pay once a year, and your expenditure will depend on the business's gross merchandise value. You can find license costs approximation in the table below. Please note that these prices can change over time. For a more accurate estimation, refer to the official Adobe Commerce website.

Hosting

Among the three Magento editions, only Adobe Commerce Cloud includes hosting. For the other two options, the store owner can either host the software on premises or find a suitable cloud vendor. If the business owner decides to host the eCommerce website on premises, they will need to acquire the hardware infrastructure and will be responsible for security and maintenance. A quality server can cost between $5,000 and $15,000. A reliable backup system will add around $2,000 to the total costs. You will also need to factor in software licensing expenses. If you are using Microsoft products, this will amount to approximately $1,500 per server.

If you choose the in-house hosting option, your hosting expenses will vary largely depending on infrastructure costs, technical experts who will set up and maintain software and hardware, and security-related certifications.

With a cloud vendor, you will not need to invest a large sum upfront, like it is the case with on-premises hosting. You will simply pay a monthly fee depending on the functionality, data storage requirements, and the selected provider. The cloud gives you the freedom to scale your operations when needed without having to upgrade your hardware or purchase additional servers.

To give an estimate, cloud hosting can cost you anywhere from $130 to $2,000 per month, depending on the number of products in stock and the overall site load.

Domain name costs

Regardless of which Adobe/Magento version you decide to use, you will still need to acquire a domain name (the web address) for your store. You can either purchase a brand-new domain name for around $10 – $20 per year or renew an expired one for up to $60 per year. Premium domains can cost up to $400 – $500 annually.

Domain price will depend on additional factors, such as the last segment of your domain name and any other services, like long-term registration and certifications.

If you decide to renew an existing domain name, then you will already have a base to build upon. There might be existing backlinks to that domain that will enhance your visibility on Google search, and your store will be indexed faster than if you would've started to build your rankings from zero with the new domain.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certification

SSL is a certificate that verifies your website's identity and encrypts the data being transferred between the user and your website. SSL is crucial for your store's security. It helps protect customers' private data, such as login details and credit card information. Without this certificate, your visitors will get the dreaded “this site might not be secure” message when accessing your web store. And they are unlikely to come back after that.

Adobe Commerce and Adobe Commerce Cloud include this certificate in their offering by default. If you select the Magento community version, you will need to take care of this yourself. And should you opt for a cloud hosting vendor, you might also get SSL certification covered in your hosting package.

An SSL certificate can cost you anywhere between $50-$600 in annual payment on average. Some premium options can cost as much as $1,000 per year.

Web store design/themes

When considering your web store design, there are several options to choose from:

• Adobe's pre-built themes. You can look into free and paid options on Adobe Marketplace and purchase a theme for $60-$499.
• External Magento theme vendors and support communities. If you believe that the standard Adobe options will not give your web store a unique look and feel, you can consider purchasing ready-made designs from third-party vendors. For instance, you can buy a theme from ThemeForest for $17 – $499.
• Custom-built themes. If you are looking for an original design that doesn't negatively affect performance, you better budget for hiring a Magento theme designer.

To explore the last option in more detail, it will cost you at least $5,000 to design a custom Magento theme. The final price will depend on the UI/UX requirements, whether it needs to be mobile-friendly, and other parameters.

Development costs

While setting up your store, you will incur development costs on various aspects, such as:

• Store and catalog setup, which includes general configuration, data migration, product attributes, and more
• Theme-related development. Even if you use a ready-made Magento theme, a developer will spend 2-4 weeks at least to adjust your web pages to the brand's look and feel, which will include creating banners, moving blocks around, etc. This number of hours will increase sharply if you want to build a custom theme, as described in the previous section.
• Different eCommerce features, such as configuring payment gateways, setting up taxation rules, enabling payment methods, etc.
• Sales and marketing costs, like advanced SEO consultations, pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaigns, Google search, and so on
• You can either maintain an in-house team of developers, or you can hire a dedicated development team to implement your store and offer maintenance and support in the future. One in-house developer will cost you $60,000-$120,000 in annual expenses depending on their experience and skill level.

If you opt for a dedicated team of Magento developers, you can expect to pay an hourly rate of $50-$80 for Europe, and around $100 or higher in the US, depending on the developer's skills. One advantage of choosing this option is flexibility. You can start with a smaller number of billable hours and increase them with a heavier workload, and you don't have to bear recruitment costs.

Extensions and add-ons

While calculating the total Magento pricing, you need to consider the sum you will pay for different extensions and integrations that will enhance your store's functionality. For example, you might want to add advanced store search, better customer support options, or social media integration, especially if you are using Magento Open Source. The other two Adobe editions offer a better variety of built-in features, and you won't need to rely on add-ons that much.

You can find some ready-made extensions and integrations on the Magento marketplace, and they will cost you from $0 to $10,000 with a few pricier exceptions. Another option is to get third-party extensions that will probably be available for a subscription fee. Or you can benefit from custom eCommerce development for more intricate extensions. And this will cost you at least $6,000 per one custom add-on.

Fees related to payment transactions

Regardless of which Adobe edition you selected, you will still need to cover transaction fees if you want your customers to be able to pay online on your web store. Typically, these fees vary between 2% and 4% of the transaction's original value. This amount covers credit card processing fees and payment platform fees.

Some popular eCommerce payment solutions, such as PayPal and Stripe, are easy to integrate and they don't charge any setup costs, but their transaction processing fees start at 2.9%.

SEO and digital marketing

All three Magento editions include search engine optimization functionality and support marketing campaigns to some degree. Magento Open Source only includes the basic features while the other two editions offer more advanced capabilities.

You will still need to hire a marketing professional for a comprehensive SEO audit and website optimization consultation. This will take around 20-40 working hours, depending on the store's complexity. During this time, the expert will identify existing issues and propose an optimization strategy. A SEO expert's hourly rate is around $15-$35.

And if you are using Adobe Open Source, you might want to acquire advanced SEO add-ons to execute the strategies that the marketing professional put forward to enhance your store's searchability and performance on Google.

Artificial intelligence

Adobe Commerce and Adobe Commerce Cloud offer advanced business intelligence dashboards and AI capabilities. One such offering is Adobe Sensei, a powerful AI tool that can equip your store with useful functionality, such as:

• Product recommendations. It can analyze your products and customer preferences to make customized suggestions tailored to each person's needs.
• Live search. When clients enter a search query, AI algorithms can compose the best-suited product list based on the query itself and other factors, such as what's trending, the most viewed products, and customer preferences.

You can find some inspiring examples of how AI and ML can benefit eCommerce on our blog.

Research shows that customers will spend 40% more time shopping on your website if their experience is personalized, which is a strong incentive to invest in AI. Even if you opt for one of the two Adobe Commerce editions, you will still need to pay for AI-related development and configuration costs.

If you decide to go with Magento Open Source, which doesn't include any AI capabilities, you might want to still consider hiring AI developers to implement this functionality. Keep in mind that this is a pricey endeavor. Building an intelligent recommendation engine can easily cost you $20,000-$35,000. For more information, check out our article on the factors associated with AI costs.

Maintenance

Another factor affecting Adobe Commerce pricing is ongoing store maintenance, which includes routine code audits to discover and eliminate any bugs, performance optimization, certification and licensing renewal, new feature implementation, migration between platforms, and addressing security vulnerabilities.

The total price of maintenance will vary depending on the type of support and your Magento edition. Both Adobe Commerce and Adobe Commerce Cloud have technical support included in the license costs, while Adobe Commerce Cloud also offers server-side maintenance, updates, and security patches. However, you still might need to pay for some maintenance-related aspects, like if you want to resolve technical issues promptly, add and configure new extensions, and develop custom functionality.

If you are using Magento Open Source, it is best to either keep a dedicated developer on the payroll or outsource IT support and maintenance to a Magento development company. The community edition will cost you the most in maintenance, averaging $7,500 per month purely to keep your store up and running.

Adobe Commerce pricing examples from ITRex portfolio

A US-based marketplace migration to Magento Open Source

An online marketplace owner enables users to pay for products and services in installments to improve their credit scores. The company relied on Magento 1.9 and experienced performance issues after Magento had terminated its official support for this version. Not to mention that the client used an outdated MySQL database to serve six million users.

The client wanted ITRex to help find a cost-effective solution for their struggling platform while preserving the existing business logic and customizations and take care of the migration to the new platform. Here is what we did:

• After extensive research, we suggested migrating to Magento Open Source as it satisfied the client's needs and budget restrictions
• Performed a comprehensive data audit
• Created a data migration map and executed a secure transfer
• Recreated the business logic and all the custom functionality on the new Magento Open Source marketplace
• Built a custom API for cross-platform compatibility
• Upgraded the obsolete MySQL database to a more recent version
• Optimized the website speed and performance after migration

The total costs of the migration and the supporting activities were estimated at around $100,000.

Building an Adobe Commerce store from a legacy commerce solution

A US-based electric supplies wholesaler relied on a legacy eCommerce website that performed poorly and was expensive to maintain. This firm hired ITRex to recreate their legacy website on Adobe Commerce while maintaining the look and feel of the original store and seamlessly migrating all the original assets. Here is how we approached the challenge:

• Built an online store based on Adobe Commerce while replicating the appearance and the flow of the original website
• Migrated all products, categories, client base, and order history
• Implemented advanced eCommerce features, such as customer grouping, product search based on barcodes, pricing rules, and more
• Integrated the website with Vantiv payment system to facilitate online payment
• Streamlined customer and inventory management by integrating with Epicor Prophet P21 ERP

The total cost of this project was estimated around $150,000-$200,000.

Tips from ITRex on how to avoid overspending

If you are just testing the eCommerce waters, your needs can probably be met by Magento Open Source. This option will help you avoid the hefty license fees of the enterprise editions. You can also opt for shared hosting to further reduce the price. You can always hire developers to implement advanced functionality and customized designs. This approach doesn't require a large upfront investment, and you can upgrade your store as your revenue increases.

If you are planning to implement advanced functionality and heavily customize your store, it's best to hire an experienced developer from the beginning instead of choosing a cheaper option and ending up paying twice.

Invest in optimizing your store as it will not only enhance customer experience but also reduce your hosting costs.

If you are at the beginning of your eCommerce journey, make sure you choose a scalable design and architecture so that you can easily scale your operations in the future in response to growing demand.

Hire a reliable SEO professional to perform an SEO audit and help you strategize with organic marketing techniques. This will reduce your expenses over time.

Invest in store maintenance if you choose Magento Open Source. This might seem expensive at first glance, but it will prevent issues that can potentially result in even more costly downtimes while negatively reflecting on your reputation.

So, how much does an Adobe Commerce store cost?

To summarize, Magento pricing depends on the selected Magento/Adobe edition, hosting options, the degree of customization, the level of post-deployment support, and more. If you opt for Magento Open Source, you will not pay license fees, but you still need to factor in all the other expenses. The table below summarizes which expenses you need to consider while calculating the total Adobe Commerce pricing.

There is no one general answer to how much an eCommerce website costs.

Setting up a basic store using Magento Open Source, a few extensions, and a built-in theme will cost you $1,500-$5,000, assuming that you could set up the store by yourself. These numbers will go up if you hire a developer.

However, a large web store based on Adobe Commerce Cloud with a custom theme and ongoing support will cost around $200,000-$250,000 to set up. You will still have to make a monthly payment to cover licensing, subscriptions, etc. This can be a couple of thousands or tens of thousands, depending on your Adobe licensing plan and store features.

Drop ITRex a line if you want to receive an accurate cost estimation for your eCommerce project.

The post Adobe Commerce Pricing: The Cost of Creating Adobe Commerce appeared first on Datafloq.

Embrace Data-Driven Decision Making:

Data gets referred to as the new oil in the digital era. Startups and SMEs can harness the power of data to make informed decisions. By analyzing customer behaviors, market trends, and operational metrics, businesses can identify areas for improvement and capitalize on emerging opportunities. Data-driven decision-making enhances efficiency, reduces guesswork, and helps allocate resources more effectively.

Leverage Digital Marketing:

Digital marketing offers a cost-effective way for startups and SMEs to reach a global audience. Businesses create targeted and personalized marketing strategies through social media, content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and email campaigns. Engaging content and effective use of social media platforms can help build brand awareness, increase customer engagement, and drive sales.

Embrace E-Commerce and Online Marketplaces:

Startups and SMEs can leverage online marketplaces and e-commerce platforms to expand their customer base beyond geographical boundaries. Offering a seamless online shopping experience, secure payment gateways, and efficient order fulfillment can give businesses a competitive edge.

Implement Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation:

For startups and SMEs, these technologies can streamline processes, enhance customer service, and optimize operations. Chatbots, for example, can provide immediate customer support, while automated inventory management can prevent stockouts and overstocking. Every organization may save time and money by automating product development and operations.

Give agility and adaptability top priority:

Agility and flexibility are essential in a company environment that is changing quickly. Startups and SMEs should get prepared to modify their plans, offerings, or strategies in response to customer feedback and new market trends. It calls for building an agile workplace culture, giving individuals decision-making authority, and having a flexible organizational structure.

Focus on User Experience (UX) and Design:

A well-designed website or app that is easy to navigate and visually appealing can impact customer perception and engagement. Startups and SMEs should invest in creating intuitive interfaces, smooth checkout processes, and mobile-responsive designs to provide an outstanding user experience.

Collaborate and Network:

Collaboration can open doors to innovation and growth. Startups and SMEs can form strategic partnerships with other businesses, share resources, and tap into complementary expertise. Networking events, industry conferences, and online forums provide platforms for connecting with potential collaborators, investors, and customers.

Offer Personalization and Customization:

Personalization is a cornerstone of modern business success. Startups and SMEs can use customer data to offer personalized recommendations, products, and services. Tailoring offerings to individual preferences enhances customer satisfaction and boosts customer loyalty and repeat business. Like customizing your business, you can customized your Moissanite engagement rings as per you wedding theme.

Embrace Remote Work and Digital Tools:

Startups and SMEs can capitalize on this trend by allowing remote work options, it can attract talent from diverse locations. Digital collaboration tools facilitate efficient communication and project management, even when teams get geographically dispersed.

An increase in customer engagement

The most significant factor in every business is client happiness. Because we live in a competitive environment, clients demand the most significant user experience on whatever platform they use. Consequently, it has become difficult to keep clients satisfied, especially for SMEs. Their digital culture has changed the game, and clients now trust them.

Supply Chain Management

The digital revolution not only has –an impact on SME performance but also creates the ideal ecology for supply chain management. The businesses can operate in new areas and market segments that were previously inaccessible by bridging traditional and geographic barriers. The study demonstrates that businesses with digital supply chain management may anticipate more decisive revenue development and successful customer satisfaction.

How has supply chain management become more efficient thanks to the digital age?

SMEs now have powerful and easy-to-use analytical tools for sorting through a massive amount of data and choosing which insights to extract. The SMEs can track a vast range of audiences and maintain track of all follow-ups with only a few clicks. Utilizing the power of social media, influencer marketing, content marketing, SEO, and email marketing, small companies may raise their online exposure, draw in new clients, and boost revenues.

Increased Production of Revenue:

Digital transformation may create new opportunities like increased profitability and improved revenue growth. Due to this shift, small firms now have enough cash on hand to manage their day-to-day operations. Small businesses frequently employ automated accounting systems, invoicing software, sales funnel software, and CRMs to increase income.

The post Innovative Strategies for Startups and SMEs in the Digital Age appeared first on Datafloq.

What's more?

With in-depth insights into customer behavior and preferences, we built personalized marketing campaigns.

This helped align our sales and marketing teams and identify high-value leads, thus maximizing our revenue marketing efforts.

In short, predictive analytics has proven to be a game-changer for my SaaS firm – Revlitix.

Predictive analytics is an advanced data analysis method that leverages artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, data science, and analytics software to forecast business outcomes.

In this post, I will share my experience on predictive analytics, revealing how it can be leveraged to drive revenue growth for your startup.

Predictive Analytics to Bolster Your Success

Here's how predictive analytics can help your company thrive.

1: Optimize Your Marketing Campaigns

Through my entrepreneurial journey, I have emphasized on the power of data-driven decision-making. Many of us are often tempted to follow our gut instinct when making key marketing decisions. But that can spell disaster for your business.

On the other hand, the data-driven approach powered by predictive analytics is based on facts. With accurate customer and industry insights, optimizing marketing campaigns will become a breeze. Thus, you can reach, attract, and engage the right audience, thus building a solid revenue base for your startup. Let me share a real-life experience of how it proved revolutionary for my SaaS.

When we launched Revlitix, our key goal was to boost customer engagement by 50% within a quarter.

• Our Data-Driven Approach: We leveraged predictive analytics to analyze historical and current customer data, including their online activities, behavior, demographics, preferences, past and present marketing campaign performances, etc.

These insights helped us understand the most effective marketing channels (email and website) and forecast future outcomes. So, we created strategies around email marketing and website optimization.

• Business Outcome: Our customer engagement increased by 55% within three months, surpassing our predefined goal.

So, whether you are a SaaS startup or operating in a different domain, embrace advanced analytics to drive exceptional marketing outcomes.

2: Maximize Sales Opportunities

The sales team plays a central role in building a loyal community of customers, pivotal for long-term revenue growth. However, aligning your team to be consistent with their sales performance isn't easy.

Several factors, such as ever-evolving customer preferences, limited resources, and inaccurate real-time data, create challenges to achieving sales goals. But predictive analytics simplified and streamlined our sales process.

With predictive analytics, you can gain insights into past and current sales performance and predict future sales trends accurately.

For instance, with customer insights like total past leads, total conversions, website visits, online activities, engagement level, and more, you can gauge high-value leads (most likely to convert). Lead prioritization boosts the chances of conversions. See how Nuvemshop, a B2B eCommerce solution provider, leverages Hubspot's Sales Hub software.

Source

Its valuable customer insights and predictive lead-scoring capabilities helped them boost its customer base by 900% within six months!

Take inspiration from the brand to revolutionize your sales effectiveness.

3: Enhance Visibility for Crucial Data Points

As a startup owner, it's crucial to have clarity on the following:

• Who is visiting the website?
• What content format and type are they interested in?
• How much time do they spend on each page?
• What is the average number of pages they read per day?
• Which social media platforms do they use?

Predictive analytics can help with such questions. With the insights it offers, you can identify gaps and market trends and create targeted campaigns resonating with the ever-evolving audience interests.

4: Safeguard the Startup Against Fraud and Business Risks

Cyber threats, malware attacks, and several serious frauds are becoming prevalent. And we have enough data to prove that it's not limited to enterprises or large corporations. A recent report stated that every one in five cyber intrusions incidents targets startups.

So, you must adopt a holistic approach to safeguard your business from all these criminal activities. Predictive analytics solutions can help you get the most out of your cybersecurity investments.

Notice how Sage, a cloud accounting and financial management solution provider for small and medium businesses, uses analytics. It offers predictive analytics-driven robust fraud detection and cybersecurity software. The advanced analytics capabilities with its security features enable their clients to keep their businesses secured without hassles.

Source

I strongly advise you to deploy tools like Sage to navigate the ruthless digital business landscape hassle-free.

5: Boost Customer Experience (CX)

A seamless customer experience (CX) isn't a nice-to-have feature – it's a given.

CX can determine and redefine your startup's success as it directly impacts a firm's ROI and revenue. Here's what I see.

Identifying customer needs and pain points and investing in personalized campaign creation pays off. But these efforts are incomplete without solid data backing them.

That's where you can count on predictive analytics, especially to –

• Incorporate features and services that your customers need.
• Respond timely to their queries with relevant information.
• Streamline customer onboarding by eliminating bottlenecks.
• Analyze and incorporate customer feedback into your marketing strategy.
• Build dynamic product pricing strategies.

This can help elevate customer experience, fostering high retention rates and loyalty.

That's not all!

Here's a bonus tip: Predictive analytics + prescriptive insights = a synergistic approach to data-driven decision making

Prescriptive analytic solutions offer recommendations or the next-best actions (NBAs) you need to take to achieve your goal. In our early stages, we were looking at innovative ways to acquire new customers. We firmed up a goal of acquiring 20% more customers within two months.

Predictive analytics enabled us to gain in-depth insights into our past and current business performance, customer insights, and market trends. This empowered our SaaS firm to design a clear roadmap to achieve the goal.

The prescriptive mechanism further recommended targeting the UK and Asia via email marketing. We did that, and the results were remarkable! We achieved the goal and gained loyal customers with minimum hassles.

The lesson – leverage advanced analytics methods to strengthen your decision-making.

Summing Up

Intuition-led decisions can negatively impact your startup's outcomes.

Rely on predictive analytics to gain valuable data-driven insights into the target market and customers. Deploy advanced analytics tools to spot untapped business opportunities and make revenue-focused decisions.

I am sure the insights shared by me on predictive analytics will contribute to your startup's growth.

I am keen on learning the advanced analytics techniques you use to guide your business strategies. Let me know about it!

I wish you all the best!

The post How Predictive Analytics Can Turbocharge Your Startup’s Growth appeared first on Datafloq.

One of the most significant changes has been the advancements of new technology in financial products and services that are designed to serve specific functions within the financial sector like Reg-tech, Insurtech, and robo-advising. Before discussing the most important FinTech technologies, we should take a look at the basics of what FinTech is!

What is FinTech?

FinTech certainly means finance and technology that are integrated with the vision of creating innovative solutions for companies. It also supports financial service providers to serve their customers better by utilizing technologies like biometrics, eCommerce, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and more.

FinTech isn't an actual brand name or part of the software. Instead, it's a term used for all technological trends within the financial sector. FinTech applications allow banking to be faster and more intelligent. When implemented together or in their way, they help businesses become more efficient and allow employees to interact with clients or suppliers more efficiently.

Top FinTech Trends in 2023

Payment Innovations

According to Piyush Jain, Founder of Simpalm, a fintech app development company “In FinTech Payment innovations, there are several components, including mobile payments, contactless payment, mobile wallets, AI, and machine learning to improve security and authentication technologies for identification. The payment innovation works very well for fintech businesses that are very secure and transparent. The online transactions that take place through mobile applications for financial institutions and banks are far more advanced and straightforward. Digital payments products like Venmo, Zelle, Stripe, and Plaid have revolutionized the fintech industry.”

Digital-Only Banking

Digital-only banking is now an extremely creative business solution to manage contacts lists and immediate online banking services. Digital-only banks are extremely beneficial, where no one needs to go to the bank in person to fill out the long and tedious paperwork or wait for long periods. This is among the most advanced fintech solutions for banks across the nation. It could be as simple as any point up to opening your bank accounts to pay off your credit card debts which you can manage entirely with the help of online applications offered by your bank. Other advantages include cost management, speedy billing, the ability to pay bills at their homes, instant analytics, and quick balance review.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is among the most recent trends that are taking place in the finance sector, where banks are embracing strategies to solve problems that can quickly improve the whole sector. Several global employers and brands are incorporating artificial intelligence-related applications and software in fintech companies to ensure better performance with improved efficiency, lower costs, and expenditure.

Blockchain Technology

According to Amit Nigam, COO of Bank IT, “Blockchain technology is efficient in making fintech operations and services secure and transparent. It is a big change in the financial system that focuses on decentralized finance and eliminating centralization, allowing it to be easy and secure. Today, fintech technology has prompted a variety of developments in online financial platforms that allow financial transactions to occur in a decentralized manner. It's a distributed ledger technology within blockchain technology, used by financial firms to reduce costs and expenses while increasing the quality of their services.”

Adoption of Robotics in Customer Service

Customer service in fintech firms has improved since the introduction of robotics and chatbots, which are automated. Due to the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, chatbots and conversational artificial intelligence aided by robots and chatbots can provide 24/7 customer support throughout the day, all in one click. Voice bots and chatbots that are chatting with customers help banks and fintech firms to provide customer service more efficiently.

Biometric Security Systems

Mobile banking and other digital financial services have gained popularity because they are available at your fingertips. It is not only an impressive accomplishment but also brings up security concerns. As time passes, the cybercrime rate is increasing each day. Thus each FinTech business should implement the necessary security measures in their process. Biometrics security systems are the best way to take security to a higher level. It provides users an assurance that their data is protected.

Conclusion:

The market for financial services is expanding rapidly. The FinTech trends mentioned above have evolved in response to customers' needs. They assist providers in delivering superior financial services that allow greater availability of data, more efficient transaction processing, improved transparency, better support for the customer, and more secure identity verification. The FinTech revolution is getting more powerful. So, if your company wants to compete in the market, gain your customer's trust by listening to their needs and providing a seamless and transparent experience.

The post Innovative Fintech Solutions to Know in 2023 and Beyond appeared first on Datafloq.

This is where website monitoring comes in. It is the process of tracking and testing a website's performance, status, and activity to ensure it is running smoothly and efficiently.

Let's have a glance at its meaning and why website monitoring is essential for business continuity planning!

What is website monitoring?

Website monitoring is the process of monitoring and testing the availability, performance, and functionality of a website.

It involves regularly checking a website to ensure it is accessible and functioning as expected and detecting any issues that may arise, such as slow loading times, errors, or downtime.

Website monitoring is important for ensuring a positive user experience and minimizing any negative impact on a business or organization's reputation, revenue, or customer satisfaction.

As per the findings of a study conducted in 2022, more than 60% of outages incur costs exceeding $100,000, which is higher compared to 39% in 2019. The study also revealed that about 15% of outages cost over $1 million, showing an increase from 11% in 2019.

Here are some general advantages of website monitoring:

• Website monitoring enables businesses to detect and address issues before they become major problems, helping prevent significant losses.
• It helps businesses maintain a positive reputation with their customers by ensuring that their website is available and functioning correctly.
• Website monitoring provides businesses with insights into website traffic patterns and user behavior, enabling them to make data-driven decisions and improvements to their website.

What is BCP (Business continuity plan)?

Business continuity planning (BCP) is the process of creating a plan to ensure that critical business functions can continue to operate in the event of a disruption or disaster.

BCP is designed to identify potential risks and threats to a business, assess the impact of those risks, and develop strategies to minimize the impact and recover quickly in the event of an incident. The goal of BCP is to maintain business operations and minimize the financial, reputational, and operational impacts of an interruption.

According to the US Department of Home Security, here is a good template for establishing a BCP.

What does a business continuity plan typically include?

A business continuity plan typically includes the following components:

Business impact analysis (BIA):

The BIA identifies critical business functions and the potential impact of disruptions to those functions.

Risk assessment:

The risk assessment identifies potential risks and threats to the business, such as natural disasters, cyberattacks, or supply chain disruptions.

Response procedures:

The response procedures outline the steps to take in the event of a disruption, such as activating emergency procedures, notifying key stakeholders, and implementing backup systems.

Recovery strategies:

The recovery strategies identify the steps necessary to restore critical business functions and minimize the impact of the disruption.

Communication plan:

The communication plan outlines how stakeholders will be informed of the disruption and its impact, and how ongoing communication will be maintained.

Training and testing:

Training and testing ensure that staff are prepared to respond to disruption and that the plan remains effective and up-to-date.

Maintenance and review:

Maintenance and review ensure that the plan remains relevant and effective as the business environment changes and that it is regularly tested and updated to reflect new risks and threats.

Website monitoring for business continuity planning

Here are some of the benefits of website monitoring for business continuity planning:

IP address monitoring

helps businesses identify any suspicious activity on their website, such as a hacker attempting to access it. Additionally, it can help identify any issues with the website's hosting provider.

Website performance monitoring

enables businesses to identify any issues that may be causing slow loading times or other performance issues. This information can be used to make improvements to the website's infrastructure or design, which can ultimately lead to a better user experience.

Website status monitoring

involves tracking a website's availability, uptime, and downtime. By monitoring a website's status, businesses can identify any issues that may be causing downtime, such as server issues or network outages.

Real-time website monitoring

allows businesses to identify and address any issues as they arise, ensuring that the website remains available and functioning correctly.

SSL certificate monitoring

ensures that the website remains secure and compliant with industry standards. It identifies any issues with SSL certificates, such as expiration or revocation.

Monitor Website Performance for BCP with Awakish!

Awakish offers a plethora of benefits for SME, looking to scale theur business to newer heights! We are your ultimate website monitoring partner.

Here are some of the benefits for your business when you work with us:

Improved website uptime:

Awakish provides 24/7 website monitoring to detect and alert businesses of any website downtime or performance issues, allowing them to take quick action to resolve the issue and minimize downtime.

Proactive issue detection:

Awakish's monitoring system can detect potential issues before they become critical problems, allowing businesses to take proactive steps to prevent any downtime or performance issues.

Comprehensive reporting:

Awakish offers detailed reporting, including uptime and response time reports, to help businesses identify performance trends and areas for improvement.

User experience monitoring:

Awakish monitors website performance from a user's perspective, enabling businesses to identify any issues that may impact the user experience, such as slow page load times or broken links.

Security monitoring:

Awakish offers security monitoring, including SSL certificate monitoring and malware detection, to help businesses protect their website and customer data.

Monitor IP address activity, and track SSL certificate expiry along with staying on top of downtime, ports and JSON monitoring for endpoints. Get in touch to know more!

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Stock trading- what is it, and how it works?

Stock trading is driven by the Stock market. According to Kar Tretina, a contributor at Forbes,” The stock market is a constellation of exchanges where securities like stocks and bonds are bought and sold”. Companies list their stocks in the stock market, which is visible to the stock traders who buy the stocks.

Companies raise their stocks in the stock markets. Stocks are a small part of a company that is sold to investors. Investors invest in the company and buy stocks. The valuation of a company increases when it attracts more investors, which in terms, transforms into profit. Then the same profit is distributed to the investors.

Hence, investors earn through stock trading. Below are the benefits of stock trading for investors:

• Earning profits when stock prices fluctuate
• Generates a regular income for investors
• Uplifts companies toward growth

The Scope- Is stock trading app development a sustainable idea?

The scope of the stock trading mobile app is sustainable. Future market insights published some of the incredible growth factors with respect to the growth of stock trading mobile apps:

Stock trading app market to grow at a CAGR rate of 20.8% by 2023. Both the platforms, iOS and Android, will register this growth.

Similarly, the business of apps published key stock trading statistics helping entrepreneurs to determine the scope of stock trading mobile app development.

• Robinhood, a stock trading app, registered $10 Billion in revenue in 2022.
• 137 million users were active on stock trading apps in 2021.

Stock trading app ideas driving business opportunities

We have seen how the Stock trading app idea is sustainable and can drive robust growth and revenue for you. In order to supplement it, here are the top business opportunities related to stock trading mobile app development:

• Stock advisor app
• Stock trading news app
• Trade learning app
• Stock exchange monitor app

You definitely have a pool of stock trading mobile app ideas driving business opportunities to you.

The complete step-by-step process to build a stock trading app

So that you are clear about the scope and opportunities related to the stock trading app. It is now time to learn the step-by-step Process for building a stock trading app.

Consult your idea with the management teams

The first step to building your stock trading app begins by consulting your project idea with management teams. These teams should be from the IT department for better clarity of your project idea. You can hire project managers and a team of business analysts to prepare blueprints of your stock trading app idea. Or you can also hire a stock trading mobile app development company that has the team in-house so you can focus on more important tasks.

Further, you should build a minimum viable product for exceptional stock trading mobile app. This will help you to:

• Conduct market research to gain insights
• Arrange what customers want with your idea
• Prioritize the features that customers want

Lay down the scope of your project in terms of Platform

What Platform do you want to target on which you will build your stock trading mobile app? You can clear it in advance. There are multiple options available from which you can decide:

• A web app for your stock trading app idea
• Android app
• iOS application

If you want to target all three mentioned above, you must opt for Cross-platform app development frameworks. This will deliver you the flexibility to run your app on multiple platforms keeping the resources and timeframes minimal.

Build the right development approach

• Embed Platform as a service to fasten your development process
• Make use of robust 3rd party APIs instead of building from scratch
• Build a native mobile app if you want to ensure a high level of stability; however, you can also hire a top cross-platform app development company to target multiple platforms
• Focus on testing parallel to your stock trading app development process

Determine the security of your app

When it comes to finance-related activities, whether with a stock trading app or banking, security is an essential part

You have to take key security measures to build a secure app. Also, stock trading is governed by strict regulations

Ensure the following security parameters:

• Strictly monitor and mitigate risks like XML external entities and cross-site scripting.
• Embed cloud computing with the right analysis and choose your cloud provider wisely.
• Ensure modern techniques like next-generation firewalls and more.
  Secure your APIs.
• Use intelligent solutions (AI) to identify possible cyber security threats.

Know the resources to be deployed on your stock trading app development project

In case you do not know about the resources required for your project, here is the list of people who will work on your project after business analysts:

• UI/UX designers' team
• Android developers (Kotlin and Java)
• iOS developers (Swift and Objective C#)
• Cross-platform developers, in the case (Flutter and React Native)
• Quality assurance team
• DevOps engineers

All the teams would be led by their respective team leaders and project manager.

Features you must embed in your Stock trading app

A good stock trading application covers multiple aspects known as features and functionalities. If you are targeting to build a stock app development, you must ensure the following features:

Multiple authentication options

43% of the users abandon the app due to frustration with digital identity authentication. Make sure that you offer multiple authentication options to your users, be it fingerprint or face ID.

Further, also ensure that your app has an easy and fast signing or login process.

Build a solution that users can access from anywhere

Users prefer apps providing them with a seamless and flexible user experience. They want to pick up their tasks from where they left off on their other devices, be it a laptop, tablet, or phone.

Build a solution that users can access from anywhere. Your trading app shall have a web version that works as an extension of your app. In case a user doesn't have an app, they can flawlessly access your stock trading app.

Do not forget the newsfeed feature to keep users engaged

Instagram attracted 200 million users reaching from 1 billion users to 1.21 billion users in just a few months. It was because of the feature of reels.

When you keep your users engaged on your Platform, the screen time of your app increases. It also builds a strong brand image where users become a part of your app.

Build a tab for a news feed where all the news from top stock companies and analysis of the proper stock market is bundled. This will engage users on your app for a longer duration. When you embed multiple features in one app, you head towards building a super app. A one-stop destination for multiple activities.

Push notifications to update users

Push notifications can boost user retention by 190%. Deliver real-time notifications to the users, whether it is about a price drop in stocks or a bad day in the stock exchange market. Keep communicating with your customers through your app. Also, ensure that you do not overdo the notifications part. A frustrated user will straight uninstall your app.

Multiple payment options

Definitely, payment would be an integral part of your app. You do not want your customer to leave your app for payment. In such cases, you have to provide multiple payment gateways to the users. Be it digital wallets, UPI apps, or international apps like Paypal. Provide your users will a large stack of payment modes so they choose the best one according to their convenience.

Best Tech-stack for building stock trading application

Although there are ample tech stacks available for you to build your stock trading app, the below tech stack is used by top mobile app development companies globally.

For the Android platform, you can use

Programming languages: Kotlin, Java

Database: MongoDB, MySQL, NoSQL

For the iOS Platform, you can use

• Programming language: Swift, Objective C#
• Database: MySQL, NoSQL, MongoDB

For Cross Platform you can use

• Frameworks: Flutter, Angular, React
• Languages: Dart, JavaScript
• Database: MongoDB, MySQL, NoSQL

Popular Challenges in Stock trading app development

You may encounter the following challenges while building a stock trading app:

• Ensuring security and reliability
• Integration with financial platforms
• Staying up to date with market trends
• Compliance with financial regulations

Top-grossing stock trading apps for your reference

You can refer to the below top-grossing stock trading apps. We have provided the link to the play store platform in case you want to perform a competitive analysis.

Robinhood

Robinhood is a well-known app and one of the most popular in the stock trading industry. The app has a 4-star rating with 10 million plus downloads.

Cash App

The cash app is an easy way to spend, save, invest, and transfer money. It has 2.27 million reviews with a 4.6-star rating.

eToro

eToro is a popular investing app offering investment options to users at 0% commission. The app has a 4.0-star rating with 129k overall reviews.

Revolut

Revolut lets users manage their budget and get started with investment. 25 million + customers are already using the app.

What is the ideal cost of building a stock trading application?

Although the cost factor is something that varies from company to company. It also varies over the region from where you hire the stock trading app developers. For example, the stock trading app development cost in India will be budget friendly as compared to building the app with USA-based developers.

We cannot suggest a fixed cost for stock trading app development, yet a typical stock trading app might cost you from $30,000 to $100,000 to build. The cost factor highly depends upon the complexities, features, and functionalities you want in your app.

Why choose RipenApps as your stock trading app development partner?

We have aided the Finance industry with top-notch solutions in terms of digital transformation. Our cutting-edge fintech solutions involve:

• Seamless Payment gateway integration
• Secure digital wallet architect
• Fraud prevention mechanism
• High-quality investment solutions with robust AI

We have a certified team of experts who have built and deployed top-notch stock trading apps. Our full application development cycle ensures everything from start to bottom for your requirements. And we adhere to our business values with the following as a priority:

• Budget-friendly app development
• Transparent communication
• Meeting deadlines
• 100% satisfaction to the client

FAQs

Q1. What is the Scope of Stock trading app development?

The scope of the stock trading app development idea is sustainable. Top-grossing stock trading applications have been driving revenue in millions. Hence, the idea of building the stock trading app will be fruitful for you bringing ample success opportunities.

Q2. What is the process of building a stock trading application?

• Idea consultation
• Determining the scope of the project
• Build development approach
• Determine the security

Q3. What are the best Features to add to the stock trading app?

• Multiple authentication options
• Build cross-platform solutions
• News feed feature
• Push notification service
• Multiple payment options

Q4. Which is the right Tech stack for stock trading app development?

• Framework: Flutter, React Native
• Programming language: Dart, JavaScript
• Database: MongoDB, MySQL

Q5. What is the Cost of building a stock trading app?

The cost of building a stock trading app varies by the complexities, features, and functionalities. However, for a rough idea, stock trading app development can cost you from $30,000 to $100,000. Yet, there cannot be a fixed number.

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