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When choosing an online shopping cart, there may not appear to be many nuances; however, consider that cart abandonment is one of the major problems common to all online retailers, regardless of industry. And the issue is widespread: studies indicate that 68 percent of shoppers abandon their shopping cart before completing a transaction. Some businesses report up to an 80 percent abandonment rate. 

Shopping cart abandonment has led to an annual loss of billions of dollars and climbing. According to Forrester Research, the estimated total of annual abandoned shopping cart revenue will reach $31 Billion dollars.

Most research indicates that consumers stop the purchase process due to unexpected costs like shipping and taxes as the top reason followed with “I was just browsing” as the second highest reason for cart abandonment.  It is important to keep these behaviors in mind and remember that consumers usually don’t purchase the first time they visit.  With that said, optimizing features and functionality of your shopping cart is a critical part of increasing ecommerce.

In any ecommerce situation, the shopping cart is the conduit of a company’s income.  Making a well-informed decision in choosing the right shopping cart is of primary importance. There are several factors to consider. Just like choices regarding your website’s design and functionality, you must decide whether to use out-of-the-box software, or to create a custom e-commerce solution.

The website Practical Ecommerce offers these suggestions for must-haves in an online shopping cart: 

•      Large, Functional Product Images
•      Product Reviews
•      Layered and Faceted Navigation
•      Single-Page, Fast Checkout
•      Search Function (Supporting site search)
•      Coupons and Discounts
•      Product Import and Export
•      Easy Integration with Third Party Solutions
•      Analytics and Sales Reporting

Ecommerce functionality should fit your business needs, and creating a custom online shopping cart allows your  website to drive revenue to your business and encourages consumers to complete that transaction. 

To learn more about services and products – including how custom designing an online shopping cart can help your business – visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Recent studies have shown that having a potted plant can significantly increase a worker’s productivity and creativity. The findings harken back to a theory first published in 1980, called “attention restoration theory.” The gist of this theory is that our brains expend a lot of energy on tasks that require direct attention. This type of mental fatigue is only restored when that concentration stops. There are multiple ways to do this—meditation or a nap is ideal, though not always practical on the job. When we're awake, direct attention can be refreshed by shifting focus to something indirect. In the potted plant study, nature offered just this type of absorbing, restorative distraction.

While the basis for this theory lies in spending time observing nature, similar benefits are seen when individuals engage in other activities, such as playing games and playing with toys. That’s right—playing with toys. We’ve all heard tales of the Google and Facebook corporate campuses, where arcade games are common, and extracurricular activities abound (including gardening at Google’s London HQ). This is attention restoration theory at work.

Most businesses don’t budget or have the space for ping pong tables or pinball machines; fortunately, smaller games and puzzles also provide the rejuvenation that employees periodically need. Simple items that allow for tactile engagement offer similar benefits to restore the overworked brain and lead to high productivity and happier employees.

Visit www.kinetik-it.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Oftentimes, the rule of thumb for managed web hosting is the higher the price tag, the better the technical support. The monthly cost of managed hosting packages can vary from less than $50 to several hundred dollars.

At Kinetik I.T., we don’t think it should cost a fortune to host your website. We offer managed hosting solutions that are secure, affordable and easy to maintain.  Our web-hosting servers are co-located in a state-of-the-art data center with continuous monitoring and 24/7 toll-free technical support. Through redundancy and reliability, our server configurations allow us to guarantee 99.9% up-time.

Easily Manage Your Domain
Our web hosting service features

• 24/7 Toll-Free Technical Support – Talk to a live technician right away and get your questions answered now.

• Server-Side E-Mail SPAM Filter – With 3 levels of sensitivity and 3 different handling options, the filter will reduce SPAM delivery by over 90%.

• Server-Side E-Mail Virus Scanning – A virus can never make it into your inbox, because the server deletes the virus and notifies you of the attempted intrusion.

• Rotated Visitor Logs for Statistical Reporting – At the interval you desire, logs are automatically rotated and compressed into time-stamped files for quick identification.

Our goal is to empower you an simple to use and secure control panel so you can easily manage all aspects of your hosting account. Our web hosting allows you to create and manage e-mail boxes, FTP accounts within your domain, generate usage statistics, manage your files on the server, analyze your web site structure and integrity, secure sections of your web site and manage multiple user access, and configure and install common CGI scripts and more. 

To learn more about web hosting, and a wide array of other services and products, visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik I.T. on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

Factoid: the QR code (short for Quick Response Code) was first designed for the automotive industry in Japan. Introduced in 1994—long before we had smartphones to scan them with—the code’s purpose was to track a vehicle’s progress through the manufacture process.

Today, QR codes can be found everywhere from magazines to corner benches, directing consumers to sites ranging from real estate to women’s fragrance and everywhere in between. They may be standard black and white, or colorfully graded to include a company’s logo. They can even be gigantic and composed of people holding umbrellas: the current record-holding world’s largest QR code encompassed 27,000 square feet, composed of 2,503 employees of the Coca-Cola company in n Zhengzhou City, China standing in formation, holding raised red and white umbrellas.

As useful-yet-novel as QR codes may be, when using them for your business, or when scanning codes in your personal dealings, there are several functionality and security issues that must considered. Security concerns regarding QR codes fall into one of multiple camps: where the code was generated, how the code is scanned, and the code’s destination.

Code Generation

QR codes can convey an enormous amount of information: while a standard barcode can represent up to 20 characters of information, QR codes can carry thousands of characters. There are hundreds of free code generators online, making it easy for hackers, and others with malicious intent to create a code, post it, and wreak havoc on all those who dare scan it.

When using a code generator, ensure you’re working with a stable, reputable company, and consider the lifespan of the material on which the code will appear. Codes may be considered proprietary by the company whose software you’ll use to generate it, so if the company closes or is acquired, the code may point to a 404 error message page. In addition, if QR codes go out of favor, a brochure meant to be relevant for several years suddenly becomes outdated.

Uncertain Links:

When scanning a code, how can you be certain where it leads? Simply because it’s implied by the information surrounding it? QR codes may convey direct or indirect links, which can be either safe of malicious, and you’ll never know until you scan (without a preview option, that is). Because a QR code’s information is unintelligible to the human eye, users have little indication of where the code may lead, and malicious QR codes may install malware on devices, or direct the user’s device to a questionable website.

Scanning Apps

QR code reader apps used to scan the codes carry their own set of issues, and there are currently no standardization requirements for these apps. Look for readers that allow you to preview the link before visiting the site. Apps include QR & Barcode Reader and Norton Snap both have this functionality.

When incorporating a QR code into your business materials, it’s imperative—for both your own safety, and that of your potential customer—to take security into consideration. Choose a reputable company to develop a QR code strategy: in addition to the aforementioned considerations, look for a company that offers a pricing plan, has a good grasp of the safety concerns involved, and appropriately accommodates error correction. With a bit of knowledge and the right tools, QR codes can work for you, your business, and your customers.

In any sport, being called out as Most Valuable Player, or MVP is a big deal. Being awarded the title by a group of one’s peers holds special significance, because colleagues understand the dedication and challenges an individual faces in becoming skilled in a particular line of work. While typically used in sports, the term MVP has come to be used in completely unrelated fields of endeavor such as music and business – as well as the technical community.

According to Microsoft, the MVP award is given to "exceptional, independent community leaders who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Microsoft products with others.” The awarded are those who "actively share their ... technical expertise with the different technology communities related directly or indirectly to Microsoft". An MVP is awarded for contributions over the previous year. One such person can be found in the offices of Kinetik I.T.: Tom van Stiphout, Microsoft Access MVP.

Tom is the Software Development Manager of Kinetik I.T. Having earned a degree from Amsterdam University, he moved to the United States in 1991. After a few years with C++ and Windows SDK programming, he gradually shifted his focus on database programming. He worked with Microsoft Access from version 1.0, and Microsoft SQL Server from version 4.5, when both products were first released.

In 1997, Kinetik I.T. became one of the 27 Regional Directors in the United States, a title it held for three consecutive years. In this capacity Tom attended several conferences in Redmond and was one of the presenters at the annual Developer Days conference in Phoenix. During the last several years Tom has added .NET programming to his repertoire and he is particularly interested in hybrid applications that combine the best of what various platforms have to offer. Tom has been a frequent contributor to the Access newsgroups for many years, and was recently awarded the title of Access MVP.

To learn more about services and products – including how Microsoft Access can help your business – visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.