PSPINC Official Company Blog

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 119 “ShopSite Plans on Sale for New Customers”

Jun

9

YourHost is PSPINC's easy and reliable e-commerce hosting solution. With the power of ShopSite, customers get resourceful e-commerce tools to help build and maintain your online store. We’re excited to announce that we’ve just reduced our price plans specifically for new customers! For the first two years, new YourHost ShopSite customers can start selling online with an impressive e-commerce site starting at just $15/month! After the first two years, standard rates will apply.

shopsite plans with pricing and features included in all 3 plans

shopsite plans with pricing and features included in all 3 plans

With our ShopSite plans, customers get incredible web hosting features! All ShopSite plan customers get access to our YourHost Neo web and email features, an SSL certificate, an initial setup by a trained technician, over 50 themes to choose from, over 25 payment methods, and U.S-based support from our team! Those who choose our Pro plan will also get many more features such as:

• Unlimited products
• Store search
• Real-time shipping rates
• Coupons
• Quantity pricing
• Cross-selling
• Product reviews
• Facebook store

This will be an ongoing promotion for new customers, and the new prices will be in effect for customers’ first two years on one of our YourHost ShopSite plans. Plans are billed monthly. Grow your online business by creating a stunning e-commerce site with one of our YourHost ShopSite plans.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #ecommerce #hosting #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #sale #shopsite #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #webhosting #website #websitebuilder #webtools #yourhost

What Makes a Great E-Commerce Site

Jun

7

For small businesses that sell online, a great e-commerce site is essential. While there’s still something to be said for brick-and-mortar stores, the ease of purchasing online is unmatched. And it’s only become more popular during the last few years as online shopping revenue grew by 20% in 2021 (according to Retail Insider). It’s also important to acknowledge that much of that website traffic comes from a mobile device. The number of people shopping online with a mobile device increased by more than double since 2018 according to a 2021 survey of global consumer insights. This only means that creating effective and user-friendly e-commerce sites is even more important today than ever.

While every e-commerce site builder is different, there are still a handful of features that every good e-commerce site needs. Without them, it’s unlikely that users will complete the entire purchase cycle. For a customer, these aren’t things they actively seek in an online shopping site. Rather, they’re what they expect to see. Without them, customers find it blatantly obvious and if it’s an important enough feature, they may find the site unreliable. So, here’s everything you need to create an exceptional e-commerce site.

Necessary Features

someone holding a phone open to an e-commerce site

First and foremost, making sure the interface is user-friendly is the most important aspect of any website. But even more so for a shopping site. What this entails is a simplistic as well as responsive navigation menu. Especially given that so many website visitors will be using a mobile device. Users expect to see categories with some subcategories, all of which should be clear as to what they mean. The last thing you want is to confuse your customers all because you wanted to use a more creative yet unhelpful category name. Your navigation bar should also include:

• A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page
• A Contact Us page
• A way for shoppers to view their cart, which not only incudes product names but also an image with it

Additionally, with it being a site where payment’s involved, the checkout process shouldn’t just be streamlined but also secure. The easiest way to ensure this is by purchasing an SSL certificate, which PSPINC offers in addition to our web hosting. Other vital security features include an address verification system (AVS) and a credit card verification value (CVV).

Regarding the purchase process, additional costs, shipping details, and return instructions should be clearly outlined before users check out. And they should have multiple payment options as well. While product pages should include images of the product itself, they must be high-quality images. And seeing products from different angle as well as how it works in action through multiple photos or even a video will make them more attractive to customers. Lastly, product descriptions shouldn’t just include physical attributes but also the benefits they can provide your customers.

Additional E-Commerce Features

a woman at her laptop while holding a credit card

From a marketing perspective, there are also some other features worth adding. If a product isn’t exactly what they’re looking for, they may want to find something similar. Putting recommendations makes it that much easier for customers. Plus, you can create targeted newsletters based on what customers looked at and/or bought previously. Allowing users to create a wish list of items they want but aren’t ready to purchase yet as well as a guest account option will also result in a better user experience.

A wish list persuades users to come back to purchase later while a guest account allows them to bypass the longer account registration process. There’s also the option of adding newsletter pop-ups or even in-browser notifications to encourage brand loyalty. Lastly, there’s the abandoned cart reminder. About 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, according to Shopify. To take advantage of that statistic, creating a reminder that sends an email out afterward can be a way to get those users to come back. As popular as e-commerce sites are for businesses today, building them can be a hassle. Luckily, PSPINC has an easy and reliable e-commerce hosting solution, YourHost, to help build your e-commerce site.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #crm #customerservice #ecommerce #marketing #marketingdigital #mobile #onlinebusiness #onlineshopping #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #webhosting #website #websitebuilder #yourhost

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 117 “The Value of Teamwork”

May

26

At PSPINC, we work in teams. Over the years, it’s proven to be helpful in all business tasks. At the end of the day, everyone works together to get the job done. That includes processes from creating a new product or service to marketing it. For example, every new product or service we create must go through a launch checklist before we release it to the public. This ensures that it goes through multiple hands before we publicly release it to the market.

While PSPINC started as a one-man operation in 1987. But the company only became the success that it is today thanks to all our employees. At the start, PSPINC only developed and sold software to a few clients. Since then, the company’s evolved to include web design services and marketing solutions, all to tens of thousands of clients. And that only became possible by creating teams that each have a specific purpose and goal in mind. So, if you need any help with your business website, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #business #businesstips #hosting #newsletter #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #team #teamwork #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webhosting #website

Announcement: Dreamersi Admin Panel Updates

May

18

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve updated our admin panel for our premiere web hosting service, Dreamersi! As a big thank you to our loyal customers, Dreamersi users will now see that their admin panel now includes a link to a special promotion. When you sign in to your account, you’ll now see a banner at the top for an exclusive opportunity to save more on one of our other online tools. Currently, our Dreamersi customers can save up to 45% on a new eCommerce site with one of our YourHost ShopSite plans:
dreamersi admin panel with promotional banner

dreamersi admin panel with promotional banner

Additionally, this new update also makes it easier to sign up for our other various online business tools. These products not only go well with our web hosting, but they’ll also make it easier to grow your business online.

#blog #business #businesstools #customerservice #dreamersi #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #shopsite #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #update #web #webdevelopment #webhosting #website #websitebuilder #websites #webtools #yourhost

The Benefits of Online Forms

May

17

Online forms are largely used by businesses for a variety of business and marketing purposes. They’re much more modern compared to paper forms and simplify and optimize the entire process for businesses. Online forms are generally cloud-based, meaning that the data’s instantly digitalized and stored in the system. This gives business owners instant access to accurate, verified, and up-to-date information and makes it easier to process this data further. Online forms also greatly reduce cost while optimizing for efficiency because it’s no longer necessary to physically print, mail, store, and organize them. It also decreases the possibility of misplacing, burying, or even destroying the data, which is a very likely occurrence when dealing with paper forms.

Marketing Purposes of Online Forms

Other than simplifying and digitalizing processes on the administrative side, online forms can be great for marketing as well. Much like other digital marketing efforts, it’s easy to track how well online forms are performing and adjust them as needed. When placed on your business website, it can be a great way to drive lead generation, serving as an email newsletter opt-in, or an alternative for users to contact your business.

Other than that, you can get feedback directly from your customers about your company’s offerings and/or their overall experience on your website. For example, after purchasing a product/service, customers can review the product/service they bought or answer questions about the checkout experience, both of which can be done with an online form. After that, businesses can even create an automated and personalized response to people who filled out the form. Because it’s an online form, the responses are immediately sent after they’re filled out and submitted.

Online Form Builders

someone holding a tablet open to an empty online form

As great as online forms can be for your business, creating one can involve a lot of coding, which isn’t a capability all business owners have. This is exactly why PSPINC created InforMakers, our intuitive form builder. With InforMakers, you can easily create, customize, and embed as many online forms as you need. Once created, you can customize the messages users get upon completion. After embedding and placing it on your site, you can view all your form submission data and export it into a tidy CSV file for your records. InforMakers is just $8/month. Or if you’re one of our Dreamersi customers, you can get it for free in addition to your web and/or email hosting.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstools #customerfeedback #customersupport #digitalmarketing #dreamersi #hosting #informakers #marketing #marketingdigital #newsletter #onlineform #pspinc #review #tech #technology #web #webhosting #website #websites #webtools

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 115 “Human Customer Service”

May

12

Here at PSPINC, we believe in excellent customer support. That’s why we have a whole support team that spends their day answering questions our customers may have. While automated customer service has gotten popular in the last few years, we persist. Even though we’re a tech company. Why? Because we still believe in giving our customers the best support they can get. With an automated system, there’s no capability to form a personable relationship with the customer. When our customers call PSPINC, they know they’ll talk to a real human being. And for customers that call often, they’ll know exactly who they’re talking to or who to ask for. That’s a benefit that doesn’t come from automated customer service.

Our customer support team gets quality feedback from customers about our products and/or services. And we learn more about them in our conversations that an automated system would never get. With that, we can collect valuable data on the customer and use it to market to them more effectively in the future. Many companies use automated customer service because they argue it results in fewer mistakes and can be cheaper in the long run. But just because it cost more, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth the extra cost. Because while people can make mistakes, so can machines. So, if you need any help with your website needs, give us a call. Our support team is ready for your call.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customerservice #hosting #marketing #marketingdigital #newsletter #officetips #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #webhosting #website

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 113 “Dreamersi Customers Earn More”

Apr

28

Did you know that Dreamersi, comes with exclusive access to other PSPINC products? For example, Dreamersi customers also have WebdeXpress and InforMakers at their disposable. And they even get special discounts whenever we discount any of our products or services.

WebdeXpress (WDX) is PSPINC’s intuitive website builder and comes with all sorts of great features. WDX makes it easy for customers to design their website, with the option to use a pre-defined template or fully customize it with HTML and CSS. All it takes is one click to download WDX to get started building your website.

InforMakers is another additional tool that’s available for free for our Dreamersi customers. With it, users can easily create custom online forms. It’s usually priced at $8/month for everyone else, but to thank them for their loyalty, Dreamersi customers get it for free. It’s a great feature for businesses because it can be a way to generate more leads and collect data on their customers.

Dreamersi is our premiere web and email hosting service. We developed and designed it in-house, which means we have full control over the digital environment. That then makes it easier to create custom development for customers looking for website features that aren’t offered by other website builders. So, please consider hosting your website with Dreamersi.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customersupport #dreamersi #hosting #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #seo #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #webdesign #webdevelopment #webdexpress #webhosting #website #webtools

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 111 “10% Off All YourHost Plans”

Apr

14

YourHost is PSPINC’s hosting service that uses award-winning ShopSite tools to create easy and reliable e-commerce sites. This month, we’re running a promotion for customers to get 10% off on all our ShopSite plans.

Our YourHost page on the website now shows the discounted prices for each of our three plans and it will stay that way until the promotion ends at the end of the month. To get this deal, choose choose one of our three plans (Starter, Manager, or Pro) on the YourHost site. Then, enter the promo code, “SHOPSPRING10”, at checkout.

This promo code will only work until the end of this month, so get this deal while you can. For additional help on getting everything set up, we have an amazing support team who is always ready for your call.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customerservice #customersupport #ecommerce #hosting #newsletter #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #webhosting #websitebuilder #webtools #yourhost

Mobile App vs. Mobile-Optimized: Which One is Better for Your Business

Apr

12

With more than half (about 54.4%) of website traffic worldwide coming from mobile devices in 2021, making sure your site works on a mobile device is crucial. It not only has to function well but look aesthetically pleasing too. But with all the focus on mobile devices, businesses have started investing in developing an app. It guarantees that it’ll work well on a phone, as long as enough testing goes into the process. And the hope is that it’ll look good with so many people spending a lot of time and work creating it. So, which one’s better: a site that looks good on a mobile device or an app?

A Mobile App

a hand holding a mobile phone with apps displayed on the homescreen

A mobile app is a type of application software designed to run on a mobile device, which can also include tablets. But building one out takes a lot of time, effort, and money. If you’re building an app in-house, it takes some of the cost because it means you won’t have to hire a development partner, but the development process will still be costly. Not to mention the fact that it will consist of a much longer process compared to optimizing a site for mobile.

The app development process involves building out the concept behind the app, creating a layout for how it’ll function, designing it for a good user experience, testing it to determine where users may find friction in the process, and scanning for necessary bug fixes. Only then can the app go live. Even after that, it’ll still need to be monitored and updated consistently.

Despite the long and costly process, an app does have its advantages:

• Improves brand recognition
• Re-engages existing customers on a deeper level
• Keeps your business at the top of customers’ minds through mobile push notifications
• Presents a new opportunity for sales

Optimizing a Site for Mobile

a woman sitting cross-legged on a small thin mattress on the floor while looking at something on her phone

A site that works on a mobile device is vital for any business to make it today. Technically, every URL should work on a mobile device when users open it in a mobile browser. The difference between it working and optimizing it is making sure there isn’t any friction in the customer’s experience. For example, if you’ve ever opened a website just to see a cut-off image or been forced to zoom in or out to click on something, you probably didn’t stay on the site for long. After all, it looks outdated and unprofessional, which lowers the business’s credibility and deters you from going further.

To effectively optimize a site for mobile, your website not only needs to function, but it also needs to look nice too. But even when users access your business’ site on a desktop, the design should be clean without too many distractions. Thankfully, themes and templates offered by website builders already have this all figured out for you. Including WordPress, which comes as an easy install with all of PSPINC's web hosting options, Dreamersi, YourHost Neo, and Parcom. For users building their site from scratch, using a single or double column layout, effectively utilizing white space, and reducing the number of items in the navigation bar are things you should keep in mind when designing your site. Overall, businesses should be utilizing responsive design, which will adjust design element placements to fit in the available space when browser size changes.

Which One is Better for your Business?

two women sitting on a couch, showing each other what's on their phones

While it may seem obvious to choose a mobile-optimized site over a mobile app (based on the sheer time, effort, and money involved in the development process), there are times when using a mobile app is preferable. If your business has a product or service that causing some friction in their overall purchase experience, an app could fix those problems.

As an example, PSPINC is currently developing an app for DENREI, an invite-only social platform that uses email to interact with your online community. For now, users have to set up the email client using either Mozilla Thunderbird or Apple Mail. While it isn’t too hard of a task, it adds an extra step to the process that could potentially prevent users from moving forward. Given that it’s arguably the most important step in the process, PSPINC decided an app would be the best solution.

If you’re a business wondering if an app is the right choice for you, here are some questions to consider:

• Who is the target market? If your company’s audience skews a little younger, making your site mobile-friendly is the least you should be doing.
• What does the customer’s experience look like? Is there a step preventing them from converting them into paying or loyal customers? Is it something that can be solved with a mobile app?
• How likely is it your customer will download our app? If you’re going to put in the work needed to build a mobile app, you want to make sure people will download it.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#app #brand #branding #business #denrei #digitalmarketing #marketing #marketingdigital #mobile #mobileapp #mobiledevice #pspinc #pushnotifications #smallbusiness #webdesign #webdeveloper #webdevelopment #webhosting #websitedesign #wordpress

PSPINC What’s New Newsletter Vol. 108 “Choosing the Right Hosting Service”

Mar

24

Dreamersi is Pacific Software Publishing Inc.'s (PSPINC) premiere web and mail hosting software and one we built in-house. We designed the mail server program, spam prevention measures, web environments, admin interfaces, and other tools that come with our hosting packages. When customers purchase one of our Dreamersi hosting packages, our server team is given full control over the digital environment as well as the features built for it. Therefore, we can provide the highest level of customer service and support with this web hosting platform.

Next are Parcom and YourHost, both of which are cPanel hosting options. cPanel hosting is one of the most popular control panels among web developers and hosting companies. Parcom is the cheapest hosting service that PSPINC has to offer, so because of this, server specs may differ from our other hosting services. But it’s also always something we can customize for our customers. YourHost, however, is a pre-packaged server software that thousands of hosting companies install on their servers and offer their customers. On PSPINC, we've paired YourHost with ShopSite, a shopping cart software system and it is now a National Hosting Partner for ShopSite.

Good web hosting is very important to have for your website. Even more so now that the internet gives people an infinite number of possibilities and opportunities. PSPINC has built its successful business with its great web hosting services. So please consider using one of PSPINC's excellent web hosting services.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.