Tag Archives: Black Friday

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4 Tips for Successful Online Sales over the Holiday Season

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Christmas is nearly upon us, but is your website ready to make the most of it? In fact, let’s go one step further: are is your website, social media and IT systems all singing the same song?

Preparation and a co-ordinated set up is essential if you’re going to make the most out of any uplift in customer attention and desire to buy from small businesses instead of the big brands.

You can have a killer website but if your social media channels aren’t up-to-date too then you’ll look behind the times and disorganised.  If your IT systems that enable you to take, process, and dispatch orders aren’t up to scratch, then any online sales you do make might go to waste.

The web is available 24/7/365 – this is as level a playing field as it gets for small business, especially when advertising and marketing budgets don’t match those of the large and well established brands.

Customers can be fickle and have short attention spans too, hopping from website to website in a matter of seconds if they don’t see what they’re looking for. This is the same for all businesses, but it underlines the importance of having everything ready, up to date and aligned.

Here are four things you can do to make the most of the holiday season for your small business online:

1. Have a dedicated webpage and keep it live all year round
Have a dedicated web page on your site for popular sales events like Small Business Saturday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday… and keep it live all year round! That might sound counter-intuitive when we’re only talking about one day in the year, but there’s a very good reason you should do this. Once a web page is live it’s far easier to manage: the basic structure can stay the same even if the copy and imagery change. Plus, people don’t always follow the rules when it comes to searching for offers and deals online – they’ll start searching for them whenever the mood takes them, wherever they happen to be. As recent research reveals, when people start looking for information about a purchase, they could be doing it using a mobile on the train, a desktop PC at work, or a tablet when they’re snuggled up in bed.

For example, If they start searching for details about Small Business Saturday in September and October – as Google search data shows – then having your web page already live will allow people to find you. Currys use this tactic with their Black Friday web page.

If you take down your page after the event, then search engines won’t be able to show it to customers whenever they start searching for it next year. They’ll draw a blank and you’ll be starting from square one all over again. Why shoot yourself in the foot? Competition for online orders is tough enough as it is.


2. Facebook is a great starting point for a conversation
“Like” it or not, Facebook is a force to be reckoned with. 84% of internet users between the age of 35-44 are on at least one Facebook service, meaning Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp. That figure goes up to a whopping 90% for 16-24 year-olds. This is where your customers – existing and future – are likely to be spending a lot of their social media time, so if you’re not on there, they won’t see you.

Make sure you’ve set up a Facebook business page. They won’t want to see a constant stream of sales related messages though. Imagine your business page to be a little bit like your personal Facebook page: it should express the everyday goings on and personality of your business. And in between those posts, you can publish business event or sales related messages. If you’re short on ideas, have a look at how other small businesses have used Facebook to grow their business.


3. Make sure your IT system is safe and secure
If it’s the one day in the year you definitely don’t want to be hacked it’s when you’ve just taken a large number of online orders. We can all remember the Ashley Madison scandal and countless other big brands being hacked and losing customer data over the years. A survey of UK businesses conducted this year also reveals nearly nine out of 10 large businesses said they had suffered some form of information security breach in the last year. Don’t be fooled into thinking it can’t happen to a small business. Hackers – and the viruses they release into the world – will target anyone they think might have weak website security.


4. Ask the experts
If you are concerned your ecommerce and supporting IT system aren’t as secure or co-ordinated as they could be, ask for help. There’s a whole host of free resources for small businesses all over the web to help you understand how healthy and secure your IT system is. For example, AVG’s free IT Security Health Check is a good place to start if you’re not an expert with little time on your hands. It’s short and sweet and offers straightforward tips for how to improve your IT security. The UK government is also offering Innovation Vouchers worth £5,000. These can be used to pay for advice which will help protect and grow your business by having good cyber security in place.

 

At the end of the day

Gearing up your website, social media and IT systems to make the most out of the holidays is only half the battle. Making sure they stay safe and secure, and continue to serve you and your customers well, is the other half.

Avast

‘Tis the Season to Shop Online

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The holiday season is coming up and we expect that many will opt to shop online to avoid the big crowds in city centers, malls and stores. 

In America, Cyber Monday, the cyber version of shopping day Black Friday, was born in the mid 2000s. Cyber Monday sales have steadily increased since its inception and according to IBM Digital Analytics, sales grew 8.5% in 2014. According to ComScore, purchases are now also being made from smartphones with overall spending from mobile devices in the millions.

Americans aren’t the only ones who have embraced Cyber Monday, many other retailers around the world have come together to offer deals on the Monday after U.S. Thanksgiving and in China, Singles’ Day (November 11th) has become a major ecommerce day with 27,000 online merchants participating in 2014. 

via v3.co.uk

via v3.co.uk

This is not only an exciting time for online retailers and online shoppers but also for cyber criminals. I spoke with our senior malware analyst, Jaromír Hořejší about how cybercriminals are preparing for Cyber Monday:

Cybercriminals will use the same tactics they always do, but target consumers more during Black Friday with “special” offers via fake email campaigns to trick people into shopping on fraudulent sites to steal their information and money.

It is, therefore, vital you have antivirus installed on all of your devices. Antivirus software, like Avast, will detect and block phishing attacks before they can affect consumers.

Consumers should also make sure all of the software on their devices is up-to-date. Attackers often exploit vulnerabilities, which can be found in outdated software and by exploiting outdated software they can infect your device to then steal your financial information while you shop online.

In addition, consumers should shop at online stores that are known and credible. Credible sites usually use the HTTPS protocol, assuring secure communication. You can recognize if a site is using the HTTPS protocol by the little padlock in the address bar of your browser. If you are on a check out page and you don’t see the HTTPS padlock, do not enter your personal data and financial information!

How to minimize risks while shopping online

  • Use a payment service or your credit card – Experts agree that payment services like PayPal are safe because of their security practices and the encryption technology they use. Link it to a credit card so you get your credit card’s fraud protections in addition to PayPal’s. If you only use a credit card, designate one card for online purchases so if something unusual happens, you don’t have to track down all your other cards.
  • Keep a paper trail – Once you place your order, print or save records of the transaction. Check your credit card statement to make sure transactions match and there were no unauthorized charges.
  • Avoid shopping while using public Wi-Fi – Unsecure public Wi-Fi hotspots do not give you any protection from hackers who want to monitor what you are doing online. It’s not difficult for someone to intercept and modify communications between you and another site. If you have to do it, then use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) so your communications will be encrypted.
  • Use a secure browser – the new premium versions of Avast 2016 include SafeZone browser, which isolates banking and payment sites in a protected space, so users have an extra secure place to bank and pay bills online.

 Follow Avast on Facebook and Twitter  for more security tips, news, and trends. 

AVG

Black Friday Sale: 33% off PRO apps for Android

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The Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend can be a great time to take advantage of big discounts on electrical items including smartphones.

If you’re planning on treating yourself or a loved one to a new smartphone this holiday weekend, or even if you just want to look after your existing device, AVG has some great discounts to help you keep your Android smartphone running securely and smoothly.

 

33% off AVG AntiVirus PRO

AVG AntiVirus PRO for Android is a complete security solution for your smartphone that combines powerful protection tools with useful features that can even help recover your device should it get lost or stolen.

With AVG AntiVirus PRO Android Security you can:

  • Scan apps, files, emails and messages for malware
  • Locate, lock and wipe your lost or stolen phone
  • Kill tasks that can slow down your phone
  • App Lock – password protect app access
  • A Camera Trap – that emails you a photo of anyone who enters an incorrect pass code three timese

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AVG AntiVirus PRO

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33% off AVG Cleaner PRO

AVG Cleaner is a FREE app that helps you get more from your Android device. By cleaning out junk files and cache files, AVG Cleaner gives you more space for the files that matter. This holiday weekend get 33% off AVG Cleaner PRO features.

AVG Cleaner FREE allows you to:

  • Remove junk and cache files
  • Automate cleaning for no-hassle performance

AVG Cleaner PRO has these extra features:

  • No advertising
  • Set up custom battery profiles to make your phone run just how you want it to

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Avast

Cybercriminals take advantage of relaxed security measures during Black Friday

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Cybercrooks believe that their attacks are more likely to succeed during the holiday shopping season.

 

BlackFriday-crook

Retailers have been “leaking” special Black Friday deals since before Buffalo got covered in a snow wall, and that flurry of sales results in the annual spike that carries them through the rest of the year. But analysts who study these things warn that cybercrooks are riding the sales wave with a surge in attacks due to relaxed security measures.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Gartner Inc’s vice president Avivah Litan,

Retail transaction volume increases by 50% during the holidays and retailers don’t want to stop to slow the pace of business, so they relax fraud controls to some degree. Criminals know they’re likely to get away with more.

Yikes! That’s not good news for consumers, especially since we are swiping our credit and debit cards at places like Target, The Home Depot, and Neiman Marcus – all victims of point-of-sale terminal hacks this year. Experts have advised retailers to take action, like upgrading terminals with new technology and enabling chip embedded cards, but all that takes time to implement.

It’s not much better online. Attacks during last holiday shopping season, November 14, 2013 through January 9, 2014 increased by 264% over the weeks prior to that time, says security company Imperva.The reason?

Believe Macy's

Cybercrooks believe in their ability to succeed this time of year.

Cybercrooks believe that retail applications are more vulnerable during this time of the year, and that attacks are more likely to succeed. Isn’t that what the Gartner analyst said about brick-and-mortar retailers?

The reasoning is similar – in order not to annoy shoppers who can go elsewhere, online retailers relax strict security measures such as step-up authentication and Captcha. Add that easy check-out to all those new Black Friday and CyberMonday quick campaign webpages, (“bad design, unsafe coding, and usage of insecure third-party libraries”) and cybercrooks get an early Christmas present in the form of your credit card number and possible stolen identity.

How to protect yourself during Black Friday

  • Stay home on Thursday Celebrate Thanksgiving with your family. That way you can safely eat too much and watch football and movies while avoiding the crazed crowds trying to jump the gun on Black FRIDAY sales.
  • In God We Trust, All Others Use Cash Use cash or a credit card when paying for your purchases. With a credit card, you can dispute charges, if your financial data falls into the hands of cybercrooks.
  • Change your passwords. Please don’t use the same password for online shopping sites that you use for your bank. When you do it’s like wrapping it in fancy paper and a bow – it’s that easy for a cybercrook to get to.
  • Regularly monitor your bank and credit card statements to make sure all the transactions are legitimate. Monitor your credit report for any changes.

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