Is your eCommerce business suffering from costly returns, customer churn, or margin decreases? Do you try your best to optimize prices but spend too much effort? Or maybe your online consultants are overloaded with claims and questions from customers and fail to deliver the best quality services?

If you recognized some of the challenges of your business, then it may be useful for you to know how the most successful retailers in the world manage them with the help of Machine Learning.

Come on and dive in with us into the ocean of the opportunities for your eCommerce business with ML!

Continue reading “How market leaders use machine learning in eCommerce, and you should too!”

“When you think about recommending something to someone, there’s a real business reason why you might want to do that.” – Jack Chua, Director of Data Science at Expedia.

Machine learning recommendation systems are not just a trendy feature of online stores. It is a mighty tool that can propel your business to the next level, if used strategically. No wonder Jack Chua suggests always having “a great tie-in to the underlying KPI of what you want to drive”. For example, increase sales, customer retention, cross-selling, and so on.

If you’re still hesitating on how exactly to use recommendations to invigorate your business, we invite you to learn from the experience of those who already made it work brilliantly!

We collected the best examples of machine learning implementation in recommenders (including our own development projects) and explain in plain English how to build a machine learning recommender systems from scratch. Are you in?

Continue reading “ML Based Recommendation System for Marketplace: 5 Proven Ways to Grow Your Profits”

85% of consumers in the USA only use coupons when shopping. This is quite a large audience, isn’t it?

People used to clip the coupons out of the papers and magazines, but this method is getting outdated and hardly accepted by Millenials and younger generations.

Now that most of the daily aspects of our lives revolve around our smartphones, coupons have followed suit and also moved online. Digital coupons have the added benefit of seamless synchronization with loyalty cards, cashback, giveaways – so many alluring ways for everyday shoppers to save money. And definitely, there should be services that provide users with all these sweet bonuses.

If you also think that starting a custom daily deal website is a great idea, then this article will be a good find for you. We wrote a complete guide on how to create a coupon website step by step. Go on and use it!

Continue reading “How to Create a Coupon or Daily Deal Website [Complete Guide]”

40 million active users who bought over 50 million craft products from around 2 million active sellers. These are just some of the impressive numbers compiled by Esty’s peer-to-peer business.

Did Robert Kalin, Haim Schoppik and Chris Maguire expect Etsy to be this successful when they launched it in 2005? And if they would make a website like Etsy now, on the threshold of 2020, would it still be so trendy and prosperous?

Since 2005, the concept of peer-to-peer became widely accepted, trusted and “business as usual” for dealing between individuals and entrepreneurs. Besides, with a plethora of eCommerce technologies accessible to startupers, now it should be easier to launch a similarly ambitious project compared to 10 years ago.

And today we will talk about the technical aspects and peculiarities of Etsy-like websites. You will see all the needed requirements and cornerstones that can help a budding startup create a peer-to-peer marketplace platform. Are you ready to dive in?

Continue reading “How to Develop a Peer-to-Peer Marketplace Website like Etsy?”

As an owner of an Assisted Living Facility you should definitely know how challenging it can be to provide high-quality care while overseeing routine operational tasks like resident admission, invoice generation, staff shifts scheduling and time tracking, and to top it all – making reports and analyze information.

In the US alone, the number of people aged 65 and older is anticipated to grow more than twice from 46 million today to over 98 million by 2060. It means that more elderly people will require nurse care and more assisted living facilities will open around the world.

Assisted Living Facilities are neither hospitals, nor hotels, but they similarly gather, keep and manage a lot of confidential data about their residents, staff, care plan, and financial transactions. It will be more hard work if this is done manually and on paper.

Why is it important to transfer the paperwork into computer systems? How do you make a system that will mirror exactly your needs and how much will it cost? We’ll talk about all this right now! Read on and do not to miss a thing!

Continue reading “How to Develop Custom Software for an Assisted Living Facility?”

With 196 million users and $1.1 billion in advertising revenue, Zillow is truly the most successful real estate platform in the US!

Its popularity can be explained by the fact that over the years Zillow has become nearly everything to everyone in the real estate industry:

• For buyers, it is the largest openly available database of home listings in the US and an array of useful free tools for home-shopping
• For sellers, it is an opportunity to market the house in front of the biggest audience of buyers
• For industry professionals, it is the biggest advertising network on the market.

Want to follow Zillow’s footsteps?

Then, let’s dissect Zillow’s business. Let’s analyze its strengths and weaknesses, as well as see what it takes to create a website like Zillow.

Continue reading “How To Create A Real Estate Website Like Zillow & Trulia”

What if you could hire faster and better? What if you could get new employees job-ready in half the time?

These and other human resource process improvements are possible with a successful human resource management system (HRMS) implementation. And that is probably what you are after, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you?!

The right HRMS can improve any business, but for some companies, it is a game-changer.
These are companies belonging to industries with traditionality high employee turnover rates like hospitality business, care providers, cleaning companies. These companies place a lot of premium on recruiting that is one of their key business functions (hospitality business, care providers, cleaning companies etc.).

Companies in heavily regulated industries, where employees have to follow procedures and training (e.g. healthcare).

Does your business fall into one of the above categories? Do you feel that an HRMS is the missing component in your business to take it to the next level?

Continue reading “How to Create a Human Resources Management System”

Why do people like auctions? Is it the opportunity to buy cheaper? Or maybe it’s the sense of competition? For whatever reason, auctions have always attracted public attention.

Just imagine that every 5 seconds a smartphone is sold in the US on eBay. And this statistic is for smartphones only. Such websites as eBay are loved by sellers and buyers as they give both what they want – the opportunity to sell what one does not need to those who need it, effortlessly, even without leaving home. Imagine the massive volume of all the stuff sold through eBay. All these clothes, home decor items, electronics, used and even broken things. And many of them are sold at less than 25 cents!

The E-Commerce & Online Auctions in the US: Market Research Report issued in April 2017 by IBISWorld notes that annual revenue of the online auction business is estimated at $394 billion and is going to grow at 13.3% annually. Impressive, right?

That’s why we created this article for entrepreneurs who are also planning to start a business in online auctions. We’ll regard such essential questions as:

• What industries for auctions are popular and who are your major competitors?
• Which auction type will fit your project?
• What should you start with and how can technology help you make a website like eBay?
• How much does it cost to create an auction website like eBay?

Read on to answer your questions!

Continue reading “How To Create An Auction Website Like eBay”

It’s a wonder that while some people learn languages at school and in courses for years and still cannot hold conversations with natives, other people go abroad and acquire the skill in several months!

More and more people circulate around the globe for work, study, partnership, marriage, and tourism. English (or Spanish, French, German, etc.) as a second language is included in the school program in many countries, but no books, courses, or apps with flashcards and exercises can make people overcome the major fear and hurdle – the language barrier while speaking with natives.

Today we want to dedicate our research to language learning social network development. These are specialized websites for learning languages with people from all around the world! Ready to find out how to develop one of your own?

Continue reading “How to Make a Social Network for Language Learning”

85% of consumers prefer using price comparison websites to search for the best deals. Customers love digital tools that help them save their budget. GoCompare and MoneySuperMarket alone saved UK consumers over $4.1 billion in 2017.

Price comparison websites (PCW) are especially helpful with significant purchases like buying flights, insurance, selecting a credit card, or taking a loan from a bank – areas where it is not easy to make a decision without deep research.

If you’re planning to build a website for price comparison, this article will be helpful as we are going to dig deep into the essence of monetization, structure, technology solutions, and development costs. Read on to learn out all of this!

Continue reading “How to Make a Price (Vendor) Comparison Website?”

Most vacations start with planning: booking tickets, accommodation, etc. For that, experienced travelers use aggregators to search the best deals on trips, hotels, and flights…

It turns out that the second most important factor that people consider after the price is online reviews. Other things travelers pay attention to are the proximity to attractions, photos, and location. That’s why it’s no wonder that 93% of hoteliers regard online reviews as one of the most influential factors for the future of their business.

Today, there are many travel review directories, one of the favorites of which is TripAdvisor. This world-renowned website accommodates more than 600 million reviews in 28 languages. And for that, we picked it as a standout business for our technical overview to find out if it is possible to replicate their service to reach the same success. Let’s find out how to make a review website like TripAdvisor in 3 steps!

Continue reading “How to Build a Review Website like TripAdvisor in 3 Steps”

If you need a doctor, lawyer, hairdresser or caterer for your wedding, how do you usually search for the right people?

It is good to have recommendations from friends and family, but what if you are new to a city and have no acquaintances? Or what if all the recommended specialists are not available for a long period? Or you just want to compare prices and services?

For these and other reasons, a catalog of companies with their contacts and reviews would come in handy in your selection process.

On the other side, each service is represented with hundreds, thousands or even millions of entrepreneurs, so businesses struggle for their place to be displayed in as many places as possible to find clients. That’s why the creation of business directories has become a neat solution that is helpful for both clients and companies. Quite a number of such online catalogs have successfully functioned for years.

So, is it worth it to enter this competitive business and create websites like Yelp? If your answer is ‘yes’, let’s find out all the secrets of business directory website development!

Continue reading “How to Create a Business Directory Website Like Yelp”

A college education is getting more expensive each year (prices increased by 3.5% in the last 10 years) and not all school graduates can afford to study in the universities of their dreams. Not only this, but many adults need to constantly upgrade their skills or get a degree but cannot quit their job to attend classes. For them and many other categories of people who want to study, distant online education is a perfect way to obtain knowledge and a diploma.

The term “eLearning” was first mentioned in 1999 at the CBT systems seminar describing online lessons. Since that time, eLearning gradually evolved into the concept of MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses), giving people from all over the world the chance to study disciplines of world-class universities and even obtain bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

The best way to organize online courses is to use the power of eLearning platforms. The first “stars” that influenced this sphere and come to mind when we talk about eLearning are definitely Coursera, Udemy, Udacity, and edX. By now, there are more than 50 MOOC platforms functioning in 23 countries around the world.

Is it worth it to build a website like Coursera? And how do you do this? Is there any difference in building a website like Udemy and Coursera?
Let’s research together!

Continue reading “How to Build an eLearning Platform like Coursera (or Udemy)?”

Let me guess what brought you here… Is it your addiction to spreadsheets that you know is unhealthy? Or, perhaps, is it having to switch between 100+ apps that you use to run your company? Or, maybe your current ERP system is driving you crazy?

Either way, we hear ya! We’ve seen it with our clients, and we are also a small business ourselves which means we share a lot of your pains.

When done right, ERP can become a great reliever and springboard for your company’s growth. But the question is which route to go: buying an off-the-shelf solution or building a custom one. It seems there are tons of ready-to-use ERP solutions for businesses of all shapes and sizes, so why would you want to develop your own system?

It turns out there are a number of serious reasons to consider custom development. Let’s take a look at them.

Continue reading “Should You Build a Custom ERP for Small Business?”

Do not fall victim to the stereotype that it is impossible to start your own tech startup without a tech co-founder who rules the development process. There are thousands of examples of successful entrepreneurs who reached the top without a tech-savvy partner.
We are going to show you the way out!

Watch out! After reading this you will not be able to use the excuse that you did not build a tech company because you didn’t have a tech co-founder!

Continue reading “How to Build a Tech Startup without a Technical Co-founder”

Visual content is a powerful tool used by marketers and bloggers. It can increase audience engagement, brand awareness, and click-through-rate on websites.

No blog, advertisement banner, or landing page now can go on without high-resolution catchy images or videos. But hiring a photographer or graphic designer for every campaign is expensive and time-consuming. That’s why it was a brilliant idea to create global storage of royalty-free photos, videos, vectors, and music, and make them available for instant download at a cost of only a few dollars. Shutterstock is one of the most famous communities of visual content contributors in the world.

Taking into account the incrementally growing interest in visuals for the years to come, why not to build the website like Shutterstock?

Here below, we are going to outline new business opportunities for the microstock industry. You will learn about the features necessary to create a website similar to Shutterstock so that people love it.

Continue reading “How to Start a Stock Photography Website like Shutterstock?”

Gartner says 55%-75% of ERP projects fail.

As if that is not enough, I’ll also add that a failure of an ERP project is not something companies can just shake off and carry on. ERP projects are usually so serious in their nature, that their failure can cause a major setback for the entire company, or even its death.

To give you an idea of how epic such a fail can be, here is an example. Vodafone decided to consolidate its CRMs into one of Oracle’s cloud platforms and got part of the customer accounts messed up. This resulted in major losses for the company, plus a £4.6 million fine.

Of course the bigger the company, the more massive the wreck. Luckily, most of us won’t get a chance of such a blow-up, just because we are not at that scale. Nonetheless, an ERP project that’s gone bad can suck the life out of any company regardless its size.

How does such a bright-sided and well-intentioned endeavor, as ERP system development, ends up in such a debacle?

Continue reading “How to Develop a Custom ERP Software: 8 Step Guide for the Business Owner”

Probably, you have already read umpteen blogs and books on how to build a SaaS business. Or, maybe you’ve gone further and conducted some smoke tests to validate your SaaS startup idea with real customers. So now you need to find a development team to convert your idea into a product that you could market.

We all know (at least in theory) that to build or renovate a house, we would need to create a concept, scope of work, make a design, calculate the budget, find builders, buy necessary materials, arrange and monitor building process, and so on. Now imagine that creating a SaaS application is the same as building a house with its specific steps to follow.

This guide is for those who are going to move from theory to practice and want to understand what steps to do next! We propose you to follow us and peek into the development kitchen to get a better understanding on how it all works! Ready to start this journey?

Continue reading “How to Develop a SaaS Application [Complete Guide]”

In our daily life, we inevitably bump into the necessity to repair, fix or rebuild something in our home, garden, or office. Mostly, we try to search for technicians recommended by our friends but not always it is possible to find the exact specialist only by word of mouth.

As a rule, individual technicians cannot afford to have a separate website, but still, need to be represented on the web. That’s why they may find it very comfortable to register on one of the “Human As A Service” (“HaaS”) platforms to generate leads for them. Some of the representatives of such platforms are Homeadvisor, Mybuilder, Airtasker, Amazon Home Services, NoCowboys, to name a few.

HomeAdvisor built the largest tradesmen international employee website that connects homeowners with specialists in home repair, remodeling, and home improvement. That is why we selected this platform for today’s overview to look at its functionalities and unveil the secret of their success.

Hoping you’ll find it useful to learn how to build a HomeAdvisor type website!

Continue reading “How to Build a Tradesmen Website Like HomeAdvisor”

86% of clients would pay an extra $25 for the option to have Jake (Gerard Butler) from Geostorm come and fix their equipment   choose a convenient time for a technician to visit them.
The increase in customer satisfaction can bring a revenue lift of up to 15% while lowering the operational costs by as much as 20%.

Today, personalization, quality of service, and moderate cost are three whales that support user expectations. If you can provide the balance among all these components, you are at the top. But it is easier said than done, as from many field service companies the automation of their routine operations is still a great challenge.

At what stage should I start using Field Service App? What size of a company does it suit and how do I choose the right app for my use? Is it necessary to build a field service app or can I solve my issues with a ready-made solution? Is it possible to shorten my appointment windows, increase the level of personalization and quality of services, and reduce operational costs with the help of technologies? Probably these and some other questions brought you to this article.

Let’s find out the answers!

Continue reading “How to Build a Field Service App”