Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/how-to-use-camelcamelcamel

Quick verdict:

At a glance, CamelCamelCamel might seem like a tool specifically designed for consumers, but I think it’s an incredible resource for business owners too.

As a dedicated website (and browser plugin) that allows you to track the prices of products on Amazon, CamelCamelCamel can help you:

Save money when sourcing products from Amazon merchants.

Stay one step of competitors who try to steal customers by dropping prices.

Monitor seasonal price changes, and adapt your pricing strategy accordingly.

The best part? CamelCamelCamel is completely free, and it’s surprisingly easy to use. Here I’m going to guide you through the process of setting up your account, and using the features available.

Table of contents

Quick verdict:

What Is CamelCamelCamel?

Pros and Cons of Using CamelCamelCamel

How Much Does CamelCamelCamel Cost?

The Key Features of CamelCamelCamel

How to Use CamelCamelCamel: Getting Started

Using the CamelCamelCamel Core Features

Using CamelCamelCamel: Finishing Thoughts

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What Is CamelCamelCamel?

CamelCamelCamel is a website designed to help people monitor the prices of products sold on Amazon. It’s available around the world, in countries like the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, and Germany, and it’s entirely free to use.

The website uses a custom API to track the movement of prices on products sold through Amazon, allowing you to request instant alerts when a price reaches a certain point.

Plus, it gives you access to a host of historical charts, so you can see the price history of Amazon products, and examine fluctuations in costs over time.

Customers use the site (and its plugin, the Camelizer) to receive instant notifications when a product they want goes on sale.

There’s also a great section on the website where you can see popular products, and top discounts within a specific period.

Ecommerce vendors, and retailers, on the other hand, use CamelCamelCamel for more strategic purposes.

You can use the platform to determine the best time to stock up on products from wholesalers, track the pricing behaviors of competitors, and boost your chances of sales.

Pros and Cons of Using CamelCamelCamel

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

User-friendly interface and plugin
Completely free with no paid plans
Convenient instant alerts
No downloads required
Can help you stay competitive

Cons 👎

Exclusively tracks Amazon prices
No integrations for ecommerce platforms

How Much Does CamelCamelCamel Cost?

So, how much can you expect to spend on this handy tool? Nothing at all. CamelCamelCamel is absolutely free by default.

The company earns commissions from Amazon as an affiliate, so it doesn’t charge its users (consumers or businesses) anything.

You don’t even need to create an account and enter your email address to use basic features like the product search function.

However, I would recommend signing up so you can take advantage of the option for instant email notifications, and the Wishlist importer.

The Key Features of CamelCamelCamel

CamelCamelCamel is a pretty straightforward tool with only a handful of features, but they’re all useful in their own way. At it’s heart, the solution is a price tracker, so most of the features focus on keeping you informed of the best deals.

The core features include:

Price Drop and Availability Alerts

Price drops and availability alerts are the main CamelCamelCamel. Using an API connection to Amazon, the company regularly updates its site with fresh information on product prices from Amazon, and third-party merchants.

To receive alerts on a price drop, all you need to do is sign up with an email address, and identify a “target price” to watch for.

For instance, if you want to check no other company is selling your product for less than $50, you might set a target price of $49.99.

When a price drops to that level, you’ll get an alert straight to your email, with a link to buy the product, and an insight into how good of a deal you’re getting.

Price History Charts

The price history charts on CamelCamelCamel are ideal for more in-depth research. If you search for an Amazon product page URL on the website, or use the site’s plugin, you can see charts of the price changes that have happened for that product over a specific period.

You can track Amazon prices, as well as third-party new and used prices (for marketplace products).

You’ll also be able to see prices segmented into “high”, “low” and “average” categories, which is great for planning your own pricing strategies.

Plus, you can adjust your insights based on various dates, checking the last month, the last year, or even how prices have changed for a product for the entire time it’s been available on Amazon.

The Camelizer App/Plugin

If you find it annoying to have to visit a website every time you want to check a price, or wait for a message to appear in your email inbox, the Camelizer plugin is a great alternative.

It can be added to Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome Browsers, and gives you an instant insight into price history charts from the moment you click on it.

All you need to do is visit Amazon, search for a product, click on the CamelCamelCamel extension icon, and it’ll load up all the data you need.

There are multiple tabs to browse through, from the “price tracker” tab, to tabs for related products close to the one you’re following.

Wishlist Import

Finally, if you have an Amazon wish list full of products you want to monitor, you can import that directly into the CamelCamelCamel site.

This will allow you to automatically track important information about the products you’re selling, as well as any items you want to buy.

Once you import any public list from Amazon into CamelCamelCamel, the site will read all the information from the URL, and import products into your tracking account, removing anything you’ve already purchased.

Your CamelCamelCamel account will even automatically update every time you make a change to your wish list on Amazon.

How to Use CamelCamelCamel: Getting Started

As I mentioned above, one of the great things about CamelCamelCamel is how easy it is to use. If you’re just using the website, there’s really not a lot of work involved in getting started.

In fact, you don’t even have to create an account.

You can just choose the country you’re in, and start searching for Amazon products and pricing information with the search bar.

You’ll also be able to get instant insights into the most popular products customers are buying, and their prices (with the Popular Products tab). Or you can check out the products that have had the biggest price drops recently, with the “Top Price Drops” tab.

You can even use the website on any device, such as a tablet or smartphone. Although I did find it was a lot easier to navigate on a larger screen.

Creating an Account with CamelCamelCamel

While you don’t have to have an account to use the basic features of CamelCamelCamel, there are some benefits to signing up. You’ll be able to access price drop and availability alerts instantly this way, use the Amazon Wishlist import feature, and track more types of prices.

Fortunately, you don’t have to pay anything to sign up. It also takes very little time to create an account, you can just enter your email address, or register with Google, Facebook, or Twitter.

After you’re signed up, you’ll see a list of options for tracking popular products, top price drops, installing the browser extension, or importing your wish list.

You can head into your account dashboard for access to more features, and to start tracking products. You can also close your account directly from here if you decide you don’t want to use it anymore.

Installing the Browser Extension

Similar to creating an account with CamelCamelCamel, downloading the plugin for your browser is optional, but it can save you a little time.

The “Camelizer” app is available for most popular web browsers, and you can download it instantly from this page.

Here’s the basic setup process for each browser type:

Google Chrome

Open Google Chrome and visit the Chrome Web Store.

Search for “Camelizer” and click “Add to Chrome”

Select “Add Extension”

Click the “Extensions” button on your address bar

Click the “pin” button to pin the app to your browser.

Apple Safari

Open Safari then click on “Safari > Safari Extensions” in the menu bar

Search for “Camelizer” and click “Get”

Click “Install” (you may need to sign in)

After the install is finished click “Open”

Follow the instructions provided

Go into your Safari “Preferences” page

Click “Extensions”

Select the checkbox next to Camelizer.

Firefox Mozilla

Open Mozilla Firefox

Open the add-ons store from the menu bar

Search for the Camelizer extension

Click “Add to Firefox”

Click “Add”

Opera

Open the Opera browser

Go to “Add-Ons” and search for “Camelizer”

Click “Add to Opera”

Microsoft Edge

Open Microsoft Edge

Click “Edge Add-Ons” and search for Camelizer

Click “Get”

Click “Add Extension”.

Using the CamelCamelCamel Core Features

For the most part, using CamelCamelCamel is a straightforward and painless experience. If you just want to check an Amazon product’s price, and pricing history, all you need to do is head to Amazon, look for the product you want, and copy the URL for the page.

You can then head back to the CamelCamelCamel website, and enter the URL into the search bar to see the current price.

You can scroll down through the page to see how the price has changed over time. There’s even a handy graph.

Plus, you can change your view to look at different time periods, Amazon prices, and third-party new and used prices:

Alternatively, if you have the Camelizer extension installed, there’s no copy and pasting required. You can just click on the Camelizer app button on your browser when you visit the page for the product you want to review.

Both in the app, and on the website, you can also choose to create a “price watch” for the item you’re interested in, but you do need to be logged in.

Setting Up a Price Watch

To watch the changing price of a product, and be instantly notified when ever a price falls to a specific level (based on your settings), you’ll need to set up a price watch.

You can do this either by searching through some of the top trending products on CamelCamelCamel, or by searching for the product you want to monitor with an Amazon URL.

Once you arrive on the product page within the CamelCamelCamel website, scroll down to see the “Create Amazon Price Watches” section:

Choose whether you want to track the price for Amazon, or Third-part Used, or New merchants (you can also monitor all three).

Click the button to “Create Price Watch”, and you’ll be able to enter your target price, or choose from a range of pre-set options.

Once you’ve entered your target price, click “save” and the price watch will be added to your account. You can then go back to your account page, and click on your “Price Watches” to see your list.

From here, you can also edit the price benchmark for whatever you’re watching.

Plus you can sort through your “watch list”, with a range of filters, such as “lowest price” or “newest item” first.

That’s ideal if you’re monitoring a lot of different products. You can even create your own RSS feed for your alerts, to add to a newsreader.

Adding a Wishlist to CamelCamelCamel

If you want to import a wish list to CamelCamelCamel, log into your account, and visit your account home.

From there, click on the tab for “Wishlists”. You should be taken to a page with a button that says “Add Wishlist”, click on that:

The site will take you to a page where you need to enter an URL for your wish list. You can use the URL of any public list on Amazon.

Next, choose the types of prices you want to watch (you can pick all three), and set the desired price for each item.

Once you’re done, simply click “Add Wishlist”.

Using CamelCamelCamel: Finishing Thoughts

The CamelCamelCamel website and plugin are both excellent tools for ecommerce store owners, in my opinion.

They’re free to use, and straightforward enough that you’re unlikely to have any issues when you’re tracking prices for the products you want to sell.

However, you shouldn’t expect access to any particularly advanced features either. The solution only tracks product prices from Amazon, and gives you an insight into their pricing history.

Still, CamelCamelCamel can help you to both save money, and make the right decisions about how to price your own products.

The post How to Use CamelCamelCamel in 2024: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Original Source: https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/04/applying-principles-communication-ux-research/

Communication is in everything we do. We communicate with users through our research, our design, and, ultimately, the products and services we offer. UX practitioners and those working on digital product teams benefit from understanding principles of communication and their application to our craft. Treating our UX processes as a mode of communication between users and the digital environment can help unveil in-depth, actionable insights.

In this article, I’ll focus on UX research. Communication is a core component of UX research, as it serves to bridge the gap between research insights, design strategy, and business outcomes. UX researchers, designers, and those working with UX researchers can apply key aspects of communication theory to help gather valuable insights, enhance user experiences, and create more successful products.

Fundamentals of Communication Theory

Communications as an academic field encompasses various models and principles that highlight the dynamics of communication between individuals and groups. Communication theory examines the transfer of information from one person or group to another. It explores how messages are transmitted, encoded, and decoded, acknowledges the potential for interference (or ‘noise’), and accounts for feedback mechanisms in enhancing the communication process.

In this article, I will focus on the Transactional Model of Communication. There are many other models and theories in the academic literature on communication. I have included references at the end of the article for those interested in learning more.

The Transactional Model of Communication (Figure 1) is a two-way process that emphasizes the simultaneous sending and receiving of messages and feedback. Importantly, it recognizes that communication is shaped by context and is an ongoing, evolving process. I’ll use this model and understanding when applying principles from the model to UX research. You’ll find that much of what is covered in the Transactional Model would also fall under general best practices for UX research, suggesting even if we aren’t communications experts, much of what we should be doing is supported by research in this field.

Understanding the Transactional Model

Let’s take a deeper dive into the six key factors and their applications within the realm of UX research:

Sender: In UX research, the sender is typically the researcher who conducts interviews, facilitates usability tests, or designs surveys. For example, if you’re administering a user interview, you are the sender who initiates the communication process by asking questions.
Receiver: The receiver is the individual who decodes and interprets the messages sent by the sender. In our context, this could be the user you interview or the person taking a survey you have created. They receive and process your questions, providing responses based on their understanding and experiences.
Message: This is the content being communicated from the sender to the receiver. In UX research, the message can take various forms, like a set of survey questions, interview prompts, or tasks in a usability test.
Channel: This is the medium through which the communication flows. For instance, face-to-face interviews, phone interviews, email surveys administered online, and usability tests conducted via screen sharing are all different communication channels. You might use multiple channels simultaneously, for example, communicating over voice while also using a screen share to show design concepts.
Noise: Any factor that may interfere with the communication is regarded as ‘noise.’ In UX research, this could be complex jargon that confuses respondents in a survey, technical issues during a remote usability test, or environmental distractions during an in-person interview.
Feedback: The communication received by the receiver, who then provides an output, is called feedback. For example, the responses given by a user during an interview or the data collected from a completed survey are types of feedback or the physical reaction of a usability testing participant while completing a task.

Applying the Transactional Model of Communication to Preparing for UX Research

We can become complacent or feel rushed to create our research protocols. I think this is natural in the pace of many workplaces and our need to deliver results quickly. You can apply the lens of the Transactional Model of Communication to your research preparation without adding much time. Applying the Transactional Model of Communication to your preparation should:

Improve Clarity
The model provides a clear representation of communication, empowering the researcher to plan and conduct studies more effectively.
Minimize misunderstanding
By highlighting potential noise sources, user confusion or misunderstandings can be better anticipated and mitigated.
Enhance research participant participation
With your attentive eye on feedback, participants are likely to feel valued, thus increasing active involvement and quality of input.

You can address the specific elements of the Transactional Model through the following steps while preparing for research:

Defining the Sender and Receiver

In UX research, the sender can often be the UX researcher conducting the study, while the receiver is usually the research participant. Understanding this dynamic can help researchers craft questions or tasks more empathetically and efficiently. You should try to collect some information on your participant in advance to prepare yourself for building a rapport.

For example, if you are conducting contextual inquiry with the field technicians of an HVAC company, you’ll want to dress appropriately to reflect your understanding of the context in which your participants (receivers) will be conducting their work. Showing up dressed in formal attire might be off-putting and create a negative dynamic between sender and receiver.

Message Creation

The message in UX research typically is the questions asked or tasks assigned during the study. Careful consideration of tenor, terminology, and clarity can aid data accuracy and participant engagement. Whether you are interviewing or creating a survey, you need to double-check that your audience will understand your questions and provide meaningful answers. You can pilot-test your protocol or questionnaire with a few representative individuals to identify areas that might cause confusion.

Using the HVAC example again, you might find that field technicians use certain terminology in a different way than you expect, such as asking them about what “tools” they use to complete their tasks yields you an answer that doesn’t reflect digital tools you’d find on a computer or smartphone, but physical tools like a pipe and wrench.

Choosing the Right Channel

The channel selection depends on the method of research. For instance, face-to-face methods might use physical verbal communication, while remote methods might rely on emails, video calls, or instant messaging. The choice of the medium should consider factors like tech accessibility, ease of communication, reliability, and participant familiarity with the channel. For example, you introduce an additional challenge (noise) if you ask someone who has never used an iPhone to test an app on an iPhone.

Minimizing Noise

Noise in UX research comes in many forms, from unclear questions inducing participant confusion to technical issues in remote interviews that cause interruptions. The key is to foresee potential issues and have preemptive solutions ready.

Facilitating Feedback

You should be prepared for how you might collect and act on participant feedback during the research. Encouraging regular feedback from the user during UX research ensures their understanding and that they feel heard. This could range from asking them to ‘think aloud’ as they perform tasks or encouraging them to email queries or concerns after the session. You should document any noise that might impact your findings and account for that in your analysis and reporting.

Track Your Alignment to the Framework

You can track what you do to align your processes with the Transactional Model prior to and during research using a spreadsheet. I’ll provide an example of a spreadsheet I’ve used in the later case study section of this article. You should create your spreadsheet during the process of preparing for research, as some of what you do to prepare should align with the factors of the model.

You can use these tips for preparation regardless of the specific research method you are undertaking. Let’s now look closer at a few common methods and get specific on how you can align your actions with the Transactional Model.

Applying the Transactional Model to Common UX Research Methods

UX research relies on interaction with users. We can easily incorporate aspects of the Transactional Model of Communication into our most common methods. Utilizing the Transactional Model in conducting interviews, surveys, and usability testing can help provide structure to your process and increase the quality of insights gathered.

Interviews

Interviews are a common method used in qualitative UX research. They provide the perfect method for applying principles from the Transactional Model. In line with the Transactional Model, the researcher (sender) sends questions (messages) in-person or over the phone/computer medium (channel) to the participant (receiver), who provides answers (feedback) while contending with potential distraction or misunderstanding (noise). Reflecting on communication as transactional can help remind us we need to respect the dynamic between ourselves and the person we are interviewing. Rather than approaching an interview as a unidirectional interrogation, researchers need to view it as a conversation.

Applying the Transactional Model to conducting interviews means we should account for a number of facts to allow for high-quality communication. Note how the following overlap with what we typically call best practices.

Asking Open-ended Questions

To truly harness a two-way flow of communication, open-ended questions, rather than close-ended ones, are crucial. For instance, rather than asking, “Do you use our mobile application?” ask, “Can you describe your use of our mobile app?”. This encourages the participant to share more expansive and descriptive insights, furthering the dialogue.

Actively Listening

As the success of an interview relies on the participant’s responses, active listening is a crucial skill for UX researchers. The researcher should encourage participants to express their thoughts and feelings freely. Reflective listening techniques, such as paraphrasing or summarizing what the participant has shared, can reinforce to the interviewee that their contributions are being acknowledged and valued. It also provides an opportunity to clarify potential noise or misunderstandings that may arise.

Being Responsive

Building on the simultaneous send-receive nature of the Transactional Model, researchers must remain responsive during interviews. Providing non-verbal cues (like nodding) and verbal affirmations (“I see,” “Interesting”) lets participants know their message is being received and understood, making them feel comfortable and more willing to share.

Minimizing Noise

We should always attempt to account for noise in advance, as well as during our interview sessions. Noise, in the form of misinterpretations or distractions, can disrupt effective communication. Researchers can proactively reduce noise by conducting a dry run in advance of the scheduled interviews. This helps you become more fluent at going through the interview and also helps identify areas that might need improvement or be misunderstood by participants. You also reduce noise by creating a conducive interview environment, minimizing potential distractions, and asking clarifying questions during the interview whenever necessary.

For example, if a participant uses a term the researcher doesn’t understand, the researcher should politely ask for clarification rather than guessing its meaning and potentially misinterpreting the data.

Additional forms of noise can include participant confusion or distraction. You should let participants know to ask if they are unclear on anything you say or do. It’s a good idea to always ask participants to put their smartphones on mute. You should only provide information critical to the process when introducing the interview or tasks. For example, you don’t need to give a full background of the history of the product you are researching if that isn’t required for the participant to complete the interview. However, you should let them know the purpose of the research, gain their consent to participate, and inform them of how long you expect the session to last.

Strategizing the Flow

Researchers should build strategic thinking into their interviews to support the Transaction Model. Starting the interview with less intrusive questions can help establish rapport and make the participant more comfortable, while more challenging or sensitive questions can be left for later when the interviewee feels more at ease.

A well-planned interview encourages a fluid dialogue and exchange of ideas. This is another area where conducting a dry run can help to ensure high-quality research. You and your dry-run participants should recognize areas where questions aren’t flowing in the best order or don’t make sense in the context of the interview, allowing you to correct the flow in advance.

While much of what the Transactional Model informs for interviews already aligns with common best practices, the model would suggest we need to have a deeper consideration of factors that we can sometimes give less consideration when we become overly comfortable with interviewing or are unaware of the implications of forgetting to address the factors of context considerations, power dynamics, and post-interview actions.

Context Considerations

You need to account for both the context of the participant, e.g., their background, demographic, and psychographic information, as well as the context of the interview itself. You should make subtle yet meaningful modifications depending on the channel you are conducting an interview.

For example, you should utilize video and be aware of your facial and physical responses if you are conducting an interview using an online platform, whereas if it’s a phone interview, you will need to rely on verbal affirmations that you are listening and following along, while also being mindful not to interrupt the participant while they are speaking.

Power Dynamics

Researchers need to be aware of how your role, background, and identity might influence the power dynamics of the interview. You can attempt to address power dynamics by sharing research goals transparently and addressing any potential concerns about bias a participant shares.

We are responsible for creating a safe and inclusive space for our interviews. You do this through the use of inclusive language, listening actively without judgment, and being flexible to accommodate different ways of knowing and expressing experiences. You should also empower participants as collaborators whenever possible. You can offer opportunities for participants to share feedback on the interview process and analysis. Doing this validates participants’ experiences and knowledge and ensures their voices are heard and valued.

Post-Interview Actions

You have a number of options for actions that can close the loop of your interviews with participants in line with the “feedback” the model suggests is a critical part of communication. Some tactics you can consider following your interview include:

Debriefing
Dedicate a few minutes at the end to discuss the participant’s overall experience, impressions, and suggestions for future interviews.
Short surveys
Send a brief survey via email or an online platform to gather feedback on the interview experience.
Follow-up calls
Consider follow-up calls with specific participants to delve deeper into their feedback and gain additional insight if you find that is warranted.
Thank you emails
Include a “feedback” section in your thank you email, encouraging participants to share their thoughts on the interview.

You also need to do something with the feedback you receive. Researchers and product teams should make time for reflexivity and critical self-awareness.

As practitioners in a human-focused field, we are expected to continuously examine how our assumptions and biases might influence our interviews and findings.

We shouldn’t practice our craft in a silo. Instead, seeking feedback from colleagues and mentors to maintain ethical research practices should be a standard practice for interviews and all UX research methods.

By considering interviews as an ongoing transaction and exchange of ideas rather than a unidirectional Q&A, UX researchers can create a more communicative and engaging environment. You can see how models of communication have informed best practices for interviews. With a better knowledge of the Transactional Model, you can go deeper and check your work against the framework of the model.

Surveys

The Transactional Model of Communication reminds us to acknowledge the feedback loop even in seemingly one-way communication methods like surveys. Instead of merely sending out questions and collecting responses, we need to provide space for respondents to voice their thoughts and opinions freely. When we make participants feel heard, engagement with our surveys should increase, dropouts should decrease, and response quality should improve.

Like other methods, surveys involve the researcher(s) creating the instructions and questionnaire (sender), the survey, including any instructions, disclaimers, and consent forms (the message), how the survey is administered, e.g., online, in person, or pen and paper (the channel), the participant (receiver), potential misunderstandings or distractions (noise), and responses (feedback).

Designing the Survey

Understanding the Transactional Model will help researchers design more effective surveys. Researchers are encouraged to be aware of both their role as the sender and to anticipate the participant’s perspective as the receiver. Begin surveys with clear instructions, explaining why you’re conducting the survey and how long it’s estimated to take. This establishes a more communicative relationship with respondents right from the start. Test these instructions with multiple people prior to launching the survey.

Crafting Questions

The questions should be crafted to encourage feedback and not just a simple yes or no. You should consider asking scaled questions or items that have been statistically validated to measure certain attributes of users.

For example, if you were looking deeper at a mobile banking application, rather than asking, “Did you find our product easy to use?” you would want to break that out into multiple aspects of the experience and ask about each with a separate question such as “On a scale of 1–7, with 1 being extremely difficult and 7 being extremely easy, how would you rate your experience transferring money from one account to another?”.

Minimizing Noise

Reducing ‘noise,’ or misunderstandings, is crucial for increasing the reliability of responses. Your first line of defense in reducing noise is to make sure you are sampling from the appropriate population you want to conduct the research with. You need to use a screener that will filter out non-viable participants prior to including them in the survey. You do this when you correctly identify the characteristics of the population you want to sample from and then exclude those falling outside of those parameters.

Additionally, you should focus on prioritizing finding participants through random sampling from the population of potential participants versus using a convenience sample, as this helps to ensure you are collecting reliable data.

When looking at the survey itself, there are a number of recommendations to reduce noise. You should ensure questions are easily understandable, avoid technical jargon, and sequence questions logically. A question bank should be reviewed and tested before being finalized for distribution.

For example, question statements like “Do you use and like this feature?” can confuse respondents because they are actually two separate questions: do you use the feature, and do you like the feature? You should separate out questions like this into more than one question.

You should use visual aids that are relevant whenever possible to enhance the clarity of the questions. For example, if you are asking questions about an application’s “Dashboard” screen, you might want to provide a screenshot of that page so survey takers have a clear understanding of what you are referencing. You should also avoid the use of jargon if you are surveying a non-technical population and explain any terminology that might be unclear to participants taking the survey.

The Transactional Model suggests active participation in communication is necessary for effective communication. Participants can become distracted or take a survey without intending to provide thoughtful answers. You should consider adding a question somewhere in the middle of the survey to check that participants are paying attention and responding appropriately, particularly for longer surveys.

This is often done using a simple math problem such as “What is the answer to 1+1?” Anyone not responding with the answer of “2” might not be adequately paying attention to the responses they are providing and you’d want to look closer at their responses, eliminating them from your analysis if deemed appropriate.

Encouraging Feedback

While descriptive feedback questions are one way of promoting dialogue, you can also include areas where respondents can express any additional thoughts or questions they have outside of the set question list. This is especially useful in online surveys, where researchers can’t immediately address participant’s questions or clarify doubts.

You should be mindful that too many open-ended questions can cause fatigue, so you should limit the number of open-ended questions. I recommend two to three open-ended questions depending on the length of your overall survey.

Post-Survey Actions

After collecting and analyzing the data, you can send follow-up communications to the respondents. Let them know the changes made based on their feedback, thank them for their participation, or even share a summary of the survey results. This fulfills the Transactional Model’s feedback loop and communicates to the respondent that their input was received, valued, and acted upon.

You can also meet this suggestion by providing an email address for participants to follow up if they desire more information post-survey. You are allowing them to complete the loop themselves if they desire.

Applying the transactional model to surveys can breathe new life into the way surveys are conducted in UX research. It encourages active participation from respondents, making the process more interactive and engaging while enhancing the quality of the data collected. You can experiment with applying some or all of the steps listed above. You will likely find you are already doing much of what’s mentioned, however being explicit can allow you to make sure you are thoughtfully applying these principles from the field communication.

Usability Testing

Usability testing is another clear example of a research method highlighting components of the Transactional Model. In the context of usability testing, the Transactional Model of Communication’s application opens a pathway for a richer understanding of the user experience by positioning both the user and the researcher as sender and receiver of communication simultaneously.

Here are some ways a researcher can use elements of the Transactional Model during usability testing:

Task Assignment as Message Sending

When a researcher assigns tasks to a user during usability testing, they act as the sender in the communication process. To ensure the user accurately receives the message, these tasks need to be clear and well-articulated. For example, a task like “Register a new account on the app” sends a clear message to the user about what they need to do.

You don’t need to tell them how to do the task, as usually, that’s what we are trying to determine from our testing, but if you are not clear on what you want them to do, your message will not resonate in the way it is intended. This is another area where a dry run in advance of the testing is an optimal solution for making sure tasks are worded clearly.

Observing and Listening as Message Receiving

As the participant interacts with the application, concept, or design, the researcher, as the receiver, picks up on verbal and nonverbal cues. For instance, if a user is clicking around aimlessly or murmuring in confusion, the researcher can take these as feedback about certain elements of the design that are unclear or hard to use. You can also ask the user to explain why they are giving these cues you note as a way to provide them with feedback on their communication.

Real-time Interaction

The transactional nature of the model recognizes the importance of real-time interaction. For example, if during testing, the user is unsure of what a task means or how to proceed, the researcher can provide clarification without offering solutions or influencing the user’s action. This interaction follows the communication flow prescribed by the transactional model. We lose the ability to do this during unmoderated testing; however, many design elements are forms of communication that can serve to direct users or clarify the purpose of an experience (to be covered more in article two).

Noise

In usability testing, noise could mean unclear tasks, users’ preconceived notions, or even issues like slow software response. Acknowledging noise can help researchers plan and conduct tests better. Again, carrying out a pilot test can help identify any noise in the main test scenarios, allowing for necessary tweaks before actual testing. Other forms of noise can be less obvious but equally intrusive. For example, if you are conducting a test using a Macbook laptop and your participant is used to a PC, there is noise you need to account for, given their unfamiliarity with the laptop you’ve provided.

The fidelity of the design artifact being tested might introduce another form of noise. I’ve always advocated testing at any level of fidelity, but you should note that if you are using “Lorem Ipsum” or black and white designs, this potentially adds noise.

One of my favorite examples of this was a time when I was testing a financial services application, and the designers had put different balances on the screen; however, the total for all balances had not been added up to the correct total. Virtually every person tested noted this discrepancy, although it had nothing to do with the tasks at hand. I had to acknowledge we’d introduced noise to the testing. As at least one participant noted, they wouldn’t trust a tool that wasn’t able to total balances correctly.

Encouraging Feedback

Under the Transactional Model’s guidance, feedback isn’t just final thoughts after testing; it should be facilitated at each step of the process. Encouraging ‘think aloud’ protocols, where the user verbalizes their thoughts, reactions, and feelings during testing, ensures a constant flow of useful feedback.

You are receiving feedback throughout the process of usability testing, and the model provides guidance on how you should use that feedback to create a shared meaning with the participants. You will ultimately summarize this meaning in your report. You’ll later end up uncovering if this shared meaning was correctly interpreted when you design or redesign the product based on your findings.

We’ve now covered how to apply the Transactional Model of Communication to three common UX Research methods. All research with humans involves communication. You can break down other UX methods using the Model’s factors to make sure you engage in high-quality research.

Analyzing and Reporting UX Research Data Through the Lens of the Transactional Model

The Transactional Model of Communication doesn’t only apply to the data collection phase (interviews, surveys, or usability testing) of UX research. Its principles can provide valuable insights during the data analysis process.

The Transactional Model instructs us to view any communication as an interactive, multi-layered dialogue — a concept that is particularly useful when unpacking user responses. Consider the ‘message’ components: In the context of data analysis, the messages are the users’ responses. As researchers, thinking critically about how respondents may have internally processed the survey questions, interview discussion, or usability tasks can yield richer insights into user motivations.

Understanding Context

Just as the Transactional Model emphasizes the simultaneous interchange of communication, UX researchers should consider the user’s context while interpreting data. Decoding the meaning behind a user’s words or actions involves understanding their background, experiences, and the situation when they provide responses.

Deciphering Noise

In the Transactional Model, noise presents a potential barrier to effective communication. Similarly, researchers must be aware of snowballing themes or frequently highlighted issues during analysis. Noise, in this context, could involve patterns of confusion, misunderstandings, or consistently highlighted problems by users. You need to account for this, e.g., the example I provided where participants constantly referred to the incorrect math on static wireframes.

Considering Sender-Receiver Dynamics

Remember that as a UX researcher, your interpretation of user responses will be influenced by your understandings, biases, or preconceptions, just as the responses were influenced by the user’s perceptions. By acknowledging this, researchers can strive to neutralize any subjective influence and ensure the analysis remains centered on the user’s perspective. You can ask other researchers to double-check your work to attempt to account for bias.

For example, if you come up with a clear theme that users need better guidance in the application you are testing, another researcher from outside of the project should come to a similar conclusion if they view the data; if not, you should have a conversation with them to determine what different perspectives you are each bringing to the data analysis.

Reporting Results

Understanding your audience is crucial for delivering a persuasive UX research presentation. Tailoring your communication to resonate with the specific concerns and interests of your stakeholders can significantly enhance the impact of your findings. Here are some more details:

Identify Stakeholder Groups
Identify the different groups of stakeholders who will be present in your audience. This could include designers, developers, product managers, and executives.
Prioritize Information
Prioritize the information based on what matters most to each stakeholder group. For example, designers might be more interested in usability issues, while executives may prioritize business impact.
Adapt Communication Style
Adjust your communication style to align with the communication preferences of each group. Provide technical details for developers and emphasize user experience benefits for executives.

Acknowledging Feedback

Respecting this Transactional Model’s feedback loop, remember to revisit user insights after implementing design changes. This ensures you stay user-focused, continuously validating or adjusting your interpretations based on users’ evolving feedback. You can do this in a number of ways. You can reconnect with users to show them updated designs and ask questions to see if the issues you attempted to resolve were resolved.

Another way to address this without having to reconnect with the users is to create a spreadsheet or other document to track all the recommendations that were made and reconcile the changes with what is then updated in the design. You should be able to map the changes users requested to updates or additions to the product roadmap for future updates. This acknowledges that users were heard and that an attempt to address their pain points will be documented.

Crucially, the Transactional Model teaches us that communication is rarely simple or one-dimensional. It encourages UX researchers to take a more nuanced, context-aware approach to data analysis, resulting in deeper user understanding and more accurate, user-validated results.

By maintaining an ongoing feedback loop with users and continually refining interpretations, researchers can ensure that their work remains grounded in real user experiences and needs.

Tracking Your Application of the Transactional Model to Your Practice

You might find it useful to track how you align your research planning and execution to the framework of the Transactional Model. I’ve created a spreadsheet to outline key factors of the model and used this for some of my work. Demonstrated below is an example derived from a study conducted for a banking client that included interviews and usability testing. I completed this spreadsheet during the process of planning and conducting interviews. Anonymized data from our study has been furnished to show an example of how you might populate a similar spreadsheet with your information.

You can customize the spreadsheet structure to fit your specific research topic and interview approach. By documenting your application of the transactional model, you can gain valuable insights into the dynamic nature of communication and improve your interview skills for future research.

Stage
Columns
Description
Example

Pre-Interview Planning
Topic/Question (Aligned with research goals)
Identify the research question and design questions that encourage open-ended responses and co-construction of meaning.
Testing mobile banking app’s bill payment feature. How do you set up a new payee? How would you make a payment? What are your overall impressions?

Participant Context
Note relevant demographic and personal information to tailor questions and avoid biased assumptions.
35-year-old working professional, frequent user of the online banking and mobile application but unfamiliar with using the app for bill pay.

Engagement Strategies
Outline planned strategies for active listening, open-ended questions, clarification prompts, and building rapport.
Open-ended follow-up questions (“Can you elaborate on XYZ? Or Please explain more to me what you mean by XYZ.”), active listening cues, positive reinforcement (“Thank you for sharing those details”).

Shared Understanding
List potential challenges to understanding participant’s perspectives and strategies for ensuring shared meaning.
Initially, the participant expressed some confusion about the financial jargon I used. I clarified and provided simpler [non-jargon] explanations, ensuring we were on the same page.

During Interview
Verbal Cues
Track participant’s language choices, including metaphors, pauses, and emotional expressions.
Participant used a hesitant tone when describing negative experiences with the bill payment feature. When questioned, they stated it was “likely their fault” for not understanding the flow [it isn’t their fault].

Nonverbal Cues
Note participant’s nonverbal communication like body language, facial expressions, and eye contact.
Frowning and crossed arms when discussing specific pain points.

Researcher Reflexivity
Record moments where your own biases or assumptions might influence the interview and potential mitigation strategies.
Recognized my own familiarity with the app might bias my interpretation of users’ understanding [e.g., going slower than I would have when entering information]. Asked clarifying questions to avoid imposing my assumptions.

Power Dynamics
Identify instances where power differentials emerge and actions taken to address them.
Participant expressed trust in the research but admitted feeling hesitant to criticize the app directly. I emphasized anonymity and encouraged open feedback.

Unplanned Questions
List unplanned questions prompted by the participant’s responses that deepen understanding.
What alternative [non-bank app] methods for paying bills that you use? (Prompted by participant’s frustration with app bill pay).

Post-Interview Reflection
Meaning Co-construction
Analyze how both parties contributed to building shared meaning and insights.
Through dialogue, we collaboratively identified specific design flaws in the bill payment interface and explored additional pain points and areas that worked well.

Openness and Flexibility
Evaluate how well you adapted to unexpected responses and maintained an open conversation.
Adapted questioning based on participant’s emotional cues and adjusted language to minimize technical jargon when that issue was raised.

Participant Feedback
Record any feedback received from participants regarding the interview process and areas for improvement.
Thank you for the opportunity to be in the study. I’m glad my comments might help improve the app for others. I’d be happy to participate in future studies.

Ethical Considerations
Reflect on whether the interview aligned with principles of transparency, reciprocity, and acknowledging power dynamics.
Maintained anonymity throughout the interview and ensured informed consent was obtained. Data will be stored and secured as outlined in the research protocol.

Key Themes/Quotes
Use this column to identify emerging themes or save quotes you might refer to later when creating the report.
Frustration with a confusing interface, lack of intuitive navigation, and desire for more customization options.

Analysis Notes
Use as many lines as needed to add notes for consideration during analysis.
Add notes here.

You can use the suggested columns from this table as you see fit, adding or subtracting as needed, particularly if you use a method other than interviews. I usually add the following additional Columns for logistical purposes:

Date of Interview,
Participant ID,
Interview Format (e.g., in person, remote, video, phone).

Conclusion

By incorporating aspects of communication theory into UX research, UX researchers and those who work with UX researchers can enhance the effectiveness of their communication strategies, gather more accurate insights, and create better user experiences. Communication theory provides a framework for understanding the dynamics of communication, and its application to UX research enables researchers to tailor their approaches to specific audiences, employ effective interviewing techniques, design surveys and questionnaires, establish seamless communication channels during usability testing, and interpret data more effectively.

As the field of UX research continues to evolve, integrating communication theory into research practices will become increasingly essential for bridging the gap between users and design teams, ultimately leading to more successful products that resonate with target audiences.

As a UX professional, it is important to continually explore and integrate new theories and methodologies to enhance your practice. By leveraging communication theory principles, you can better understand user needs, improve the user experience, and drive successful outcomes for digital products and services.

Integrating communication theory into UX research is an ongoing journey of learning and implementing best practices. Embracing this approach empowers researchers to effectively communicate their findings to stakeholders and foster collaborative decision-making, ultimately driving positive user experiences and successful design outcomes.

References and Further Reading

The Mathematical Theory of Communication (PDF), Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W.
From organizational effectiveness to relationship indicators: Antecedents of relationships, public relations strategies, and relationship outcomes, Grunig, J. E., & Huang, Y. H.
Communication and persuasion: Psychological studies of opinion change, Hovland, C. I., Janis, I. L., & Kelley, H. H. (1953). Yale University Press
Communication research as an autonomous discipline, Chaffee, S. H. (1986). Communication Yearbook, 10, 243-274
Interpersonal Communication: Everyday Encounters (PDF), Wood, J. (2015)
Theories of Human Communication, Littlejohn, S. W., & Foss, K. A. (2011)
McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory (PDF), McQuail, D. (2010)
Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication, Stewart, J. (2012)

Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/top-ux-tools-for-designers/

User Experience (UX) is one of the most important fields of design, so it should come as no surprise that there are a multitude of tools available to help UX designers succeed.

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/ikas-review

Although finding a suitable ecommerce platform for your business is essential, it can also be time-consuming. There are so many popular solutions out there – Shopify, Bigcommerce, and Wix, to name a few!

However, there are also emerging platforms worth considering for their unique offers, and this review does precisely that.

We’re zoning in on one such ecommerce solution designed to suit businesses of all sizes: ikas.

In this ikas review, I’ll discuss the features, pros, cons, and prices of this platform and then provide a step-by-step guide for using it.

That’s a ton of information to get through, so let’s make a start on this ikas review!

ikas Review: My Bottom Line Upfront

If you haven’t got time to read through my entire ikas review, here’s a quick summary:

ikas is an ecommerce platform suitable for all business sizes, but it places particular emphasis on small and medium-sized businesses and solopreneurs.

Users can create online stores within minutes without any technical knowledge or expertise with ikas. You can sell physical and digital products on your ikas store and manage omnichannel selling on various marketplaces, including Amazon (all from the convenience of a single dashboard).

It’s worth noting that your marketplace inventory automatically updates when you make a sale on your ecommerce website.

ikas offers a free 7-day trial and three price plans after that. Each plan includes a generous number of features, including free customer support, 16 contemporary website themes, an SSL certificate, unlimited product uploads, site traffic, and web space.

Themes are customizable and can be modified using the ikas drag-and-drop theme editor. ikas also offers a range of marketing and automation features on each price plan.

Abandoned cart reminders and marketing promotions (e.g., 3 for the price of 2) are available on all plans.

What is ikas?

Founded in 2017, ikas has offices in Berlin and Aalen, Germany, as well as Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. It’s primarily aimed at European and Turkish eCommerce entrepreneurs and companies, and at the time of writing, 6,000 businesses use it to fuel their websites.

Its website has testimonials from some of its prominent customers, including OzNatur ,LSTNR clothing, and Hofkueche.

ikas’s site tells us that you can “easily build your eCommerce website in three straightforward steps” and boost sales using its marketing automation features. We’ll explore this in more detail below.

Every aspect of your e-commerce site is managed from a single dashboard, and you don’t need any technical knowledge to use the platform.

Selling products from your ikas e-commerce store is seamless, and omnichannel selling is just as easy – this includes physical stores and online marketplaces such as Amazon and Zalando.

You can sell physical and digital products using ikas, and it’s also worth highlighting that ikas is powered by AWS servers across Europe.

Each price plan includes a free SSL certificate, PCI-secure payments, and unlimited product, traffic, and web space.

ikas Features

Now we’ve covered the basics, let’s turn our attention to ikas’s core features:

Website Themes: There are 16 image-led, contemporary, and attractively designed themes to choose from.

One-Page Checkout: Each ikas theme offers a one-page checkout, i.e., customers can complete purchases from the convenience of one page. This includes adding their name, address, shipping method, and payment.

Theme Editor: You can customize these themes using ikas’s drag-and-drop template editor. More specifically, you can edit images, text, videos, and other content to suit your brand. You can also SEO-optimize themes (i.e., add meta tags, titles, and descriptions).

ikas App Store: Accessible via your ikas dashboard, Integrations are split into the following categories:

Fulfillment and Logistics: integrates with SendCloud

Accounting: integrates with Zero and PDF Invoices

Marketplace: integrates with Printful

International Commerce: ikas integrates with UPS, OPLOG, Navlungo, and Sendcloud. This lets you provide customers with localized product prices, website translation, and currencies. You can also offer shoppers the following payment options: Stripe, PayPal, and Klarna.

Digital Marketing Integrations: With just a few clicks, you can integrate your ikas store with Google Analytics 4, Google Tag Manager, and Universal Analytics. You can also add your TikTok Pixel and Facebook Pixels to your store. Plus, you have access to conversion APIs.

Dashboard: From the convenience of your dashboard, you can manage all your Amazon and Zalando orders, as well as your eCommerce website and physical stores. Every sale you make is automatically logged on the dashboard. So, if you make a sale via your ikas eCommerce site, your Amazon and Zalando inventory is automatically updated.

Reports: From your dashboard, you can create 36 different reports, including conversion reports over various periods, products frequently bought together, best-selling product categories, and more.

Unlimited Product Uploads: You can upload and sell as many products as you want. Simply add products via your dashboard and import products via a CSV or XLSX file. You can add products as a single product upload or as variant products (i.e., multiple products with different attributes such as color and size).

Marketing and Automation: The cart reminder feature automatically generates targeted SMS and email campaigns if customers abandon their carts. These campaigns can include discount codes and encourage shoppers to return to their carts to complete their purchases. There are also ikas’s cross-selling and up-selling options, which allow you to offer discounted and non-discounted products on your checkout page.

Advanced Product Search: Among other search settings, you can create filters to help customers find products easily on your online store. You can also set keywords for products you wish to highlight when customers search.

Wish Lists: You can allow customers to create wish lists of products for future browsing and possible purchase.

SEO Optimization via Meta Title and Description Length Checker: See if your meta tags, meta product titles, and meta descriptions are the ideal length (50 to 60 characters for a tag and 120-158 for a description). Simply type in your proposed meta title and description, and the tool will show it in red if it’s too short and green if it’s an acceptable length. You can also see what your meta titles and descriptions look like on Google Desktop View and Google Mobile View.

Unlimited Site Traffic: ikas doesn’t impose bandwidth restrictions, allowing you to drive as much traffic as you want to your site (including on busy eCommerce holidays such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday).

Unlimited Web Space: There aren’t any limitations on the number or size of the website files you can store on ikas’s data centers.

ikas Pricing

Aside from its free seven-day trial, ikas offers three pricing plans. All prices are in euros, including VAT, and can be paid using Stripe or PayPal:

Starter: €25/mo paid annually or €35/mo month-to-month

Hero: €69/mo paid annually or €99/mo month-to-month (this is the most popular plan)

All-in-One: €199/mo paid annually or €299/mo month-to-month

All plans offer the following:

A “lightning-fast” e-commerce storefront

Free customer support

FreeSSL certificate

SEO optimization

Sales reports

Unlimited product uploads/sales, site visitors, and web space

16 website themes to choose from

One-page checkouts

Cart reminder campaigns

Wish lists

Product reviews

Access to digital marketing and online marketplace integrations

Returns management

You can sell physical and digital products worldwide

You can set shipping zones based on postcodes

Sell and manage in-store products

You can create pricing and shipping offers

Access to inventory management

However, the following features are per plan:

Starter Plan

Access all the above and:

5 employee accounts

3 stock locations (stores and warehouses)

Hero Plan

All the above and:

10 employee accounts

Several online shops

Send automated abandoned cart reminders (these can include discount codes) via email, SMS, and Whatsapp messages (Whatsapp is optional)

Product reviews – (customers can include photos)

Optional cross-selling and upselling features

Social login (customers can log into your website with their Google and Facebook accounts)

You can offer customizable products (i.e., customers can customize these products with their brand’s texts and graphics)

Extended campaign management

You can offer customers the option to ‘Click and collect.’

You can offer local delivery from your store during opening hours.

Amongst other things, you can send SMS notifications to customers about their order status.

Manage up to six stock locations (your warehouses and stores)

All-in-One Plan

You benefit from all of the above features, plus:

15 employee accounts

AI-fuelled product recommendations

Cart reminders via WhatsApp

10 stock locations

Advanced cross-selling and upselling

Extended product reviews

Advanced product search

Extended sales reports

Multicurrency online stores

B2B functions and tools

Lastly, ikas Premium is also an option. Prices aren’t available for this plan; instead, you have to complete a form with your details, and the ikas team will call you to negotiate a custom plan.

It offers everything in the ‘All-in-One’ plan, a dedicated Customer Account Manager, and the following perks:

Search result options: Create custom listing arrangements for search results according to your preferences.

Product bundles: Use AI to recommend product bundles that generate a higher purchase value

Advanced cross-selling: Suggest additional products to customers who have already completed a purchase

Advanced reports: Generate advanced conversion and inventory reports using more than 30 data points, including traffic sources, orders, addresses, sales channels, campaigns, and more.

Advanced integrations: These are available via the ikas App Store. Advanced integrations include Etsy, MailChimp, and Klaviyo.

ikas Pros and Cons

No ikas review would be complete without a quick pro-cons list:

Pros 👍
Cons 👎

Pros 👍

You can sell physical and digital products and, on some plans, in-store products.
You get lots of features for your money, even on the Starter plan
There are no limits to how many products you can sell
Omnichannel selling is easy
ikas’s templates (albeit a small list) are customizable, code-free, and attractive.
There’s a 7-day free trial.
You benefit from unlimited web space and website traffic.

Cons 👎

ikas’s website is light on information and self-help resources.
There’s a bit of a learning curve

Reviews and Support

As previously stated, ikas offers free support across all its plans, accessible via phone, and email. In addition, ikas users receive a free one-hour onboarding session with a member of the ikas customer care team.

However, self-help resources are almost non-existent; no video tutorials or guides exist. That said, there’s a blog with posts organized into categories, including Digital Commerce, E-Commerce, Entrepreneurship, and Social Media.

Plus, each feature page offers an FAQ section, which helps address common questions.

As for user reviews, I headed to a range of review platforms to see what people are saying about ikas:

G2 reviewers give ikas an overall rating of 4.4 out of five stars. Users praise that there aren’t any hidden fees, ikas’s speed, and its multilingual capabilities.

However, reviewers were less optimistic about the limited number of integrations and ikas’s prices.

Elsewhere, Capterra users give ikas a resounding 4.8 stars out of 5, liking its 365 days, 8am-10pm customer support, ease of use, and ikas’s wide range of features.

The negatives primarily revolve around the limited choice of templates and “lack of website management customization.”

Half Time Summary

Ding-ding! We’re halfway through my ikas review.

To summarize, ikas is a good contender for anyone looking for an alternative eCommerce platform to some of the bigger players like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Wix.

Its lowest-paid plan offers a good range of features and a seven-day free trial.

That said, template options and integrations are limited. Also, as there’s a lack of self-help resources, newbies may find ikas’s learning curve steeper than competing platforms like Wix or Shopify.

However, although ikas’s templates lack in number, the 16 available are attractive, code-free, and easily customizable, allowing you to create a beautiful storefront.

In addition, its dashboard is relatively easy to navigate, and I like that you can manage your eCommerce store, marketplace, and in-person sales in one place.

ikas User Guide

Moving on to the second half of my ikas review. I decided to try ikas to see if its assertion that you can set up “your very own online store” in “just three simple steps” was accurate.

These three steps are as follows:

Design your eCommerce website

Upload products to your website

Complete your eCommerce website

Obviously, you need to perform several additional actions within each step, not least setting up an account first!

ikas’s pricing page also states, “Setting up an ikas shop usually takes 1 to 3 days. The required duration depends on the number of products and the selected package.”

With that in mind, let’s take a look:

Setting up an Account

This part was easy. From ikas’s home page, click the “Start Free Trial” button and type in your:

First name

Last name

Store name

Email address

Phone number

Create a password

After which, click the purple “Create My Trial Store” button. ikas then asks a few more supplementary questions about the type of store you want to create (but you can skip these for now).

Then it’s straight to the ikas dashboard (as pictured below):

The left-side menu allows you to access all aspects of setting up and managing your store. Alternatively, you can click the purple store icon at the bottom of the left-side menu just above the “settings” icon.

Now, you need to complete the remaining four steps pictured above (the last being – make a sale!). So, with that said, let’s explore how to do that:

Add First Product/Import

Click the “Import” button on your dashboard. You’re then taken to a page where you can import products via CSV and XLSX files.

Alternatively, you can add products by clicking the “Add a Product button.” This populates two options: ‘Simple Product’ (i.e., you can add a product as a single item) or ‘Variant Product’ (i.e., you can add multiple products with different attributes, such as size and color).

In each instance, you’re taken to a page where you can add the necessary product information, including product title and type, price, image and/or video, description, SEO, and more.

Once done, you can move on to the next step.

Choose Your Theme and Edit Your Website

From your dashboard’s homepage, select the “Choose Your Theme and Edit” bar.

You’ll be taken to a theme customization page. Here, ikas shows a theme that might suit your store. If you don’t like it, click the “Add Theme” button to see the complete list of themes ikas offers.

Select a theme you like. You’ll then be asked to give the theme a name. Click “save,” and the theme will be installed and saved on your dashboard, from which you can start customizing it.

From the dashboard, click the “Customize the Theme” button.

You’re then taken to the editor. From the left-side toolbar, you can select various customization options, including editing the following:

Add text

Footers

Headers

Product slider

Email address

Banner

…And more.

You’ll also see an SEO button at the top right of the left-side menu. Click that to add SEO titles and descriptions. With each action you perform, remember to click the purple “Save” button in the top left-hand corner.

Once you’ve edited your themes and are happy with them, you can return to your dashboard homepage.

To access your themes at any time, click on your store icon in the left-hand menu of your dashboard and then click on “My Themes”.

Configure Payment Settings

Click the “Configure Payment Settings” bar from your dashboard’s homepage.

Then, click the “Add Payment Method” button.

You can then add the payment methods you wish to offer customers. You can choose from the following:

PayPal

Stripe

Payment on delivery (cash)

Pay on delivery (credit card)

EFT

Mollie

United Payment TR

Payriff AZ

Paratika TR

Sipay TR

Klarna

Apcopay MALTA

Param

Please update the image, wedon’t have adyen anymore

In each instance, click on the payment method(s) you plan to offer. You’re then taken to a page to connect your account with your preferred payment gateway with your ikas account (as illustrated in the screenshot below). In this instance, we selected Stripe:

Other Settings Worth Noting

In addition to the core steps listed above, you’ll likely need to do a few other things to get your store up and running.

Although these steps aren’t included in ikas’s quick guide on your dashboard’s homepage, you’ll still likely need to complete the following:

Customer Settings

From your dashboard’s homepage, select the “Choose Your Theme and Edit” bar.

From the left-side menu, click “Customer Settings.”

From here, you can edit your checkout page settings. For example, you can specify what customers have to fill out on your checkout page and make specific fields mandatory, such as inputting a contact mobile number or their postcode.

On this page, you can also offer customers the choice to:

Have their order gift packaged

Add a coupon code

Checkout as a guest

Accept your terms and conditions

Set up Shipping Settings

Again, select the “Choose Your Theme and Edit” bar from your dashboard’s homepage.

From the left-side menu, click “Shipping Settings.” Here, you can add your stock locations. You can also customize your “Shipping Rules”. This includes:

Which countries you will ship from

Which delivery methods you’ll offer (either standard shipping or fast delivery

Shipping rules (For example, automatically offering free delivery after a customer spends over a set amount. Or setting paid delivery if the customer spends less than the limit you’ve set)

Once you’ve created your shipping rules, they’re visible on the main shipping page of your dashboard.

You can also manage customer returns by configuring your “Return Settings”. Click “Edit Refund Settings” to create rules for accepting returns.

Automations

Again, select the “Choose Your Theme and Edit” bar from your dashboard’s homepage.

From the left-side menu, click on “Automations.” From here, you can set up your:

Abandoned cart settings: To re-engage with shoppers via email when they leave their checkout before completing the payment/

Back-in-stock alerts: Notify customers by email when their desired product is back in stock.

Product reviews: Email customers post-purchase to ask them to evaluate your products

Money transfer reminders: Email customers to remind them to settle their unpaid orders

Notifications

You guessed it: from your dashboard’s homepage, select the “Choose Your Theme and Edit” bar.

Then, from the left-side menu, select “Notifications.”

From here, you can customize all your email settings and notifications:

Starting with Email Settings:

Click on “Edit Email Settings,” there, you can add the email addresses to which order and return requests are sent. You can also select your language preference (English, Turkish, or German).

Click “Save” once done.

Returning to the “Notifications” page (illustrated above), you can customize emails with your own branding and content when sending customers notifications relating to:

Orders

Shipment

Refunds

Customers

Automations

(Within each of the above categories, you’ll see a list of all the various emails you can send to customers)

For example, under orders, there are ten different types of emails you can customize and send to customers, including:

Order canceled

Order created

Order delivered

Payment approved

…And so on.

With Shipping notifications, there are three email drafts you can customize:

Order ready for shipment

Order fulfilled

Order tracking information

With refund notifications, there are four email drafts you can customize:

Order refunded

Order refund request

Order refund request approved

Order refund request rejected

With customer notifications, there are two email drafts you can customize:

Reset password

The customer’s welcome message when they create an account

With automations, there are four email drafts you can customize:

Abandoned checkout

Customer review

Product back in stock reminder

Money transfer reminder

All you need to do is click on the edit icon for the email type you’re interested in. You’ll be taken to the customization page for that email.

From here, you can customize the emails, as shown in the example below:

Once you’ve finished customizing your email, click the purple “Save” button at the top right corner of the screen.

Manage Settings

From your dashboard’s homepage, click the “Settings” icon at the bottom of the left-hand menu.

This takes you to what’s essentially your store’s back office. From this page, you can edit the following:

Merchant Settings: You can edit settings your store’s settings, including your address, preferred currency, and time zone, and define order number and currency formatting rules.

Stock Locations: You can define multiple stock locations. Your price plan, however, limits you to the number of locations it allows.

Tax Settings: You can define country-based tax rates and specify whether product pages include or exclude taxes.

Filters and Search: Among other settings, customize the filters customers see on your online store’s search function.

Staff Members: When you add new staff members to your store, you can assign different permissions to these accounts.

Store Activity History: View and filter the actions performed by staff members or applications.

Shipping Template: Customize your shipping label’s information and paper size.

Languages and Translations: You can add a new language to your store and perform bulk or individual translations for said language.

Customer Attributes: Customize the fields used in your registration form to gather more customer information.

Email Domain Settings: Use your own domain to increase email deliverability.

Store Transfer Settings: Import your customers and products from other platforms like Wix.

Managing Orders

All order management can be done from the left-side toolbar on your dashboard’s homepage. Just click “Orders.”

From here, you can submit orders, collect payments, and check the status of your orders.

Under the “Orders” tab, you’ll see a sub-menu listing the following options:

Drafts

Abandoned Cart

Tags: Create order tags to help you manage orders; for example, mark orders as urgent

Managing Customers

From the left-sidebar on your dashboard’s homepage, click “Customers.”

Here, you can manage all of your customers’ information, including their name, address, email contact details, phone number, and order history. Customers will automatically appear here when they have ordered from your store.

You can also add customers by either clicking:

Import: (Add customers via a CSV or XLSX file)

Add New Customer: (Manually add the aforementioned customer details for individual customers).

In addition, you can add and manage customer groups. These are great for targeting specific customers with tailored marketing campaigns, sending bulk emails, and running more granular reports:

Under the “Customers” tab on the left-side menu, click “Customer Groups.”

Click on the purple “Add Customer Group” button. You can then perform one of two actions:

Manually add customers to a group.

Create a dynamic customer group by automatically grouping customers who meet specific criteria (e.g., their preferred language, their spending limit, and so on).

Blog

Last but not least, you can also add a blog to your eCommerce store.

From your dashboard’s homepage, select the “Choose Your Theme and Edit” bar.

Click the “Blog” button at the bottom of the left-side bar.

Select the purple “New Blog post” button. From here, you’re taken to a page where you can add your post’s content and your:

Blog title

A short description of the blog post

Image

Author name

Category

Tag

Language

SEO titles and descriptions

Once done, click “Save.”

Extensions

To add the extensions mentioned above (Google Analytics et al.), click “Extensions” in the left-side menu of your dashboard. You can add any or all of the extensions to your store.

Install Apps and Sales Channels

From the left side toolbar of your dashboard’s homepage, click “App Store.” You’ll see the apps we referred to earlier that ikas integrates with. Each has an “install” button.

Alternatively, to integrate with other sales channels, return to the left toolbar of your dashboard’s homepage and click on the + next to “Sales Channels.” You can then add the following:

POS (point of sale) for your physical store

B2B Wholesale (Online) Store: Set unique prices for customers or customer groups and allow only authorized users to see your products or prices.

ikas Review: My Final Thoughts

That brings us to the end of my ikas review! Hopefully, my ikas review has provided plenty of food for thought about ikasIkas’s offerings, prices, features, and, importantly, how it works.

Although ikasIkas is less well-known, it offers subscribers many features, even on its cheapest plan.

In addition, the dashboard is easy to navigate, and ikas’s themes are attractive and straightforward to customize with no coding experience needed.

The users generally praise the platform on review sites, and it’s certainly positive that there are no hidden fees.

So, can you really set up your own online ikas store in “just three simple steps?” In theory, yes.

But in practice, as our guide has just demonstrated, you’ll likely have to go through several more hoops to get up and running.

Where it falls is its lack of information, particularly since there are no instructions or videos that walk you through your store setup, which may be a deal breaker for newbies.

On the other hand, you do get a one-to-one hour-long onboarding session when you sign up.

As with all our reviews, I recommend using the 7-day free trial before committing your hard-earned cash. This is the best way to see whether this platform is right for your business.

Are you considering joining the 6,000+ businesses already using ikas? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

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