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The continuous growth of the e-commerce sector in Asia is no news! In the last 10 years, China, Taiwan, India, Korea, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong have emerged as one of the leading e-commerce markets in the world; with Business.com placing 3 Asian countries in the top 10 largest e-commerce markets in the world. At a population of about 4.6 billion, Asia accounts for a whopping 59% of the world’s population! The sheer size of Asia’s population has greatly spurred individuals and businesses to spread their reach to Asian countries, with China leading the pack.

The boom in Asia’s e-commerce sector has greatly improved the standard of living on the continent. With most brands in Asia having access to an e-commerce store, it has become easier for families to promote their products online and spread their reach beyond Asia.

E-commerce in Asia has come to stay, and the number of e-commerce platforms— After researching we came across this article: 電商平台比較: 台灣老闆該用哪一個平台開店聚集人潮與錢潮? Which has made it more than evident that our thoughts are correct.

You’ll see that it has has continued to rise. As the webpage eCommerce 台灣 points out, the highest-profile e-commerce platforms in Asia are Shopify, Woocommerce, and Webnode.

With multiple blogs, and websites recommending Shopify as the number one e-commerce platform on the planet, it comes as no surprise that it’s also starting to emerge as the top e-commerce platform across Asia. Valued at about $4 billion and with over 1.2million users and 500,000 businesses across 175 countries, Shopify is among the largest e-commerce platforms on the planet. Major brands across the world like Tesla Motors, General Electric, Nescafe, GitHub, and Encyclopedia Britannica all make use of Shopify’s platform; a testament to its credibility and functionality.

Here are a few reasons that explain why Shopify is thriving in Asia:

1.Specialized Themes and Templates

Like most e-commerce platforms, Shopify comes with store templates and themes to choose from. But unlike other e-commerce platforms, Shopify comes with themes and templates customized to suit the needs of the Asian markets. These themes are designed to support being formatted to Chinese—the most spoken language in Asia.

2.Built-in Blog

Blogging is not a word associated with eCommerce platforms, but Shopify integrates this with their software seamlessly. Over the years, blogs have proven very effective in driving organic traffic to different types of web pages, and the same applies to e-commerce stores. 

With Shopify’s built-in blogs, sellers can create an online blog on their stores; write blog posts that target their customers, and add the option of comments, consequently improving the seller-customer relationship, and fostering smooth and easy transactions. In the Asian online space, blogging has also amassed a huge following. By integrating blogs, Shopify’s stores became more appealing to the average Asian.

3.Ease of Use

One of the major reasons people turn to e-commerce platforms, instead of website designers and developers when trying to get an online store is how easy and cost-effective it is to set up an online store on these platforms. While some e-commerce platforms might be a bit intricate to navigate, Shopify sticks to simplicity and ease. Although it is fairly limited in its customization options, uploading product details, and navigating the store builder is simple enough for the non-tech inclined user to understand.

4.Specialized Customer support services

Shopify provides a wide range of customer service integrations for its sellers and their customers. To fully cater to the needs of its Asian users, Shopify provides round the clock customer support that speaks the major languages in Asia, and fully supports Chinese in its admin services.  

Shopify also allows the integration of WeChat— an Asia based messaging, social media, and mobile payment app, with over 1 billion users, to promote easy, and hassle-free communication between sellers, and their customers.

5.Built-in Payment Gateway

Shopify comes with its own secured payment gateway for seller-customer transactions. Beyond its inbuilt payment gateway, Shopify easily integrates with over 200 different payment gateways from across the world.

To promote its use across Asia, Shopify integrates with Alipay Global, AsiaPay, ALLINPAY, BitPay, and a host of other popular and trusted payment gateways.

6.Mobile Optimization

According to Oberlo, the percentage of traffic on the internet that comes from mobile devices is 52%! Meaning more than half of the world’s internet users come from smartphones and tablets. 

The same metric translates to e-commerce platforms. Most customers browse through the online stores on Shopify with their smartphones. To fully take advantage of this, stores on Shopify are automatically optimized for mobile use. They are fully responsive, and the pages automatically adjust to fit mobile devices with different screen sizes. 

7.Shopify Point of Sale

The last feature that has proved very useful in the growth of Shopify across Asia is Shopify point of sale. Shopify point of sale, also referred to as Shopify POS, is an application available on both Android and iOS, that can be used to make physical transactions at a local store. The Importance of Shopify POS is made very obvious in the Asian markets, where most sellers have physical stores, but also want to make sales online. Customers can simply purchase a product online and pay physically, or simply work into the physical stores to purchase and pay for the products. Details from Shopify POS and the online Shopify store, both synchronize seamlessly, making it very easy to manage all products from one dashboard.  

In conclusion

The continuous boom in Asia’s e-commerce is definitely not slowing down anytime soon. Multiple analysts’ websites, including Solidiance, predict that Asia’s e-commerce revenue would surpass a whopping $1 trillion by the end of 2020! 

Ecommerce platforms have played a major role in the growth of Asia’s e-commerce economy, and with other e-commerce platforms like Shopline, and WooCommerce spreading across the continent, the possibilities of growth are endless.

What is the good of opening a store and lack a good display? That is what my friend asked me when he learned that I had opened a travel company but I had been too shy to advertise it. In fact, not even all of my family members know about this company. That is why I have decided to go an extra mile and start to advertise this business.

I have been exploring the best ways in which to advertise. Social media is up there at the top of the list. However, it is not enough alone. I will need to do some car advertising in the form of stickers. I think this will be especially helpful to me because I am targeting the locals for my business. Thus, to make my work of advertising on cars easier, I am planning to use vinyl. But I have realized that I need a vinyl cutter. Thus, I am in the market looking for one.

There are many types of vinyl cutters on sale. In fact, it is a bit confusing for a first-time buyer. However, the good thing is that I start by looking at the reviews left by other people. I figure that if other people find a product useful, I too can use it.

Here are two vinyl cutters that a light-duty user can buy:

Cricut Explore 2 Air

This is not only the best vinyl cutter for vinyls only, but you also get to use it on hundreds of other materials without a problem. If you love working with your hands, designing things with just about anything that you can lay your hands on, this cutter is a good buy for you. The best thing is that even when you change the material that you are cutting, you do not have to make any adjustments manually.

On the contrary, the machine adjusts itself automatically to cut the new material. It has been designed with Smart Dial Technology. You just have to select the material that you want to cut and leave it to do the rest.

Cutting alone is not enough. You also need a cutter that can write with different fonts. Thankfully, this one writes on all types of materials and in different fonts too. It is a great option for advertising jobs.

Pros

• This is a fast-performing machine
• It can write on any kind of material
• It can change the cutting depth automatically
• It can work with Mac and Windows systems
• Cuts two times faster than most machines in its price range

Cons

• Subscription fee needed to use the Cricut service online
• You cannot use third party software

Silhouette Cameo 3 Cutting Machine

This machine can cut material that is 2 mm thick, thus making it good for different kinds of light-duty cutting jobs at home. The good thing is that it is not limited to cutting vinyls only, but it can also be used to cut foil, cardboard, textile and even leather. This is a very versatile machine. Thanks to the dual cartridges, you will be able to cut two times faster. The cutting width is 12 inches, and you may even cut without using a cutting mat.

Pros

• Cuts fast
• Silhouette Studio allows you to use their software free for three months
• Can cut quite a variety of materials
• Has Bluetooth and USB options to remove cable clutter
• Comes with all the tools that you need to do your work

Cons

• It is loud
• Machine does not sense or measure the material on the cutting mat automatically

As you have seen here, it should not be too hard for you to get the best vinyl cutting machine if you know what to look for. The most important thing is to go for a machine that can cut different types of materials. The more automatic features that your machine can have the better so that you do not have to enter manual settings all the time. Remember, just as a mason is careful when buying the best combination square, you too should be keen when buying your vinyl cutting machine so that you get good value for the money.

After buying a vinyl cutter and using it for my work, I found that I had nothing else to do with it. You see, I was cutting adverts to use on cars and other places to advertise my travel business. Now that I do not need to use it anymore, I am considering keeping it all the same and rent it out to friends and people who need to do their vinyl cutting jobs.

When I was ordering this machine, I did not know that it could be that versatile and that I could use it for so many different jobs. In fact, my friends have been surprised wondering what they can do with it when I tell them I have a vinyl cutter that I would love to rent out.

If you are considering getting a vinyl cutter, just know that you have got yourself a versatile tool that you can use for various businesses.

Here are some of the things that you can do with it:

Printing T-Shirts and mugs

This is one of the tasks to do with a vinyl cutter. With this machine, you can always create beautiful slogans and then heat-transfer them to the t-shirts and mugs that you want to personalize.

Heat transfer is a high quality method and the printing job lasts as long as the material where you print it on. I am hoping that my intended clientele will see the importance of this and since most of them have children, I think they will rent this machine to make beautiful slogans on their children’s t-shirts.

Use it to make charts for kids

This is another useful thing to do with a vinyl cutter. You can use it to create beautiful charts for kids. These could be numerical or alphabetical charts or anything that the kids can use for their information. Again, this is accomplished by the heat transfer method, which ensures quality and durability. If you like, you can even make posters with the children’s favorite toon characters. In fact, with a vinyl cutter, you can only be limited by your creativity.

Make wonderful paper designs

Vinyl cutters can be used to cut a variety of materials among them are paper, foil, leather and even plastic. Thus, there is really no limit to what you can do with your vinyl cutter. You can make beautiful greetings cards, and then give them out to your friends. They may not be perfect, but the love and work that you will put into their production are going to demonstrate just how much you care about the intended recipients.

You can make labels and stickers

Baby on board stickers are quite popular. However, did you know that they are made with vinyl cutter machines? That is right, and there is no reason why you should not make similar stickers for your business. Since the vinyl cutter is good for cutting anything, you will love that you can do so much with it, including cutting paper stickers, which you can use to decorate your personal spaces or even your car. If you have a business, advertise it on a bumper sticker.

A combination square is perhaps one of the most versatile small tool that you may need to use every now and then for your DIY projects. As its name suggests, it is a combination of parts, which are used for different functions. On the one hand, we have the ruler, which you can use for measuring lengths and widths. On the other hand, we have the head, which is actually interchangeable with other heads depending on what you need to do. For example, you can affix a 45-degree head, a 90-degree head and so on.

Many DIY enthusiasts pass this tool because they do not know what it is for. I too did not know that it could do quite a lot and that is the reason I bought my father one. He has been a DIY enthusiast all of his life and therefore, I figured I would buy him something to remember.

As fate would have it, the only tool missing in his collection was the combination square and so I ordered one for him. Since it arrived, I have been watching him put it to work, and I am amazed at the things it can do.

Here are just a few of them:

For marking angles on timber

When you are working with timber, you need to cut different angles for different jobs. Even when you want to cut the wood in a straight line, you will still use the combination square. When you want to make a 45-degree joint, use the combination square affixed with the right head to cut your angle accurately. Just place the square on the edge of the wood, making sure that the edge runs straight to the ruler side.

To mark lines along the length of your wood

This is another very useful task for the combination square. Assuming you have a piece of timber that is 10 feet long and 6 inches wide, and you want to cut it into two equal parts lengthwise; the square will really help you. All that you need to do is adjust the head to rest at exactly three inches, and then place the square on the edge of the wood.

You can then place a pencil against the edge of the ruler at the center of the wood and move both the square and the pencil to draw a straight line all the way to the end. Of course, to achieve this, you will need to keep the timber on a flat surface where it will not budge.

Find out how squared a corner is

You can never tell whether a corner is square just by looking at it. You can only tell that by placing the edge of the square inside the corner. If the wood edge veers away from one side of the square, it means the corner is not a perfect square.

Measuring distances

The combination square can come in very handy when you want to make a molding to the window or doors in your masonry projects. By measuring the distance between the wall surface and the added molding, you can see where you need more plaster and where you do not.