<blockquote>I think you can build things, and the world gets better, but with AI, especially, I am really optimistic?. In the next five to ten years, AI is going to deliver so many improvements in the quality of our lives.? -Mark Zuckerberg</blockquote><blockquote> </blockquote>Facebook is a platform used for connecting people and developing healthy communities. People here make friends and share things they love. But what if these communities have some fake people disguised as friends- it will make the community more vulnerable.<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/2b7c711ac4fdb3583538932be4be39b0.jpg" class="kg-image" alt="" loading="lazy">Fake accounts stand as one of the most challenging threats faced by Facebook. The social giant, in the year 2017-18, introduced a new tool of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to classify and delete millions of fake accounts. The <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2019/11/community-standards-enforcement-report-nov-2019/" style="font-size: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(249 249 252/var(--tw-bg-opacity));">Community Standards Enforcement Report</a> (CSER) and the <a href="https://investor.fb.com/financials/default.aspx" style="font-size: 0.9rem; background-color: rgb(249 249 252/var(--tw-bg-opacity));">Securities and Exchange Commission</a> (SEC) filings often question the identification procedure of fake accounts adopted by Facebook.</figure>But before exploring the procedure, it is essential to understand why fake accounts are considered a threat.<h1>Why Are Fake Accounts Considered a Threat to Users?</h1>Every day hundreds of thousands of fake accounts are tried to be created or are created on the Facebook platform by humans and bots. These accounts are credible technical spoofs created by using fake email addresses, synthesized pictures, and highly accurate data that make the accounts appear more authentic.These accounts pose a significant threat to the platform and its users in most cases. Innocent users often fall prey to such scammers, and these accounts become an easy source of money. These accounts are used by fraudsters to run spam, incite violence, promote terrorism, influence elections, share phishing links, etc. Russian agencies' influence on US midterm election results was one such famous example of the threats of fake accounts. Using technologies like Deepfakes, experts speculated that Facebook's bogus accounts could also play a decisive role in upcoming US elections. And Facebook is using all means to <a href="https://about.fb.com/actions/preventing-election-interference/">prevent any interference</a>.<h2>How Fake Accounts Impact Facebook?</h2>Facebook generates a large part of its revenue from advertisements. The revenue growth may stay stable as long as the ads are watched, clicked, shared, or liked. Facebook doesn't provide third-party access to calculate the engagement number for the advertisements. With fake accounts looming large, investors doubt whether the ad is reaching the correct audience. Fake accounts may lay inactive for extended periods, producing insufficient data to run generic consumer advertisements on the page. And then again, the fake accounts of bots are of no use to neither Facebook nor marketers. All these factors have affected revenue generation in several ways. Marketers will continue to associate with Facebook and its related products for advertising purposes as long as they get a good investment return. Having false accounts can cause a big concern to go forward for both Facebook and marketers. Facebook, in the year 2018, reported no new users sign-up from January till July from countries like the US and Canada, and the number of unique users joining from countries like Europe fell by one million. Although it didn't cause any loss in revenue, its <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-stock-crushed-after-revenue-user-growth-miss-2018-07-25">market value of shares had fallen by $120 billion</a>. Such is the effect users can bring to social media platforms and their businesses.<h3>How Facebook Detects Such Accounts?</h3>Abiding by the set of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/misrepresentation">guidelines by CSER,</a> Facebook identifies fake accounts using both human intelligence and machine learning. It uses hand-coded rules and machine-learning tools to determine whether accounts are genuine or not.Fake accounts, once recognized, are blocked either at the time of creation or before they are live on the platform. But the real problem arises when these fake accounts pass under the nose of all these defenses and become active. Such accounts are identified by advanced AI tools when malicious activities done by these accounts come under the notice of Facebook's detection system. These accounts are also sometimes reported by active users.<h2>What Are The Tools used For The Procedure?</h2>One can easily deduce the severity of the problem by knowing that alone in the <a href="https://transparency.facebook.com/community-standards-enforcement#fake-accounts">Q1, Q2, &amp; Q3 2019 transparency report</a> by Facebook, it has removed 5.4 billion fake profiles. Fake accounts are of two categories:<ol><li>Some are accounts of children, pets, businesses, hobbies, etc., which users created instead of creating pages. Facebook categorizes these accounts as misclassified accounts and converts them into pages.</li><li>Other accounts are those created by scammers. These accounts are identified and taken down by Facebook.</li></ol>But disabling accounts means denying the users access to the platform, which is entirely against the norms of Facebook. So, how can weeding be done without harming others? Keeping all these in mind, the social giant came up with several layers of analysis to root out problem accounts. And the tool it uses for this purpose is Deep Entity Classification (DEC).Facebook deploys the screening of accounts at three different stages:Stage of Creation: Fake accounts are recognized while they are being created by taking the help of exclusive detection technology. AI immediately blocks these accounts from being created. It processes high amounts of data and makes quick decisions. For example, the technology detects and reports about numerous accounts created from the same IP address, which is then blocked, obstructing their further visit to the social networking site. AI immediately removes these accounts, and hence no harm is caused to active users.Stage of Activation: Once such accounts sign-up, the artificial learning algorithms lookup for any suspicious actions that can set on the alarm. These algorithms use the knowledge gained from the removal of previous fake accounts to detect such accounts. For example, DeepFace technology recognizes Deepfakes, and the system is alerted. AI traces signals associated with suspicious email addresses or already disabled accounts and blocks the user's account even before appearing on the platform.Stage of Blocking Registered Accounts: Deep Entity Classification plays a massive role in identifying challenging accounts that are active on Facebook. It beats those who have already learned to play with identification features like numbers of friends, location, age, etc. DEC's AI recognizes such accounts after screening them thoroughly and, if faulty, blocks them.<h2>How DEC AI Works?</h2>Since its implementation, Deep Entity Classification has helped pull down numerous convincing fake accounts. Instead of surface study, the AI scans in-depth features of the accounts, like the details of pages, groups, friends, etc., with which the account interacts. The algorithms screen Their friend's ages, the gender distribution of friends, age groups they interact with, admins of the pages, members of groups, all. The technology takes into consideration as many as 20,000 deep features. The user cannot control these features, and hence a clear snapshot of how a profile behaves appears based on which decisions are taken by AI.It uses numerous machine learning models established and developed on complex algorithms to identify the account's authenticity. These models are trained on a vast set of simulated and real-time data for higher accuracy. High-precision human tags then scrutinize the segregated accounts that security experts generate. Language-agnostic AI trained in 93 different languages and 30 dialect patterns is also used to identify fake accounts. Accounts such as those that repeatedly send revenue-generating messages or are hacked accounts of real users, an incorrect account that doesn't belong to the character ascribed, or accounts of manipulative scammers are then deemed fake by the algorithms. AI further investigates these and, at last, blocks them with an accuracy rate of 95%.Facebook has claimed on its Transparency page that DEC has prevented millions of fake accounts from being made every single day in 2019. <h2>Is The Problem Solved?</h2>No, with advancing AI, the intellectual capacity of spammers is mutating as well. According to an estimate by Facebook, irrespective of its efforts, around 5% (approximately 125 million) of the monthly active users are still fake accounts. So it won't be wrong to infer that it's an ever-ending race where technology on both sides competes to be ahead of each other. And to lead, Facebook must keep coming up with upgraded defence systems using AI and ML coupled with human intelligence.

Abhilasha sandilya

Premium reporting on technology, startups, VC funding, and software from Techfastly tagged with AI. Read about themes, trends and strategies for AI.

Artificial Intelligence

How Facebook Detects Fake Accounts Using AI?

Dear Writers,Welcome on board! You are one of the most integral aspects of Techfastly, and we are happy to have you here.We are here because we love writing, exploring, and helping others in growing their business. But this would change if our articles leave our readers silently correcting grammar, or exploring other sites for a better understanding of the topic.With these in mind, we believe that every writer should follow some basic writing etiquette to ensure the best quality article that we can provide to anyone. We tried to include some of them to the best of our knowledge and would expand them as we grow bigger together. Following is the list of codes of conduct: Min Length of the article : 1000 word Heading: <ul><li>Don?t use uppercase letters for the entire topic, for example, Organizing Your Content, instead of ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT. Also, use lowercase for articles (a, an, the), conjunctions (and), and prepositions(to, from, about).</li><li>Adding sub-headings is always welcome.</li></ul>Body: <ul><li>Keep your sentences direct and understandable. Avoid using fancy words, idioms, phrases, etc. as much as possible.</li><li>Avoid ending up into long sentences. They make it a little bit difficult for readers to read and comprehend. Keep them short, simple, and precise.</li><li>To keep away the monotonous tone, try to mix up the number of words that you use in a sentence.</li><li>Provide ample examples, data, etc., preferably with hyperlinks for a better understanding of the subject. Please note that these hyperlinks should not be of another author?s blog on the same topic or Techfastly competitive websites. Hyperlinks to credible sources of information, data, charts, quotes are encouraged.</li><li>Always keep in mind while writing articles that our?s are executive readers, mostly from North America. Devise your text complexity, and data sourcing accordingly.</li><li>While introducing in the article, the abbreviations must always be preceded by expansions, for example, Search Engine Optimize (SEO).</li><li>Do not provide unfounded opinions based on no facts.</li><li>Define the subject of the article first so that the reader has some basic ideas or background about the topic.</li><li>Maintain the flow of the article regarding the topic.</li><li>The best way to end your article is to give a perfect and precise conclusion of the topic. Avoid ending it abruptly. </li></ul>We would suggest running your work through tools like Grammarly to ensure that it is free from small grammatical errors. We will personally take care of this, but an article free of simple grammatical errors will help you to establish your credibility as a quality writer. Enjoy writing! BestTechfastly

Writing Etiquette

All businesses run on data. Major strategies are devised, and resources are invested based on the result received after a regressive assessment of the data collected. Businesses are more complex than ever, which requires essential decisions taken quickly and more accurately than ever before. Decision-makers like CEOs often seek the help of Business Intelligence teams to uncover the best strategies for the business. And what constitutes this business intelligence is the transformation of data into actionable insights through the use of software and other services.In any organization, data is existing at each level, from ground zero to the top. In such cases, it is very challenging to gather all the information and distill it into actionable intelligence.<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/01cb776773d212202a871a3059e84cd4.jpg" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy"></figure>Data EverywhereData is a significant asset for any organization, be it a financial enterprise or a technology firm. It is forever growing in size and value. Data is everywhere, whether a bank is holding its customers? data or a hospital containing its patients? data. Data is essential for any business or company to grow, and how companies deal with the enormous amounts of data will decide who can get an edge in any industry, be it IT, banking, consumer, tourism, medical, etc. Data helps in making better decisions, solving problems, setting up future strategies, improving processes, understanding consumers, and understanding your performance.<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/bff6fcf54c8d3f7fe135940ff9d455c5.jpg" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy"></figure>How is Data collected?Valuable data is scattered everywhere. In such a case, it?s essential to collect information-rich and reliable data, measure, and analyze them for better data-driven decisions. This process is called Data Collection.Companies have various ways of collecting customer data. Few commonly used are:Asking for it: Like if you want to open a bank account, it asks you to fill forms providing many of the details, including personal information. Another way of collecting data is by conducting customer surveys where direct questions are asked to consumers. It?s more or less like interviews, which helps in getting more accurate data. Websites and cookies: Companies websites make use of cookies and web beacons to track visitors browsing history and their activities on the internet. Facebook and Google are the best examples of these websites which keep collecting all types of data like location, demographic, search history, and accesses as well. Company records, mail, phone, and online surveys are other methods of collecting accurate data.All of the above are examples of First-Party data where a company is collecting data from the customer directly. There are other ways a company can collect data using second-party and third-party.Second-Party Data: A company collects data from its audience and then sells it to another company. It is First-party internal data, collected by the company (first) and considered as Second-Party data for the company who buys and uses this data. The selling and buying of the data happen directly between the companies, and there is no involvement of the middle-man. It offers the benefits of First-Party data such as data quality, and precision and buyer has more control over the data than the Third-Party data sources.Third-Party Data: There are companies whose sole purpose is to collect data from various sources and aggregate in an extensive data set and sell it as a package. When a company buys this kind of data, it is referred to as Third-Party data. Many data companies collect and sell this kind of data, such as <a href="https://www.acxiom.com/what-we-do/data/">Acxiom</a>, <a href="https://www.experian.com/marketing-services/targeting/data-driven-marketing/consumer-view-data">Experian</a>, and <a href="https://support.signpost.com/hc/en-us/articles/207696096-Overview-How-Signpost-Works">signpost</a>, etc.Second-Party data and Third-Party data are used for improved Ad and marketing campaigns, target new audiences and observe and predict customer's behaviors. There are many Data Market Platforms and Data Exchange Platforms from where these data can be sold and bought based on one's needs. Data StorageCompanies collect data from multiple sources, including their websites, customer surveys, social media, and so on. Then there are internal data and external data. We can classify Data in<ol><li>Structured data stored in relational databases.</li><li>Unstructured data like videos, photos, audios, extensive documentation, etc., also commonly known as Big Data.</li></ol>Organizations need devices to store this massive amount of information, which is called storage devices. At the lowest level, we term them as databases. These storage devices are hosted on servers on multiple geographical locations, and they are backed up to recover in case of any disaster to continue with normal business operations. These servers are secured and stored in multiple data centers all over the world as per company needs.These data centers are mostly on-premises means the company itself owns the hardware and infrastructure. Large organizations like Banks and financial institutions prefer to keep their data on-premise.In the last few years, storing data on Cloud has also become very popular among small to medium-sized companies. For them, investing massive money in procuring hardware and managing does not make sense. Thus they opt for cloud storage solutions provided by many big players like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and others. Data StitchingJust having data is not good enough for the organizations. They must also know how to make use of it for their future strategy, like coming up with a new product, or enabling intelligent services for their consumers, or solve the current challenges with which they have to deal. Data is the information, but to transform data into usable information is a complex process. Data needs to be evaluated, utilized, and modified, and then only useful information can be extracted from them. As we know that the different types of data are coming from various sources. In general, these different sets of data hold information in isolation and of not much use from the business point of view. That?s where Data Stitching comes in the picture.Data Stitching is the process of combining and relating the multiple data sets to bring a clear picture. It helps in gaining deep insights and analyzing the trends like knowing your customer expectations and behavior, and how you are performing when compared to your competitors. All this helps in taking data-driven specific and corrective actions for your organization.<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/28f818368c113e87e88d252775f121b5.jpg" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy"></figure>Common Data Integration Platforms:Data Integration is no longer Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL). It has encompassed migration, Batch and Real-Time integration, validation, data quality, and impact analysis. The requirement is now to connect any source to any target. Data integration is of the utmost importance when an organization or a company wants to have a unified view of its data assets. Different institutions may have different methodologies for data integration based on their requirements, but they all need a platform where this integration can take place. Some of the most popular data integration platforms:<ol><li><a href="https://hevodata.com/">Hevo Data</a> - Hevo is relatively a novice in the field of data management and gaining full recognition for its automated no-code data pipeline to load data into the warehouse.</li></ol><ul><li>It is trendy among data-driven companies and small &amp; medium businesses.</li><li>It provides pre-built integration to 100+ data sources.</li><li>Supports both- Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) and Extract, Load, and Transform (ELT).</li><li>Easy to set up in a few minutes.</li><li>Fully automated, and requires zero maintenance.</li></ul>2. <a href="https://www.informatica.com/products/data-integration.html">Informatica</a> - has hybrid data integration products that integrate data from multi-cloud, on-premise, and hybrid sources.<ul><li>It supports data and application integrations on the Cloud.</li><li>It uses PowerCenter for mission-critical enterprise deployments.</li><li>Quick and easy integration.</li><li>Automated processes and intelligent integration.</li><li>High performance with reliability.</li></ul>3. <a href="https://www.talend.com/">Talend</a> - has a single, unified suite for all data integration needs.<ul><li>It supports almost all cloud service providers.</li><li>Data governance capabilities and data quality are automated.</li><li>Interactive Talend studio is popular among developers.</li><li>Model-driven native code generators make it faster to perform operations.</li><li>It provides flexible plans.</li></ul>4. <a href="https://www.diyotta.com/diyotta-products">Diyotta</a>- It provides smart AI-enabled data integration pipelines regardless of the source data warehouse or format and can migrate data to any cloud-based repository for analysis and processing.<ul><li>Supports on the fly data cleansing and transformation procedures.</li><li>It provides the ability for business analysts to query the information without knowing SQL.</li><li>Has a bulk data migration tool where no manual transformation is required.</li><li>Interactive drag and drop User and SQL Editor interface.</li><li>Easy deployment and configuration with the help of Diyotta Manager.</li></ul>Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM are other big names that provide data integration platforms and capabilities.Successful Implementations of Data IntegrationData integration is the first step in converting the data into something meaningful and insightful. Many companies have used and are using data integration to provide their business with new aspects.<a href="https://www.talend.com/customers/astrazeneca/">AstraZeneca and Talend partnership</a>AstraZeneca is a global biopharmaceutical company. It concentrates on the discovery, development, and commercialization of drugs for diseases in four areas Oncology, Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolism, and Respiratory. It has its presence in more than 100 countries.Challenge: The challenge with AstraZeneca had dispersed data throughout the organization in various sources. They were spending more time discussing the data quality than planning business strategies. The requirement was to get a single source of truth that can be used for monitoring across all divisions and markets and provide all required metrics.Solution: AstraZeneca built a data lake on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and they selected Talend for AWS connectivity, flexibility, and its licensing model. The other value associated was the ability to scale rapidly without incurring extra costs from AWS or Talend. AstraZeneca utilized the entire Talend cloud suite, which enabled 90 percent of the data to be ready for analysis within three months. Benefits: Results were shortened planning cycles from 15 days to 3 hours. Saving just one month off of each clinical trial helped save AstraZeneca $1 billion a year.<a href="https://www.informatica.com/in/about-us/customers/customer-success-stories/rabobank-nederland.html">RaboBank and Informatica partnership</a>Rabobank is a Dutch multinational banking and financial institution. It is a global leader in food and agricultural financing and sustainability-oriented banking. It has achieved significant progress by applying enterprise-wide digital transformation strategy which has helped the bank to come closer to its customers.Challenge: Rabobank had an ambitious business goal to deliver 80 percent of all business-to-consumer banking services using unattended, self-service channels within four years.The problem was in the data quality. The growing number of digitized services was putting pressure on data quality within Rabobank?s Siebel customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Poor data quality was leading to certain online customer activities to be defaulted to physical intervention causing frustrated customers and cost the bank more money and resources to solve the issue. Also, the data quality previously being addressed was expensive and based on slow manual processes.Solution: Rabobank has been a long-term Informatica customer, using the data management technology across multiple operating subsidiaries, including a data warehousing project that is estimated to have reduced annual development costs by up to $2.5 million. For this data quality solution, Rabobank compared Informatica with other vendors and found that Informatica had better technology, innovative ideas to address the business need, and proven experience in data management.Informatica PowerCenter Real-Time increased the business agility and performance with right-time data integration, and Informatica Data Quality helped in cleansing the customer data and ensured that data is trustworthy.Benefits: It helped banks move closer to the goal of 80% self-service delivery as well as enhanced customer experience by ensuring customers terminate fewer online applications. Also, it increased business agility by validating customer data daily compared with weekly previously. It also helped banks in adhering to Dutch and European Union governance, risk, and compliance goals surrounding data privacy and retention due to the high quality of data.<a href="https://hevodata.com/blog/cure-fit-case-study/">Cure.fit and Hevodata partnership</a>Cure.fit is one of India?s most significant players in the Health, Fitness, and Wellness sector. It offers digital and offline activities across nutrition, fitness, and mental well-being.Challenge: The company collects loads of data generated by its app and offline centers. The databases like MongoDB, MySQL, and systems like Google Analytics, CleverTap, Freshdesk, Mixpanel, are also used. But only a few team members were able to access the data, and the rest had to wait to get their questions answered. This problem had put the Data Platform team under the limelight. The majority of the time, the IT team was going in gathering data from multiple sources, transforming data, building data pipelines and moving data to their warehouse, Redshift, and then generating scripts and then emailing this to business teams. This gave very little room for the IT team to do more with Analytics.Solution: Cure.fit needed a modern tool that was easy to set up and would simplify their data integration problem. Since the majority of data being stored on MongoDB, they were particularly interested in a tool that would simplify the integration with MongoDB. Most of the other products evaluated show glitches, along with data issues. With Hevo onboarded, it took them only about two weeks to set the entire system up. The team developed custom Data Models on Hevo that reflected on Redshift, ensuring that all business users are reaching the single source. Thus, it stopped the reliance between the Data team and the business teams.Benefits: They can now generate over 100 reports daily, and the IT team performance improved. Today, Data provided by Hevo is helping about 150 business users to track their core metrics. It can then use the freed-up bandwidth to focus on more significant analytics projects, warehouse optimization, and more.<a href="https://www.diyotta.com/webinars/go-faster-how-clearsense-accelerated-their-data-platform-as-a-service">Diyotta and Clearsense partnership</a>Clearsense provides a scalable data platform as a service for healthcare, which empowers digital transformation and real-time insights into operational, clinical, and financial criteria and measures.Challenge:Clearsense is a private cloud data environment (data platform as a service) for healthcare to assist health care organizations in a wide variety of data problems that are persisting. In a healthcare environment, there may be as many as 200 plus applications that are producing data artifacts. Just having them in one place in an aggregated form was their primary goal. The major data challenge was the datatype as they are not only dealing with structured data but with unstructured data and the real-time data, which has its nuances.Solution:Diyotta did not just provide ETL capabilities to Clearsense but also an automated data pipeline tool to manage both real-time and batch data with a unified approach. It not only offers the tool but also helps them to utilize its capabilities to the fullest potential. It helped Clearsense to bring new features and functionalities at a rapid pace.Benefits:Diyotta?s Interactive, easy-to-use, extensible, scalable, and futureproof technology-enabled Clearsense to do much more and much quicker. It helped Clearsense to promote and accelerate their data platform as a service for healthcare organizations. With Diyotta?s help, the data pipeline and data processing activities are automated. They used to take hours before and now are getting done in minutes.<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/e932b55ac6bd442db0492d5f8edfb7c7.jpg" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy"></figure> Intelligent use of data is the need of the hour. Everyone is quite familiar with this new oil and its importance in the development of the business. The correct compilation and assessment of data help you to improve your business decisions, and increase your ROI (Return of Investment). It also enables you to develop more accurate strategies and improve customer satisfaction. Data integration is a must for you and your business. And no matter how big your business is, resources must be invested in the correct tools for the smarter use of data for the better performance of your organization.

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Business

CEO?s Guide to Data Integration

Businesses can enter the online market through two options:
Own e-commerce websites
Choosing to sell their products in an established online marketplace like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy

Should a B2C Company Start Selling on Amazon?

Welcome to E-tailingE-tailing has changed the way businesses run today. All consumer based-business love to sell their products online as it is convenient with the least human interaction. Customers also love browsing and selecting their favorite products online from the comfort of their homes. It provides consumers the capability of selecting and buying items online at a better price from a wide variety of sellers.According to the<a href="https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf"> Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce</a>, the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the Q4 of 2019 was $187.3 billion. The Q4 2019 e-commerce estimate increased 16.7 % from Q4 2018, while total retail sales increased only by 3.8 percent in the same period. Total e-commerce sales for 2019 increased by 14.9% from 2018 and reached $601.7 billion. <figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/3fb05d1ca919eec9ca911b60d6a10c2b.png" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy"></figure>What does online selling involve?Businesses can enter the online market through two options:<ol><li>Own e-commerce websites</li><li>Choosing to sell their products in an established online marketplace like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy</li></ol>Setting up an e-commerce website might be easy, especially for well-established and big brands. But, it comes with more complex components such as payment gateways, search engines, inventory management, customer service, and order fulfillment. A good website must have the following traits:User friendly: A website must be user-friendly and fast to load. Customers love sites where they quickly get the results for their search. The contents of the site should be simple, engaging, and informative. It should be able to generate website traffic and convert them into sales.Mobile-optimized website: Mobile devices generate around half of the<a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/"> global website traffic</a> (52.6%). Customers love easy browsing, and many find the use of smartphones more convenient. A business must have a mobile-optimized website to reach maximum customers.SEO friendly: A successful e-commerce business needs a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly website as it helps the website appear first on web search engine pages. SEO is the process of increasing the quantity and quality of website traffic by making the website visible on the first Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).A logistic team is required to take care of on-time shipment, updated delivery, and to solve customer queries. Payment gateways, data breaches, and pay per click advertisement are other concerns to be considered. Undoubtedly, a business can purchase such services from different resources available in the market, but combining all will mean high overhead.By choosing to sell on Amazon, a seller can comfortably enter the market. Amazon is the world?s largest online marketplace. It has 112 million <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/546894/number-of-amazon-prime-paying-members/">Prime subscribers</a> in America. Prime subscribers are the customers who pay Amazon a certain amount to enjoy particular services provided by Amazon prime like one-day, two-day delivery, Prime music, prime video, etc. Around <a href="https://www.feedbackexpress.com/amazon-1029528-new-sellers-year-plus-stats/">3.3 million third-party sellers</a> have chosen Amazon for their business since 2017, and they account for 50% of all sales on Amazon. In its<a href="https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2020/Q1/Amazon-Q1-2020-Earnings-Release.pdf"> Q1 report</a> for FY2020, Amazon announced that the third-party sellers sold more than 700 million items that were shipped with Prime Free One-Day Delivery or faster in the U.S. in 2019. With its enormous market and more than 20 years old data and logistic team, Amazon stands as a one-stop-shop for all its sellers. <figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://iaxds62ruoojbg1k4180.cleaver.rocks/images/posts/c76b6de99caaa7ce5f1759c7363e3c16.png" class="kg-image" alt loading="lazy"></figure>Amazon- the Google of online shoppingAccording to a survey conducted by<a href="http://go.bloomreach.com/rs/243-XLW-551/images/state-of-amazon-2016-report.pdf"> Bloomreach</a>, Amazon has become the first place for product searches. About 55% of customers use it rather than search engines like Google. It had also reported that around 58% of customers had left a retailer?s website for Amazon after having a poor site experience, while only 30% left Amazon for other retailer?s sites. Salsify in February 2018 surveyed that around 41% of people searched and bought on Amazon, as compared to 28% who searched on Google and bought on Amazon.Now shoppers are using Amazon as a product research resource where they can look at photos, compare prices, read reviews, questions, and answers, even when they are not there to buy anything.Using Amazon as a distribution channelPricewaterhouseCoopers (<a href="https://www.strategy-business.com/feature/What-the-Top-Innovators-Get-Right?gko=e7cf9">PWC</a>), globally collected data records Amazon with a spending of $22.6 billion in 2018 in Resource and Development (R&amp;d) as the largest investor globally. It?s one of the principal reasons behind the successful distribution channel of Amazon. A distribution channel is a set of steps through which a product reaches its buyer. Amazon?s delivery process is streamlined and straightforward, and that is why it is the first choice as a distribution channel for both B2B and B2C.According to<a href="https://this.just.in/amazon-brand-database/"> TJI Research</a>, the number of exclusive brands on Amazon increased tremendously in 2018, with 434 exclusive brands active on the site, and now it is around 640. Amazon places such exclusive brands along with its private-label brands under ?Our Brands? and handles their marketing and fulfillment. The profit here for such brands is that Amazon markets such products for free, and they get preferential treatment in search results. These brands also enjoy special ad privileges as Amazon promotes ?Our Brands? ads at the top of search results for commonly searched terms in categories like CPG, personal care, and apparel. Data related to customers? priorities regarding the product, price expectations, etc. are some of the additional perks that these brands get from Amazon.Amazon?s exclusive over-the-counter (OTC) medication?s brand- Basic Care, for example, is manufactured and owned by Perrigo. Perrigo uses Amazon as a distribution channel for this product and sells it only on Amazon. If we go by success data, then the<a href="https://www.ascentialedge.com/blog/amazon-brands-year-review-health-personal-care"> Basic Care?s sales</a> came way higher than the share of Perrigo?s existing brand Good Sense for the FY2018.Optimizing your listings on AmazonThe most important thing a seller should do on Amazon is to optimize their listing on the site. Optimization listing on Amazon is the process of customizing product pages to improve the product?s search visibility, click-through rate (CTR), and conversion rate (CR) to generate more sales. Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who liked your offers and were able to get it; out of the total visitors. The process requires keyword discovery, optimized listing text and image content, and an increased number of reviews.A product to appear on Amazon Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) must include all the relevant keywords on the product page. The most important fact to note here is that most of the shopping on Amazon happens on the<a href="https://www.searchenginejournal.com/amazon-search-engine-ranking-algorithm-explained/265173/"> first SERP</a> and most probably within the first three results.Wellapath?s Zen stress support formula, for example, in its product listing page on Amazon, has a description with almost all possible Search Engine Optimized (SEO) words. It goes as ?Zen Anxiety and Stress Relief Supplement, natural herbal formula supporting calm, positive mood, with Ashwagandha, L-theanine, Rhodiola Rosea ? 60 vegetarian capsules?. So, if someone searches a product with any of the above keywords, like anxiety, calm, or stress, the product to appear first on the search page, after the paid-ads, will be Zen Anxiety and Stress Relief Supplement.Buying ads on AmazonAmazon has a platform for advertising on similar lines of Google search, or as the ads go on Facebook. The user enters a search query for a product, and Amazon displays the relevant product?s ads. <a href="https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2020/Q1/Amazon-Q1-2020-Earnings-Release.pdf">Q1 for FY2020</a> reports Amazon?s ?other? category that includes its business through advertisement was up 44% to $3.91 billion in revenue.A seller who wants more clarity for their products on Amazon can pay for the ads by bidding on specific keywords that make their products eligible to be listed to higher visibility in the Amazon SERPs. The seller has to pay when a prospective buyer clicks on the ad. Adopting this platform requires spending more money. But, considering its customer base and the data it has on buyer?s behavior, Amazon is an effective way to get the first few sales and reviews and move the products. Amazon provides three main types of ads that one can configure- Sponsored product ads, headline search ads, and product display ads. Sponsored product ads appear on the SERPs and product relevant pages. Display ads appear not only on Amazon.com, but also on Amazon-owned and operated sites, Amazon network, and Amazon devices.There are remarkable retailers like Burberry, who use Amazon only for advertisements plainly to get the attention of the millions of buyers who visit Amazon daily. Such is the market of Amazon.Pricing yourself for success on AmazonWrong pricing is considered a deadly blow on sites like Amazon. Higher price prohibits Conversion rate (CR), whereas pricing the product less will create suspicion and will also be a complete loss for the seller. Ideally, the pricing of the product should be simple that strikes the right chords of the buyers.The priority while pricing should be the product to appear on the first Search Engine Result Page. When a customer types specific keywords on search engines, the first page that appears with the search-related results is called SERP. Before pricing, a seller must take into account all the costs to be borne by the seller like shipping, customs, product wiring, Amazon commission, customer return fees, etc., to determine price floor. The next thing to consider is the price of similar items by rivalries. Many buyers use online price comparison websites before buying a product, and sellers should consider this fact before pricing their product. Exclusive discounts on new product launches, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or other holidays will positively help the seller to build a market on Amazon. The seller must keep the price stable for a lengthier period to build a sustainable long-term brand on Amazon and gain customer trust.Amazon had lately re-worked on its<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-changed-search-algorithm-in-ways-that-boost-its-own-products-11568645345"> search algorithm</a> to arrange and display profitable products that sell before the relevant or trendy products that make less money.Using Amazon for your shippingDelivering through Amazon is quite simple and easy. Amazon provides two options to its sellers for shipping:1. Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)2. Fulfillment by SellerWith<a href="https://sell.amazon.com/fulfillment-by-amazon.html"> FBA</a>, the seller needs to send the product to an Amazon fulfillment center. They can also use Amazon Partnered Carrier Options to do so. The packaging, shipping, customer service, and return are all handled by Amazon. The FBA products also become eligible for unlimited free one-day or two-day delivery options with Amazon Prime. FBA also provides flexible rate structures, and sellers need to pay only for the services they use. It?s very cost-effective and helps sellers reach more customers.But, if a seller has a logistic team or the products aren?t eligible for FBA like hazardous goods or seasonal products, then the seller can opt for<a href="https://sell.amazon.com/fulfill.html?ref_=sdus_soa_fulfill_n"> fulfillment by the seller</a>.Sellers can choose Amazon?s drop shipping method as well, where they can use third-party to fulfill the orders. However, Amazon has specific policies for this option that a seller must serve.Amazon selling checklistAmazon starts analyzing the sellers and their monthly performance metrics as soon as they get themselves registered. Mismanagement, false data, missing papers, etc., are only going to earn negative points. So, a business must be prepared with the checklist beforehand.<ul><li>Ready and updated Paperwork: The seller must be equipped with all their paperwork like business name, credit card, Tax Id and state tax, etc.</li><li>Well Planned Budget: Apart from paying to have a professional selling account, other expenses like commissions, advertisements, shipments, etc., are also to be borne. A seller must have a budget of projected sales in advance.</li><li>Logistics: The seller should be well equipped with the logistics like the return process, and distribution channels (if not choosing FBA).</li><li>Business plan: The next step is to have a clear business plan like whether they are going to sell the same product or change it, how are they going to source the product, who are the competitors, etc.</li></ul>Marketing: A seller must have a strategy about how to market the product, how to promote it, and through what channels, keywords to be used in the product listing, data of competitive market selling the same product.Amazon is being used by many brands to sell their products online. Third-party sellers love to be a part of the platform because of its services and its reach to more than hundreds of millions of customers worldwide. Many brands choose to sell their product on Amazon despite having their distribution channels.Apple, for example, has started selling its newly launched products on Amazon. Earlier, Amazon had sold Apple products that were mostly refurbished products from third-party sellers. The prices used to vary from the official Apple prices. In the new agreement, Amazon decided not to interfere with Apple?s pricing of its product. Apple, in return, agreed to sell its newly launched products on Amazon.However, some brands had disappointing experiences on Amazon. Nike, for example, stopped selling its product on Amazon (not the re-sellers). Nike decided to sell directly to Amazon. In return, Nike asked Amazon to check unauthorized third-party sellers of Nike products and remove fake Nike items. Nike wanted to have more control over what and how to sell and list Nike products on Amazon. But that partnership failed because of Amazon?s favor towards well-reviewed Nike products that were sold by third-party vendors. Another Big brand that left the Amazon platform for similar reasons is Ikea.Before deciding to sell on Amazon, the seller must go through Amazon?s policies and understand the market. The more control you have on your market, the better it is.Choosing to sell on Amazon can bring profit to small businesses and entrepreneurs. According to David Heacock, CEO of FilterBuy, starting your business on Amazon is much simpler than establishing up your website and warehouse base. He loves selling on Amazon as it makes it easy to reach consumers on a larger scale by providing the required tools and infrastructure. With logistics, marketing, and inventory being taken care of by Amazon, sellers can concentrate more on their product and customer service. Amazon, as a brand, has tremendous reach and influence on the essential part of any market- the customers. And you get exposure to the international market as well. The only thing you have to do is to create your product listing, send inventory to an FBA warehouse, and your business is live.Happy Selling!

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