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95-year-old wheelchair-bound woman is left at HDB void deck for 6 hours during family dispute over who she should live with

Jewel Stolarchuk
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7
95-year-old wheelchair-bound woman is left at HDB void deck for 6 hours during family dispute over who she should live with

A 95-year-old wheelchair-bound woman was left waiting at a HDB void deck at Hougang Ave 8 for six hours during a family dispute about who she should be living with. The elderly woman was accompanied by a domestic helper.

One of the elderly woman’s daughters, 52-year-old Mdm Shen, told the Chinese daily that her mother became confined to a wheelchair more than a year ago, after suffering a hip injury caused by a fall. This also caused her mother to spend large amounts of time in bed. Mdm Shen revealed:

 

“My mother has been living with my eldest sister for about 20 years. My niece helps to care for her too.
“However in the past two or three years, my mother has been bad-tempered. She often scolds and hits my niece. On April 16 at around 8pm, my mother not only scolded the maid, but also kicked (her). It’s worrying.”
“My mother said she wanted to stay at my older brother’s house. Therefore, we arranged for her to go over that night. My brother and his wife also said they would take care of her properly.
“However, two days later, they unexpectedly sent my mother back to my eldest sister’s place.”

Since her mother was still “throwing a tantrum” and since Mdm Shen discovered her mother’s desire to move out from her older sister’s place, Mdm Shen and her niece decided to return her mother back to her brother’s house:

“At 11am that day, we were driving to my brother’s home. My mother and the maid sat at the void deck and were waiting to go upstairs.
“I realised that my sister-in-law was returning from buying food and was trying to avoid us from a distance. Afterwards, when my niece discovered her, she left my mother in my sister-in-law’s care and left.”

Mdm Shen revealed that she received a call from her brother later, requesting her to come and fetch their mother. It was only then that Mdm Shen realised her mother had been sitting at the void deck the whole time:

“The two of them had been waiting downstairs for six hours just like that. It made us feel really angry. My brother and his wife had actually not allowed my mother into their home!”

Mdm Shen’s sister-in-law, however, told the Chinese daily a different story. Refuting the allegations, 62-year-old Mdm Zhang said that it was Mdm Shen who left the elderly woman at their block, even though her mother-in-law did not want to move from her eldest daughter’s home:

“My mother-in-law did not even want to move out. It was said that she would only be temporarily staying with us for a few days.
“It was Mdm Shen who left her mother downstairs without a care. She did not hand her mother over to us and simply left on her own with her niece.”

Khaw Boon Wan claims building upcoming Canberra MRT station is “like open heart surgery”

Jewel Stolarchuk
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45
Khaw Boon Wan claims building upcoming Canberra MRT station is “like open heart surgery”

Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan claimed this morning that building the upcoming MRT station “is something like open heart surgery.” Speaking to reporters during a visit to the station’s worksite this morning, Khaw said that the station – which is situated between Sembawang and Yishun stations on the North-South line – is on track to be completed by December next year.

Canberra station will give greater convenience to commuters living in surrounding estates like Sembawang Springs and new developments that are sprouting in Canberra, such as new HDB clusters and executive condominiums like Parc Life and SkyPark Residences.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) expects another 17,000 households to benefit from the new station, which is already 55 per cent complete, given that it will be within a 10-minute walk away from their homes.

The Canberra MRT station project is a unique one since the station is being built on an existing line. The only MRT station that was added to an existing line in this manner was Dover station on the East-West Line. Because of this, LTA had to ensure that the safety of the North-South Line’s existing structures is not compromised and that disruptions to train services are minimised.

Remembering his own open heart surgery, Khaw compared the challenges of building the new station to the beating heart method in heart surgeries. He said:

“As you can imagine, such projects are not easy to do. Ages ago I had an open heart surgery and surgeon asked me there are two ways to do. One is a very traditional open-heart method … there’s another way which is you let the heart continue to beat and then you do the sewing while the heart is beating.

“And this (Canberra station) is something like open heart surgery. This is called the beating heart method. It can be done, but of course it’s very challenging.”

Khaw underwent heart bypass surgery in May 2010. His surgery was notable and made headlines when it was reported in October that year that the Minister paid only $8 in cash for the procedure, since his Medisave savings, Medishield and private Medishield-integrated Shield insurance covered most of the bill.

At the visit to the Canberra MRT station worksite this morning, Khaw also spoke about the upcoming Jurong Region Line – a new 24-km line consisting of 24 stations that will be open in three phases from 2026 onwards.

Noting that the new above-ground line will improve the resilience of the entire MRT network, Khaw said that line will help relieve and redistribute heavy train loading between Choa Chu Kang and Jurong East stations with two interchange stations within the new line being Choa Chu Kang and Boon Lay stations. LTA is also studying the possibility of extending the Jurong Region Line so that it can connect to the Circle Line.

The Jurong region, which was mostly swamps, jungles and fishing villages until the 1950s is now a blossoming economic and residential hub with about 300,000 residents and 400,000 workers. The new Jurong Region Line “marks a quantum leap” in the area, according to Khaw, who noted that the line will support the development of the Jurong Lake District into the largest commercial hub outside the Central Business District, besides helping develop the Jurong Innovation District.

Along with the upcoming Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail, the new MRT line will help achieve the Government’s vision for Jurong, according to Khaw. He said: “When all these plans come together, Jurong will be a water front business hub nestled in greenery, served by good public transport connections, as well as amenities to support active mobility.”

A hangover pill? Tests on drunk mice show promise

The Independent
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0
Keep the buzz. Lose the hangover. By bogdanhoda/Shutterstock.com

“Civilization begins with distillation,” said William Faulkner, a writer and drinker. Although our thirst for alcohol dates back to the Stone Age, nobody has figured out a good way to deal with the ensuing hangover after getting drunk.

As a chemical engineering professor and wine enthusiast, I felt I needed to find a solution. As frivolous as this project may sound, it has serious implications. Between 8 and 10 percent of emergency room visits in America are due to acute alcohol poisoning. Alcohol is the leading risk factor for premature deaths and disability among people aged 15-49 and its abuse leads to serious health problems, including cardiovascular and liver cancer. Despite these sobering facts, current treatments for alcohol overdose largely rely on the body’s own enzymes to break down this drug.

I decided to design an antidote that could help people enjoy wine or cocktails or beer without a hangover, and at the same time create a lifesaving therapy to treat intoxication and overdose victims in the ER. I chose to create capsules filled with natural enzymes usually found in liver cells to help the body process the alcohol faster.

Together with professor Cheng Ji, an expert in liver diseases from Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, and my graduate student Duo Xu, we developed an antidote and tested it in mice.

Inspired by the body’s approach for breaking down alcohol, we chose three natural enzymes that convert alcohol into harmless molecules that are then excreted. That might sound simple, because these enzymes were not new, but the tricky part was to figure out a safe, effective way to deliver them to the liver.

To protect the enzymes, we wrapped each of them in a shell, using a material the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had already approved for pills. We then injected these nanocapsules into the veins of drunk mice where they hurtled through the circulatory system, eventually arriving in the liver where they entered the cells and served as mini–reactors to digest alcohol.

We showed that in inebriated mice (which fall asleep much faster than drunk humans), the treatment decreased the blood alcohol level by 45 percent in just four hours compared to mice that didn’t receive any. Meanwhile, the blood concentration of acetaldehyde – a highly toxic compound that is carcinogenic, causes headaches and vomiting, makes people blush after drinking, and is produced during the normal alcohol metabolism – remained extremely low. The animals given the drug woke from their alcohol-induced slumber faster than their untreated counterparts – something all college students would appreciate.

The ability to efficiently break down alcohol quickly should help patients wake up earlier and prevent alcohol poisoning. It should also protect their liver from alcohol–associated stress and damage.

We are currently completing tests to ensure that our nanocapsules are safe and don’t trigger unexpected or dangerous side effects. If our treatments prove effective in animals, we could begin human clinical trials in as early as one year.

This sort of antidote won’t stop people from going too far when consuming alcohol, but it could help them recover quicker. In the meantime, we plan on drinking responsibly, and hope that you do too.

The Conversation

Yunfeng Lu receives funding from National Institutes of Health.


Source: Science-Technology

Proper parking spaces for bicycles now mandatory, no longer chain them to fences or lampposts

Obbana Rajah
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11
Proper parking spaces for bicycles now mandatory, no longer chain them to fences or lampposts

Obbana Rajah

Keeping in line with the Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) and the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) vision for a “car-lite” Singapore, all new property developments are required to provide bicycle parking.

This also applies to buildings undergoing redevelopment or reconstruction as well.

According to LTA’s provisional guidelines, for residential developments, depending on the type, there needs to be one bicycle parking space for every four to six dwelling units.

Additionally, according to URA, the introduction of these parking spaces will “facilitate more people to take up cycling as a commuting mode and to minimise indiscriminate parking in public places”.

However netizens seem sceptical as to how the new URA and LTA regulations – with regards to both shared bikes and personal bicycles – will be enforced.

The new bicycle parking provision standard also applies to commercial establishments such as cinemas, shops, offices, nightclubs and hotels.

The requirements of the bicycle parking spaces vary depending on the development’s gross floor area (GFA). In addition bicycle parking spaces provided under the new LTA provision standard will be exempted from GFA computation.

[email protected]

Amos Yee’s YouTube channel taken down for pro-pedophilia content, Yee enjoying the media attention

Obbana Rajah
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Amos Yee’s YouTube channel taken down for pro-pedophilia content, Yee enjoying the media attention

Obbana Rajah

Singaporean blogger Amos Yee’s YouTube channel has been terminated after he violated YouTube’s community guidelines with pro-pedophilia content.

Amos Yee’s YouTube channel ran for about three years, and had amassed more than 40,000 subscribers.

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Yee wrote, “My Youtube Channel and all the videos there have been completely taken down because of my views defending pedophilia. Well”.

While Amos Yee may have been granted asylum in the United States despite the racist and offensive content he posted online in Singapore, the nineteen year old does have a penchant for getting himself in trouble.

In April this year, American news platform CNN published an article about the disconnect between video content and advertisement when it comes to YouTube’s advertisement placements.

They said, “The Genius of Play — a campaign by the Toy Association promoting play in child development — has also pulled its ads from YouTube after CNN found that ads for the campaign were placed on Amos Yee’s channel, which he has used to promote pedophilia”.

Yee has been pushing for the decriminalisation of pedophilia, and following this, YouTube completely removed Yee’s channel’s ability to monetise.

In another Facebook post on Sunday, Yee continued, “My Youtube channel has been taken down, thank gosh I have this Facebook page with roughly the same number of followers. The only problem is most of my audience here are Singaporeans, the most irrelevant group of people in the world F***!”

Thus far, Amos Yee seems to be enjoying all the attention he has received from the media pertaining to his YouTube channel being taken down. In a Facebook video, he brought up the article posted on news website Today and used the opportunity to criticise the local government.

Same old, same old.

[email protected]

Ohio voters make conservative choices in governor’s primary – picking DeWine, Cordray

The Independent
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It’s DeWine versus Cordray in the Ohio governor’s race. AP Photo/John Minchillo

Ohio politics is shifting to the right.

As a political scientist at Ohio State University, that’s my takeaway from seeing Mike DeWine and Richard Cordray win overwhelming victories to secure their parties’ nominations in the primary for governor on May 8.

It could be the sign of things to come in Ohio.

Red

Republican candidates spent most of the primary rejecting their party’s incumbent. Term-limited John Kasich is popular statewide, but his approval among Republicans is a fairly tepid 55 percent.

Kasich’s attempts to make the national Republican Party more moderate during a lackluster presidential run in 2016 may have endeared him to independent voters, but it’s clearly cost him support on the right in his home state. Republican candidates Attorney General DeWine and Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor spent most of the race fighting over who could be the most conservative. At one point, a DeWine allied SuperPAC targeted Taylor with a mailer suggesting Ohio “can’t afford a third Kasich term” – a stunning attack on a leader of his own party. Both candidates promised to rescind Kasich’s acceptance of the Medicaid expansion.

In spite of her attempts at repudiating him, Taylor’s association with Kasich, who endorsed her, led Republican primary voters to DeWine, who was perceived as a purer conservative. DeWine cruised to victory with a 19-point margin.

Blue

By selecting Richard Cordray, the former Ohio attorney general and former director of the embattled Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Democratic voters made a moderate choice. Cordray is a mainstream Democrat who has pushed moderately progressive proposals while emphasizing his ties to former President Barack Obama and the need to fight the state’s opioid crisis.

Cordray will likely have more appeal to moderate voters than second-place finisher Dennis Kucinich, whose more radical platform rested on creating a statewide single-payer healthcare system. Though the former mayor of Cleveland has been a player in Ohio politics for decades, Kucinich may simply be too liberal for a statewide election in 2018 Ohio. Cordray won over 60 percent of the vote.

Both parties made choices that may reflect the future of Ohio politics. While it has long been considered a swing state, Ohio’s demographics have been trending rightward. President Trump won the state by nine points in 2016. Democrats may hope that result is an aberration, but Ohio’s primary results suggest the state could see more centrist Democrats running against hard-line conservative Republicans.

The Conversation

Nathaniel Swigger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.


Source: US-Politics

The 10 commandments of rockstar online branding

The Independent
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0

Be creative, and use the available tools to your advantage

 

Being the hangout zone of over 2 billion people in the world, the internet is hard to ignore especially if you are a marketer. How do you win the hearts of netizens and random online freaks around the globe and meet your marketing objectives?

Here are the 10 commandments of online marketing to set you in the right direction:

1. Thou shalt know thyself

Seriously, for any campaign to be effective, you need to first know what you are selling and what your brand represents. Understanding the brand identity sets the tone for all your marketing communications both online and offline. Familiarity with who you are and what you want will help come up with campaigns, content, and ideas to market yourself on digital platforms including website, social media and mobile apps.

2. Thou shalt know thy audience

Just like you begin writing by keeping your readers in mind, you formulate your digital marketing strategy by keeping your target audience in mind. Understanding the buyer persona of your audience can get you valuable insights on their online behavior like the time they spend online, the websites they are most active on, their interests etc. This can help you tailor your campaign to attract them.

3. Thou shalt not make thy website crappy

A crappy website that is cluttered and confusing, and ridden with errors will make your leads go away even before their browser uploads your entire web page. Your website is the first impression your visitors get. Make it as attractive, sleek and user-friendly as possible starting with catchy, warm well-written web content with some non-pirated, original, attractive images. People love simple and non-complicated things. Make it easy for users to search, navigate and make purchases on your website. Make sure that your website is SEO friendly — optimizing it for your intended keywords. Ensure that all errors and broken links have been fixed.

4. Thou shalt not ignore smartphones and tablets

A huge percentage of internet users access the online world through their handheld devices. Most people including myself search for stuff on their smartphones. Make sure that your website is optimized for mobile and handheld devices. Ensure that it is easy to read and navigate on smaller screens.

5. Thou shalt seek the power of search marketing

Over 80% of online consumers rely on search engines to find information about products and services. Keywords are the basis for boosting your search marketing. With Google Adwords, you can identify and bid for keywords in the campaigns you select for marketing your products or services. Dig up a little bit and apply basic SEO techniques. The next step is to optimize your content to include those keywords.

6. Thou shalt not steal content or create shitty content

Engaging and useful content is the key to success of your search marketing efforts. And no, you can’t steal. There is a difference between sharing and stealing. The key is to create content that is useful, interesting and relevant regularly. Having a blog that is updated regularly with useful content can help you get ahead of your competitors. Sharing good content is caring. Sharing spam will make people hate your guts. A concoction of poorly written copy that is too lengthy or painfully boring and messy will have a reverse effect. Research, scout for information and use the creative wizard inside you to churn out good quality, adorable content that will get you likes and leads. The key is to be interesting and not annoying.

Also read: 5 personal branding mistakes startup founders should avoid

7. Thou shalt respect social media

A wise man once said, “What happens on social media stays on Google forever.” Social media is a great medium for creating a favorable impression for your brand and also for building rapport with online users. The strategy should be to be interesting, friendly and responsive.

Always be respectful, polite and careful with your interactions. Listen to their feedback, suggestions, and complaints. If someone is asking a question on social media, guide them. If someone praises your brand on social media, thank them. If someone is complaining about your service, listen and acknowledge.

If you are nice to them, they will be nice to you too. The key is to actively listen and communicate on social media. This will also encourage more people to engage with your brand and share feedback. There is nothing more effective in marketing that a satisfied customer and none worse than a bitter one.

8. Thou shalt set up conversion funnels

To understand the behaviors that lead to a successful conversion, it is imperative to set up a well-optimized conversion funnel to track the journey of your visitors from potential leads to end users or customers. Understanding your micro and macro conversions will help you in formulating better strategies.

9. Thou shalt monitor thy results

The key to successful campaign lies in continued efforts to improve your online presence. Monitoring your web traffic with Google analytics and tracking the progress of your online campaigns on a regular basis will help you in getting useful insights. Don’t drown your marketing budget blindly into unsuccessful marketing techniques. Use data and analysis to guide you in the right direction. Which channel is working the best? What is the best time to start campaigns on respective channels? You can use your findings to create better content, distribute it effectively and plug-in any loopholes that prevent conversion.

10. Thou shalt quit fooling around, and start planning, learning, and adapting

“Learn and grow” should be your motto. The online world is very dynamic and it is important to stay updated, learn new skills and adapt to the changing environment. Research often, experiment with strategies based on observation, see what works the best for you.

With these commandments, combined with thy creative ideas, awesome content and knowledge, ye shall be on the path of making thy brand an online rock star.

—-

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Featured Image Copyright: kartos / 123RF Stock Photo

The post The 10 commandments of rockstar online branding appeared first on e27.

Source: e27

8 proven tips for successfully scaling an e-commerce business

The Independent
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0

Nurture your customers and they will see you through explosive growth

 

E-commerce is one of the fastest growing industries.

As of 2017, there are roughly two to three million e-commerce stores in the world, excluding China, reports PipeCandy.

Global e-retail revenues are projected to grow to the US $4.88 trillion in 2021, reports Statista.

Along with this, the buying cycles are much shorter. The number of induced repeat sales is more. Despite these positives, plenty of online stores are struggling to make profits.

The reason is simple.

Even though the number of consumers who prefer online shopping is on the rise, the abundance of choice enables them to hop-n-shop from multiple online brands selling similar products instead of sticking to a single brand.

Scaling is an issue for any e-commerce store which is unable to foster customer acquisition and loyalty. Anyone who has been in this business for long will agree.

In this article, I share the eight tips and tricks I’ve learned from building e-commerce websites for some of the best tech companies, for the last four years. These tips will help you scale your e-commerce store to increase your bottom line, at almost zero cost.

 1. Design a stellar landing page

A landing page if done right is a high converting platform. Almost 96% of your visitors are not willing to buy from you when they arrive at your e-commerce landing page, according to Marketo.

That’s true! The reasons are many. Some of them include non-persuasive content, low-quality images, and poor site navigation.

Therefore, invest in a good landing page design especially if you plan to run flash sales, time-bound referral programs or even launch a new product line.

To promote their new hair styling product, international beauty brand TYME set up a landing page featuring minimal content and a compelling CTA.

When KlientBoost added product images and a CTA of Buy Now to each image, Q-See’s conversions increased by 124%.

 

After designing a landing page, constantly A/B test elements such as headlines, colors, CTA’s and even the product images to measure their impact on conversions and bounce rates.

2. Optimize your search engine ranking

93% of all online activities begin with a search, reports Search Engine Journal.

If you are an online store that has a limited service area or depends on local traffic, SEO is key to your business growth. In fact, “Near me” searches on Google have doubled in the last two years, according to Search Engine Watch.

Moreover, a Monetate e-commerce Quarterly report reveals conversion rates of Q3 2016 to be around 2.50%. This means for every 100 customers visiting the website, two or three moved towards a purchase.

Therefore, incorporate both long-term and short-term online marketing methods such as PPC and SEO to improve your e-commerce traffic. Do a thorough keyword research of your homepage and product/services pages.

Use tools like SEMrush to study the keywords on which your competitors are ranking. Optimize your website content, distribute backlinks and ensure you list your business on relevant directories and forums using location or product/service as the main keyword.

Also read: How To Win at Google: A Crash Course on SEO

3. Recommend products on the website

According to Forrester, product recommendations contribute up to 30% of e-commerce revenues. Tech giant Amazon first pioneered the concept to nudge their customers to buy more.

So if you are a first-time visitor on Amazon’s website, you will immediately notice a section called “Deals recommended for you”.

Three seconds in and you are already hooked on to the discounts up on offer on the website. Don’t make your customers work towards finding a good deal on your site or search for other products that they may need. Today’s consumers despise interacting with online stores that make them work.

Online wine cellar Handpicked Wines understand that and has found a nifty way to make product recommendations.

Source

From clear-cut navigation and their value proposition to testimonials and other offerings – the online store has included every element on the product page that would help in convincing the consumers to buy from them.

4. Ensure your email marketing is on point

With email expected to reach 90.9% of internet users by 2019, it is nowhere close to dying, reports Statista.

70% of customers still choose emails as a way to communicate with businesses. No wonder, the average open rate of email campaigns across domains is as high as 23%!

There are three types of emails that you should ideally send to your customers.

A. Welcome series 

Getting a welcome email from the e-commerce store once a customer subscribes to the newsletter or makes his first purchase has become a norm.

Source

B. Cart recovery emails

The average online shopping cart abandonment rate across the globe is 69.23% which means they lose more than half of the sales from right under their noses. Therefore, sending emails to alert the consumer about the items he has put in the shopping cart is an effective strategy.

Create a sense of urgency around the abandoned product. Run a flash sale or give one for one free. Such emails can nudge the customer to complete the transaction.

Also read: Your comprehensive guide to successful email newsletter marketing

C. Re-engagement reminders

Marketers lose one fourth of their email database due to attrition which means if you don’t keep your customers engaged, they will move on. Since customer loyalty is a big issue in the e-commerce landscape, it is necessary to send re-engagement messages from time-to-time.

Online beauty store Birch Box leverages the emotional quotient by offering premium, editor-handpicked sample boxes, as seen below:

Source

EmailMonks is one such production partner that designs and codes responsive email templates and newsletters for you.

5. Construct a friendly push strategy

Push notifications are ruling the digital landscape for three years. Since 70% of consumers find all types of push notifications to be valuable, it is no wonder push is considered an integral part of the marketing strategy across industries (Responsys).

Push notifications can help you to target right consumers at the right time as the technology used segments them on the basis of their demographics and website/mobile activity. It is also difficult to miss out on push notifications on mobile and desktop as compared to emails that easily get lost in the inbox.

Source

The different ways in which you can use the push strategy to boost customer engagement are:

  • To recover abandoned shopping carts;
  • To notify customers about an ongoing sale or back-in-stock products;
  • To share location-based deals;
  • To send time-sensitive price alerts;
  • To re-engage with inactive customers;
  • To keep the customer informed about shipping;
  • To recommend products based on browsing or purchase history.

Since a push message is considered to be a bit intrusive, cautiously time your message.

6. Build a PWA for your e-commerce store

Google first introduced the concept of a Progressive Web App (PWA) in 2015 with an intention of making the mobile user experience more pleasant. Today, an impressive 80% of e-commerce consumers use their smartphones to browse through the store, look up reviews, and find better deals. (OuterBox)

A PWA eliminates the hassle of downloading an app, offers a better loading experience, and sends push notifications on the device even when the web app is not running. Speaking from a ranking perspective, a PWA is also discoverable by search engines.

A few popular e-commerce brands that have PWA-enabled websites are Alibaba, Trivago, Uber and Sephora. The introduction of Flipkart Lite, the PWA of Indian online store Flipkart, increased the user’s time-on-site to 3.5 seconds and ensured 40% higher re-engagement rate.

Source

This led to a 70% greater conversion rate among those customers who arrived at the Flipkart web app through Add to Home screen option.

7. Use blogging as a nurturing tool

The top three content marketing tactics in 2018 are blogging (65%), social media (64%) and case studies (64%), reports LinkedIn Technology Marketing Community.

It isn’t surprising to see blogging has become a common practice for any business. In fact, it is an effective tool for e-commerce stores to inform, educate and nurture customers.

The blog of A Better Lemonade Stand, an online e-commerce incubator, empowers entrepreneurs with all the content they need to grow their business at different stages. The blog posts are categorized into three major filters – Build, Launch and Grow.

The blogs majorly follow themes such as product selection, sourcing, conversion optimization and shipping and delivery. Their Facebook page has an increasing number of followers and this further adds to their community building.

8. Chat live for effective ORM

Live chat is considered the leading choice for communication by consumers purely because of the intimacy it offers. A recent Forrester study revealed a 10% increase in the average order value after customers engaged with a brand on chat before making a purchase.

The average response time on chat is 2 minutes and 40 seconds. ModCloth, for example, is not only known for its friendly tone but also for being proactive and messaging the visitor as soon as he lands on the website.

Source

A live chat is a versatile platform for boosting customer satisfaction rates which means don’t just restrict the use of live chats to only helping customers. Ask for feedback as well. 45% of businesses using a live chat tool don’t ask for feedback. How would you know if your customers are happy or not?

Also read: 4 made-in-Singapore chatbots that can raise your company’s productivity

Closing thoughts

Start with these 8 easy tips to scale your e-commerce store smoothly. Is there any strategy that worked particularly well for you? Do share in the comments section.

—-

Mayank Pratap is the founder of Engineerbabu, which helps startups, enterprises and owners grow their business by building high-class IT solutions. 30+ of their projects are funded by VCs. Many of their clients are a part of Y Combinator.

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Featured Image Copyright: vladstar / 123RF Stock Photo

The post 8 proven tips for successfully scaling an e-commerce business appeared first on e27.

Source: e27

Chinese Passenger Opened Emergency Door on Plane, Faces Stiff Fines

Anna Maria Romero
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0
Chinese Passenger Opened Emergency Door on Plane, Faces Stiff Fines

A Chinese national who has only been identified with the surname Chen now needs to pay thousands of dollars in fines for opening the emergency door of an airplane just to breathe in some fresh air. 

When he opened the door, Mr. Chen ended up activating the plane’s evacuation slide. If the slide is found to have been damaged, the unfortunate passenger will be asked to pay even more.

Mr. Chen was flying from Sanya, Hainan Island, on Lucky Air, a budget airline. Fortunately the plane had already landed in Nanjiao Airport, in Mianyang City, southwest China, when Mr. Chen opened its exit door.

Mr. Chen, who was immediately arrested by the airport police and then questioned and detained by the Mianyang Public Security Bureau for fifteen days, said that he had waited in the aisle of the plane for ten minutes while other passengers exited, and since he felt “too stuffy and too hot,” he chose to open the emergency exit door to get some fresh air.

He told investigators, “I just pushed down on the window handle beside me. When the door fell out, I panicked.”

Authorities say that what Mr. Chen did caused significant delays to other flights, and fees for correcting his mistake could cost up to 100,000 Yuan (almost US $15,000). And if the evacuation slide is also damaged, these fees could even be significantly higher. 

Mr. Chen has already been fined 70,000 Yuan (US $11,000) for costs to the airline. Luck Air has announced that it may charge the passenger for other fees. 

In a statement, the company said that passengers had been warned against such actions, “Before each take off, flight attendants inform passengers about safety precautions.”

Four years ago, a similar incident occurred when another Chinese passenger opened an emergency door on a plane just before it was scheduled to take off. This man was flying for the first time and had concerns that he would feel nauseated on the plane. His actions caused the fight a delay of approximately an hour.

Reflecting on the ASEAN–Australian relationship

Jewel Stolarchuk
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2
Reflecting on the ASEAN–Australian relationship

By: John Blaxland, ANU/

The latest ASEAN Summit at Singapore follows a significant inflection point in Australia’s relationship with ASEAN associated with the mid-March 2018 ASEAN-Australia Special Summit held in Sydney. While Australia has not been seriously invited to become a member of ASEAN, it was extraordinary to hear Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad be more welcoming of Australia in ASEAN circles. Two decades ago, this would have been unimaginable.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shakes hands with Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong during their media conference during the one-off summit of 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Sydney, Australia on 18 March 2018. (Photo: Reuters/ David Gray).

The change speaks to a shift in how Australia is perceived in the region. Australia should aspire to be designated an ASEAN Community Partner, says Graeme Dobell, in recognition of the unique and special relationship that Australia has with ASEAN. This is in large part because of their shared geography and also in recognition of Australia’s growing attentiveness and focus on the neighbourhood. Dobell’s idea has generated strong reactions, with some commentators for it and others against. This concept fundamentally draws attention to the intimate and growing ties between Australia and ASEAN as well as their shared future. Such a vision would have been unthinkable a generation earlier.

Just over fifty years since the end of the White Australia policy, Australia now has about one million people with strong links with Southeast Asia — a number closely matching the million or so each with links to South Asia and Northeast Asia. Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner and the son of refugees from Laos Dr Tim Soutphommasane is right to point to the still fractional representation of diversity at the senior echelons of the Australian business community. But a growing body of Australians with links to Southeast Asia and Asia more broadly (now about 12 per cent of the Australian population) are well placed to have a greater say and influence in how Australia becomes more closely integrated with its own neighbourhood.

Jokowi has described Indonesia as a ‘maritime fulcrum’. But perhaps this term applies more broadly to the space shared by Southeast Asia and Australasia. As maritime trade routes through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific and Indian Oceans grow in significance, the Indo-Pacific space shared by ASEAN and Australasia is increasingly busy, lucrative and contested.

Some have complained that Southeast Asian dictators should have been reprimanded rather than feted in Sydney. Critics rightly decried the inadequate human rights records and other political shortcomings of many of the ASEAN member states. But the summit was not the time to dwell on the differences and disagreements with public pronouncements. Rather it was a time to consider what is shared, what is held in common and what can be done collaboratively in the future.

In Southeast Asia form precedes function. Respect has to be shown for it to be reciprocated. And key to the showing of respect is in handling differences with discretion so as to avoid the public loss of face. Megaphone diplomacy might make some Australians feel smug and self-righteous, but it does little to open doors for engagement and substantive reform.

Indeed, despite the avoidance of public discussion on sensitive and embarrassing issues like the Rohingya crisis, the very gathering together at such forums and the one-on-one meetings on the sidelines have provided significant opportunities for Australia. Australian officials, academics and others have used these opportunities to engage respectfully but with conviction on a range of issues for which the alternative megaphone diplomacy is counterproductive.

The ASEAN–Australia Dialogue and the ASEAN–Australia Special Summit reflect a recent trend: the growing recognition that Australia has to find a way to get along better with its neighbours for a variety of reasons. Australia’s prosperity is intimately tied to the security, stability and prosperity of its neighbourhood. Non-traditional security threats to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific are increasingly understood as being linked to the security and prosperity of Australia itself.

While ASEAN has proven to be a useful forum for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief coordination and counterterrorism initiatives, the centrality of ASEAN may be challenged by great power contestation. Some critics decry ASEAN as a ‘broken reed’ that is divided over the South China Sea and ineffective as a collective security bloc in the face of apparently unrelenting Chinese pressure. But such critics misread ASEAN’s raison d’etre and underestimate the significance of the body’s economic, political, social and cultural achievements.

Despite extraordinary economic, demographic, historical, legal, linguistic, cultural, religious and ethnographic diversity, the motto ‘unity in diversity’ still rings loudly — as much as an aspirational statement as it is a motto. The world would be less secure and prosperous if ASEAN were to disappear.

After all, ASEAN includes US treaty allies and other security partners. It includes Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Animists and others. It uses English as its common language. It is Australia’s front yard. Australians skip over it on our way elsewhere without recognising that, when aggregated, it is Australia’s third largest trading partner and one of Australia’s leading sources of migrants and students. Australians are slowly adjusting to the fact that they are not living in some kind of metaphorical mid-Atlantic.

Despite genuine concerns over the divergence of interests over issues like democratisation and human rights, today the interests of Australia and ASEAN overlap to an unprecedented degree. Shared geography is the key driver, but other factors feature prominently as well. Trade links, for instance, are more substantial than ever, with ASEAN being Australia’s third largest trading partner. Security links have been growing significantly as well, linked with the expanding Australian Defence Cooperation Program and Australia’s engagement with a range of security issues associated the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) Plus construct. These arrangements have witnessed growing ties over humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, piracy, terrorism, people smuggling, refugee flows, and illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, let alone concerns over great power contestation. Sure, considerable differences remain, particularly concerning democracy and human rights. But, like Australia, the ASEAN states struggle to reconcile competing geostrategic and economic priorities, valuing the burgeoning trade ties with China while still valuing the enduring US contribution to stability that has been the great facilitator of prosperity. Along the way, they are finding they have more interests and concerns in common than ever.

In the past, Australia sought security from Asia. That world has gone. Australia nowadays must increasingly find security, stability and prosperity in and through Asia. Australia’s links with Southeast Asia and ASEAN are therefore of fundamental importance for its future.

—

John Blaxland is Professor of International Security and Intelligence Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and Director of the Southeast Asia Institute, The Australian National University.

This article first appeared on the East Asia Forum.

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