Business

The term ‘outsourcing’ has become the norm for many small businesses, as they do not have the resources to carry out essential services, particularly with logistics. The e-commerce boom has spawned a new industry, called third-party logistics (3PL) and in this article we will take a look at how 3PL actually works.

Tailored Solutions

The 3PL provider has all the resources needed to provide a tailored solution for their many clients, such as FCB Logistics customised freight solutions that support many Queensland businesses that rely heavily on their expertise. Such is the flexibility of the 3PL company, they can turn on and off their services according to your needs; some online retailers only use their logistics partner at busy times like Christmas and New Year, and they can kick in their services in an overflow way, which means you only pay for the services you use.

Picking, Packing & Delivery

The online retailer would deliver a selection of their products and packaging to the 3PL provider’s warehouse, and as orders come in, they would be fulfilled as soon as is possible. Same day delivery is not uncommon, especially for short distance deliveries, and such is the extensive network of carriers, packages can be delivered to any global location. This allows the online retailer to focus on improving the customer’s experience, while the expert handles all of their logistics, and if you are looking for a logistical solution, a Google search will put you in touch with a local provider.

Heavy Haulage

Businesses that require heavy haulage would prefer to outsource, as the resources needed are considerable, and there are specialist haulage contractors that move very heavy loads. The mining industry, for example, makes good use of third-party heavy haulage companies, and such heavy machinery must be transported with care.

Digital Communication

This is the key to successful logistics, and the 3PL provider would always be in touch with the client, ready to respond at a moment’s notice. The busy e-commerce website would allow the logistics company to access sections of their ordering network, which allows them to receive orders instantly, and this kind of communication is essential if orders are to be processed in a timely manner.

Billing

Billing would typically be over a 30-day period, and the client can suspend the service at any time, and with most 3PL providers, you do not need to enter into a lengthy contract in order to use their services. Most providers will accept one month’s notice to terminate the service, and, as mentioned above, you can suspend the service at any time and for any reason.

Global Reach

Thanks to the Internet and digital solutions, the logistics company would be part of a global network, which means they can deliver to any destination, which is ideal for the online retailer who has customers all over the world. Freight solutions include road, rail, ship and air, and with an online network, arranging delivery has never been easier.

The 3PL logistics industry works tirelessly in the background, and next time you receive a delivery, spare a thought for those who came together to bring the goods to your door.

When the temperature starts to drop, it is time to give vehicles a once-over for the cold months. Vehicle owners should look at items such as tires, lights, oil, wipers, battery, and windscreens. But, many overlook the cooling system of the car. It is important to ensure this system is properly functioning and well-maintained to ensure the engine is in good health. Coolant/antifreeze prevents the engine from overheating and prevents it from freezing in the winter.

What Exactly is Antifreeze?

This glycol-based concentrated liquid is mixed with water and used for filling the cooling system of a car. It prevents the coolant of the engine from freezing in sub-zero temperatures. Also, ant-freeze helps in preventing the buildup of scale and engine corrosion as well as improving heat transfer from the hot engine to the coolant.

A coolant is a liquid that runs through the engine to maintain its proper operating temperature range. Most contemporary vehicles use liquid cooling to maintain optimal engine temperature. When purchasing antifreeze/coolant in stores, make sure to know the difference between these two. Coolant-labeled products are pre-mixed, ready to use a solution of Anti-freeze and water that can be poured into the cooling system. Products labeled antifreeze are concentrated solution meant to be diluted with water before being added to the cooling system. ORG Chem Group can provide more info on this.

How Coolants Work

The coolant is pumped through different small channels in the engine block and cylinder head, eliminating heat from the metal before passing through a radiator. The air that flows through the radiator eliminates heat from the coolant when it passes through, making it ready to cool the engine on the next pass. The latest engines vary the cooling depending on conditions to improve efficiency.

While it is generally important to flush out and replace coolants every two years or 20, 000 miles, vehicle owners must go by the guidelines of their car manufacturer. Dedicated products are available to aid system flushing.

How to Deal with an Overheating Engine

When the temperature gauge is in the red or the coolant warning light is illuminated, the car must be stopped as soon as possible. It is necessary to check the coolant level carefully because it will be under pressure and very hot. The radiator cap must not be opened at this stage but the bonnet can be opened. Let the engine cool before trying to top up the coolant system. Unless the vehicle owner is a mechanic themselves, they need the assistance of a mechanic to recover the car and fix it.

Managing human resources isn’t always about following the rulebook. It has a lot to do with managing expectations, and offering people what they really need, so as to get the best of them. The whole idea of motivation may not work for everyone, but empowerment definitely does. In this post, we are discussing all that you need to know about empowering employees in the workplace.

Set better roles and boundaries

There is a specific scope for every role – agreed, but management needs to find a balance as how authority and power is delegated. As a manager, you have to understand that you cannot manage everything at your end, and the more you allow the freedom to your people to take decisions, the more you can expect results. Of course, this also involves a considerable amount of risk, but done with basic understanding of an employee’s capabilities, this usually works.

Be open to ideas

One of the better ways to empower your employees is to encourage them to share their ideas and comments. Gone are times when being a boss would get things done. The new-generation working class does value things like job satisfaction, and ability to take decisions, and managers need to feed that side of the personality. Allow the scope, so that your people can come up to you.

Listen, forgive and offer your feedback

Being a good listener is one of the main traits of a good manager. You need to be a patient listener, sometimes for problems that may seem repetitive. It is also necessary to forgive your employees, unless there are serious consequences. Team building and working with an extended group of people need specialized focus, and while you want to give constructive criticism and feedback on relevant aspects, you don’t want people to feel subdued.

Recognition

Eventually, this is one thing that always empowers and pushes employees to do better. Reward and appreciate the team for the good work they have done, and don’t ignore the effort put in by each team member. Healthy competition at the workplace is always welcome, but you don’t want to push employees against each other.

If required, spend more resources on team building. There are companies that can come handy in aligning your human resources, and when you are not sure of how to build a team of workhorses, consider taking help from services that have experience in leadership programs.

As a customer of any type of company you want to feel comfortable. If there is a brand that you have consistently used over many years, you’ll know what it is you like about them. Consistency is key for many brands, and even where there is a need to update a brand and company, great care has to be taken to ensure that loyal customers, who have been with the company for a long time, do not feel alienated and feel like leaving to try another brand. Brand standard consistency, therefore, is vital, and with a brand audit company you can ensure that your company is looked at in detail to provide you with the accurate data that helps you continue improving and maintaining high standards of customer satisfaction.

Brand standards are important because they allow you to build a framework within your organisation that is easy to follow and breeds consistency across the board, in all aspects of the business, the daily processes undertaken by employees, and the marketing of your brand to the outside world.

This clarity of focus helps any business in its marketing ventures. It runs right through the company, including the packaging of your products and services, the font and colours used in the marketing and branding materials, the company logo and slogan, and even down to the way your service is executed to reach new and old customers alike. Consistency is the key aspects of any successful business, and brand standards help you to achieve this.

With the clear framework of brand standards, you can build a cohesive structure for your entire organisation to work within. What this does is ensure that all employees from the top all the way down to those starting work on their first day in the company, understand what their responsibilities are and what daily tasks will mean for the long-term of the company.

Brand consistency and high standards will help you build a responsible and recognisable brand over time. The longer your company exists, the bigger it becomes and the more recognisable it becomes to the outside world. Brand consistency and high-performance standards internally, ensures that customers and potential customers have a clear idea of what you can deliver, and to what standard, based on seeing your company logo.

Always choose to work with a brand standards audit service that has your back. It is important that you have complete honesty in reporting and analysis, allowing you to see the real detail behind any problems that require a solution within your business, as well as pointing out the positives that can be accentuated. If your business is going through changes, and you think it is time for a new branding concept, a branding audit company can help you choose the right approach without alienating your loyal customer base, whilst enticing even more customers on board. This in turn will help you to maintain high standards of customer satisfaction and increase your profits in the long run.

Landscapers and arborists work with numerous clients at a given point of time, and it is absolutely impossible to manually take notes of everything. Most landscaping companies are managing dozens of projects, have a sizeable number of workers and crew members working for these projects, and must ensure that these resources are properly utilized. Expectedly, automation and digitization are aspects to consider. Today, you can find job scheduling software for arborists and landscapers in particular, and these programs are incredibly useful in diverse ways and simply day-to-day work management considerably.

The need for specific features

If you are looking for an intuitive software meant for landscapers and allied businesses, you need to find one that’s designed for the industry. Landscaping is one field, where no two jobs on a given day are the same. Landscapers and arborists work extensively hard otherwise to keep up with follow-up appointments and maintaining records. There are a few business software programs for scheduling jobs, but only a few cater to these specific needs. Tasks that are to be done on a regular basis can be automized, while crew members and workers can download their job schedule for a day or the entire week without any hassle.

What to expect from business software for landscapers?

That could be a tough question to answer because no two software programs are the same. Most business software meant for landscapers make the process of job scheduling an easy thing for managers. Clients will be happier because workers will reach on time, and many business software programs also have CRM feature and options for invoicing, billing and receiving payments. Depending on the nature of the software, landscapers may have additional tools for design or accounting, or else, many business software systems simply allow users to sync with other programs and tools. A mobile app for such software is absolutely necessary and critical, because the crew needs to have access to their schedules and must be able to create updates, notes and other details, for each job they pursue.

Pricing and more

Most landscaping business software developers charge per month, and you may have to pay more if you have added number of users. Nevertheless, the features and extent of flexibility you get with a software are aspects to consider, instead of comparing options based on price alone. A good product should be scalable as your business grows in size.

Reliability is critical in any line of work. If you cannot guarantee the reliability of performance, you will not be able to fulfil the potential of the project or the company as a whole. When it comes to plant hire, it is vital that you have access to what you need when you need it. Choosing a plant hire company to partner with is an important decision. Ensuring that they provide the right tools to maintain reliability, is one of the biggest parts of that decision.

Whether you are working on a single construction site, or a large-scale infrastructure project, the finer details always matter. If you are using machinery that is old, tired, or unreliable, the performance levels will drop, and delays can intensify.

The only thing that happens when there are delays on site is that it costs the company money. The longer the delay, the longer it takes for a project to be completed. All of that increases costs. Therefore, it is important to have no reliability issues. Choosing the best plant hire company is vital. The best plant hire companies will have nationwide coverage, with the ability to deliver machinery and equipment to your location no matter where you are.

On top of that, they will have the latest technology and machinery. What this does is ensure that you are receiving the very best. This gives you a much better foundation to work from, providing a much better chance of reliability. It also means that health and safety are at a premium level, where old problems have been ironed out.

The best plant hire companies will conduct regular maintenance and repairs on all machinery in between deliveries. You will only receive a piece of equipment or machinery that is in full working order.

Knowing all of this can help you put together a plan of action, where your project continues to run smoothly and consistently. This ensures that your plant hire is running with no reliability issues at all.

When you consider the delivery, fleet and the on-going support from an expert plant hire professional. You can begin to develop a picture of reliability. This is only maximised with the right choice of a plant hire company. All of these things matter towards reliability.

Creating a custom box for your product could be an overwhelming affair. Besides protecting the product from physical damage during transit, the box is an important branding tool.

If you want to do better with product packaging in 2020, you should definitely follow the 5 basic tips listed below.

• Find the right manufacturing partner. With reliable manufacturers, the possibilities with custom packaging are literally limitless. Some companies, such as net/services/warehouse-ready-to-go/, even offer storage options. You can choose to order in bulk to get a better price, and the shipping will be done as and when required.

• Go the sustainable way. Consumers are making the conscious choice of going for brands and products that care for the planet, and if you want your company to make an impact, going for sustainable and reusable packaging is the first step forward. For instance, you can get rid of the cardboard boxes and switch to corrugated boxes instead.

• Make your boxes usable. If you really want to give your consumers more than the product itself, create reusable boxes. Subscription boxes & jewellery boxes are some of the common examples of such packaging, and it always strikes a chord with customers, as they are getting more than what they are actually paying for.

• Create special editions. When you want to inspire your customers or want to reinvigorate interest in a product, you must consider launching special custom boxes once in a while. This is what even the best brands do – As they say, old wine in a new bottle. It’s one of the oldest marketing gimmicks and it always works.

• Minimalism is necessary. As far as design of your product box is concerned, you have to try and keep things as minimal as possible. Keep in mind that minimal designs are relevant and necessary, because customers don’t have the time to read all that you write on the product box. Also, when you print less, you are saving on the ink and printing costs.

Now that you know that product packaging is more than just a box, find a vendor who can help in decoding what a box means for your brand. Style and design do matter, but what also matters is quality and value. Create a box that will have some value for your brand in the long run and will add to the marketing goals, and save money by working with vendors who also offer storage.

As soon as we hear the term “photo editing,” our minds immediately gravitate towards Adobe Photoshop. While Photoshop can help create outstanding results, many designers are becoming uncomfortable with its primacy in the market as well as the constant price increases, and they’re on the lookout for alternatives. Today, we have compiled a list of some of the most widely-used and reliable photo editors that can be your new go-to if you want to say goodbye to Adobe.

1. Serif Affinity Photo

One of the strongest contenders to replace Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom. Affinity is a vector graphic design application with a combination of vector and pixel art environments. As a program, Affinity supports Photoshop’s signature file standards at a significantly lower price.

Pros:

• Supports RAW and PSD file formats
• RGB, CMYK, LAB and Greyscale functionality
• Layer-based image editing options
• Significantly cheaper (USD $49.99, a one time fee).

Cons:

• Doesn’t have predefined lens-specific corrections
• Non-customizable workspace
• Targeted for professionals, not very friendly for rookies

2. GIMP

GIMP is a free and open source Photoshop alternative that is powerful and multifunctional. GIMP is designed to be compatible with plugins made for Adobe Photoshop. GIMP first appeared way back in the mid-’90s, so there are multiple tutorials and guides on the web that will help you better understand its tools. GIMP also has a slightly different UI from Adobe Photoshop and is easier to modify to your preferences. It supports a wide variety of formats and has a multitude of features like photo composition and image retouching, color correction and more. GIMP is a great choice for beginners.

Pros:

• Constant maintenance and updates to fix issues.
• Smooth and lag-free performance for all platforms
• Versatile and customizable with plugins and scripts

Cons:

• Non-supportive of 16bit color channels
• Isn’t entirely bug-free

3. Skylum Luminar

Luminar has grown to become one of the most popular editing tools for professional photographers around the world. The software can be yours for a one-time fee and it can act as a plugin for Photoshop, Lightroom and Apple Photos.

It’s the perfect solution if you’ve been looking for a tool that can help you with an automatic quick fixes for things like brightening, clarifying, toning as well as other basic adjustments. If you’re accustomed to Lightroom, you would notice that Liminar is quite similar, combining the Library column, Edit, and Info sections in one menu. Adjustment tools like white balance, temperature to exposure, contrast, shadows, lens correction, and transformation tools are also available. Three unique and useful features of Luminar:

• Sky Enhancer: These are unique filters that make the sky look more expressive and increase in contrast
• Accent AI: This filter analyzes your photos and applies enhancements automatically, saving you the hassle of making several manual adjustments
• Sun Rays: Adds realistic sun rays to your photos and lets you customize the same.

Pros

• Exclusive Sunrays filters like the top and bottom lighting filter and an Orton filter
• Adjustment and image layers
• Dedicated presets for DJI drone photos

Cons

• Speed and reliability issues
• Standard controls are buried
• No face recognition
• Keyword tagging

While the Skylum Luminar delivers effective automatic photo enhancement, a modern interface and some distinct filters and adjustment tools; it falls short of its competitors in many areas.

4. Pixlr Editor

The Pixlr Editor is a rather unusual photo editor, but still shares some similarities with Photoshop. It’s available in several versions including desktop and mobile—however, the most useful version is the web version. The web version is also the only version that comes with one layer of support. As it has many tools that Photoshop does it’s still a great editor, but there is no downloadable offline version.

Included Features:

• Over 2 million free effects
• Filters and overlays
• Creative editing app

Pros:

• Available in free versions
• Available as app on mobile
• Large number of tools

Cons:

• Slightly overwhelming for beginners
• Requires internet connection

5. ON1 Photo RAW

It’s free, easy to install, and comes with hundreds of predefined filters and other solutions. ON1 Photo RAW is easy to enhance and can be used on any operating system. As Photo RAW is compatible with cloud services such as Dropbox, it makes the managing of these images easy on the cloud.

Included Features:

• Photo RAW has built-in lookup tables for color grading
• Manual mode allows you to change any characteristics of your images, from exposure and lighting to contrast and saturation

Pros:

• 170 effects with photo editing, brush and masking tool
• Custom presets
• Textures and borders
• Live adjustments and previews

Cons:

• Not as powerful as Photoshop

Conclusion

If you’ve been looking for an alternative to Photoshop that is cost-effective but still powerful, then we hope you found this article useful. There are some editors like ON1 Photo RAW and Pixlr which are a great option for quick fixes like size change, contrast settings, filters, cropping, and image rotation. There are other powerful editors like Serif Affinity Photo and GIMP that can help you take care of more professional aspects of your images.

One last thing! If your editing images for an eCommerce website, then it’s important you optimize them. All photo editors will be able to perform basic eCommerce image optimization, it’s just a case of knowing why and how. If you’re looking for a professional graphic designer to do the work for you, the CodeClouds Creative Design team is the right choice.

Although ecommerce has been very successful, the innovators are still striving to combat the biggest psychological barrier that online customers confront. Online sellers are losing a lot of sales because of the customers’ inability to evaluate and envision the sense of utilizing the product. The augmented reality based ecommerce will enable them to visualize the products they want in the same context of the space they will be used at and it can also work wonders by debunking the issues that the customers face regarding the products in question.

Here are more benefits to using AR based ecommerce:

Pre-Buying Visualization of the Product Experience

By assisting the customers visualize the products regarding the space they may take, AR apps reduce the detrimental ambiguity from the ecommerce transactions. For example, IKEA Place AR app. This app comes in handy for the customers visualize how the furniture piece and other accessories will look inside their living rooms. This also helps the customers change their products easily, change the product attributes like color and size, and check how different furniture items and the room décor tends to complement each other.

Utmost Personalization

Nowadays, there are so many similar products available that it makes differentiating the business on the basis of the product utterly impossible. Hence, customer experience is now deemed the biggest battleground for gaining leads and converting them into loyal customers. augmented reality companies based ecommerce can be of a huge help to the striving online retailers by making the entire buying experience ultra-personal. As AR lets the customer to try the products virtually, the apps can also gather, save, and analyse information of every customer. For example, when it comes to clothes, the app can save info about the size and style preferences of the customer. Then, later when the app can make relevant recommendations to the customer. Additionally, it can also assist the customers to make quicker decisions.

Store like experience

One of the reasons why people prefer to shop at a physical location is because of the well organized shelves and aisles. AR based ecommerce can replace the retail aisle experience on digital grounds. A store like experience. With the help of an AR app, an ecommerce seller can create a virtual shelf with a lot of products to be projected on the walls of the customer’s living room. All they have to do is point and click on the products they are interested in and they can get more details on the same. The most inevitable benefit is that it bestows proximity between the product and the customer which is showcased on the screen and not in hands of the customers.