The LiveArt team just heard some major news! Clutch.co named LiveArt as one of the world’s top custom software development firms! These companies are making waves as one of the best investments in your business, with article after article talking about why investing in things like custom software development firms is the right choice for more and more companies when they move forward with new business ideas. That is why we’re so honored for Clutch to name us one of the best!

"We are happy to be recognized by our projects and services we help our clients to thrive with!" - Volodymyr Yatsevsky, CEO of LiveArtDesigner.com

Clutch.co is a company that is dedicated to providing buyers of B2B services the most important information when they purchase custom solutions. Their team sits in the heart of America’s capital city and takes the time to interview clients, verify the reviews independently to ensure their accuracy, and curate the content so that you can feel confident the next time you purchase B2B services.

This is why we’re so thrilled to highlight our Clutch profile and our stellar star average! In a recent review, the CEO of StickyLife.com, Natalee Fisher, praised the graphic design tool we built for her e-commerce company!

“Their knowledge base is unparalleled."

Thanks to our enthusiastic positive reviews from our satisfied customers, Clutch ranked us as one of the top custom software development firms in Ukraine! It’s a privilege to make their resource shortlist according to research by Clutch.

We’re incredibly grateful to Clutch for selecting us, and even more grateful to our many happy customers who left us excellent and truthful reviews on their platform! If you’re interested in software development for your print company according to your needs, contact us today!

Why should you go online?

When you have an offline business, it is common that only local people know about you. How can others find out about you? Either your customers advise your service to others, or you use a robust marketing approach. But moving to online allows you to reach a new level. When your business is online, people from all over the world can find out about it. Unless, of course, you correctly claim about yourself. That is why you will have more and more chances to get new customers and build brand awareness. Also, switching to online allows you to increase sales. But what factors still need to be considered when switching to an online platform? Let's find out.

Costs

One of the most essential points to consider when moving online is what budget you are planning to spend. First, you need to understand that you need a domain and hosting, good design, as well as a budget for marketing. But it would help if you also chose which eCommerce platform you will use. It should not only meet your needs but also be affordable for you. Each platform has its monthly plan with a basic or premium feature set. Therefore, it is crucial to approach the choice wisely.

Yes, it's quite challenging to determine the budget that will be spent in advance, but it will let you know what you can count on and whether it makes any sense to switch online.

Security

Providing your future customers with online security is also crucial. Many people are trying to deceive and cash in on customers due to the current situation with COVID-19. It would be best if you gained the trust of your client. After all, no one will buy online if they find the payment method unreliable, or find your site suspicion. Therefore, you need to provide your client with a safe and popular payment method. Analyze what payment methods your real customers use and provide them with such an opportunity in your online store. Also, if you have a registration on the site, make sure that you do not ask customers to enter unnecessary information. Everything should be clean and straightforward.

Competitors

In order to successfully switch to online, you need to analyze your competitors carefully. What services do they offer? Сan you do better? What mistakes do they make? And what mistakes can you avoid? No need to copy them, you must be an individual. Indeed, it is something new that is valued more than just a copy of an existing one. Always try to do better, and people will appreciate it.

Convenience and usability

Make sure that your site is not only well-designed but also convenient. It is vital to provide your visitor perfect customer journey, and then they will come back more and more times. After all, no one will buy your goods, if it is not obvious how to place an order, where to click to remove the products from the basket. Such details may seem understandable to you, but not understood by users. Make sure that your email is not bursting with messages that the client has difficulties and errors when buying or choosing a product on your site.

Marketing

After you launch your site, you need to make sure that your customers know about that. Gather your customer base and tell them that you are online. Besides, try different ways to increase this base. For example, make an advertisement, create an account in social networks. Regularity is essential here because as soon as you lose sight of your customers, they will quickly find a replacement. Always keep in touch with them. Here competitors come to the rescue. Everything has already been done for you; you only need to analyze how they get traffic, how they promote their site, and what they offer.

Moving online during this difficult period can be challenging. However, the complete approach and taking into account all tips above can ensure that your business will move to the next level. Feel free to contact us if you need assistance in moving your business into e-Commerce.

Graduation

The graduation ceremony is a dream of every student from the moment he enters school. Some educational institutions postpone this holiday to better times. But still, some dare to organize the graduation online. Custom things can help to make this essential day special. For example, you can order personalized t-shirts with inscriptions that connect your memories with the school. Perhaps your school has a slogan that can be added to a t-shirt, which will help raise your spirit. Even if there are people who want to wear a dress or a suit, a custom t-shirt will then be a great reminder of your best school times.

To raise the festive mood, parents can decorate a house or yard in honor of your graduation. And then custom things can be a must-have for this. Relatives and friends often give gifts, for example, an album with school photos or personalized mugs, etc.

Birthdays

Now people celebrate birthdays online more and more often, gathering the closest people in Zoom. So why not make this day bright and memorable? Decorate the room with photos, dress personalized clothes, or offer a professionally decorated cake. For example, you can print pictures on edible paper or add 3D elements. You can also send online invitation cards to your friends. Also, you can use ready-made templates or design them from scratch.

If the birthday person tries to make this day a wonderful one, then the invitees should try as well, and as everyone knows, they give presents. No matter whose birthday you are celebrating, custom products could be a lovely gift to send them. For example, you can gift personalized jewelry with birthday date engraved or custom huddie with exciting artwork. The sky is the limit! Now you can gift even the most unusual thing.

Family reunion

One of the essential holidays is a family reunion. Family is always something crucial and respectful for each of us. Do not miss the opportunity to feel together during such a difficult period. You can order T-shirts for the whole family with a photo of each family member. Then you are welcome to create videoconference in Zoom or Discord and enjoy the fact that you are together.

Also, you can order personalized dishes for each family member and have dinner online. Such things will be relevant even after quarantine, as you will gather for a family dinner or just to spend time together. Such a process would be more enjoyable with custom things.

Team-buildings

The problem of non-working communication appeared when many companies began to work remotely. Everyone is sitting at home, with no opportunity to go to a kitchen with a colleague, drink a cup of tea with cookies, and discuss the latest news.

Team building has always been popular to strengthen the relationship of the team. And find new acquaintances in the case of a large organization, where people often do not intersect. During quarantine, this is also realistic. Companies that care about team spirit and their employees often make personalized gifts with embroidered company logo and person name. During isolation, the mood of employees is imperative since it affects the work so that such gifts can be very appropriate and fun.

Parties

And finally, we all look forward to the moment when it will be possible to meet friends and have a party. An online party can be no worse than a regular one if you take care of it. Send out beautiful online invitations personalized for each of your friends, buy delicious food, and find great music. You can even have an online pajama party and compete whose pajamas will be designed the most interesting.

As you can see, life during quarantine continues, and people can have fun and celebrate essential events online. Therefore, collect beautiful templates, come up with beautiful designs, think about custom things. These improvements can let your customers create personalized things that can help make such essential occasions happier and bright.

Feel free to contact us if you need any assistance or have questions about starting an online web to print business! 

Consider moving online

If you are working offline, then one of the most effective ways can be moving your business online. For offline stores that are forced to be completely closed, going online can be a rescue. To do this, you will need to launch a website, fill it with a catalog of goods and useful content. 

Also, you should let others know that your business is online now, and your regular customers can buy everything they need during the quarantine. This may be a bit time-consuming, but two advantages cover your time expenses.  Firstly, this way you will not be lost sight of your prospects and the marketplace all in all. Secondly, perhaps switching to online will become a new aspect of your business and, in the future, will bring more income than the offline ones.

Review your product catalog

In this situation, it is essential to review the products that you are selling. Maybe during quarantine, those are not in demand, and no matter how much effort you make, people won’t buy it for sure. While you are waiting that everything will become the usual way, it can be too late for your business. 

Therefore, if you want to keep your business, one of the ways to see what people are currently buying, what is popular in the market if there is an opportunity for your business try to sell those products. You can check what is trending now using Google Trends. Also, to see what people are buying most often, you can visit Amazon, Etsy, eBay, etc.

For example, due to the fact that people are sitting at home, they have time to do their housework and spend time with their families, so such goods as gardening goods or toys & games have become more popular. Besides, everyone began to do sports at home, so you can think about selling sportswear or equipment.

Perhaps such changes will be temporary, and you will return to your main niche, or maybe it will be the beginning of your new business.

Communicate with your clients

It is vital not to lose communication with your customers. You need to understand that this situation is also hard for them as for you. Show them your support and understanding, talk to them like you are talking with a friend, and remember that you have one problem in common. It would be very helpful if you explain to your customers exactly how you are working during quarantine, what measures you took, and what restrictions your business has. Write to your customers regularly, ask them if everything is okay and if you can help with something.

Moreover, you can make a list of those customers who are currently in the most challenging situation and try to connect with them and help with this situation. Perhaps the best option would be to organize a meeting - seeing a live person during quarantine is as good as gold. The main thing that you need to remember is to communicate with them as with real people, and not with customers whom you want to sell all your goods.

Offer discounts and help your clients

Since quarantine has economic consequences, the problem of money remains as urgent as ever. Perhaps your customers really want to buy your product, but now they do not have enough money. You can offer discounts to loyal customers or suggest a payment plan for your customers so that they can pay in multiple installments. They will appreciate it, and after stabilizing the situation with the Coronavirus, they will remember that once you pulled a helping hand to them. 

Besides, some companies have opened access to their paid materials, or offer a free month during the Coronavirus. So if you have a chance to do that, welcome to suggest it to your clients.  What’s best is to make it clear to customers that you are with them and are ready to support them, and you are ready to make concessions, if your business will not make a loss.

Now it is a difficult period for each of us. Still, if we will be together and will support each other, then there is a chance that it will be less painful to survive the crisis. If you focus on clients and what value you can provide them, they will remember you as those who did not leave them in difficult times. And thereby, you get loyal customers. Indeed, nothing unites so much as a common problem, and nothing causes such strong emotions as the struggle against a common enemy.

If you have any questions or need help feel free to contact us.

Custom coronavirus t-shirts

One of the most trendy things this summer, of course, after the masks, are custom coronavirus t-shirts. Phrases like Stay at home, Coronavirus: I survived or Forgive me if I don’t shake hands have become very popular. When it comes to humor, it gets easier. Moreover, if your team works remotely and you have Zoom or Discord video conferences, then such t-shirts can significantly enhance team spirit. After all, nothing unites so much as a struggle against a common enemy. Many people take part in a flashmob called “Stay at home” in social media channels. It is a way to claim yourself as a conscious person. And custom t-shirt can be one of the methods to raise COVID-19 awareness more.

If you have an online store or you are moving your business online now, it can be helpful to add web to print tool. With it, you can offer your customers to create their own individual t-shirts designs.

LiveArt HTML5 Product designer makes the customization process more comfortable and help you meet your customer’s needs in a few steps. LiveArt designer offers a wide range of fonts and a huge ready artwork gallery (or you can upload your own) that can be useful to create a perfect custom t-shirt. Features like text effects and the ability to create multilayer images with colorizable layers make the design process more interactive and the product more attractive. Also, customers can easily save and share the coronavirus design with others. 

Custom apparel

Due to quarantine, people have a lot of free time, so they began to do sports at home. Many sports coaches start posting video lessons with exercises on YouTube or other social media channels. For example, if you post lessons where you do sport at custom coronavirus uniforms, you remind people that this is crucial to stay at home. Moreover, wearing a multicolor uniform can brighten gray weekdays and get in the mood. 

Online sports shops can also offer their customers to design sports uniform for doing sport at home. They have a chance not only to raise COVID-19 awareness but raise their brand awareness. Offering custom products for at-home fitness can drive a more engaged audience and traffic.

Gifts

Since we are now in quarantine, it is essential to continue to delight each other, because people still have birthdays and memorable dates. Even sending a small custom gift to your friend is a sign of support. It has become trendy among young people to give each other either custom masks or t-shirts, or other things with symbols of the coronavirus.

Also, when ordering food or some goods, companies often deliver products in custom packets or put custom stickers. This has essentially become one of the brand’s responsibilities to remind its customers how important it is to take precautions and stay at home.

The best thing that we can do now - is to stay together and support each other. Things like custom coronavirus products can not only unite us but raise awareness of other people. Feel free to contact us if you need any assistance or have questions. Stay safe!

Launch a website

If you want to go online, a website is a must-have for your business. This is the foundation for further online growth. First of all, you should register your domain name and choose web hosting. For example, you can do this with GoDaddy service. They offer a lot of pricing plans that can fit your price range. Make sure that the name of your domain matches your website purpose, is unique and human-readable. Secondly, try to make your website well-designed and user-friendly. No one will use it if it is inconvenient and not appealing. Provide a structured product catalog with photos, descriptions, and prices. 

As your service will be something new, customers may have some questions, so make it easy to contact you. For example, you can create an additional “Contact us” page or place your email on the most visible part of the page. 

Also, consider adding a blog to your website. You can tell your audience about your niche, new products, and special offers there. The more engaging your website is, the more visitors you get!

Consider adding eCommerce platform

Creating a site from scratch with all necessary functionality may take a long time. If you want to build a robust online presence, you should consider integration with an eCommerce platform. There are a lot of useful platforms in the marketplace: Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, OpenCart, and more. Each of them has its pros and cons, but you need to choose the eCommerce platform that suits your needs best. But the thing that unites all of them is the fact that you can run your website in just a few clicks. Besides, launching a store using the eCommerce platform doesn’t imply that you have in-depth technical knowledge. Many of these platforms offer pre-made templates to create your online shop. 

Web to print tool

One of the thing that can be really helpful for your online shop is a web to print tool. People love things that are designed especially for them. Adding a web to print tool to your website can save a lot of your money and time. First of all, you get a more automated process: people design the products by themselves, and you print and send them. You will not need to make a lot of calls or correspond for a long time to approve the design. Secondly, you get fewer returns, because web to print tool means an individual approach to each customer. Web to print tool lets you edit and manage orders efficiently. 

Moreover, it is well known that custom stickers or t-shirts, or other promotional products about Covid-19 are becoming more and more popular nowadays. So you will have a chance to offer your customers things that are in great request.

Create a marketing strategy

Even if you have a perfect website with web to print tools or other features, people will do not know about this. If you are only going to start an online business tell your existing customers about your intentions, they should be prepared. After launching your website, you should somehow claim that you are now online.

The right strategy is to start social media marketing. Social media like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more are irreplaceable for finding new customers, getting a promotion, and building a brand. Review your target audience, determine your goals, and start with amazing content. You can try paid marketing at the same time — for example, Google Ads or Facebook Ads. The more fields you try, the bigger chances to be noticed you get. 

The situation in which we are now has given us one lesson - we should be able to adapt to new conditions quickly. Transitioning from offline to an online business may cause some difficulties. We should understand that Coronavirus will come to an end. Still, you will have skills and knowledge of how to do business online. And perhaps it will be your most profitable business!

If you have any questions or need help with transitioning your web to print business online feel free to contact us.

Here is what measures we undertook to both contribute to slowing down the spread of COVID-19 and take care of our team:

1. We all switched to the full remote. Everyone is provided with the necessary equipment and is involved in the workflow.
2. We continue to work as usual and try to ensure that the pandemic situation does not affect the quality of services and the smooth running of our business.
3. We are trying to increase the awareness of our employees about hygiene, protection methods, and isolation measures.
4. Now that we all work from home, online meetings became a daily routine. We discuss the current state of LiveArt workflow, the projects as well as checking in how everyone does.

It is essential for us to support your business with an unparalleled level of service. Therefore, we monitor the situation, do our best, and stay in touch with you. Please take care of yourself, your friends, colleagues, and family. We wish you health and safety! 

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact us. 

Prepare a convenient workplace

When we talk about working at the office, it means that every employee has all the necessary equipment, and their workplace is organized according to their needs. First of all, you, as a CEO, should provide them with the same conditions for remote work as they had in the office. Make sure that every employee has a laptop or a PC, uninterrupted Internet access, a working table, a quality headset for team communications, etc.

Many companies give access to sites or tools only in the office for security reasons. You need to check whether every worker can get all the required resources from home, including a VPN setup. 

Provide emotional support

Remote work could be both a way to try something new and a challenge to people. However, it puts stress twice as strong as it happens simultaneously with the COVID-19 quarantine measures. These two things, a switch to remote work and self-isolation, significantly affect emotional state and productivity. Hence it is crucial to spend more time with your employees in person and talk about the problems they face during working from home. Addressing their feelings and thoughts alleviates anxiety and allows people to focus on immediate tasks and prevent non-productive overthinking.

Tell them about your problems as well. It will become easier for them to feel that they are not alone and builds the trust you will be primarily looking for. One should also understand that adaptation to the new way of life takes some time. Getting the team back to their productive levels of work may require at least a couple of weeks, so don't expect everyone to hit your KPIs immediately.

Communicate with your team

During the isolation period, it is vital to stay connected with each other. Many companies use Slack to improve their workflows and chat between team members. It has a free plan, easy to use, and affordable. Slack allows you to create many channels for discussions, and you can separate those who do not need to be involved. Yet it creates an unnatural impression of the workflow like you are dealing with avatars, not with real people.

Therefore, it is better to use videoconferencing for meetings or just to say "Hello" or "Good morning" as if you have just come into the office to greet everyone. It might also make sense to pay attention to the informal conversation about non-working topics, so make sure that your team has enough time on this. Using a combination of Zoom and Discord would help to build team presence for the whole day.

Moreover, you can share your screen with other members. You can even leave Zoom presence open in the background to make it seem like you are in the office, working shoulder to shoulder with your mates. It creates a working atmosphere, and you can see what everyone is doing at the moment. With any voice or video conferencing tool, there is an option of voice mute so that you will not create discomfort to others. The bottom line, the more often you see each other, the easier it is to experience a transitioning period and become a genuinely remote-friendly business.

Do not forget about a daily routine

Anxiety, isolation, new place of work cause a lot of stress, and many people could even get mild depression symptoms. If you want your life to go on and stay productive during the remote period, remember that it is essential to create a working atmosphere as much as possible. One of the biggest mistakes everyone does while working at home is working from bed and staying in pajamas for the whole day. Developing a daily routine such as a morning shower, doing the hair, and dressing up differently for work helps to deal with the overwhelming exhaustion your workers would start to feel when working from home.

You may not be required to put your office outfit on, but if your team has personalized swag like hoodies with your company logo, you can all agree to wear them while you are working. These things create a productive and positive atmosphere while being fun as well. Last but not least, try to work, rest, and eat in separate places like it was in the times when office.

Set a schedule and plan the day ahead

A key to successful remote work is to stick to the working schedule. Even if your company offers flexible time, it is a common practice to agree on working hours that will be convenient for everyone, and no one will fall out of the workflow. Remote work means some freedom, but you must always consider other working factors. If you do not live alone, let your family know your working hours so that they will be more likely to respect your time.

Also, if you feel that you need a break, do the regular breaks stepping away from the computer as you did in the office. Breaks help to improve your efficiency and productivity while allowing you not to fall out of the task context.

To conclude, working at home became a big challenge for many of us. Yet taking care of your people is an opportunity to build your team as a more durable business unit. Maybe your company will even find the remote work very productive and will see the way of the working process differently once the pandemic subsides. Try to use tips you have read above as much as possible, and we hope that transitioning your business to remote work will be less stressful. Good luck!

1. Time-saving

It is truly said that time is money. Product design software gives automation to the whole process. Customers can choose the product they want to personalize, add text, choose artwork, or use pre-design templates, and place the order in a few clicks. No long queues and irritated customers. Everyone can order the product anytime and anywhere. The only thing you will need to do is to process the order, make a product according to the client's reference and send it.

For example, you can create a premade template for a business card and your customers will only need to enter their name, job title, and address into these fields.

2. Fewer outcomes per material

One of the popular approaches of printing business owners is to produce some amount of custom-designed products and try selling them. However, how do you know how many goods you should produce? Sometimes, this may lead to unsold items and money lost. To prevent this, you can allow your customers to personalize products by themselves. This is the ideal moment, where online product designer can be indispensable.

Having this tool in your shop can reduce the number of unused goods because all orders occurred only on an as-needed basis. No matter what kind of product you sell - uniforms, t-shirts, business cards, stickers, or any promotional products. You will not need to produce a large number of products in the hope that someone will buy this. 

There one another good point from a marketing perspective. Being eco-friendly is a trend nowadays. So you can easily drive more engagement and attention to your brand. 

3. Faster processing of customer design order

Web to print tool cut down on communication and the order process. Instant design proof allows your customers to make sure that they order what they need and enable you to make sure that you perform the order correctly. You do not need to spend your time figuring out the design, size, text placement, or product color. Everything is described on the output files which contains the whole design preview.

These tools are compatible with a lot of shopping cart systems like Foxycart, WooCommerce, Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, and others. Thus, you can easily manage your orders by having the customer's address, output files, amount and product, and its size, and even some customer's notes.

4. Fewer refunds

Unfortunately, during communicating with the client regarding the product design they want sometimes you can understand them incorrectly. The human factor is the most common cause of errors in any field. In the printing industry can be a lot of human errors because all the process is done manually.

Imagine, that you printed the design and sent the product to the client. And... they asked refund because the design does not meet their needs. With the web to print software, you can avoid this unpleasant situation for both of you. How? Every customer can check all changes in the live preview, so you can follow the design proof during printing. In short, the customer gets what he sees. 

To conclude, having a product design tool can be beneficial for your business. Imagine that you can spend saved money on marketing strategy or improvements for your website and gain more customers. You will not know until you try. If you have decided to take your business to the next level, feel free to contact us.

Leads don’t become your customers

If you provide bad customer service for your leads, you will never get desired conversions. Imagine that your lead filled the feedback form or asked about buying your products and need to wait for a long time or, in the worst case, never hear back. Will this lead come back again to your site or write to you again? You know the answer. Every lead wants to be heard and needed. The best practice is to answer them within 24 hours. Do not forget to show your interest, say thanks, and try to solve your lead’s problem if needed.

Loss of reputation and respect

Your brand reputation is essential for your printing business. In the case of bad customer experience, this is the first thing to suffer. If you are not listening to your customers carefully or you are not ready to deal with their problems, they will quickly share their feelings with others. For example, negative reviews on trusted sites or social media posts. This information will spread rapidly with others, and the entire world will consider your business as the most terrible. 

They will choose your competitors 

If your customers are displeased by your brand, they will go to your competitors, who offer more qualitative and trustworthy service. As a result, you lose your website traffic. Gaining back the trust of customers who have chosen your competitor is challenging and very hard.

You can lose your employees

If your brand reputation leaves much to be desired, your employees will consider quitting the job and finding more worthy. Imagine, you risk losing not only customers but also people who work with you. Sounds scary, right?

Good customer experience is vital for businesses that have built their brand name and for those who only start their way. Try to know your customers, create an emotional connection with them, and take into account every feedback.