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#in that the tools available really help streamline the process. i can do everything i would need with just 3 tools and am in
kuromi-hoemie · 1 year
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i wanna know what y'all are interested in. reblog this and tell me what ur current hyperfixation(s) is in the tags.
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moneymindsonline · 1 year
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Doba Review - Is Doba worth joining?
If you've ever tried to dropship, you know that there are several obstacles you may run into. First of all, there are some services that offer dropshipping from places like India and China. These are sometimes great, but it's not uncommon to find that some of these suppliers and manufacturers are not reputable, or they take forever to ship to your country because of how far it is.
Then you have the process of finding suppliers yourself.
That's why we want to complete a Doba review. Doba is a tool for linking merchants to suppliers, especially those that dropship.
Not all suppliers do the whole dropshipping thing, and even when you find some that do, it's tricky streamlining your process without some sort of automated website plugin or app.
However, Doba seems to solve all of these problems. In this Doba review, I'll guide you through what Doba offers, while also going through the benefits, pricing, and customer support options.
What is Doba?
Likewise with all outsourcing, Doba permits you to source items exclusively, without burning through cash on mass buys. At the point when a client comes to your site and makes a purchase, Doba informs the provider and just conveys the items requested.
Remember that outsourcing frequently expects you to either take a cut in your own edges or incrementally evaluate for your clients, since there's very little leeway when you're not accepting in mass. In any case, there are a lot of specialties where the items depend more on apparent worth than evaluating you can cross-reference online in no time. Thus, I would suggest searching out those apparent worth items (like adornments or furniture) to have more accomplishment with outsourcing.
All things considered, this Doba survey will show you how the help works effectively by minimising expenses and coordinating you with providers that convey the items you need to sell. Doba has a commercial centre of providers that are checked and prepared to collaborate with your internet based store.
Here's how it would work if you wanted to start a dropshipping store with Doba:
Start searching on the Doba marketplace and find the products you want to sell in your store.
Create an export of those product listings to transfer all of the details (like pictures, prices, and descriptions) to your online store.
Make a sale to one of your customers, then pay Doba for the product. This is a crucial step in dropshipping, since you're not paying upfront for anything.
The supplier gets a notification to ship the item directly to your customer.
The profits from your sale are deposited into your account.
The Doba process is really quite similar to other dropshipping apps on the market. The main difference is how Doba interviews and examines each of the manufacturers and suppliers to ensure that your online store isn't getting screwed over with long shipping times or unreliable suppliers. Keep reading to learn what else we found out from our Doba review.
Doba Pros and Cons
Doba is an attractive, efficient, and easy-to-use product. It can help you find the educational resources you need to keep transactional fees and shipping fee costs low. The website is very easy to navigate and understand, plus, there’s a free trial option to get you started.
However, not everyone will be well-suited to this drop shipping service. It’s not the lowest cost option around, and there are various unhappy reviews online. Here are the pros and cons you need to consider before you determine whether you can make Doba work for you.
Pros 👍
The website is easy to navigate and understand
Everything is very user-friendly and efficient
Educational resources mean you can learn how to grow fast
Drop shipping service and business tools included
Lessons available on how to export data etc
100s of shopping cart options to choose from
Easy to customise your inventory for quick reference
Low inventory alerts stop you from over-selling
Free trial makes it easy to test the waters before you invest
Phone number available for customer support
Cons 👎
It’s a membership site, and becoming a member isn’t cheap
Doba is one of the more expensive options for dropshippers
Money back guarantee is difficult to claim
Products are expensive and difficult to compete with on marketplaces
Not everyone has the best opinion of Doba
How Does it Work?
Find products, build inventories, and add product information to your selling platform.
On Doba, you’ll most likely start by finding products and suppliers. You’ll then be able to build your own inventory lists, export product data, keep track of the orders you’ve received and add more products to sell when you’re ready.
1. Finding Products and Suppliers
There are 3 different ways to browse potential products and suppliers on the new Doba site:
On the dashboard of the ’search products’ tab, hot products and top selections are displayed to give you some inspiration. There’s also the option to view new arrivals, or products which offer free shipping, among other categories.
You can view a list of suppliers in the ‘find suppliers’ tab and order the supplier list based on available item count, fulfilment rate, average order processing time and more. You can click into each supplier to learn more about them.
And, probably the most useful option, you can view Doba’s product catalogue in the ‘search products’ tab and by selecting which category of products you are interested in. The left-hand sidebar allows you to type in the search term directly, or filter products by category, supplier, supplier location, shipping times, price range and/or minimum order quantity. You can then prioritise what comes first in the results from the dropdown box next to “sort by.” This gives you a lot of options to further customise your search and find what you’re looking for with ease.
2. Keeping an Inventory
Something else Doba allows you to do is build your own inventory list of products that are of interest to you. Think of your inventory list as similar to a ‘wishlist.’ It’s easy to add products to the list by selecting the ‘add to inventory’ button under relevant products.
This provides a useful way to store, revisit and manage products you might be interested in dropshipping.
I’ve created an example inventory list for you to see, with a small selection of [phone products]:
You can then upload the inventories to your online store later on.
3. Exporting Product Data
Doba allows you to export product information from your inventory list into a zip file so you can access it offline, or add it to a spreadsheet. It’s easy to do this by selecting each product you want to download individually. Otherwise, you can check ‘select all’ and then download a zip file containing information about all the products in your inventory list. The download button is easy to locate to the far right of each product on your list, or when you multi-select products you can find the ‘download all’ button at the top of the list.
If you export the data to a spreadsheet, you can compare information in the columns easily, which may be useful if you are deciding which product to go with out of a range of similar ones provided by different suppliers.
There are also a lot of third-party formats you can export your product data to, so that you can easily upload product information to sites such as Amazon or Shopify to expand your business opportunities.
4. Keeping Track of Orders
There’s also an area for keeping track of the details of your orders, including the order status, dates, suppliers, buyers, locations and amounts.
The Best Features
At the time of this article, Doba has partnered with hundreds of suppliers and offers over 2 million products for you to try out for your store. Choose from several categories, including automotive, apparel, books, electronics, and sports.
The most unique parts of Doba involve pricing and the marketplace. It's really easy to find millions of products in the Doba marketplace, some of which ship from the USA so your customers don't have to wait long. In addition, the pricing for many of the products is low enough that you can compete with companies on Amazon and pass along some savings to your customers.
As for the more technical features that come with Doba, here are the tools that I feel stand out the most:
A Direct Integration Into Your Online Store
I'm pretty amazed at how quick and easy it is to search around the Doba marketplace to locate something you want to sell. Once you select a product and decide to move it to your store, there's an option to immediately push the product information to your online store. What's great is that there is already a description, title, pricing, and pictures. Many of these are pulled from the manufacturer (so they aren't the best quality,) but you at least get the product details for rewriting later. I've noticed that most of the items have plenty of pictures, although I would still try to take more real-life photos of the products after setting up a site and choosing my product collection.
Another great part about the direct integration with your store is that you can bulk import and export large product lists. Doba compiles a list of all items you'd like to sell, then eventually you can click on the Export button to bring that product list into your store.
No Need To Store or Ship Your Products
But what happens to all of those products that you import into your online store? How is a sale processed and when should your customers expect to receive their orders?
Yes, Doba integrates with your online store, but it also has the unique advantage of actually storing, packaging, and shipping your products.
This is the beauty of dropshipping. It's a system where the supplier is responsible for all of the production logistics. Your main focus is to run an effective online store and market the products so that both you and the supplier get more sales.
So, with the direct integration to your website and all of the storage, packaging, and shipping being handled by Doba, it makes for a fluid process and leaves you open to expand your store to the best of your ability. We also learned in our Doba review that the company does a wonderful job of keeping costs as close as possible to wholesale pricing. This is usually not the case when it comes to dropshipping companies.
Advanced Searching and Filtering
The advanced searching and filtering comes as a great surprise, since I've tested several dropshipping marketplaces that can be nightmares when it comes to finding your products. Doba has so many products to choose from that it has implemented a fast, beautiful filtering process. For instance, I was able to select sporting goods, go camping, then search for cooking gear. The filtering is similar to Amazon, where they seem to have every product category you could imagine.
Proactive Inventory Alerts
The inventory alerts are set up by you, the store owner, by stating a threshold of when you would like to get an alert when inventory gets too low. So, you might have a pair of socks that runs out frequently. You would tell Doba to alert you when the socks are down to five pairs. Once you get the email, you could remove it from your store so that no one gets mad at you for selling an out of stock product.
Bulk Inventory Exporting
When you start curating a collection of products to sell in your store it becomes obvious that you need a way to organise all of these items. Your inventory is showcased in a nice list that you can rearrange and manage to see things like quantity and in-stock items.
Not only that, but the inventory area of the Doba dashboard has a tool to bulk export all of the products in the list to your online store. There is also the option to send this bulk export list to any marketplace of your choice. Therefore, you might sync all of your products with places like Amazon or Etsy.
Data Reports with Full Customization
All of your sales data is stored on the Doba dashboard, meaning that you as the business owner can always access this information by simply logging online. However, this is a completely different interface than your online platform.
It would be useful to have all of the sales data in a platform like Shopify or Bigcommerce as well. That's why Doba includes a custom data export feature to avoid the hassle of working with spreadsheets and trying to import those spreadsheets into your ecommerce platform.
Here's how it works: you can navigate to your data export page, then select sales information or maybe an inventory feed to export. After that, you choose your online store's ecommerce platform and the proper formatting. The export file is then automatically generated. So, it doesn't matter if you have Volusion, Magento, or Shopify–Doba exports to all of the big dogs. During our Doba review, we realised just how great the system integrates with other platforms.
The Elite Seller Report
The Elite Seller Report is like Doba's newsletter. It has wonderful information about deals, trends, and discounts. There's a curated product list and suggestions for which items to choose to get the most profit. You can even look at supplier scorecards to decide who to work with.
A Scorecard for All Suppliers
If you've ever tried dropshipping through places like AliExpress, you know that finding reputable suppliers isn't exactly the easiest task. Sure, once you find a great supplier on sites like that it becomes much easier. But you often have to guess and check to see which suppliers follow up, deliver on time, and make quality products.
Doba is a whole different story, because each supplier has a report card with detailed performance data from the past. This way, you can make a decision based on what research Doba has already done for you. Think of Doba as your personal gatekeeper who makes sure that you don't get stuck with a supplier that flakes out.
When you look at the performance data from a supplier you can check everything from fulfilment rates to processing times and return policies to shipping carrier options. It truly is one of the most valuable assets for a dropshipping operation.
A Curated List of High-margin Products
Dropshipping is great because you don't have to spend any upfront capital to buy wholesale products–and it's not required for you to spend time or money on packaging and shipping.
That being said, there are still so many products to choose from. You need to find products that fit your brand image, and it's important to find items that are high quality and will yield you a profit.
You could complete this research yourself, but Doba makes it so much easier by providing a list of high-margin products for you to sell.
In short, you can contact Doba to have the in-house sourcing experts construct a list just for your company. They then return with the most in-demand, high-margin items in the niche that you sell.
Doba Pricing
In terms of pricing, the benefit of going with Doba is that the individual product pricing gets pretty close to what you would expect from a wholesale purchase. Therefore, you can be competitive with other companies that are also selling similar products. For instance, I started looking for camping gear on Doba and stumbled upon some camping cookware sets. Currently, the pricing from Doba is listed at $10.09 without any shipping costs. Not only that, but it's shipping from the USA and most of these sets sell for $25 to $40 on Amazon.
As you can see, there's an advantage to having a Doba membership. But that's the catch–you have to pay for a monthly subscription. Now, for a thriving business, this isn't going to be a problem at all. $29 per month for access to wholesale-like prices can be made up with a few sales each month. However, some startups might find this expensive.
Anyway, let's take a look at the pricing plans:
Basic – $29 per month gets you a $0.99 per-order fee, access to millions of products in the marketplace, access to hundreds of suppliers, a community Q&A, Doba Deals in a weekly email, live training webinars, and email support.
Advanced – $69 per month for everything in basic, along with eBay data export, an Elite seller report, and live chat support.
Pro – $249 per month for everything in the previous plans, an Amazon data export, batch order upload, custom data export, street price data, and direct phone support.
Enterprise – For this plan, you have to contact Doba for custom rates, but it has some interesting features like the API integration, shared FTP data transfers, a lower per-order fee, unlimited exports, a dedicated client success manager, and merchandising services.
A free 14-day trial is available for you to test out. However, Doba does pull that old move of asking for your credit card to gain access to the free trial. Then it has a disclaimer that says it's mainly to help service customers better–which we all know is nonsense.
Regardless, I've tested out the free trial and you can definitely stop payment before the trial is over. Doba has a Cancellation link right in your Account settings.
Doba Customer Support
The customer support, as outlined in the pricing, depends on the plan you decide to pay for. For instance, one plan gets you email support, while a step up provides live chat support. If you go up even one more plan there's phone support. Finally, the Enterprise plan members gain access to a dedicated client success manager.
Other than that, retailer and partner API documentation is provided for integrating with the system and allowing you to customise the way you sell. The Doba company is located in Utah, and the main support and sales emails are listed on the Doba website.
I also like that Doba provides a beautiful Resources page for users to read whitepapers, infographics, business guides, and much more. It also seems like Doba is active on some social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. So, you might be able to learn some things from those or get in contact with the company through social media.
Who is Doba Best For?
Doba is a powerful tool for dropshippers who want to sell products fast.
If you’re a marketer with lots of experience, but you don’t have much time to build a company online, then Doba products could be right for you. To be successful with Doba, you will need to know the basics about wholesale prices, and how to encourage sales through the right shopping carts.
It’s also important to understand how you’re going to make your business stand out. If you want to sell through big sites like Amazon and eBay, there are a lot of prices out there that might be difficult for you to beat.
If you don’t know how to stand out on Google, and you don’t have a lot of experience with dropshipping, then Doba.com might not be right for you. The membership fees can make it hard to make money with this middleman company if you’re not experienced.
It’s also worth noting that although Doba is excellent for product sourcing, you’ll still need to know how to sell products quickly and effectively. Doba’s strengths are in things like usability, and how easy it is to link to things like PayPal. You also get the benefits of being able to easily export product information and enjoy time-saving integrations with shopping carts.
If you know how to get the best results out of your dropshipping supplier, then Doba is an excellent choice. It has a good rating with the BBB (better business bureau) and it’s not a fake site or scam. You can really find dropship suppliers to help you build your business.
To succeed, you just need to know how to use those dropshipping suppliers to sell items at a higher price. If you know how to make the most of your inventory list, and you can sell through your own website, rather than online marketplaces, then Doba could make you a decent profit. Like most leading tools, such as Salehoo, it’s best to start with a free trial and see how you feel before you do anything.
What are People Saying about Doba?
We had a look at some of the major review sites to see what customers think about Doba. The company has a 2.8 rating on Trustpilot and on the Better Business Bureau they have a 1.18 rating.
After reviewing the customer opinions found on various forums and online communities, we’ve extracted what we believe to be the general opinions held about Doba.
General Opinion #1: Doba prices are too high, which makes it difficult to compete with prices on eBay or Amazon, or to make a profit.
A customer in their Trustpilot review said “Doba is a site with tons of suppliers, so it's the suppliers that are setting the prices for products. The suppliers’ prices are not much better than eBay or Amazon.”
Bernard says in his SiteJabber review, “You will never get out without regretting your money and time. All their items are on sale on eBay or Amazon. You will never sell even 1 item because you can't list it at a competitive price.
“90% of the "wholesale" prices on Doba are exactly the same or higher than the retailing prices on Amazon. The remaining 10% of the products are just slightly lower than the going prices on Amazon. If you consider Amazon's fees including the dropshipping fee on Doba, you'll notice you're losing a lot of money, fast,” Michael said in his Trustpilot review. “Find a real dropship wholesaler with real wholesaling prices.”
Brad said, “Their Wholesale prices are too high, not competitive,” in his SiteJabber review. “Don’t use Doba! SaleHoo might be better.”
Another example is a comment on the Warrior Forum: “I tried Doba last year and there was no margin for profit there.”
Finally, people on Doba's Facebook page have left similar comments:
General Opinion #2: Customer service is lacking.
There were a variety of complaints about Doba’s customer service found on various forums.
Here’s an example, once again on Facebook, where Chantale is complaining on Doba’s company page that she’s had trouble:
People complain on Facebook; it’s unavoidable. Any business will face this occasionally. The concerning thing is that the comment has not been responded to by a Doba representative. That, paired with all the other comments we identified, pieces together a bigger picture.
Update: Further examples of this have since appeared in the comments below this post. For example, this comment from Sharon, “...their customer service is horrible. I was supposed to receive an orientation phone call as part of my account subscription and never did. Then they charged me for a full subscription 1 day before my supposedly 'free' trial was supposed to end. When I contacted them about the early charge, they refused to reverse it and the rep gave me a FAKE email address to get in touch with the management team.”
Alex, in his Trustpilot review said, “I’m extremely displeased with the assistance I couldn't receive from doba.com ! I have been trying to reach them for a week.”
Another disgruntled customer, Bertrand, said, “There is no customer service. Nobody returns your emails or calls,” in his SiteJabber review.
Jannette echoed this in her SiteJabber review, saying, “Have sent emails and live chat messages 15 times, no answer to either one. There is no support or contact phone number listed.”
This is quite disappointing to see, because customer service can be so vital to running a smooth online store and knowing that support is never far away if you run into any issues. You may like to check out what SaleHoo customers have been saying about them.
General Opinion #3: Many have claimed that they’ve been charged during the free trial period, and that it’s extremely difficult to cancel.
Firstly, we have the “do not sign up for their free trial, they will charge your card without telling you before the trial is over” complaint from Jason, on his Trustpilot review.
This was supported by many other customers who have written below about being charged before the trial period was over.
In his SiteJabber review, Betrand said, “I signed up for the free trial for the $29 plan. The next day I could not log in. I tried to change my password over 10 times and did not get the email to reset the password. I emailed them over four times but no response from them. The following month, I got a bill from my credit card company for $69.99 which I did not sign up for.”
Tarziz said, “After the trial you cannot log back in your account to cancel the trials and stop them to reach your credit card” in his Trustpilot review.
Because Doba doesn’t offer any sort of money back guarantee, it may be difficult to recover billing charges that occur.
General Opinion #4: People have commented on problems with listed inventory inaccuracy and order fulfilment
A customer on Trustpilot mentioned that, “A supplier updated their stock of a product at midnight to QTY of 112. I had placed orders for dropships of 60. By the morning at exactly 6am the product was gone with no avail QTY. I took a screenshot of this. So the supplier QTY is not truly real-time.”
“I paid for their service by the month, placed 15 orders after selling the products on eBay. These orders were never shipped and resulted in negative feedback from buyers due to their scam site,” Jannette said in her review. “I have lost 3785.26 out of my pocket for orders placed through DOBA that were never shipped.”
Doga said in their SiteJabber review, “I tried ordering this item for days, everytime it said "transaction failed" and cancelled but proceeded to withdraw funds from my bank account anyway! When I asked to get my 400.80$ back because my item was never shipped, they never replied to anything!”
We also found a full length independent review from a customer who has been using Doba for a year to give you an insider view on their experience.
Doba Review: Conclusion
If you're tired of super slow shipping times with dropshipping, Doba might be for you. If you hate the high pricing that often comes with dropshipping, you should seriously consider Doba. It might be a little too expensive for startups, but most of the time you should be able to make up the monthly costs. Overall, the Doba platform has so many products and reasonable prices that it has to be one of, if not the best, dropshipping solution out there.
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itswavelengths · 4 years
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Good Sudoku is a Roguelike
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Along with the rest of the US in the early 2000s, I found myself getting extremely into Sudoku for a short while in middle school. I was never even remotely good, but ripping through the first 10-20 puzzles in a given book or app — generally labelled "Beginner" — made me feel okay about myself. As far as I knew at the time there was an extremely simple ruleset to the game: Place the numbers one through nine in columns, rows, and houses with none of those numbers repeating in any of said columns, rows, and houses. Armed with literally only this information I would often find myself wildly frustrated the moment more intricate solving techniques became necessary to progress. I simply didn’t know such techniques existed as none of the resources I used to play Sudoku had any interest in teaching the skillset required to move past the most basic set of puzzles. And so I'd bounce.
Enter accomplished game designer, artist, and talk-giver Zach Gage, a guy whose new project announcements cause me to drop everything I'm doing to check out immediately. In collaboration with Jack Schlesinger, the two have created what is without question the most streamlined Sudoku experience available for iPhones (and iPads!): Good Sudoku. A lot has been said about what makes the app so special, but to quote the official website:
Good Sudoku turns your iOS device into an AI powered Sudoku genius whose only mission is to help you learn and love this classic game.
This "AI powered Sudoku genius" accomplishes its godquest via a series of tools that not only remove the inherent friction of the game itself, but aim to teach the player high-level techniques used to solve more difficult puzzles further down the line. One such tool is called "Auto Note," which with one tap fills each blank space on the grid with notations indicating every possible answer. Gone is the tedium of starting each puzzle going square by square, using a finicky note-taking tool to get to a point where you can maybe begin to fill some spaces. Auto-note has you covered, my guy. Another tool — “Focus Mode” — allows the player to tap on any of the nine numbers to highlight every spot within the gamespace that number might fit. These two tools in conjunction with one another remove so much of the busywork involved with playing sudoku, I started to question if it should be considered cheating. It's not cheating though, because instead of just straight-up giving you the answers, they allow you to see patterns with more immediacy which means more time spent solving and less time staring blankly into the grid-void.
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Those tools by themselves in conjunction with the app's beautiful aesthetic would have probably been enough to get me on board with Good Sudoku, but where Gage and Schlesinger (a good band name) have really outdone themselves is their incredible Hint system. Throughout your experience, the AI is quietly solving each puzzle in the background based on the answers you've managed to fill in. Every time you enter a new piece of information, the AI updates its path to victory. With the tap of a “Hint” button the player can see what the AI has determined to be the most logical next step in that path based on all of the current variables. In most Sudoku apps, one such button would fill the next answer... and that's it. On to the next one. Good Sudoku changes the game (in every sense) by showing you exactly how the AI was able to find that next piece of information, complete with a helpful tooltip explaining the strategy and walking you through the steps required to get there. By surfacing the processes involved, the app teaches players these techniques through repetition. You might not know what a "Locked Candidate" is now, but you absolutely will after seeing one for the tenth time. Through extended play, the game transforms from an unparsable grid of numbers and blank spaces to an exercise in pattern recognition. As these strategies slowly burn themselves into your head, you become a better Sudoku player. It rules.
After playing daily for about a week after its release, I've noticed Good Sudoku activating the same brain-space as roguelikes in the vein of Spelunky or The Binding of Isaac. These are games meant to be played hundreds of times, and for thousands of hours. After years of playing Spelunky I immediately go into auto-pilot when starting a new run because I've seen so many permutations of the level generation I can't help but feel as though surprise is unlikely. But that comfort with such a hostile environment has come from thousands of runs. I've died in Spelunky more times than I can count, and each death brings with it a small lesson for survival in future attempts. At this point, my head is crammed so full of strategies and techniques and possibilities that I feel more equipped than ever to survive the next run. I mean I probably won't… but it's nice to feel confident sometimes!!
It's in this way Good Sudoku has, oddly enough, turned the base game of Sudoku into something actually resembling a roguelike. Each tap of the Hint button reinforces the toolset I'll need to make it through the next attempt down the line. Sure I'm not getting impaled by spikes, but at least I'll be able to spot a Split Naked Pair or a Hidden Triple or something. What Gage and Schlesinger have accomplished here is extraordinary in its execution mainly due to its subtlety: Although the pitch is "to help you learn and love this classic game," so few apps actually accomplish this in a way that feels so lightweight, you'd be forgiven for not even noticing when you've started to solve Expert puzzles without hints for the first time.
Good Sudoku calls itself a sudoku that loves you, and for once in my life, I agree. It was built to care about me, about my mental load, about my time in a way no virtual agent every possibly could. Good Sudoku has more humanity in it than GPT-3. via @jag_pag
Good Sudoku is free, with a $4 in-app-purchase. I don't actually know what happens when you pay the four bucks because I did it immediately. Support cool stuff if you can!
You should download it, and probably everything else Zach has made. Alright ttyl!
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daastane-musafir · 1 year
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Are Travel Packing Cubes Worth It?
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Are Travel Packing Cubes Worth It?
Yes, travel packing cubes can be worth it for many people. These are small, lightweight containers designed to help travelers organize and compress their belongings while packing. Here are some reasons why you might want to consider using packing cubes:
Organized Packing: Packing cubes help you keep your belongings organized by separating them into different compartments, making it easier to find what you need without rummaging through your entire suitcase.
Space-saving: Packing cubes can help you compress your clothing and other items, which can save space in your suitcase and allow you to pack more efficiently.
Easy to use: Packing cubes are easy to use and can make packing and unpacking a breeze. You can simply take out the cubes you need and put them back in when you're done.
Durability: Many packing cubes are made from durable materials that can withstand the wear and tear of travel.
Versatility: Packing cubes can be used for more than just travel. They can also be used to organize your closet or drawers at home.
While travel packing cubes may not be necessary for everyone, they can certainly be helpful for those who want to stay organized and make packing and unpacking easier.
Do packing cubes really make a difference?
Yes, packing cubes can make a significant difference when it comes to organizing and streamlining your packing process. Here are some ways packing cubes can make a difference:
Maximize Luggage Space: Packing cubes are designed to fit snugly inside your luggage, making it easier to maximize the available space. By compressing your clothes and other items into the cubes, you can create more room in your suitcase or backpack.
Organize Your Belongings: Packing cubes allow you to organize your belongings by category, making it easier to find what you need without having to unpack everything. For example, you could use one cube for clothes, another for toiletries, and another for electronics.
Simplify Packing and Unpacking: When you use packing cubes, you can simply pull out the cube you need rather than digging through your entire suitcase. This can save you time and effort when packing and unpacking.
Protect Your Items: Packing cubes can also help protect your belongings from damage during transit. By keeping items in separate cubes, you can prevent them from shifting around and getting crushed or damaged.
Overall, packing cubes can be a useful tool for travelers looking to simplify and streamline their packing process. While they may not be necessary for everyone, they can make a significant difference in the organization and efficiency of your travels.
Is it better to roll clothes or use packing cubes?
Both rolling clothes and using packing cubes can be effective ways to pack for a trip, and which one you choose will depend on your personal preferences and needs.
Rolling clothes can be a great way to maximize space in your luggage while also minimizing wrinkles. By tightly rolling your clothes, you can create more space and also prevent creases and wrinkles that can occur when folding.
On the other hand, packing cubes can help you stay organized and make it easier to find what you need without unpacking your entire suitcase. Packing cubes come in different sizes and can be used to separate your belongings by category, such as clothes, toiletries, and electronics.
Ultimately, the decision of whether to roll clothes or use packing cubes may come down to personal preference, the type of trip you're taking, and the items you're packing. Some travelers may choose to use both methods, rolling some items and using packing cubes for others. It's important to experiment and find what works best for you and your specific travel needs.
Should I use packing cubes in my backpack?
Yes, using packing cubes in your backpack can be a great way to stay organized and make the most of the available space. Here are some reasons why you might want to consider using packing cubes in your backpack:
Stay Organized: Packing cubes can help you keep your belongings organized and easy to access. You can use different cubes for different categories of items, such as clothes, toiletries, and electronics.
Maximize Space: By compressing your clothes and other items into packing cubes, you can make the most of the available space in your backpack. This can help you fit more items into your backpack and also prevent your belongings from shifting around during transit.
Streamline Packing and Unpacking: When you use packing cubes, you can simply pull out the cube you need rather than digging through your entire backpack. This can save you time and effort when packing and unpacking.
Protect Your Items: Packing cubes can also help protect your belongings from damage during transit. By keeping items in separate cubes, you can prevent them from getting crushed or damaged.
Overall, using packing cubes in your backpack can be a great way to stay organized, make the most of your available space, and simplify your packing and unpacking process.
Do packing cubes prevent wrinkles?
Packing cubes may help prevent wrinkles in your clothes, but they are not a foolproof solution. Here's why:
When you pack your clothes in packing cubes, you are compressing them tightly to save space. This can help prevent some wrinkles, but it's not a guarantee. Some fabrics are more prone to wrinkling than others, so even if you pack them in a cube, they may still wrinkle.
However, there are some ways to use packing cubes to help prevent wrinkles in your clothes:
Fold Clothes Neatly: Before packing your clothes into a cube, take the time to fold them neatly. This will help prevent deep creases and wrinkles from forming.
Pack Delicate Items Separately: If you have delicate fabrics that are prone to wrinkling, consider packing them separately in their own cube or bag. This will help protect them from being compressed by other items in your luggage.
Choose the Right Fabric: If you're concerned about wrinkles, choose fabrics that are less likely to wrinkle, such as wool, polyester, or synthetic blends.
In summary, while packing cubes can help prevent some wrinkles in your clothes, they are not a foolproof solution. By taking the time to fold your clothes neatly and choosing the right fabrics, you can further reduce the risk of wrinkles in your packed clothes.
What can I use instead of travel cubes?
If you don't have access to packing cubes or don't want to use them, there are other ways to organize your luggage and make the most of the available space. Here are some alternatives to packing cubes:
Plastic Bags: You can use plastic bags, such as Ziploc bags or garbage bags, to organize your clothes and other items. They are cheap, lightweight, and can help keep your belongings separate and organized.
Packing Folders: Packing folders are similar to packing cubes but are designed to hold folded clothes rather than rolled clothes. They can help prevent wrinkles and keep your clothes organized.
Compression Bags: Compression bags are designed to help you save space in your luggage by compressing your clothes and other items. They work by allowing you to remove excess air from the bag, which can reduce the overall size of the item.
Packing Lists: Instead of physically organizing your items, you can use a packing list to keep track of what you need to pack and ensure that you don't forget anything.
DIY Packing Cubes: If you're feeling crafty, you can create your own packing cubes using fabric and a sewing machine. There are many tutorials online that can guide you through the process.
In summary, while packing cubes can be a great way to organize your luggage, there are many alternatives you can use to achieve a similar result. The key is to find what works best for you and your specific travel needs.
How effective are compression packing cubes?
Compression packing cubes can be very effective in reducing the size of your packed items, maximizing space in your luggage, and preventing your belongings from shifting around during transit. Here are some of the benefits of compression packing cubes:
Save Space: Compression packing cubes allow you to remove excess air from the cube, compressing your clothes and other items into a smaller space. This can help you fit more items into your luggage and reduce the overall size of your bag.
Prevent Shifting: By compressing your items into a compact cube, you can prevent them from shifting around in your luggage during transit. This can help prevent wrinkles and damage to your belongings.
Stay Organized: Compression packing cubes work in a similar way to regular packing cubes, allowing you to organize your belongings by category, such as clothes, toiletries, and electronics.
Protect Your Items: Compression packing cubes can also help protect your belongings from damage during transit by keeping them compressed and secure.
Overall, compression packing cubes can be a great tool for maximizing space in your luggage, preventing your belongings from shifting, and keeping your items organized and protected. However, it's important to note that compression packing cubes can add some extra weight to your luggage, so you should be mindful of your airline's weight restrictions when using them.
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sk-lumen · 3 years
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Hi dear Lumen,
Do you have any tips on how to study more effectively and/ or memorize better because it would help a lot. Thank you🤍 Have a great day/evening!
Hi darling,
As you may know, I am a maestra at organizing, creating systems, and simplifying things in order to maximize efficiency - and that applies for studying as well. 📚
1. Learn how you learn, in order to learn better!
I often emphasize the importance of self-knowledge and working with instead of against yourself. In this case, that translates as working with your abilities instead of forcing yourself to learn in a dry, outdated, uniform manner that doesn't align with you, just because school, college, or your family says so.
Are you a visual learner (through the eyes)? Then write down your lessons in a concise, aesthetic manner, this will help you memorize easier. Add diagrams, illustrations, or even just sketches related to the lesson, as it further helps with memorizing.
Are you an auditive learner (by listening and speaking)? Then read your lessons out loud. Record yourself if it helps, play it back until you can recite it back. Ask friends to help with rehearsing for extra support.
Are you a haptic learner (by touch and feeling)? - This one's more tricky, but you can employ some activity while studying, such as braiding, tapping your fingers or feet, gesturing, etc.
There are theories of other types of learning, as mentioned here and here. If the above 3 don't apply to you, do a quick research to see what resonates with you more, in order to find a more efficient technique. It can make all the difference in your study routine.
2. Figure out a routine that works for you.
Do you study better in the evening/at night? When it’s quiet and nobody is disturbing you and your schedule is clear? You may be a night owl and it’s your natural circadian rhythm to have higher brain activity and energy towards the evening/night - if so, take advantage of it.
Do you study better in the morning? Because you feel fresh and focused? You’re likely an early bird, so arrange your study schedule to follow this rhythm accordingly, you'll be much more productive.
If you have a chaotic schedule that doesn't allow much flexibility for the above, simply work with your available schedule to the best of your ability. Move household chores and other errands around so that your peak efficiency timeframe can be used for the bulk of your studying.
3. Additional tips:
Do rewards help in completing a task? If yes, try something useful like taking a sip of water after reading 3 paragraphs, or that you can watch your favorite show after finishing studying, or going to the museum, or whatever it is that makes you excited at the moment!
Do you have a short attention span? Don’t worry about it, just divide your studying in brief intervals of 30-60 min, with a small break inbetween to keep your concentration sharp. If you start to get distracted, remember why you’re doing this (your academic goals, whatever they are), and if that doesn’t work, maybe you just need some fresh air or a cup of tea to start fresh.
If you have issues staying on track, you can ask a friend or family member to hold you accountable by checking up on you.
Don’t forget to make studying enjoyable as possible: use colorful stationary, set up a nice desk that fills you with pleasure or excitement when you see it (ie. plants, lighting, pretty decor, books organized in a satisfying way, etc), a fluffy pillow against your back, the list goes on. Get creative! This is your space.
Another way to make studying enjoyable is thinking out of the box. If you prefer a more streamlined, digital system, use an app that makes the process of studying more enjoyable - whether it’s something as basic as the native Notes app on macOS, Word docs, or a professional tool like Ulysses where you can organize everything to your heart’s content.
Visual inspiration and moodboards: you can also browse through Pinterest boards for inspiration or even follow Tumblr studyblr-ers to make studying as a process more aesthetic and appealing. There is a truth that the imagery we expose ourselves to inspires our actions; when you have your dashboard filled with pretty desks and notebooks and tidy handwriting from bookblr and studyblr content, it can boost your motivation. (Just be mindful not to fall into the trap of unhealthy perfectionism, or associating your self-worth with productivity - neither of those things will help you in any way, and will only cause anxiety, low productivity and self-worth issues.)
If you fall off track, don't be hard on yourself. It happens to the best of us. If you really want to finish what you started, just do what you can, take it one step at a time, and remember that you only fail if you stop trying. Give yourself space to do your best (even if that is 5% on some days, it's still good enough), and improve along the way. You can do this! 👏🏻👏🏽👏🏿
Hope this helps. Good luck and have a productive day/evening ahead to all ambitious ladies! 💞 ☕️
-Lumen
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maxismatchccworld · 3 years
Text
Patch Notes
Update 07/20/2021
PC: 1.77.131.1030 / Mac: 1.77.131.1230
Console: Version 1.44
Hello Simmers!
Hope you are well wherever you are in the world and that you are all having a fantastic Summer of Sims! We are excited to share today’s update with you. There is a lot of info, so make sure you have your tea/coffee/beverage of choice ready to read on. You all know I have my coffee ready for this!
As we continue to get ready to explore the countryside charm of Henford-on-Bagley and cannot absolutely wait to play with the adorable animals in Cottage Living, we also have updates and fixes that should improve and complement your Sims’ everyday life. We have something for everyone and we hope that you all enjoy them. Thank you for all your feedback and support.
Cheers!
-SimGuruRusskii ft. SimGuruRomeo and SimGuruJoAnna
What’s New?
Let’s start with some items that we shared in our last Sims 411! For this update, we partnered with two talented artists from the LGBTQ+ community, Ashley Lukashepsky, and Mohammed Iman Fayaz, and they have brought their inspiring and beautiful artwork into the game. We have also included the modernized version of the large afro hairstyle that we showed you. But more than tell you about it in text, let me actually attach a screenshot of everything put together:
Tumblr media
I love everything about this scene, not only it shows you how the artwork looks in a real game setting, but the whole scene with the two Sims and their surroundings is quite magical. Also, look at that hair! The way the light highlights it, perfection! You may also notice the hair of the Sim on the right, which was also added with this update for everyone. I want to personally thank all Simmers for their feedback and recommendations, as we are continuously working on adding more diverse hairstyles and textures to not only packs, but also to our base game.
Now that we are talking about artwork, the last patch notes I forgot to add the artwork made by the wonderful Jupiter Stevens-Hill. I apologize for that, I totally blanked out. However, I’m happy to see that a lot of you are enjoying it and placing it in your Lots! That makes a very happy Russkii =)
To find Jupiter, Ashley, and Mohammed’s paintings in Build Mode, make sure you take a look at the Paintings and Posters sort and filter by Base Game items. These artists are amazing and we hope you enjoy their creations.
Now, without further ado, let’s get to some new features and improvements that are part of this update!
A little bit of Gallery
When you download a lot made with the bb.moveobjects cheat, the game now notifies you about this so you know to activate the cheat before placing the lot. Builders, this means you won't need to mention it in the lot’s description anymore!
A little for Sims
Trying to find the Sims in the current neighborhood? Select their portraits in the Relationship Panel.
"Focus the Camera" moves the camera to the Sim.
"Lock the Camera" moves the camera to the Sim and keeps following them.
Where did the Notebook go?
Found it! The Notebook has moved out of the Phone and into its own button for quicker access.
The "Center on Current Lot" button that used to be there has moved to the top right, adjacent to the Camera Controls.
Water Tool
You now can make natural, organic bodies of water! Just head into Build Mode, make a hole with the Terrain Manipulation tool, and fill it with water. It is that easy! The Terrain Manipulation and Paint Tools also have more brush sizes to enable finer detail.
In adding the Water Tool, we also took the chance to overhaul the related tools and object categories. Why not? Enjoy!
Pond Effects
All sorts of critters are available to complete the look of your pond ranging from ducks and swans to pesky mosquitoes. There is even an alligator!
New Pond Objects
Outdoor Water Décor now has an assortment of new Pond Objects to decorate the perfect pond. Some of these objects such as the Bog Log and Colorful Lily Pads have interactions on them in Live Mode to activate Turtle and Frog effects. The new Fishing Allowed Sign enables you to stock your pond with any fish your Sims have previously caught. Try it out!
New Water Styles
Go beyond the original crystal blue and dreamy magenta water. Additional options range from “Mossy Water” to “Pond Scum” to complete that au natural look.
The Shrubs category includes new plants to complement the water styles: "Green Fern", "Leaning Not-Grass Grass", "Not-Grass Grass Sans Inflorescence."
Gardening with Children
Children now can help out in the garden by planting, watering, and weeding. They build their Mental skill as they garden. The process of purchasing and planting seeds is streamlined as well to make gardening more enjoyable for everyone.
Group Cooking
Cooking no longer is a solo affair. Sims now can cook in groups of up to five Sims including children. Start cooking together by selecting a fridge, stove, or any empty countertop.
Zoomers Food Delivery Service
Are your Sims getting tired of the same old pizza delivery every night? Well, gone are the days of redundant pizza nights. Maybe you are in the mood for pasta primavera or even a fancy steak dinner. All this and more are available courtesy of Zoomer Food Delivery. Order delivery through the phone or the refrigerator and the food will arrive in a jif.
Calendar
The calendar, previously available only with Seasons, now is available with Base Game to see upcoming events such as birthdays, school and work schedules, festivals, and fairs. You even can use it to book events, so it’s time to get to party planning!
Bug Fixes
Consoles
In Snowy Escape, skiing, sledding, and snowboarding on Bunny Slopes now contribute to the Extreme Sports Enthusiast Aspiration.
Also in Snowy Escape, Sims with high enough Skiing and Snowboarding skills now can enjoy the more advanced slopes. Sims also use the Lift to go to the top of the slopes and not go “the hard way.”
Simmers can now rotate Sims downloaded from the Gallery in Create a Sim. Spin them ‘round, ‘round, Simmers ‘round, ‘round -  like a record ‘round, ‘round, ‘round, ‘round.
The Sims 4
We made some improvements that should help our Simulation lag, particularly on the usage of some computer interactions like playing BlicBlock, along with fishing interactions, which should make the game perform a bit better. Note that this doesn’t entirely fix simulation lag but it should help and it is a step in a good direction.
Fixed an issue in which placing Mirrors directly opposite Doors would create a visual glitch in which walls and borders would disappear around them and well it was quite spooky to be honest, glad we solved that one!
Ever wish your food didn’t expire? I know I do, especially when it comes to traveling and coming back to see a fridge in pristine condition, that is a dream… but alas, it is not meant to be in life or in Sims. Fixed an issue in which traveling didn’t let food expire.
Sims stuck sleeping and couldn’t cancel that interaction? Not a product of a sci-fi film as I thought, but I can say that we have fixed this issue, well I hope.
You want to know how to not make my day, have my coffee brew endlessly but without giving me the coffee! Luckily the issue in-game about the Brew Coffee interaction being stuck has been fixed. Wasn’t it odd? Wait… Sleep and Brew Coffee were stuck in a mysterious loop? SUS.
If your Child Sims suddenly interrupted their computer sessions to draw on the activity table when Inspired, worry not, this should not happen after this update.
Fixed an issue that caused the “Items Removed” pop-up to appear when no items were removed from the game.
Fixed an issue in which setting Lots on Slipshod Mesquite would sometimes generate a crash of the game for some Simmers. The Lot couldn’t handle that much flavor.
Some blush and lipstick opacity sliders are back as they were greyed out.
Step-Parent/Child relationships are no longer missing in the Genealogy Panel. Similarly, other cases of broken families in the Genealogy Panel have been fixed as well. It is all about reconnecting or connecting with what is important.
Platforms will no longer raise in height automatically when creating new walls to intersect part of them.
We also fixed an issue in which if you placed platforms in basement levels and a staircase from the floor to the platforms, it would create this gap or hole in front of the stairs and Sims were not able to route correctly. You know, I have played many platformers in my lifetime, but do you imagine Sims trying to jump those gaps? I mean, I am called JumpFail for a reason… glad we fixed this one!
World view Lots that had some off-centered border have been adjusted.
Toddlers will no longer gain negative Sentiments against their parents randomly, especially the Festering Grudge Sentiment. I should not be laughing at this issue as I type it, I should not…<giggles>
We got word that the camera was malfunctioning and bouncing uncontrollably in some Lots across multiple Worlds. We fixed an issue that caused this, but let us know if there are new instances.
Sometimes Ghosts can be part of our Households if we choose to, however, it is really hard to live with Ghosts that constantly break things, it makes it a bit… unlivable. So our expert team of Simghostologists has communicated with these Ghosts in the non-physical realm and they have agreed to not break everything all the time.
Fixed an issue related to flooring glitches while placing the dance floor or crystal clear flooring.
Went through all the trouble in hiring a Nanny only to have your Toddler get sent to Daycare? More than a schedule conflict I imagine having the Nanny show up and there is no Toddler so what does the Nanny do in this case? Do they leave? Do they stay and wait? I must know… However, This should no longer be an issue.
Fixed an issue where using ‘{}’ (curly brackets)  in renaming objects would make these invisible in lists or UI in general.
Fixed an issue in the Likes and Dislikes section in Create a Sim that had some categories displayed incorrectly (either cut off, or words broken apart in new lines incorrectly) for some languages.
There was a clipping issue with the eye preset ymAsian13_Eyes that occurred when Sims were in extreme emotion, like Angry, and blinked. We adjusted this preset so this should not occur.
Toddlers can be picky eaters, but Toddlers not eating any fish recipe? That is suspicious, so we had a chat with the little angels and we have found a way to help them enjoy the complex flavors of our fish recipes.
Our UI team has fixed an issue in which a scrollbar appeared in the Sentiment section in the Relationship Panel when there were no sentiments. The mysterious scrollbar was mysterious. Similarly, they have also fixed an issue in which if multiple Sims gained sentiments together their thought bubbles look quite not right with the incorrect colors, so now they should look proper.
The Likes and Dislikes icon in Create a Sim will no longer overlap its text. It looked weird, honestly.
Droids (if you own Journey to Batuu) and Drones (if you own Get Famous) clipping into all kinds of objects in Build Mode? We saw that too, so there should be a fix for that in this game update. I mean this went beyond just crashing into things…
The option “Join After School Activity” will no longer be available if Simmers don’t have Seasons or Get Famous packs installed.
Sims in deviant paths now can properly reach the Level 4 of the Criminal Career.
Now, this is one that made my day, Cowplants are now able to dance again when Sims play music in front of them. Dance Cowplant, Dance!
Fixed an issue in which relationship points gained by friendly introductions were more than usual if Simmers didn’t have Snowy Escape installed.
We adjusted the color swatches for the S. Cargeaux Counter Island so that when it gets dirty, the counter doesn’t completely change colors. Dirty Counter - who dis?
Fixed an issue where the Scared Emotion UI was displaying a broken pose for Toddlers. The pose was kinda more scary than what the Toddler had been scared of, so glad that is done.
Outfits worn while Purchased and Worn in Festivals/Kiosks/Stalls should no longer remove accessories that were in place for the Sim.
Error code 134:571e5862 that occurred to some Simmers should be fixed now.
We fixed a few hairstyles (yfHair_EP05WavyBob, yfHair_EP01PartedFlat, yfHair_EP05UnderCutDreads, yfHair_EP01ShortSwept, and yfHair_DreamyCrew) that when used with the recently added color options would create splotches in the eyes, change the color of teeth, and/or change the eyelashes color.
As always the Localization team and this author have fixed and improved text across all packs and updates.
Get to Work
Aliens can now enjoy their custom Blush options in Create a Sim. Lewks out of this world!
Retail employees will now appropriately change into their assigned outfits. Listen, I grew up wearing uniforms for school, I get it, sometimes they are not the prettiest… but you have to wear them if you have to go to that establishment. I know the pain too well… but my sense of style grew from that… I think.
We made a fix to some of the swatches from the Barely Better Digital Camera that were missing a description for the item, so now all the swatches will display the text in all its glory.
Get Together
Some of these Sims are not like the others, some of these Sims just don’t belong. Can you tell which are not like the others by the time I finish writing these notes?
Fixed an issue in which some of the rooftops in Winderburg were not displaying Snow (if you own Seasons) correctly.
Fixed an issue where Sims didn’t sometimes change into their Club outfits when a Club Gathering was being held.
City Living
The Scattered Panes window in Build Mode now displays appropriate shadows in all options.
Sims enrolled in the Social Media career will now gain influence at the end of their stream instead of every few Sim-minutes.
Two hairstyles (ymHair_EP03BunHighPins and ymHair_EP03BraidedFlateBun) have been updated to reflect the correct look when choosing the Neutral Black color option.
Your Sims want to shoot some Basketball Close Shots, but they are trying to eat first? Well, now your Sims can finish eating before trying those hoops. Nutrition is important!
Cats and Dogs
We fixed an issue in which whiskers were not being seen applied to Cats. A Cat without whiskers is like Peanut butter without Jelly… or something like that! Just wrong!
Robot Vacuums should all now return to their docks accordingly. I hope this issue was not a sign that they were becoming sentient.
Sims will no longer get a Moodlet referring to the death of their Pet when witnessing the death of another Sim. The loss of a Sim is heartbreaking, but also getting a Moodlet for the death of their Pet when the Pet has not died, that is cold Grimmy, very cold.
Speaking of Robot Vacuums becoming sentient a few lines above, we fixed an issue that made the game crash when Cats would sit on the Robot Vacuum. CatonRobot.exe is now working.
We fixed an issue in which some Simmers experienced a crash with their last played Household loading into Brindleton Bay.
Seasons
Sims were changing into their cold-weather gear… while not in cold weather? We had some conversations with Sims and even though they love their winter outfits, dressing up in full winter gear in the summer was probably not the wisest choice. So the issue in which Sims randomly would change into their winter outfits while not in winter is solved.
Egg Hunts are adorable and fun! But not being able to have the furniture reset after looking for Eggs in them, can be quite the rain on Sims’ parade. But this should no longer occur.
Island Living
Mermaids will no longer keep the “Dried Scales” Moodlet when they are hydrated. Mermaids’ skincare regimen pays off! Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!
Fixed an issue in which Lots that are placed in the sand looked quite odd displaying all edges of the Lot when it rained.
Sims that have the Collector Aspiration Trait are now able to catch Frogs in Sulani as part of their adventures exploring the island waterfall. Good Luck!
We fixed an issue in which some Simmers experienced game crashes when loading into certain lots in Mua Pe’lam. Happy Exploring!
Discover University
Sims having a hard time in Uni? No matter what they do they keep failing classes? Worry not, Sims will no longer fail classes when meeting all the criteria for course completion. Work hard, pass your classes hard!
Having Roommates can be hard. Have your Sims had Roommates complain constantly and leave even when their needs are met? Yeah, we made it so that Roommates don’t do this any longer.
Fixed an issue in which beds were counted incorrectly when placing an ad for Roommates. I mean, as much as Pets and even Toddlers can live with Roommates, the ad should be truthful to how many beds there are actually in the Lot, not count Toddlers and Pets as needing adult-sized beds.
We fixed Servo animations so that they don’t look like they are walking on one leg when hovering to their destination. Now they will hover properly.
We fixed an issue in which in some instances Professors could not go to work when a Professor NPC is added into that same Household.
Fixed an issue in which removing and adding back Household members as Roommates would create some… inappropriate moments, ahem.
Eco Lifestyle
Evergreen Harbor’s peace has been restored: roads and parts of neighborhoods no longer disappear or turn blue when businesses open in Port Promise while the Modern Development N.A.P is active.
yfBody_EP09DressShirt no longer has a weird texture in some of the footwear from various packs, especially platform shoes and chunky sneakers.
Had you moved to Cypress Terrace in Willow Creek and found you couldn’t really do anything there? We fixed the routing failures and interaction failures on the Mitey-Mitey Home - Insect Farm.
Snowy Escape
Mountain Climbing can be challenging, even for those experienced. But having indecisive moments before a climbing route like getting off and on your bike constantly seems that a lot of doubt is passing your mind… However, we did speak to these Sims that were experiencing this behavior and calmed their fears and doubts, so this should no longer be an issue.
The hairstyle yfHair_EP10BobBluntOmbre now covers all of the Sim’s ears.
For Simmers who own Seasons together with Snowy Escape, rain options no longer affect snow.
Sims no longer have the option to give a respectful or military introduction during activities such as Dancing or Bike Riding. I mean, I’m not sure about you, but I can’t dance and respectfully introduce myself at the same time. So many falls… so many falls.
We made some corrections to the Slippers that came with this pack and they should no longer display a greenish texture on Sims’ toes when selected in Create a Sim. Yikes.
Fixed an issue in which for some Simmers playing with the Yoshida Hall Household would generate a game crash when loading into Mt. Komorebi.
We took a look at our Ramen menu and have updated our cooking menu to label Miso and Egg Ramen as Vegetarian safe options. Buen Provecho!
Want to run a Restaurant in Yukimatsu but also want to enjoy the slopes? Now your Sims can enjoy the slopes and dine in style. However, this action is only directed, and will not be autonomous. In the same vein, Restaurant employees will not be tempted to leave work to enjoy the slopes.
Journey to Batuu
Batuu is an awesome destination for those who want to enjoy something fun and different, but if you bought a Droid from the Droid Depot and never saw it in your inventory, I know how frustrating it can be. Never fear, the Droids you were looking for will appear now in Inventories when purchased.
In Journey to Batuu, the First Order ID no longer disappears from inventory so Sims now can Access First Order Plans for the Top Notch Trickery Mission.
Fixed an issue with the Leveling the Playing Field Mission in which the Scoundrel Informant would not appear on the scene after Sims stole the Prototype Blaster and went to Oga’s Cantina to wait for the informant.
Dine Out
Eggs and Toast sound super basic and easy right? They will continue to be that way for our unassuming Chefs on the Chef Station since we fixed an issue that made them… challenging. Sims can also use the second burner for other recipes without fail or routing out.
StrangerVille
The Decorations and Kid's categories in Build Mode should no longer have a "New" highlight when there's nothing actually new.
Dream Home Decorator
Lighting can change the ambiance of a room, and your mood in a flash. Luckily we have fixed an issue that lighting was not even on sectional sofas to continue to set the right mood for our Sims.
Our stylists fixed the Sleep ‘N’ Study Styled Room to remove the P.R.I.M.A Computer from it as this is not an item that is accessible for everyone, pardon our dust.
Laundry Day
Fixed an issue where an animation clipped when Sims were loading their laundry machines. Because having your clothes go through you is awkward, are Sims made of fabric? I don’t think so.
Bust the Dust
Don’t need Simoleons, don’t need Fame. Don’t need dinner to have this date. It’s strong and it’s sudden and it’s cruel sometimes but it might just end your night… the power of Dust, that’s the power of Dust.
Our cleaning agents have determined that Sims won’t get romantic negative Moodlets related to filthy levels of dust in public places like parks.
179 notes · View notes
thesims4blogger · 3 years
Text
The Sims 4: New Game Patch (July 20th, 2021)
There’s a new Sims 4 update available for PC/Mac and Consoles. If you have auto updates enabled in Origin’s “Application Settings”, the game will auto-update once you open Origin. If you have auto-updates disabled, you will need to manually update by clicking the game in your library.
Your game should now read: PC: 1.77.131.1030 / Mac: 1.77.131.1230 / Console: Version 1.44
Remove all MODS and Custom Content before updating your game
Hello Simmers!
Hope you are well wherever you are in the world and that you are all having a fantastic Summer of Sims! We are excited to share today’s update with you. There is a lot of info, so make sure you have your tea/coffee/beverage of choice ready to read on. You all know I have my coffee ready for this!
As we continue to get ready to explore the countryside charm of Henford-on-Bagley and cannot absolutely wait to play with the adorable animals in Cottage Living, we also have updates and fixes that should improve and complement your Sims’ everyday life. We have something for everyone and we hope that you all enjoy them. Thank you for all your feedback and support.
Cheers!
-SimGuruRusskii ft. SimGuruRomeo and SimGuruJoAnna
What’s New?
Let’s start with some items that we shared in our last Sims 411!
For this update, we partnered with two talented artists from the LGBTQ+ community, Ashley Lukashepsky, and Mohammed Iman Fayaz, and they have brought their inspiring and beautiful artwork into the game. We have also included the modernized version of the large afro hairstyle that we showed you. But more than tell you about it in text, let me actually attach a screenshot of everything put together:
I love everything about this scene, not only it shows you how the artwork looks in a real game setting, but the whole scene with the two Sims and their surroundings is quite magical. Also, look at that hair! The way the light highlights it, perfection! You may also notice the hair of the Sim on the right, which was also added with this update for everyone. I want to personally thank all Simmers for their feedback and recommendations, as we are continuously working on adding more diverse hairstyles and textures to not only packs, but also to our base game.
Now that we are talking about artwork, the last patch notes I forgot to add the artwork made by the wonderful Jupiter Stevens-Hill. I apologize for that, I totally blanked out. However, I’m happy to see that a lot of you are enjoying it and placing it in your Lots! That makes a very happy Russkii =)
To find Jupiter, Ashley, and Mohammed’s paintings in Build Mode, make sure you take a look at the Paintings and Posters sort and filter by Base Game items. These artists are amazing and we hope you enjoy their creations.
Now, without further ado, let’s get to some new features and improvements that are part of this update!
A little bit of Gallery
When you download a lot made with the bb.moveobjects cheat, the game now notifies you about this so you know to activate the cheat before placing the lot. Builders, this means you won’t need to mention it in the lot’s description anymore!
A little for Sims
Trying to find the Sims in the current neighborhood? Select their portraits in the Relationship Panel.
“Focus the Camera” moves the camera to the Sim.
“Lock the Camera” moves the camera to the Sim and keeps following them.
Where did the Notebook go?
Found it! The Notebook has moved out of the Phone and into its own button for quicker access.
The “Center on Current Lot” button that used to be there has moved to the top right, adjacent to the Camera Controls.
Water Tool
You now can make natural, organic bodies of water! Just head into Build Mode, make a hole with the Terrain Manipulation tool, and fill it with water. It is that easy! The Terrain Manipulation and Paint Tools also have more brush sizes to enable finer detail.
In adding the Water Tool, we also took the chance to overhaul the related tools and object categories. Why not? Enjoy!
Pond Effects
All sorts of critters are available to complete the look of your pond ranging from ducks and swans to pesky mosquitoes. There is even an alligator!
New Pond Objects
Outdoor Water Décor now has an assortment of new Pond Objects to decorate the perfect pond. Some of these objects such as the Bog Log and Colorful Lily Pads have interactions on them in Live Mode to activate Turtle and Frog effects. The new Fishing Allowed Sign enables you to stock your pond with any fish your Sims have previously caught. Try it out!
New Water Styles
Go beyond the original crystal blue and dreamy magenta water. Additional options range from “Mossy Water” to “Pond Scum” to complete that au natural look.
The Shrubs category includes new plants to complement the water styles: “Green Fern”, “Leaning Not-Grass Grass”, “Not-Grass Grass Sans Inflorescence.”
Gardening with Children
Children now can help out in the garden by planting, watering, and weeding. They build their Mental skill as they garden. The process of purchasing and planting seeds is streamlined as well to make gardening more enjoyable for everyone.
Group Cooking
Cooking no longer is a solo affair. Sims now can cook in groups of up to five Sims including children. Start cooking together by selecting a fridge, stove, or any empty countertop.
Zoomers Food Delivery Service
Are your Sims getting tired of the same old pizza delivery every night? Well, gone are the days of redundant pizza nights. Maybe you are in the mood for pasta primavera or even a fancy steak dinner. All this and more are available courtesy of Zoomer Food Delivery. Order delivery through the phone or the refrigerator and the food will arrive in a jif.
Calendar
The calendar, previously available only with Seasons, now is available with Base Game to see upcoming events such as birthdays, school and work schedules, festivals, and fairs. You even can use it to book events, so it’s time to get to party planning!
Bug FixesConsoles
In Snowy Escape, skiing, sledding, and snowboarding on Bunny Slopes now contribute to the Extreme Sports Enthusiast Aspiration.
Also in Snowy Escape, Sims with high enough Skiing and Snowboarding skills now can enjoy the more advanced slopes. Sims also use the Lift to go to the top of the slopes and not go “the hard way.”
Simmers can now rotate Sims downloaded from the Gallery in Create a Sim. Spin them ‘round, ‘round, Simmers ‘round, ‘round –  like a record ‘round, ‘round, ‘round, ‘round.
The Sims 4
We made some improvements that should help our Simulation lag, particularly on the usage of some computer interactions like playing BlicBlock, along with fishing interactions, which should make the game perform a bit better. Note that this doesn’t entirely fix simulation lag but it should help and it is a step in a good direction.
Fixed an issue in which placing Mirrors directly opposite Doors would create a visual glitch in which walls and borders would disappear around them and well it was quite spooky to be honest, glad we solved that one!
Ever wish your food didn’t expire? I know I do, especially when it comes to traveling and coming back to see a fridge in pristine condition, that is a dream… but alas, it is not meant to be in life or in Sims. Fixed an issue in which traveling didn’t let food expire.
Sims stuck sleeping and couldn’t cancel that interaction? Not a product of a sci-fi film as I thought, but I can say that we have fixed this issue, well I hope.
You want to know how to not make my day, have my coffee brew endlessly but without giving me the coffee! Luckily the issue in-game about the Brew Coffee interaction being stuck has been fixed. Wasn’t it odd? Wait… Sleep and Brew Coffee were stuck in a mysterious loop? SUS.
If your Child Sims suddenly interrupted their computer sessions to draw on the activity table when Inspired, worry not, this should not happen after this update.
Fixed an issue that caused the “Items Removed” pop-up to appear when no items were removed from the game.
Fixed an issue in which setting Lots on Slipshod Mesquite would sometimes generate a crash of the game for some Simmers. The Lot couldn’t handle that much flavor.
Some blush and lipstick opacity sliders are back as they were greyed out.
Step-Parent/Child relationships are no longer missing in the Genealogy Panel. Similarly, other cases of broken families in the Genealogy Panel have been fixed as well. It is all about reconnecting or connecting with what is important.
Platforms will no longer raise in height automatically when creating new walls to intersect part of them.
We also fixed an issue in which if you placed platforms in basement levels and a staircase from the floor to the platforms, it would create this gap or hole in front of the stairs and Sims were not able to route correctly. You know, I have played many platformers in my lifetime, but do you imagine Sims trying to jump those gaps? I mean, I am called JumpFail for a reason… glad we fixed this one!
World view Lots that had some off-centered border have been adjusted.
Toddlers will no longer gain negative Sentiments against their parents randomly, especially the Festering Grudge Sentiment. I should not be laughing at this issue as I type it, I should not…<giggles>
We got word that the camera was malfunctioning and bouncing uncontrollably in some Lots across multiple Worlds. We fixed an issue that caused this, but let us know if there are new instances.
Sometimes Ghosts can be part of our Households if we choose to, however, it is really hard to live with Ghosts that constantly break things, it makes it a bit… unlivable. So our expert team of Simghostologists has communicated with these Ghosts in the non-physical realm and they have agreed to not break everything all the time.
Fixed an issue related to flooring glitches while placing the dance floor or crystal clear flooring.
Went through all the trouble in hiring a Nanny only to have your Toddler get sent to Daycare? More than a schedule conflict I imagine having the Nanny show up and there is no Toddler so what does the Nanny do in this case? Do they leave? Do they stay and wait? I must know… However, This should no longer be an issue.
Fixed an issue where using ‘{}’ (curly brackets)  in renaming objects would make these invisible in lists or UI in general.
Fixed an issue in the Likes and Dislikes section in Create a Sim that had some categories displayed incorrectly (either cut off, or words broken apart in new lines incorrectly) for some languages.
There was a clipping issue with the eye preset ymAsian13_Eyes that occurred when Sims were in extreme emotion, like Angry, and blinked. We adjusted this preset so this should not occur.
Toddlers can be picky eaters, but Toddlers not eating any fish recipe? That is suspicious, so we had a chat with the little angels and we have found a way to help them enjoy the complex flavors of our fish recipes.
Our UI team has fixed an issue in which a scrollbar appeared in the Sentiment section in the Relationship Panel when there were no sentiments. The mysterious scrollbar was mysterious. Similarly, they have also fixed an issue in which if multiple Sims gained sentiments together their thought bubbles look quite not right with the incorrect colors, so now they should look proper.
The Likes and Dislikes icon in Create a Sim will no longer overlap its text. It looked weird, honestly.
Droids (if you own Journey to Batuu) and Drones (if you own Get Famous) clipping into all kinds of objects in Build Mode? We saw that too, so there should be a fix for that in this game update. I mean this went beyond just crashing into things…
The option “Join After School Activity” will no longer be available if Simmers don’t have Seasons or Get Famous packs installed.
Sims in deviant paths now can properly reach the Level 4 of the Criminal Career.
Now, this is one that made my day, Cowplants are now able to dance again when Sims play music in front of them. Dance Cowplant, Dance!
Fixed an issue in which relationship points gained by friendly introductions were more than usual if Simmers didn’t have Snowy Escape installed.
We adjusted the color swatches for the S. Cargeaux Counter Island so that when it gets dirty, the counter doesn’t completely change colors. Dirty Counter – who dis?
Fixed an issue where the Scared Emotion UI was displaying a broken pose for Toddlers. The pose was kinda more scary than what the Toddler had been scared of, so glad that is done.
Outfits worn while Purchased and Worn in Festivals/Kiosks/Stalls should no longer remove accessories that were in place for the Sim.
Error code 134:571e5862 that occurred to some Simmers should be fixed now.
We fixed a few hairstyles (yfHair_EP05WavyBob, yfHair_EP01PartedFlat, yfHair_EP05UnderCutDreads, yfHair_EP01ShortSwept, and yfHair_DreamyCrew) that when used with the recently added color options would create splotches in the eyes, change the color of teeth, and/or change the eyelashes color.
As always the Localization team and this author have fixed and improved text across all packs and updates.
Get to Work
Aliens can now enjoy their custom Blush options in Create a Sim. Lewks out of this world!
Retail employees will now appropriately change into their assigned outfits. Listen, I grew up wearing uniforms for school, I get it, sometimes they are not the prettiest… but you have to wear them if you have to go to that establishment. I know the pain too well… but my sense of style grew from that… I think.
We made a fix to some of the swatches from the Barely Better Digital Camera that were missing a description for the item, so now all the swatches will display the text in all its glory.
Get Together
Some of these Sims are not like the others, some of these Sims just don’t belong. Can you tell which are not like the others by the time I finish writing these notes?
Fixed an issue in which some of the rooftops in Winderburg were not displaying Snow (if you own Seasons) correctly.
Fixed an issue where Sims didn’t sometimes change into their Club outfits when a Club Gathering was being held.
City Living
The Scattered Panes window in Build Mode now displays appropriate shadows in all options.
Sims enrolled in the Social Media career will now gain influence at the end of their stream instead of every few Sim-minutes.
Two hairstyles (ymHair_EP03BunHighPins and ymHair_EP03BraidedFlateBun) have been updated to reflect the correct look when choosing the Neutral Black color option.
Your Sims want to shoot some Basketball Close Shots, but they are trying to eat first? Well, now your Sims can finish eating before trying those hoops. Nutrition is important!
Cats and Dogs
We fixed an issue in which whiskers were not being seen applied to Cats. A Cat without whiskers is like Peanut butter without Jelly… or something like that! Just wrong!
Robot Vacuums should all now return to their docks accordingly. I hope this issue was not a sign that they were becoming sentient.
Sims will no longer get a Moodlet referring to the death of their Pet when witnessing the death of another Sim. The loss of a Sim is heartbreaking, but also getting a Moodlet for the death of their Pet when the Pet has not died, that is cold Grimmy, very cold.
Speaking of Robot Vacuums becoming sentient a few lines above, we fixed an issue that made the game crash when Cats would sit on the Robot Vacuum. CatonRobot.exe is now working.
We fixed an issue in which some Simmers experienced a crash with their last played Household loading into Brindleton Bay.
Seasons
Sims were changing into their cold-weather gear… while not in cold weather? We had some conversations with Sims and even though they love their winter outfits, dressing up in full winter gear in the summer was probably not the wisest choice. So the issue in which Sims randomly would change into their winter outfits while not in winter is solved.
Egg Hunts are adorable and fun! But not being able to have the furniture reset after looking for Eggs in them, can be quite the rain on Sims’ parade. But this should no longer occur.
Island Living
Mermaids will no longer keep the “Dried Scales” Moodlet when they are hydrated. Mermaids’ skincare regimen pays off! Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize!
Fixed an issue in which Lots that are placed in the sand looked quite odd displaying all edges of the Lot when it rained.
Sims that have the Collector Aspiration Trait are now able to catch Frogs in Sulani as part of their adventures exploring the island waterfall. Good Luck!
We fixed an issue in which some Simmers experienced game crashes when loading into certain lots in Mua Pe’lam. Happy Exploring!
Discover University
Sims having a hard time in Uni? No matter what they do they keep failing classes? Worry not, Sims will no longer fail classes when meeting all the criteria for course completion. Work hard, pass your classes hard!
Having Roommates can be hard. Have your Sims had Roommates complain constantly and leave even when their needs are met? Yeah, we made it so that Roommates don’t do this any longer.
Fixed an issue in which beds were counted incorrectly when placing an ad for Roommates. I mean, as much as Pets and even Toddlers can live with Roommates, the ad should be truthful to how many beds there are actually in the Lot, not count Toddlers and Pets as needing adult-sized beds.
We fixed Servo animations so that they don’t look like they are walking on one leg when hovering to their destination. Now they will hover properly.
We fixed an issue in which in some instances Professors could not go to work when a Professor NPC is added into that same Household.
Fixed an issue in which removing and adding back Household members as Roommates would create some… inappropriate moments, ahem.
Eco Lifestyle
Evergreen Harbor’s peace has been restored: roads and parts of neighborhoods no longer disappear or turn blue when businesses open in Port Promise while the Modern Development N.A.P is active.
yfBody_EP09DressShirt no longer has a weird texture in some of the footwear from various packs, especially platform shoes and chunky sneakers.
Had you moved to Cypress Terrace in Willow Creek and found you couldn’t really do anything there? We fixed the routing failures and interaction failures on the Mitey-Mitey Home – Insect Farm.
Snowy Escape
Mountain Climbing can be challenging, even for those experienced. But having indecisive moments before a climbing route like getting off and on your bike constantly seems that a lot of doubt is passing your mind… However, we did speak to these Sims that were experiencing this behavior and calmed their fears and doubts, so this should no longer be an issue.
The hairstyle yfHair_EP10BobBluntOmbre now covers all of the Sim’s ears.
For Simmers who own Seasons together with Snowy Escape, rain options no longer affect snow.
Sims no longer have the option to give a respectful or military introduction during activities such as Dancing or Bike Riding. I mean, I’m not sure about you, but I can’t dance and respectfully introduce myself at the same time. So many falls… so many falls.
We made some corrections to the Slippers that came with this pack and they should no longer display a greenish texture on Sims’ toes when selected in Create a Sim. Yikes.
Fixed an issue in which for some Simmers playing with the Yoshida Hall Household would generate a game crash when loading into Mt. Komorebi.
We took a look at our Ramen menu and have updated our cooking menu to label Miso and Egg Ramen as Vegetarian safe options. Buen Provecho!
Want to run a Restaurant in Yukimatsu but also want to enjoy the slopes? Now your Sims can enjoy the slopes and dine in style. However, this action is only directed, and will not be autonomous. In the same vein, Restaurant employees will not be tempted to leave work to enjoy the slopes.
Journey to Batuu
Batuu is an awesome destination for those who want to enjoy something fun and different, but if you bought a Droid from the Droid Depot and never saw it in your inventory, I know how frustrating it can be. Never fear, the Droids you were looking for will appear now in Inventories when purchased.
In Journey to Batuu, the First Order ID no longer disappears from inventory so Sims now can Access First Order Plans for the Top Notch Trickery Mission.
Fixed an issue with the Leveling the Playing Field Mission in which the Scoundrel Informant would not appear on the scene after Sims stole the Prototype Blaster and went to Oga’s Cantina to wait for the informant.
Dine Out
Eggs and Toast sound super basic and easy right? They will continue to be that way for our unassuming Chefs on the Chef Station since we fixed an issue that made them… challenging. Sims can also use the second burner for other recipes without fail or routing out.
StrangerVille
The Decorations and Kid’s categories in Build Mode should no longer have a “New” highlight when there’s nothing actually new.
Dream Home Decorator
Lighting can change the ambiance of a room, and your mood in a flash. Luckily we have fixed an issue that lighting was not even on sectional sofas to continue to set the right mood for our Sims.
Our stylists fixed the Sleep ‘N’ Study Styled Room to remove the P.R.I.M.A Computer from it as this is not an item that is accessible for everyone, pardon our dust.
Laundry Day
Fixed an issue where an animation clipped when Sims were loading their laundry machines. Because having your clothes go through you is awkward, are Sims made of fabric? I don’t think so.
Bust the Dust
Don’t need Simoleons, don’t need Fame. Don’t need dinner to have this date. It’s strong and it’s sudden and it’s cruel sometimes but it might just end your night… the power of Dust, that’s the power of Dust.
Our cleaning agents have determined that Sims won’t get romantic negative Moodlets related to filthy levels of dust in public places like parks.
65 notes · View notes
recentanimenews · 3 years
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INTERVIEW: After 13 Years, Indie RPG Masterpiece Ruina is Finally Available in English
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All screenshots of Ruina: Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins taken by author
  This article was made possible through the invaluable contributions of translators Dink and bool, and further aided by context generously provided by writer, translator, and RPG Maker scene dweller Kastel (@kastelwrites). Sections from their answers were excerpted for this piece and edited for clarity and content.
  Last year, at the start of the pandemic, a lapsed member of the RPG Maker community known as Dink stumbled across a screenshot while trawling Japanese free game websites: a black obelisk standing in the midst of ruins. “This is going to make me sound like I've been huffing paint, but this image spoke to something quite visceral for me — like I'd been waiting to find this game. Something about the sepia tones, the light and shadows, the elegance of its very archetype. I knew I had to play it.” Dink had stumbled across Ruina: Haitou no Monogatari (Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins), one of the most acclaimed free RPGs ever made in Japan. Released in the antiquated RPG Maker 2000 engine in 2008 by developer Shoukichi Karekusa, it retains a strong cult following and has even been translated into Chinese. Yet unlike its RPG Maker siblings Yume Nikki and Ib, Ruina is practically unknown in English-speaking countries. Dink decided to change that.  “Once I realized that it had yet to be translated into English,” he said, “it was like I’d become possessed.”
  Ruina is unique. A role-playing game that takes direct influence from tabletop games and gamebooks, it boldly defies conventions established by classic console role-playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Rather than controlling the main character across a top-down map, the player slowly uncovers a hand-illustrated map of nodes. Survival in the dungeon requires the use of ropes, pickaxes, and oil for your lantern, resources that are all expendable. Your party members are valuable not only for their combat skills but for their out-of-combat abilities: thieving, sneaking, even swimming. Most of all, Ruina allows for choice and consequence, a phenomenon far more common in western RPGs than Japanese RPGs. Say you stumble across treasure in a dungeon, but are ambushed by thieves who want the treasure for themselves. Do you give the treasure to the thieves? Stand your ground? Or attack the thieves before they can do the same to you? Since your ability to save in the dungeon is heavily rationed, you may find yourself having to choose between restarting a save or living with the messy outcomes of your choices.
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    There’s something to Ruina that grounds it in the Japanese RPG tradition, rather than a straightforward riff on Wizardry or Might & Magic. Those earlier games gave you several choices as to building your party, but little in the way of story or character. Ruina is a far more curated experience. On starting the game, you’re offered four “backgrounds” that align you with certain other characters, just one year before Dragon Age: Origins would pull a similar trick. Rather than being given the full freedom to explore a sprawling world, your options are limited to navigating a single, contained dungeon. The characters available to be recruited into your party have defined personalities and quirks — some are already good friends of yours, others are insufferable, and still others have significant flaws that speak to the kind of person they are versus their gameplay function. These are NPCs out of the Baldur’s Gate school, given the illusion of life, rather than the team of personalized murderers you’d recruit in an Etrian Odyssey game.
  Very little else in the Japanese games scene is like Ruina. You could draw comparisons with games like Unlimited Saga and Scarlet Grace, representing the legacy of controversial SQUARE ENIX auteur Akitoshi Kawazu. You could similarly connect Ruina with Yasumi Matsuda’s experimental Crimson Shroud, which takes influence from tabletop to the point that it has the player rolling dice in-game. But Ruina is more accessible and polished than a Kawazu game, and far more fleshed out than Crimson Shroud. Even Etrian Odyssey, with its comparatively barebones story and characters, doesn’t quite compare. Ruina stands alone in the Japanese free games community, a legendary title that people respect but don’t fully understand how to replicate.
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    A few days ago I reached out to Kastel, an academic, writer, and translator who is very familiar with Japan’s RPG Maker scene, about where Ruina fit in Japan’s wider field of indie games. “I know many people in the furige (free game) scene who love the game to death,” they said. “But they also found it to be a hard sell due to its unique, almost western take on the scene. The fact that the game is even this popular speaks to something.” Despite its crunchy mechanics and niche inspirations, the game is popular enough to have spawned light novels, an honor not unique to it (other RPG Maker games have accomplished the same) but certainly significant. Kastel drew a comparison between Ruina and Darkest Dungeon, another weird and uncompromising game that draws from both Japanese and western RPGs. “Ruina is sorta different from everything, but you also see dungeon crawlers get inspired by it,” they said. “Not all games take direct inspiration, but you can’t help but see a little bit of Ruina here and there.”
  So why did it take so long for anybody to translate Ruina? Dink isn’t the only person to try his hand at translating it into English; just last fall, another forum dweller placed an ad recruiting a translation team to tackle the game. The unfortunate reality is that translating text within the RPG Maker engine into English requires intensive and repetitive labor. “There’ve been tools developed by vgperson [a prominent translator of RPG Maker games] for RPG Maker 2000 and some other machine translation tools for newer games, but they all remain difficult to use for translators,” Kastel says. “The way games are scripted uses events inside the map and developers rarely name them. So not only do you need to edit it via the appropriate RPG Maker engine, but you also need to go through each event contextless unless the creator actually notes things down.” So, the enterprising Ruina translator doesn’t just need to translate all the text in the game into English. It isn’t even a question of whether or not to manually edit the game’s many pictures and custom menus into English by hand. It’s the sheer difficulty of navigating between thousands of (often poorly labeled) events and variables in the RPG Maker engine, ensuring not to introduce any new bugs or errors in the process, while also finding the time to do all of the above.
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    Dink was assisted by a friend of his named bool, who played through the game alongside the translation process and gave invaluable advice and fixes. “Uncovering the mystery in the game's story sort of ran parallel with the translation of the game itself,” bool says. “As the story progressed, the characters would decipher and learn more about the lore of the eponymous ruins within the game, and as the translation progressed, the same held true for us. It really captivated me to be a part of this process, and I started to look forward to each new area that I could explore and each new morsel of the story I could understand.”
  Without bool’s efforts, it might have taken far longer to put together something workable. As it was, it took four exhausting months. “I worked long hours — 12+ hours a day, 6, sometimes 7 days a week on top of my day job — and very rarely used my free time on anything else,” Dink says. “I did manually input the text in RPG Maker 2000, which has raised some eyebrows because there are some very nice tools available for game translation that would have saved me a lot of time. However, a huge advantage of working directly in the editor is being able to see the game more or less as it appears to players. A Notepad file streamlines the basic translation process, but it also heavily obscures context, whereas the editor allows you to see what switches and variables are being used, what music is being played, and sometimes even helpful creator comments, all in the same relative order you'd experience it from within the game.” Dink had one more secret weapon up his sleeve: the experience of working with the RPG Maker engine as an adolescent. RPG Maker has a reputation of being a tool designed to churn out Dragon Quest clones with ease; but nobody knows the intense difficulty of forcing the engine to do something, anything, like a former RPG Maker developer does. 
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    The English version of Ruina, as it currently exists, is a workable but inevitably compromised version of the game. Running the game requires installing the Japanese RTP pack of visual and audio resources for RPG Maker to function, along with the use of the EasyRPG player to provide English-language player name entry. There’s the matter of the custom menus, as well. Several of the menus have been replaced with functional English equivalents, but by Dink's own admission they could use an expert's attention to better compare to the original. Other pictures, such as place name displays, have yet to be replaced by English-language equivalents at all. And the strict character limits of RPG Maker 2000 led to some creative truncating when translating from Japanese to English, especially with item and skill descriptions.
  But the existence of an English-language Ruina, one that renders the whole game playable from beginning to end with a readable script, is a miracle. Speaking for myself, I started the long process of learning Japanese two years ago in part so that I could one day play this game, never expecting there might one day be an alternative. Others in the Japanese RPG Maker scene, knowing the brutal difficulty of translating a game made in the earlier engines, were shocked that a game of Ruina’s complexity and length was successfully translated at all.  Speaking for themselves, Dink and bool insist that their own story doesn’t matter much. What matters is the quality of the original game and the hard work developer Shoukichi Karekusa put into its creation. Anything else is an addendum, another version of the game that — while it cannot ever be the original — might at least make something resembling that original experience accessible to others.
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    Frankly speaking, I think there’s something to that. The “true” version of Ruina will always exist in its original form, released for free by Karekusa in 2008. It stands as the defining work of a creator who sought to create a unique experience combining the appeal of console and tabletop roleplaying games, with no concessions to market sensibilities. A creator who not only released their baby on the internet for free, but insisted that a game like Ruina must always and ever be free. An austere monolith, it stands side by side with Yume Nikki, Ib, and even Cave Story as one of the great works to come out of Japan’s independent scene. Now any English speaker can pick up and play this new version of Ruina, and learn what that monolith is and where it leads to.
  You can download the English translation of Ruina here. For those who want to learn more about the Japanese RPG Maker scene, I recommend checking out Kastel’s page here.
  Are you a Ruina fan? Let us know in the comments! 
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    Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he is not working through exercises in Wanikani, he sporadically contributes with a loose group of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at:@wendeego
  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!
By: Adam Wescott
8 notes · View notes
technonish · 3 years
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High EPC's and Conversions During Testing With a Cold Segment and Limited Organic Traffic
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Kboovo powers affiliates of ALL levels with powerful, reliable marketing software, innovative automation & convenient management tools that help you to start, build & grow your online income…Even if you have ZERO Experience.
Today, more than 80% of all online businesses and 92 % of all online websites incorporate affiliate marketing. Nearly 20% (2 out of 10) of all purchases made online globally comes from affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing will become  a $10 billion industry by the end of 2021 and has grown 52% annually for the past 5 years. Google searches for the term “Affiliate Marketing” is at an all time record high.
The Problem for Beginners: Finding up to date legit training thats goes beyond just basics, Having to buy multiple costly tools to implement the training, Even with todays tech, beginners still face Infrastructure barriers. NONE of those above provide anything close to a total solution and mostly just leave beginners feeling jaded: Affiliate website builders don’t offer a total solution, Affiliate training courses don’t provide it either, Affiliate courses that have some basic tools are far from complete, Affiliate training forums and membership sites definitely don’t  cut it. Many of these lesser options are outdated, not supported and not a product that the creator ever intended on building upon, supporting or growing. With two out of every ten purchases being made through websites monetized with affiliate links now is the most opportune time ever for you to get involved with affiliate marketing. Not only because of those statistics, but because you’ve also found Kboovo.
You can use Kboovo to effortlessly….
Research & find more potentially profitable keywords to tackle
Find and Instantly add more related top selling products
Add more monetization methods like Google AdSense
Monitor social media signals to maximize traffic and exposure
Create other related websites/domains to help boost the project
Create more landing pages and lead funnels
You can see at a glance how your affiliate sites are performing and do all or any of the above from one single place, without opening multiple tabs or tools and without having to toggle back & forth. You can’t get this kind of efficiency with any other affiliate marketing platform.  Kboovo can take a days worth of your efforts and whittle it down to just a couple hours or less. When you’re this efficient, you don’t have to settle with the income from just one website. Get practically everything you do with affiliate marketing done faster, easier and more conveniently without boundaries. You can now manage all your affiliate projects more efficiently than ever before all from one dashboard. Not only will your productivity increase but your earnings will soar, or you can trade all the time you save for a nice relaxing break. Get more done in way less time with innovative automation that will accelerate your business growth and your income. Get It Now.
KBOOVO REVIEW FEATURES
📷
Beginner to Advanced Perpetual Affiliate Marketing Training
Get the Essential Software Thats a MUST for ALL Affiliate Marketers
SEVEN Different Ways to Easily Monetize Your Affiliate Websites
SEO Training From One of Todays Top Search Engine Specialists
Includes the Ranking POWER of SEnuke COMING SOON!
Discover Funnel Marketing with Included Point & Click Funnel Builder
Affiliate Management Features that Help Your Grow Your Business
Free WordPress Hosting for Your Affiliate Website
All Technical Barriers Eliminated Through Marketing Automation
You Get Full Access Nothing Else to Buy or Upgrade to Make it Work
Nothing for You to Download, Install or Update…Ever!
WHAT KBOOVO REVIEW CAN DO FOR YOU
📷
Affiliate & Digital Marketing Training: First ever software assisted training to take you from beginner to advanced along with SEO training from an industry expert. With Kboovo’s Perpetual Training you will always have the latest strategies and methods.  Your training  will never end for as long as your are a member.
Keyword Research Suite Powered by SEMrush: It gives you an entire suite of powerful keyword & niche research tools built right in. You’re no longer stuck having to buy separate outdated sub par research tools, SEMrush provides you with the most reliable search data available  that is both recent and accurate.
Complete Domain & SiteSetup Automation: No more technical barriers to hold you back. With Kboovo’s innovative marketing automation complicated things like domain registration, DNS setup, installing WordPress are done for you in just a few clicks!
Easily Monetize Any WordPress or WooCommerce Theme in Minutes: Kboovo includes SEVEN methods of monetization with more being added all the time..  Easily monetize WordPress or WooCommerce themes with top selling products from: some of the biggest online retailers and affiliate networks.
Create Your Own Funnels with the Point & Click Funnel Builder: Discover how to create profitable marketing funnels with this easy to use point & click funnel builder. Loaded with a variety of customizable templates.  Integrated with all of the most popular payment options.
KBOOVO REVIEW FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
📷
Is Kboovo a Site Builder? Heck No! Automated site builders don’t work, they all know that. Yes, you can get a cookie cutter site in 60 seconds loaded with duplicate content just like everyone else who owns the same product with probably the EXACT same site you got from pushing a button. This isn’t affiliate marketing. Think about it, if any of those were actually effective (and there’s lots of them). It probably would take the net by storm and everyone would be wealthy…sorry, there are no shortcuts. You can streamline and automate the affiliate process to make it as easy and fast as possible, just like they have done with Kboovo, but it can never be fully automated AND still remain effective. Kboovo is an affiliate & digital marketing platform that does everything marketing BUT that. It doesn’t create websites, but it will automatically setup your website infrastructure, things like your domain, cPanel installation or complete WordPress install, including all plugins. In other words, it sets up your website, but it will still need your personal touch to customize logo, colors etc. The new WordPress editor makes basic customizations pretty simple to do and they provide some basic instruction, so they know that you got this. But If you give it an honest try and still can’t really get it, open a helpdesk ticket and they will see if they can help with any basic customizing issues.
Do I Pay Monthly for Kboovo Membership? Yes, It is a paid monthly membership. You get full access to all the tools, training and resources that it provides for one low monthly cost. They get to keep the software running smoothly for you as well as adding more marketing features, ongoing training and just some really cool exclusive stuff. If you were to individually purchase all the training, software, plugins and management tools that Kboovo offers, you would be looking at an upfront cost of more than $794 and a monthly cost of $400. That upfront cost alone would be more than three years of a Kboovo membership. (yearly plan)
Am I Guaranteed to Make Money with Kboovo? No one can guarantee that and If you see a claim like that, leave the page instantly as you are guarantee to LOSE money. Your success will depend on factors that are beyond their control such as time, how much effort you put in, following the instruction exactly as intended, your niche selection etc. lots of things. You must walk before you can run, so don’t expect to see results overnight, that only happens with paid ads and even then, you need to walk first. Your training is provided by a 20 year Super Affiliate & SEO industry expert, you will be learning the same strategies he uses daily.  Although they don’t guarantee anything, there is no reason why you shouldn’t see some type of results.
If you have followed the training as intended and you are still not seeing ANY results. They will look at what you got going on to see if they can help. They may even tell you to scrap the project and start over, it happens, even with them. But if you are really trying and putting in effort, they will do their best to help you out.
Do I need to Buy My Own Hosting? No not right yet. It provides you with top tier WordPress hosting on LiquidWeb lightning-fast servers.  They have been with LiquidWeb for more than two decades…if they weren’t THAT good, they wouldn’t still be with them. It will host your first affiliate website at no cost, on their servers.  Why only one website you ask?  It’s all ANY aspiring affiliate marketer needs to find out if affiliate marketing is right for them or if have only limited resources till they begin to see results. On the other hand, if you have the resources and you are committed to your goal of becoming a successful affiliate marketer then having your own server from the start is a smart business move.  After all, it will be the backbone of your online business now and into the future…well, besides Kboovo.
📷
Do I Have to Host My Sites with Kboovo? No, it makes self-hosting easy. You can add your own server in just a few clicks to host your affiliate websites on and still have complete Kboovo functionality!
1 note · View note
kboovo · 3 years
Text
Kboovo Review – Worth It or a Scam?
KBOOVO REVIEW WHAT IS IT
Kboovo powers affiliates of ALL levels with powerful, reliable marketing software, innovative automation & convenient management tools that help you to start, build & grow your online income…Even if you have ZERO Experience.
(ACT NOW & SAVE) Click Here to Buy Kboovo From The Official Website
Today, more than 80% of all online businesses and 92 % of all online websites incorporate affiliate marketing. Nearly 20% (2 out of 10) of all purchases made online globally comes from affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing will become  a $10 billion industry by the end of 2021 and has grown 52% annually for the past 5 years. Google searches for the term “Affiliate Marketing” is at an all time record high.
The Problem for Beginners: Finding up to date legit training thats goes beyond just basics, Having to buy multiple costly tools to implement the training, Even with todays tech, beginners still face Infrastructure barriers. NONE of those above provide anything close to a total solution and mostly just leave beginners feeling jaded: Affiliate website builders don’t offer a total solution, Affiliate training courses don’t provide it either, Affiliate courses that have some basic tools are far from complete, Affiliate training forums and membership sites definitely don’t  cut it. Many of these lesser options are outdated, not supported and not a product that the creator ever intended on building upon, supporting or growing. With two out of every ten purchases being made through websites monetized with affiliate links now is the most opportune time ever for you to get involved with affiliate marketing. Not only because of those statistics, but because you’ve also found Kboovo.
You can use Kboovo to effortlessly….
Research & find more potentially profitable keywords to tackle
Find and Instantly add more related top selling products
Add more monetization methods like Google AdSense
Monitor social media signals to maximize traffic and exposure
Create other related websites/domains to help boost the project
Create more landing pages and lead funnels
(SPECIAL SAVINGS - 50% OFF) Click Here To Order Kboovo at a Discounted Price Today
You can see at a glance how your affiliate sites are performing and do all or any of the above from one single place, without opening multiple tabs or tools and without having to toggle back & forth. You can’t get this kind of efficiency with any other affiliate marketing platform.  Kboovo can take a days worth of your efforts and whittle it down to just a couple hours or less. When you’re this efficient, you don’t have to settle with the income from just one website. Get practically everything you do with affiliate marketing done faster, easier and more conveniently without boundaries. You can now manage all your affiliate projects more efficiently than ever before all from one dashboard. Not only will your productivity increase but your earnings will soar, or you can trade all the time you save for a nice relaxing break. Get more done in way less time with innovative automation that will accelerate your business growth and your income. Get It Now.
KBOOVO REVIEW FEATURES
Beginner to Advanced Perpetual Affiliate Marketing Training
Get the Essential Software Thats a MUST for ALL Affiliate Marketers
SEVEN Different Ways to Easily Monetize Your Affiliate Websites
SEO Training From One of Todays Top Search Engine Specialists
Includes the Ranking POWER of SEnuke COMING SOON!
Discover Funnel Marketing with Included Point & Click Funnel Builder
Affiliate Management Features that Help Your Grow Your Business
Free WordPress Hosting for Your Affiliate Website
All Technical Barriers Eliminated Through Marketing Automation
You Get Full Access Nothing Else to Buy or Upgrade to Make it Work
Nothing for You to Download, Install or Update…Ever!
(SPECIAL PROMO OFFER) Click Here To Buy Kboovo For The Lowest Price Available Online!
WHAT KBOOVO REVIEW CAN DO FOR YOU
Affiliate & Digital Marketing Training: First ever software assisted training to take you from beginner to advanced along with SEO training from an industry expert. With Kboovo’s Perpetual Training you will always have the latest strategies and methods.  Your training  will never end for as long as your are a member.
Keyword Research Suite Powered by SEMrush: It gives you an entire suite of powerful keyword & niche research tools built right in. You’re no longer stuck having to buy separate outdated sub par research tools, SEMrush provides you with the most reliable search data available  that is both recent and accurate.
Complete Domain & SiteSetup Automation: No more technical barriers to hold you back. With Kboovo’s innovative marketing automation complicated things like domain registration, DNS setup, installing WordPress are done for you in just a few clicks!
Easily Monetize Any WordPress or WooCommerce Theme in Minutes: Kboovo includes SEVEN methods of monetization with more being added all the time..  Easily monetize WordPress or WooCommerce themes with top selling products from: some of the biggest online retailers and affiliate networks.
Create Your Own Funnels with the Point & Click Funnel Builder: Discover how to create profitable marketing funnels with this easy to use point & click funnel builder. Loaded with a variety of customizable templates.  Integrated with all of the most popular payment options.
(HUGE SAVINGS TODAY) Click Here to Get Kboovo For The Lowest Price Right Now
KBOOVO REVIEW FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Is Kboovo a Site Builder? Heck No! Automated site builders don’t work, they all know that. Yes, you can get a cookie cutter site in 60 seconds loaded with duplicate content just like everyone else who owns the same product with probably the EXACT same site you got from pushing a button. This isn’t affiliate marketing. Think about it, if any of those were actually effective (and there’s lots of them). It probably would take the net by storm and everyone would be wealthy…sorry, there are no shortcuts. You can streamline and automate the affiliate process to make it as easy and fast as possible, just like they have done with Kboovo, but it can never be fully automated AND still remain effective. Kboovo is an affiliate & digital marketing platform that does everything marketing BUT that. It doesn’t create websites, but it will automatically setup your website infrastructure, things like your domain, cPanel installation or complete WordPress install, including all plugins. In other words, it sets up your website, but it will still need your personal touch to customize logo, colors etc. The new WordPress editor makes basic customizations pretty simple to do and they provide some basic instruction, so they know that you got this. But If you give it an honest try and still can’t really get it, open a helpdesk ticket and they will see if they can help with any basic customizing issues.
Do I Pay Monthly for Kboovo Membership? Yes, It is a paid monthly membership. You get full access to all the tools, training and resources that it provides for one low monthly cost. They get to keep the software running smoothly for you as well as adding more marketing features, ongoing training and just some really cool exclusive stuff. If you were to individually purchase all the training, software, plugins and management tools that Kboovo offers, you would be looking at an upfront cost of more than $794 and a monthly cost of $400. That upfront cost alone would be more than three years of a Kboovo membership. (yearly plan)
Am I Guaranteed to Make Money with Kboovo? No one can guarantee that and If you see a claim like that, leave the page instantly as you are guarantee to LOSE money. Your success will depend on factors that are beyond their control such as time, how much effort you put in, following the instruction exactly as intended, your niche selection etc. lots of things. You must walk before you can run, so don’t expect to see results overnight, that only happens with paid ads and even then, you need to walk first. Your training is provided by a 20 year Super Affiliate & SEO industry expert, you will be learning the same strategies he uses daily.  Although they don’t guarantee anything, there is no reason why you shouldn’t see some type of results.
If you have followed the training as intended and you are still not seeing ANY results. They will look at what you got going on to see if they can help. They may even tell you to scrap the project and start over, it happens, even with them. But if you are really trying and putting in effort, they will do their best to help you out.
Do I need to Buy My Own Hosting? No not right yet. It provides you with top tier WordPress hosting on LiquidWeb lightning-fast servers.  They have been with LiquidWeb for more than two decades…if they weren’t THAT good, they wouldn’t still be with them. It will host your first affiliate website at no cost, on their servers.  Why only one website you ask?  It’s all ANY aspiring affiliate marketer needs to find out if affiliate marketing is right for them or if have only limited resources till they begin to see results. On the other hand, if you have the resources and you are committed to your goal of becoming a successful affiliate marketer then having your own server from the start is a smart business move.  After all, it will be the backbone of your online business now and into the future…well, besides Kboovo.
Do I Have to Host My Sites with Kboovo? No, it makes self-hosting easy. You can add your own server in just a few clicks to host your affiliate websites on and still have complete Kboovo functionality!
1 note · View note
localbizlift · 4 years
Text
The Best CRM Software (In-Depth Review)
Disclosure: This content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of our links that we may earn a commission.
Without customers, your business wouldn’t exist. 
I guess it could… but you wouldn’t last long without a stream of revenue helping you keep the lights on. Because of that, it’s critical to understand how your customers behave and what they want from you. 
Doing so makes their experience better. And helps you generate more money. 
The best CRM software helps streamline, simplify, and improve your business processes to create better experiences for the one thing your business revolves around — your customers. 
But today, your biggest challenge is choosing the right one. 
With countless options to choose from, it’s easy to feel paralyzed. So, to help you out, I reviewed the top CRM software available and put together an extensive list of what to consider before making your final decision. 
The top 5 options for the best CRM software
Hubspot – Best free CRM software
Salesforce – Best CRM software for versatility
Zoho CRM – Best for small to midsize businesses
Freshsales – Best CRM for sales teams
Creatio CRM – Best enterprise-grade CRM solution
How to choose the best CRM software for you
With so many options and types to choose from, finding the best CRM software for your business can feel impossible. 
So, let’s talk about what to consider as you go through the process. 
Business size
The size of your business plays a role in which CRM software is best for you. If you have separate departments for marketing, sales, IT, and customer service, you need more advanced functions than a business with five employees. 
Furthermore, you need to consider who’s going to manage the software. Choosing and paying for software isn’t the same as using it to its full potential. 
You have to set it up and take advantage of its features for the investment to be worth it. 
For small teams, it may be a collaborative effort of everyone pitching in. However, large teams may have dedicated employees to set everything up and maintain the software moving forward. 
The size of your business also plays a role in how much the software is going to cost. The more user seats you need, the more expensive the software. 
So, take this into consideration. 
Your use cases
Before you decide, it’s essential to consider what systems you want to streamline and improve. It may help to think about current inefficiencies and how a CRM can help. 
Typically, CRM software helps with sales, marketing, IT, and customer service. Which of those do you want to improve, and do you have the capacity to set everything up and maintain it?
Furthermore, there are specific CRM solutions for particular industries. And you may benefit from choosing a CRM that offers something specific to your industry. But keep in mind that these may be more expensive. 
Basic CRM features
Most CRMs include a basic set of standard features. And the CRM you choose should include them as well. While the specifics of each feature vary from software to software, there should be a system in place to help you handle things like:
Contact and lead management
Document sharing and storage
Workflow automation
Interaction tracking
Mobile access
Look for these core CRM features before making any final decisions. 
Advanced CRM features
It’s also important to consider the advanced CRM features you need. Oftentimes, these are only available on high-tier plans. So, this plays a role in which pricing plan you choose, and it can significantly impact your budget. 
It may help to outline your current processes. 
This can help identify areas that need improvement and the specific CRM features you need to make it happen. You can then use your list to narrow down your options. 
Third-party integrations
To really streamline and automate your business processes, your CRM tool needs to play well with the tools you’re already using to run your business. Make a list of the tools you use and double-check to make sure your CRM integrates with them. 
Don’t forget to consider your:
Email platforms
Social media tools
Internal communication software
Customer service tools
Calling/video chat software
Shopping cart (for ecommerce)
Contract/proposal software
Connectors (i.e., Zapier)
Analytics tools
Calendar
Once you have your list, you can use it to narrow down your choices to the right CRM software. You can also use it when speaking with a sales team to make sure they offer everything you need. 
The different types of CRM software
There are three different types of CRM software. The most common type is operational. And thankfully, companies are integrating more features from the other types of software into operational CRM systems. 
Doing so helps minimize the need for businesses to have three separate pieces of software. 
Before diving into my top recommendations, let’s talk about these different types and what they mean. 
Operational
Operational CRMs help businesses of all sizes handle business processes and enhance the lead generation systems they have in place. The idea is that streamlining your operational processes helps your business provide better customer experiences. 
There are four types of operational CRMs, including:
Marketing
Sales
Customer Service
IT
These are traditionally what people think of when they hear CRM. So, all of the recommendations on this list fall under this category. 
Analytical
Analytical CRMs help businesses gather, analyze, and leverage data collected from their customers. Essentially, this type of CRM software helps turn large data sets into valuable information you can use to improve the customer experience. 
The recommendations on this list include a few basic analytical features.
But there are certainly more robust CRM tools out there for collecting and analyzing customer data, especially for enterprise businesses with a lot of customer information. 
Collaborative
Collaborative CRMs make it easy for businesses to share everything they learn about their customers using operational and analytical CRM software. 
Essentially, this type of software lets team members quickly pass along lead, contact, and customer information from one department to another. 
Doing so helps track interactions between customers and your business as well as identify your customers’ preferred communication channels. 
Both of those things combined help improve customer experiences. 
Most of the recommendations on this list offer multiple operational CRM solutions that seamlessly integrate, making this type of collaboration easy. 
However, there are better systems out there if you’re looking for something more powerful. 
#1 – Hubspot Review — The best free CRM software
If you’re in the sales or marketing industry, you’ve probably read Hubspot’s blog or taken one of their free certification courses. However, they also offer a robust and free CRM software to streamline your customer relationship management process. 
With Hubspot, you can gain unprecedented insight into how your audience behaves. 
Need to monitor when contacts open your emails so you can optimize your open rates? No problem. Maybe you want to see how a contact behaves on your website. With Hubspot, it’s easy. 
Furthermore, they offer a wide variety of solutions, depending on your role within your company. 
These position-specific solutions include sales, marketing, customer service, operations, and owners. 
The free CRM plan includes a robust set of features, including:
Contact management
Email scheduling
Deal pipelines
Meeting scheduler
1-1 live chat
Contact website activity
Store, track, and manage tasks
Document sharing
VoIP calling
These features are hard to beat on any other free plans on this list. However, Hubspot’s paid plans are well worth their price as well. 
The Starter Plan starts at $40 per month, paid annually. However, if you want to bundle all of Hubspot’s CRM software, you can get starter access to all four for $50 per month if you commit to a 12-month contract. 
So, for $10 extra dollars a month, you also get software specialized for marketing, sales, and customer service.  
However, keep in mind these prices are based on 1,000 contacts. The price increases for every additional 1,000 contacts you have. 
Sign up for a free plan to get started with Hubspot today.
#2 – Salesforce Review — The best CRM software for versatility
Whether you’re a small business owner or a sales, marketing, IT, or customer support team, Salesforce has the perfect CRM solution. Known for its versatility, they offer specialized software that adapts to meet your needs. 
More than 150,000 businesses, including T Mobile, Adidas, and Yeti, rely on Salesforce to help them build strong relationships with their customers. 
They also offer specialized solutions for 14 different industries, including:
Financial services
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Consumer goods
Energy
Communications
Nonprofits
The system is so versatile because you can pick and choose which apps you need to build a complete CRM solution customized to match your business. 
From marketing automation and ecommerce sales to call-center software and self-service portals, Salesforce is dedicated to providing everything you need for unprecedented customer relationships. 
Their business plans include:
Essentials — $25/user per month (basic sales and support)
Sales Professional — $75/user per month (complete sales solution)
Support Professional — $75/user per month (complete service solution)
Pardot Growth — $1,250 per month for up to 10,000 contacts (marketing automation)
However, you can add additional features and applications depending on what you need. They also offer other plans for sales, customer service, commerce, and marketing CRM packages with varying features. 
Start your free trial to take Salesforce for a test drive today.
#3 – Zoho CRM Review — The best for small to midsize businesses
Unlike the other options on this list, Zoho CRM is an all-in-one solution. There aren’t additional modules to look through for different departments or anything like that. This makes it an excellent option for small to midsize businesses.
They also have an extensive network of 40 other business tools. So, if you’re using Zoho software already, integration with Zoho CRM is seamless. 
Plus, they have a worldwide network of over 150,000+ customers (including Netflix and Bose) in 180 countries, so you know you’re in good hands. 
Furthermore, Zoho offers a free forever plan with up to three users. It includes essential features like lead management, document sharing, task management, workflow rules, and a mobile application. 
However, their paid plans are affordable as well, and they include advanced CRM features like:
Real-time sales signals and customer notifications
Blueprint business management for both on and offline processes
Prospect scoring capabilities
Unique sales pipelines
Mass emails
Inventory management
An AI assistant
Advanced customizations
The cheapest paid plan starts at $12 per user per month, making it extremely affordable for small businesses. 
Sign up for a free 15-day trial to see if Zoho CRM is right for you. 
Note: Zoho also recently launched a sales-centric CRM specifically for small businesses. It’s called Bigin, and it includes a robust free plan if you’d like to try it out. Bigin’s paid plans are $7 per user per month. 
#4 – Freshsales Review — The best CRM for sales teams
Unlike the other options on this list, Freshsales is specifically built for sales teams and lead management. From cold leads to customers, Freshsales helps you make better relationships while saving time with automation. 
Furthermore, this CRM helps you find the best leads, get in touch with them via their preferred method, and close the sale. 
And Freshworks includes a built-in email and phone system to help simplify the process. 
They have a customer base of over 40,000 businesses, including some big names like Dyson and Best Western. So, despite being newer to the industry, they’re not inexperienced by any means. 
With Freshworks, you get powerful sales-based features, including:
Lead, contact, account, and deal management
Tasks and appointment management
Merge or clone records
Advanced conversation views
Lead scoring
Time-based workflows
Sales pipelines
Team inboxes and email forwarding
Email scheduling, templates, and alerts
Website visitor tracking
iOS and Android mobile apps
Aside from an impressive set of features, they also offer industry-specific solutions for 15 different industries, including retail, ecommerce, manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and more. 
Their free forever plan includes access for an unlimited number of users with limited features. However, it’s a great way to try it out before investing. 
Freshsales’ paid plans are more robust, yet still affordable for businesses of all sizes. Their premium plans include:
Blossom — $12/user per month (for small teams)
Garden — $25/user per month (for growing teams)
Estate — $45/user per month (for large teams)
Forest — $79/user per month (for enterprises)
Sign up for a free 21-day trial to see if Freshsales is right for you and your sales team today.
#5 – Creatio Review — The best enterprise-grade CRM software
While some of the other CRM software on this list includes an enterprise plan, you may find them limiting if you’re managing a large operation. However, Creatio is an enterprise-grade CRM software built with businesses like yours in mind. 
They offer specific CRM solutions for sales, marketing, and customer service teams.
Marketing Creatio gives enterprise businesses everything they need to streamline their multichannel marketing campaigns and manage incoming leads. It includes features like:
Visual campaign designer
Website behavior tracking and segmentation
Advanced trigger campaigns
Personalized email marketing
Event tracking and response management
Pricing depends on the number of contacts and the number of emails per contact. 
Sales Creatio is perfect for large sales teams taking over after marketing hands them over. It’s an end-to-end sales management platform built to simplify the process and save you time. 
It includes a wide range of features, including:
Opportunity management
Customer profiles and buying behavior insight
Field sales management
Performance and operations
Pricing starts at $30 per user per month. 
Lastly, Service Creatio is for customer service teams interested in streamlining their processes and creating excellent customer experiences from start to finish. It includes features, like:
Account and contact management
Case and knowledge management
Omnichannel communications
Service catalog
Contact center
Pricing starts at $45 per user per month. 
You can bundle all three CRM solutions if you need to. And you can use their online pricing calculator to estimate the total cost. 
Get started with a free trial to see if Creatio is right for you. 
Summary
Hubspot, Salesforce, and Zoho CRM are my top recommendations for most businesses. Each one offers a wide range of features suitable for teams from all departments, including sales, marketing, and customer service. 
Furthermore, they’re all affordable, easy to set up, and easy to use.
However, the best CRM software for you depends on your business’s size and the features you need. So, use the criteria we talked about above as you go through the process of making your final decision. 
Which CRM software do you use?
The post The Best CRM Software (In-Depth Review) appeared first on Neil Patel.
2 notes · View notes
shinondraws · 5 years
Note
Do you have any tips, tricks, or brush set recommendations for ProCreate? I just got an iPad and oh my God the learning curve... I feel like my skills have downgraded ten years...
Oh boy, I don't think I have even scartched the surface of Procreate myself but I will try to give some tips! Unfortunately I can't say anything about the brushes because I only use defaults - haven't had the need to start making my own! 90% of what I do is done with the Nikko Rull brush and the rest is 6B pencil, soft airbrush and a nice mix of whatever to get some texture effects.
I think what I would recommend you to do is to get yourself well acquinted withe the interface. Spend a good while looking at the tools and options you have and learn where everything is. The interface is very simple and once you learn to use it effectively it can really help streamline your process.
Also I would highly recommend you to learn the shortcut commands (such as the two finger tap for undo, using your non-dominant hand to control the size and opacity sliders and the colour picker etc.)
The program is super intuitive and for me, as an artist who started off as traditional, the interface makes me feel like I can interact with the drawing as of it was a physical piece. I don't know if this is helpful or makes sense but one thing is for sure that Procreate isn't really like any other digital art program despite having all the most common functions.
The best thing you can do starting out is just dick around, see what the program offers you, test stuff, go crazy! There are a lot of helpful tutorials for the shortcuts, process etc available online so check out some of those too!
I heard you can actually stream your drawing process on Twitch so I might try that out some time if people are interested in seeing my process on Procreate!
4 notes · View notes
gmatechnologies · 2 years
Text
What ERP Software That Improve Your Business Performance
When it comes to running your business, you want to make sure that you are getting the most out of what you have. That means making sure that you are doing everything possible to improve your efficiency and maximize your profits. But in today’s world, this can be a tall order to fill. With so many different facets to running a business, it can become difficult to find the time to manage every aspect separately.
ERP software is meant to make your business run more smoothly, increase efficiency, and decrease the chance of mistakes or losses. If you want to know how this type of software can help you with these goals, here are the reasons why importing and exporting ERP software is the key to your business’s success.
What Is An ERP System?
An ERP system is enterprise-wide software designed to automate various business functions. These include purchasing, production, inventory management, data entry, and more. An ERP system can range in complexity from simple-to-use software to advanced software with advanced functionality. It is typically very expensive, but it can really help manage your business.
How Can ERP Software Help Grow Your Company?
ERP software is designed to standardize your business processes and optimize decision-making across your organization. It can help you be more organized, more responsible, and more connected. So you don’t have to worry about the time-consuming aspects of running your company. ERP software will automate many of the tasks that are vital to managing your business. ERP software is a system that manages the entire company’s processes—from inventory to payroll, from manufacturing to customer service. It can be used as a single source of information for all departments, and it will make your life easier because you’ll have one place to look for information instead of hunting through different software programs. It also automates a lot of the work, so it’s a more cost-effective option than staffing your company with full-time employees for each department.
Can’t I Just Use Excel To Manage My Business?
Excel is a good tool for mastering accounting and other types of data, but it isn’t an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. ERP systems are designed to provide accurate information on inventory, production, sales, and customers across the company. This software can reduce time spent on administrative tasks by 30% or more. This is not an option. Excel is simply not designed for ERP purposes. When you use ERP software, you’ll save time and reduce the risk of human error. You can also work more efficiently with your team to keep your company on track.
Why Do You Need To Invest In ERP Software?
Your company will have a huge advantage by investing in ERP software. The software helps you to centralize your data and can be tailored to your needs. It can also help you with strategic planning by facilitating the cooperation of different departments in your organization. ERP software is the backbone of any business that relies on generating revenue through sales. It’s so vital because it drives every aspect of your business process-from tracking inventory, managing orders, and fulfilling customer needs, to generating timely financial reports.
The Top Benefits Of An ERP System
ERP software automates many day-to-day tasks and allows you to streamline your business as a whole. An ERP system sets up your company for success by providing a better quality of service, enhancing customer relationships, and increasing cash flow. An enterprise resource planning system can be a valuable tool to help your business reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve the skills of its employees. In order to reap these benefits, it is essential that companies take into consideration the type of company they are and what their needs are before deciding which ERP solution will best suit them.
What Types Of ERP Systems Are Available?
There are two types of business management software available for ERP systems: One type is cloud-based, and the other is installed on your company’s computer network. Cloud-based software can be accessed anywhere at any time, making it perfect for businesses that frequently travel or work on the go. The downside to this system is that it may not be as reliable as a server-based system because it relies on an internet connection. Server-based systems are more expensive to implement, but they’re extremely reliable and don’t require internet access.
How Much Does An ERP System Cost?
An ERP system typically costs $15,000-$50,000 per year to maintain. This cost includes all the updates and upgrades that need to be done over time. This can be a huge investment for a small business, but it will usually help your company’s performance in the long run. There are many different features in an ERP system. An annual licence for a basic ERP system is about $5,000. There is also the cost of installation and training. The average cost for licencing and installation is $25,000 to $30,000 per year.
How To Find The Right Software For Your Business
You will need to find the right ERP software for your business. The good news is that there are plenty of free tools you can use to try and test out different types of software. You can even sign up for a trial and see which one works best for your company’s needs. The right type of ERP software will depend on your market, whether you are a B2B or B2C company, and the size of your business. A few things to consider when deciding which software is right for you are the system’s ease-of-use, how much data it can store, and whether it offers flexibility with future outlooks.
Conclusion
We hope that our blog has given you an overview of what ERP software is, what it does for your business, and the benefits it could provide for you. As always, if you have any questions or want to learn more about our services, please contact us today. Business performance is improved by the ERP software because the data and information are centralized. The company can make decisions on best practices and implement them immediately without spreading themselves too thin.
0 notes
webzguruservices · 3 years
Text
What ERP Software That Improve Your Business Performance
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When it comes to running your business, you want to make sure that you are getting the most out of what you have. That means making sure that you are doing everything possible to improve your efficiency and maximise your profits. But in today’s world, this can be a tall order to fill. With so many different facets to running a business, it can become difficult to find the time to manage every aspect separately. ERP software is meant to make your business run more smoothly, increase efficiency, and decrease the chance of mistakes or losses. If you want to know how this type of software can help you with these goals, here are the reasons why importing and exporting ERP software is the key to your business’s success.What Is an ERP System? An ERP system is enterprise-wide software designed to automate various business functions. These include purchasing, production, inventory management, data entry, and more. An ERP system can range in complexity from simple-to-use software to advanced software with advanced functionality. It is typically very expensive, but it can really help manage your business.How can ERP software help grow your company? ERP software is designed to standardise your business processes and optimise decision-making across your organization. It can help you be more organized, more responsible, and more connected. So you don’t have to worry about the time-consuming aspects of running your company. ERP software will automate many of the tasks that are vital to managing your business. ERP software is a system that manages the entire company’s processes—from inventory to payroll, from manufacturing to customer service. It can be used as a single source of information for all departments, and it will make your life easier because you’ll have one place to look for information instead of hunting through different software programs. It also automates a lot of the work, so it’s a more cost-effective option than staffing your company with full-time employees for each department.Can’t I just use Excel to manage my business? Excel is a good tool for mastering accounting and other types of data, but it isn’t an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. ERP systems are designed to provide accurate information on inventory, production, sales, and customers across the company. This software can reduce time spent on administrative tasks by 30% or more. This is not an option. Excel is simply not designed for ERP purposes. When you use ERP software, you’ll save time and reduce the risk of human error. You can also work more efficiently with your team to keep your company on track.Why Do You Need to Invest in ERP Software? Your company will have a huge advantage by investing in ERP software. The software helps you to centralise your data and can be tailored to your needs. It can also help you with strategic planning by facilitating the cooperation of different departments in your organization. ERP software is the backbone of any business that relies on generating revenue through sales. It’s so vital because it drives every aspect of your business process-from tracking inventory, managing orders, and fulfilling customer needs, to generating timely financial reports.The Top Benefits of an ERP System ERP software automates many day-to-day tasks and allows you to streamline your business as a whole. An ERP system sets up your company for success by providing a better quality of service, enhancing customer relationships, and increasing cash flow. An enterprise resource planning system can be a valuable tool to help your business reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve the skills of its employees. In order to reap these benefits, it is essential that companies take into consideration the type of company they are and what their needs are before deciding which ERP solution will best suit them.What Types of ERP Systems are Available? There are two types of business management software available for ERP systems: One type is cloud-based, and the other is installed on your company’s computer network. Cloud-based software can be
accessed anywhere at any time, making it perfect for businesses that frequently travel or work on the go. The downside to this system is that it may not be as reliable as a server-based system because it relies on an internet connection. Server-based systems are more expensive to implement, but they’re extremely reliable and don’t require internet access.How Much Does an ERP System Cost? An ERP system typically costs $15,000-$50,000 per year to maintain. This cost includes all the updates and upgrades that need to be done over time. This can be a huge investment for a small business, but it will usually help your company’s performance in the long run. There are many different features in an ERP system. An annual licence for a basic ERP system is about $5,000. There is also the cost of installation and training. The average cost for licencing and installation is $25,000 to $30,000 per year.How to Find the Right Software for Your Business You will need to find the right ERP software for your business. The good news is that there are plenty of free tools you can use to try and test out different types of software. You can even sign up for a trial and see which one works best for your company’s needs. The right type of ERP software will depend on your market, whether you are a B2B or B2C company, and the size of your business. A few things to consider when deciding which software is right for you are the system’s ease-of-use, how much data it can store, and whether it offers flexibility with future outlooks.Conclusion We hope that our blog has given you an overview of what ERP software is, what it does for your business, and the benefits it could provide for you. As always, if you have any questions or want to learn more about our services, please contact us today. Business performance is improved by the ERP software because the data and information are centralized. The company can make decisions on best practices and implement them immediately without spreading themselves too thin.
0 notes
verticalworkflow · 3 years
Text
3 Reasons why Import/Export ERP Software is the Key to Your Business’s Success
When it comes to running your business, you want to make sure that you are getting the most out of what you have. That means making sure that you are doing everything possible to improve your efficiency and maximize your profits. But in today’s world, this can be a tall order to fill. With so many different facets of running a business, it can become difficult to find the time to manage every aspect separately.
ERP software is meant to make your business run more smoothly, increase efficiency, and decrease the chance of mistakes or losses. If you want to know how this type of software can help you with these goals—here are the reasons why importing/exporting ERP software is the key to your business’ success.
What is an ERP System?
An ERP system is an enterprise-wide software designed to automate the various business functions. These include purchasing, production, inventory management, data entry and more. An ERP system can range in complexity from simple-to-use software to advanced software with advanced functionality. It is typically very expensive but it can really help manage your business.
How can ERP Software help grow your company?
ERP software is designed to standardize your business processes and optimize decision making across your organization. It can help you be more organized, more responsible, and more connected. ERP software will automate many of the tasks that are vital to managing your business so you don’t have to worry about the time consuming aspects of running your company. ERP software is a system that manages the entire company process – from inventory to payroll, from manufacturing to customer service. It can be used as a single source of information for all departments and it will make your life easier because you’ll have one place to look for information instead of hunting through different software programs. It also automates a lot of the work so it’s a more cost effective option than staffing your company with full-time employees for each department.
Can’t I just use Excel to manage my business?
Excel is a good tool for mastering accounting and other types of data, but it isn’t an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. ERP systems are designed to provide accurate information on inventory, production, sales, and customers across the company. This software can reduce time spent on administrative tasks by 30% or more. This is not an option. Excel is simply not designed for ERP purposes. When you use ERP software, you’ll save time and reduce the risk of human error. You can also work more efficiently with your team to keep your company on track.
Why You Need to Invest in ERP Software
Your company will have a huge advantage by investing in ERP Software. The software helps you to centralize your data and can be tailored to your needs. It can also help you with strategic planning by facilitating the cooperation of different departments in your organization. ERP software is the backbone of any business that relies on generating revenue through sales. It’s so vital because it drives every aspect of your business process – from tracking inventory, managing orders, and fulfilling customer needs, to generating timely financial reports.
Top Benefits of An ERP System
ERP software automates many day-to-day tasks and allows you to streamline your business as a whole. An ERP system sets up your company for success by providing a better quality of service, enhancing customer relationships, and increasing cash flow. An enterprise resource planning system can be a valuable tool to help your business reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve the skills of its employees. In order to reap these benefits it is essential that companies take into consideration the type of company they are and what their needs are before deciding which ERP solution will best suit them.
What Types of ERP Systems are Available?
There are two types of business management software available for ERP systems. One type is cloud-based and the other is installed on your company’s computer network. Cloud-based software can be accessed anywhere at any time, making it perfect for businesses that frequently travel or work on the go. The downside to this system is that it may not be as reliable as a server-based system because it relies on an internet connection. Server-based systems are more expensive to implement but they’re extremely reliable and don’t require internet access.
How Much Does An ERP System Cost?
An ERP system typically costs $15,000- $50,000 per year to maintain. This cost includes all the updates and upgrades that need to be done over time. This can be a huge investment for a small business, but it will usually help your company’s performance in the long run. There are many different features to an ERP system. An annual license for a basic ERP system is about $5,000. There is also the cost of installation and training. The average cost for licensing and installation is $25,000 to $30,000 per year.
How to Find the Right Software for Your Business
You will need to find the right ERP software for your business. The good news is that there are plenty of free tools you can use to try and test out different types of software. You can even sign up for a trial and see which one works best for your company’s needs. The right type of ERP software will depend on your market, whether you are a B2B or B2C company, and the size of your business. A few things to consider when deciding which software is right for you are the system’s ease-of-use, how much data it can store, and if it offers flexibility with future outlooks.
Conclusion
We hope that our blog has given you an overview of what ERP software is, what it does for your business, and the benefits it could provide for you. As always, if you have any questions or want to learn more about our services, please contact us today. The business performance is improved by the ERP software because the data and information are centralized. The company can make decisions on best practices and implement them immediately without spreading themselves too thin.
0 notes
zclicko · 3 years
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New Post has been published on https://zclicko.com/sendlane-review/
Sendlane: Transform Online Buyers into Loyal Customers!
Sendlane empowers e-commerce establishments to turn online shoppers into loyal and lifelong customers, using the power of behavior-based email marketing automation.
Main features:
Intuitive email marketing
Real-time event tracking
Intelligent email retargeting
Excellent support documentation
Just as ConvertKit is an email marketing platform that is loved by bloggers because it created specifically for them, Sendlane hopes to achieve the same for digital marketers.
If you have found that other email marketing automation platforms have unnecessary features, outdated user interfaces, or lack marketing automation functionality, Sendlane may be the best choice for you.
I have put together this detailed review to help you decide whether Sendlane is right for you or not before you spend a lot of time testing it for yourself.
It covers, among other things:
The key features of Sendlane.
How to use the main functionality of the platform.
How its price compares to competitors.
A look at the quality of support.
In the end, I wrapped everything up with a list of pros and cons and some other email marketing tools to consider if Sendlane doesn’t seem like the right choice for you.
What is Sendlane?
Sendlane is a baby compared to established email marketing companies like Aweber and GetResponse.
Sendlane was founded in 2013 by 3 co-founders: Jimmy Kim, Zakariah Meftah and Anik Singal.
They were all digital marketers who were not very satisfied with what existing email marketing tools had to offer marketers.
In 2015, they got their first customer, and from there, Sendlane grew rapidly to over 40,000 users in 2017.
In my personal experience, I have seen no comments, significantly negative about Sendlane in the marketing communities.
They seem to have a solid reputation online.
Sendlane plans and pricing
There are a few things about Sendlane’s plans that stand out immediately:
There is no free plan – but there is a 14-day free trial. You will need a credit card to sign up.
All plans have the same features – You only pay more if you need more contacts.
Only unique contacts count – placing the same contact on multiple lists still counts as 1 contact for your limit.
Here is a summary table of how much Sendlane charges based on the maximum number of contacts.
It is not surprising that the price per contact decreases as you progress with your plans.
We must note two things from this.
First, Sendlane is the most expensive marketing automation option at all levels for all 3 competitors.
Second, each email marketing platform offers different features and functionality.
Sendlane costs more, but it might be worth it.
That’s what the rest of this review is about.
Sendlane Features
In addition to email transmissions or automatic replies, Sendlane has some features designed to make your life easier.
I will examine them briefly in this section.
Drag and Drop Email Editor
Sendlane has one of the most polished drag-and-drop email editors I’ve ever used.
It is smooth and there are no strange layout problems or input delay.
All email elements are available in the menu on the left and have control over all aspects of the layout.
The big weakness is that there are only a few dozen email templates to choose from.
The overall quality is good, but not better than that of the competitors.
Landing Page Creator
Some companies like GetResponse have a wide variety of products that group on top of their basic email marketing platform: Webinars, CRM, Landing pages, forms and more.
It is difficult to say where the line is between an email marketing tool and a general CRM marketing tool.
Sendlane really offers only one additional tool, a landing page creator.
It is included in all plans.
For you, this can be a good or a bad thing.
Some marketers need these extra automation tools, while others don’t and think they add to the major tool they want.
There are over 50 landing page templates to choose from, with a decent range of designs.
When you are finished, you can either send the code to your website or host it on the Sendlane domain.
There are some interesting features included with certain landing page templates:
Countdown counters
Video
Pop-ups and retargeting
And your landing page has built-in analytics to measure performance.
Advanced contact marking and automation
This is the area that makes Sendlane stand out from the competition for me.
To start, you can create workflows to modify your email marketing funnel and behavior based on your subscribers ’actions.
Whether a subscriber meets a specific condition (click on a link, live in a certain area, etc.), they can perform an action automatically, such as adding a tag or adding it to a specific list.
Of course, you can also run manual queries on a list and create a segment that way, if you don’t already have a workflow set up:
In comparison to other tools that offer similar types of functionality, I found that Sendlane is just as or more powerful and very simple to use.
I will delve into the details later.
Standard reports and analysis
As any email marketing tool should have, there is a basic level of real-time reporting and analysis for your emails:
It covers all the basics in a good marketing automation dashboard:
Opening rates
Click-through rates
Bounces
Unsubscribe
Link clicks
Most active subscribers
Nothing really stands out positively or negatively here, but there is a manageable level of real-time tracking without overloading it.
Automatically optimized shipping times
One feature that Sendlane includes is time-optimized features you can enable or disable in each individual email.
With it enabled, Sendlane automatically tracks your subscribers’ open habits and delivers emails at the best times to individual contacts.
Obviously, this gets better over time as you collect more data.
That’s it for the features, now let’s move on to the real functionality and how Sendlane works.
Creating a contact list
You will find all of your lists in the “lists” section of your account (shocking, I know).
Setup is easy for each list, with just a few form fields to fill out for each.
You can configure as many lists as you like. Remember that adding an existing contact to a new list does not count towards your contact limit.
Once you have a list, you have a few options for adding subscribers to it.
You can add them one by one as they sign up on your site through the API or a form you do with Sendlane.
You can add them manually one by one. It is not very convenient, but there may be rare cases when you need it.
Finally, you can import subscribers from other email marketing platforms.
Honestly, this process is a huge pain.
If approved, you’ll be allowed to upload spreadsheets or paste contact information to add bulk subscribers.
The first 2 options are essentially the same, but the second is a little simpler if it comes from one of the other main email marketing tools (MailChimp, Aweber, GetResponse, Active Campaign).
For each one, you will need to fill out a form with several questions:
Then, wait until one business day to actually import your information.
In addition, there are additional conditions for this.
Sendlane will not import all your contacts, but only the active contacts in the lists that have open rates above 10%.
I’m sure this eliminates spammers very well and helps to keep your delivery rates high, but be aware that migrating to Sendlane will take some time and hassle.
Email transmissions on Sendlane
All email marketing tools allow you to send a transmission, and it is a good starting point when looking at a tool.
The Sendlane process is simple and streamlined.
Start creating marketing campaigns and new email campaigns and choosing which lists or tags to send to.
Then choose a model.
There are just over 20 marketing models to choose from now, with plenty of variety.
Everyone is responsive and has reasonably excellent designs.
This will take you to the email editor, which, as I mentioned before, is very easy and intuitive to use.
Clicking on an element allows you to change the text, if applicable, and edit its appearance in the left menu panel.
You can drag or delete existing elements and add them in the menu on the left.
After finishing everything, you can choose when to send the email:
You can send it immediately or at some point in the future. You can also save it as a draft and edit it later.
Overall, Sendlane receives almost perfect email transmissions.
Email Automation in Sendlane
This is undoubtedly the most important part of Sendlane.
The big thing that other tools for marketers lack is advanced automation, and Sendlane aims to fill that marketing gap.
There are 2 automation options: Autoresponders and workflows.
Autoresponders are your classic email strings in which you specify the time between emails, while workflows are much more advanced and offer more customization.
By clicking on “add automation” on the automation tab, you can click on “start from scratch” if you want to create an automatic response.
It’s not exactly obvious, but I think Sendlane assumes that he will mainly use workflows.
From there, you can add as many emails as you want, it has a very standard interface:
Workflows are more interesting for most marketers.
You can choose from several workflow templates or, more likely, start from scratch and build your own funnel.
To create a workflow, there must be an initial trigger:
It can be someone signing up for an email list or when you add a tag to it.
For example, if someone opens an email that mentions a new product, they can add it to a workflow that takes them to a sales funnel.
Workflows consist of 2 things: triggers and actions.
Actions take place automatically after a trigger occurs.
For actions, you have several options.
You can send a specific email, subscribe or unsubscribe from them, in a list, or even start a new workflow.
The most common for marketers is the “What if / Other” action .
You can make an “What if” statement that divides contacts in the workflow into a “yes” and “no” branch, where they receive different emails.
The conditions of the “What if” statement can be based on several factors, including subscriber activity, subscription source, location and subscription date.
For example, if you choose the subscriber’s activity, you can make a condition that checks whether a contact has opened a specific email or not, or if they clicked on a link in it.
It is a powerful resource and the process for using it is simple.
The way this automation is implemented is better for digital marketers than almost all competing email marketing platforms.
Creating a landing page
The only additional tool that Sendlane offers is a landing page creator that can help you collect subscribers.
I already mentioned that there are over 50 models to choose from with some advanced features, like stopwatch countdowns, so let’s take a quick look at the editor here.
It is very similar to the email builder, which makes the time to learn to use it practically nil.
Again, you can drag-and-drop elements such as images, videos, forms and buttons as desired.
It also has almost complete control over the style of the page.
The bottom menu bar allows you to view the page on mobile or desktop devices.
When you’re done, you’ll have the option to copy the code and paste it on your website.
Overall, it is a smooth landing page creator with no inconvenience or input latency.
It is on par with most of the tools dedicated to the landing page creator, which says a lot.
API and integrations
The last important part of the functionality to be examined is how it will actually integrate Sendlane into your website (s).
Sendlane has a well-documented API.
If you are a programmer or have one that works for you, the API should have everything you need.
Note that if you add subscribers via the API, the default is double acceptance.
You can change it to a single option by contacting customer support, but I assume there is a screening process to ensure that you are not doing anything good.
Sendlane has a handful of Sendlane integration partners.
When accessing your account’s “integration” guide, you will see options for Shopify, WooCommerce, Zapier and ClickBank.
But they could definitely use more. There is no plugin for WordPress, which is surprising.
For most sites, you want to use the landing page creator or create an application form for your site.
To create an application form, select “web forms” from the integration options.
This will open the form editor for a page:
There are 4 basic options of minimalist style, but further customizing the appearance cannot be done from this editor.
You can add all the basic fields on the form, such as first name, last name, email and even an image.
Forms also support Captcha to eliminate spam.
When you’re done, the editor spits out the HTML and CSS that you can copy and paste somewhere on your site.
Overall, Sendlane is reasonably easy to integrate with your site, but it could use more partners for more in-depth integration and form customization.
A more detailed analysis of the Sendlane interface and user experience
Overall, Sendlane has a clean, modern design and is intuitive to use for the most part.
But I would like to go over some parts of the user experience that may not have been obvious in the other sections of the analysis so far.
Enrollment
Basically, there is no integration process when you sign up. It’s basically “here’s your panel, you’ll find out”.
For Sendlane’s credit, most are intuitive and don’t need much help, especially if you’ve used other email marketing tools in the past.
There is also a light red help button that takes you to customer support resources.
Technically, there is some kind of integration process.
You will receive daily emails when you sign up, each focusing on one aspect of Sendlane’s functionality.
I’m not sure if this is useful, because if someone wanted to do a specific task, they would have to contact customer support or find out for themselves before that point.
Clarity of the marketing automation platform
There are some other UX elements that I would like to highlight.
On the one hand, most instructions and labels are clear, but there are some unclear instructions.
For example, go to the “add subscribers” section of a list, and it has a bold line at the top that says “Do you want to subscribe to over one person at a time?”
The problem is that the rest of the text has nothing to do with that question, and that question is not a link to a supporting document.
It is missing a link or was left in error after changing this page, but it is one of the few similar things I found.
Frankness
Sendlane is not an email marketing tool you can start with immediately.
We have already seen the difficulty of importing subscribers from another tool.
But there is another delay: getting approved.
After importing subscribers, your emails will not be sent immediately.
Instead, the first 3-5 emails will be manually checked and approved by the Sendlane Compliance Team.
It’s a general formality, but wait a week or more before actually getting your email and marketing funnels up and running.
Again, Sendlane does this to reduce spammers, but it’s annoying if you’re motivated to work and can’t.
Support Resources
Sendlane does a good job of combining its support resources with the real email platform.
Support is all done through the ticketing system, but you can view and respond to messages through a chat window while you are connected (or by email).
Clicking the bright red help button on each page will slide a small panel into the help center.
It has a quick search feature and suggestions relevant to the page you are on.
You can also click on the “get in touch” button with support here to start a ticket via chat.
Support is available 24/7/365 and, although it is not technically a live chat, responses usually take 5 minutes.
At least that’s what Sendlane says, and that has been the case for the few times I have had to contact them.
Finally, there is the knowledge base.
It has hundreds of articles and tutorials that show you how to use certain Sendlane features.
What about quality?
Sendlane’s help team is located in San Diego, United States.
So you can at least be sure that help is not subcontracted to a cheap support company.
As a writer, the quality of the knowledge base impressed me.
The articles are all very clear, with annotated images.
Its knowledge base is also well organized, and the search function is effective.
Pros and Cons of Sendlane
We have seen a lot up to this point, so I would like to try to summarize Sendlane’s greatest strengths and weaknesses here.
PROS
Advanced automation (workflows) – Offers the ability to send emails based on a wide variety of subscriber actions (triggers).
Intuitive and modern design – Each part of the tool is well-designed and easy to use.
Smooth landing page and email editors – Drag and drop editors are easy to use and not at all clumsy.
Excellent support documentation – The knowledge base is full of well-written tutorials with clear images.
CONS
Cost – Sendlane is more expensive than most competitors.
No instant migration process – you will need to be manually approved to import subscribers from elsewhere, and then your first emails will also have to be manually reviewed.
High integration f – There are some integrations, but not on the same level as the leading competitors. I’m sure this will improve over time.
Is Sendlane worth it?
Sendlane was developed to be an email marketing tool and email marketing service specifically for digital marketers and e-commerce store owners (specifically, Shopify store operators, great integration with Shopify).
It tries to do this by providing a simple-to-use interface and features such as a landing page builder and advanced email automation through workflows.
In my opinion, he has achieved success in achieving his goal as a marketing platform.
Despite being relatively new, Sendlane quickly grows its user base and I hope it will continue to grow as marketers learn about it.
It is also too early to get a good read on Sendlane’s delivery rates, although there is no reason to doubt that it is worse than the industry standard.
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