which e-commerce?

[lauralil]

Hey all,

this site was recommended to me by a friend.

so heres me, I'm a student entrepreneur and have been awarded funding by my university to start my business which I will be revealing soon!

My degree is in graphic design and I'm currently freelancing my butt off which is going well, though my business venture is at a slightly different angle of design.

I have made an e-commerce using OScommerce but to be honest I felt that it didn't look that professional and I felt quite constrained by it all. I think that perhaps this would be a good option if I had loads of time but I want to launch in the next couple of months and need more control over the design.

I'm fairly good with html css etc

I think so far I would like to have the following:

easy to edit and customise.

ability to edit the html code if possible, as I couldn't figure this out in OScommerce. I was ok with editing the php files but felt the process was quite lengthy as my understanding of PHP is limited. I'm technically able at things like this, but it does take me time and I like to mess around with layouts.

I would like to add flash elements if possible.

The products attributes in OScommerce is a very important aspect of my shop as my products have additional extras that need to be selected to it before checkout.


I'm looking forward to using this site further, it looks very useful

Laura:)

[lauralil]

should also add that I'm not looking for a developer but if you want to sell me e-commerce solutions then please SELL it rather than just send me a link to your site.

I'd like to know if your services fit the bill before I visit any sites.

thanks :)

[shopintegrator]

Hello Laura,

You could use the Shop Integrator ecommerce service to build your online shop as this will give you full control to produce a website design as you want. It will mean you have no constraints on the site layout and means you don't have to get involved in learning PHP, databases etc. so you can focus on selling what you set out to sell and leaving the ongoing management of technical infrastructure with us (e.g. database backups, software upgrades, fixing any issues etc). You still build your website yourself, but you copy and paste automatically generated Shop Integrator text in to your web page at the place you want different ecommerce features to appear, such as Add to Basket, View Basket, Change Currency and more advanced ecommerce plug-ins (http://www.shopintegrator.com/feature/ecommerce-plugins.html)...

It will cost you nothing to find out if it is right for you with our fully functional, no obligation, 30 day free trial (http://www.shopintegrator.com/freetrial/free-trial.html). If you don't wish to proceed, it will automatically cancel itself with no further interaction from you.

Using Shop Integrator ecommerceExpress (http://www.shopintegrator.com/) means you don't have any software to install on your desktop/laptop or on your web server. It doesn't require you to use a pre-defined set of ecommerce layout templates, so the web site design is exactly as you want it. You choose whatever web host you like to use (if you have a preference) in whatever technology you prefer (if you have a preference), because it works with a basic web page (HTML) or with the Content Management System of your choice or whatever programming language you may end up using. This means that you always stay on the latest version of the Shop Integrator ecommerce software with free upgrades to new features and enhancements, but without the hassle of doing the upgrades or software updates/fixes yourself.

The Shop Integrator ecommerceExpress web page plug-ins (http://www.shopintegrator.com/feature/ecommerce-plugins.html) will allow you to add high end online shop features at a low fixed cost price (ideal for a student on a budget). Use it to:

Selling tangible goods, using our advanced weight and country shipping cost creators to add any delivery companies tariffs to a customer order (http://www.shopintegrator.com/feature/shipping-controls.html) on checkout.
Selling electronic content (any files) with the Shop Integrator service taking care of securily storing the files and automatically delivering them to customers once they have successfully completed their payment (http://www.shopintegrator.com/feature/customer-download-portal.html) to the shop owner.


Other features include

real time stock control (optional - so may be switched of if not needed) so things show as out of stock once their quantity goes to zero,
customisable ecommerce graphics so you can make it fit in exactly with the site being built (or pick from one of the built in button sets to get going quickly),
in page shopping basket so customers stay on your web site when viewing their basket and return to the exact product they were looking at when they finish viewing their basket (helps avoids customers drifting away mid-shop)
multi-currency pricing (your entire site can show all prices in up to 16 currencies)
offer discount codes at checkout,
special offers
order management,
straight forward payment gateway connectivity to collect debit/credit card and PayPal customer payments

There are many more features that could be of use to you as well.

By having your ecommerce Software as a Service (SaaS) will reduce your cost of ownership. You can buy cheaper web hosting plans with no need for a database and other features which increase the hosting plan cost (if you need databases for other things, you can still have them in your hosting account if you want). It also means less management of the infrastructure for you such as the running of the database, data backups, software upgrades to new versions or applying software patches etc. It also avoids you having to upload a new web page to your web server every time you want to update prices, run special offers or alter shipping costs etc. because you can manage this through your online Shop Integrator administration console and the ecommerce content on your web pages will dynamically start showing the new prices or adding the new shipping costs to orders.

We are a friendly UK business and welcome any questions you may have. Please take a few minutes to look at our website www.shopintegrator.co.uk (http://www.shopintegrator.co.uk/) for further details on all the Shop Integrator ecommerce features (http://www.shopintegrator.com/features/features.html) and to take a look at the demo (http://www.shopintegrator.com/demos/demos.html) page. Please do get in touch for more information or to answer any questions you may have.

[lauralil]

shopintegrator: The products attributes in OScommerce is a very important aspect of my shop as my products have additional extras that need to be selected to it before checkout.

Is this option available through your service?

[shopintegrator]

Hi Laura,

When you say attributes, do you mean a product allows the customer to have custom options on the product, say for example, if you sold a T-Shirt, you would have a set of different sizes and set of colours/designs/patterns etc.

Using Shop Integrator allows you to assign up to two custom lists of options per product, each list having what ever set of values you want, even allowing you to share a common list of options across different products. In the example above, if all your T-Shirts were in the same set of sizes, create a T-Shirt Sizes options list once and then use it again and again for each T-Shirt to save having to type in all the same sizes for every different T-Shirt.

The options available on the product are linked to the stock control feature (unless you disable stock control) which in the earlier T-Shirt example means if you had Red, White and Blue colours as one set of options on the product and Small and Large as another set of options, you would be able to manage stock levels for the product as follows:
Red Small, Red Large, White Small, White Large, Blue Small, Blue Large. Shop Integrator automatically builds all of the different combinations of options in to a list of independent stock quantities for that T-Shirt.

Options may also be assigned a price modifier allowing each option to increase/decrease the base price of the item.

There is a Shop Integrator Interactive Product Price Tag ecommerce plugin (http://www.shopintegrator.com/feature/ecommerce-plugins.html) which automatically makes the price, add to basket button, quantity of item required, and any assigned Buyer Choice Options (http://www.shopintegrator.com/feature/product-controls.html) on the product available in one go on your website. No coding on your part! You add new options to the product through the online administration console and automatically start showing as new options on your website.

Is this what you mean by product attributes? If I have not understood what you were asking, please would you give me a more detailed description of how you need product attributes to work then I will be able to answer you with a more focused response?

Thanks

[lauralil]

Thanks for the reply.

The site will feature the basic product with additional extras to be added on.

Each basic product comes with 5 extra addons (each add on has a none option, and then the other options available in that style)

For example:

product a has 5 style attributes, say first attribute is packaging (a, b, or c or none), 2nd is wrap (a, b or none) etc etc

the buyer can choose from the options within each attribute and then add to their basket and the basket shows total for basic product plus selected attributes.

This is a huge part of making the design process automated and simple to use.

[shopintegrator]

Good luck in your venture.

You may wish to consider the following, if you have one basic product with lots of different options on that product, you could break your one super product in to a larger set of base products where some of your attribute options become actual base products.

So, if in my earlier T-Shirt example, if you go to website that sells 1 t-shirt but you choose everything about it as a set of options, such as the size, and a pattern and a colour, it probably means that people may be missing out on the browse factor on your site, so having multiple T-Shirt products where the base product is the design means they may browse different design imagery as different products. This will also benefit you when it comes to search engine optimisation of your website, the more content you have for more products, the more the search engines will be able to document on your site for its listing. So if you have lots of different T-shirt pages (in my example), when someone searches for a T-shirt you site is more likely to turn up because you have lots of different pages on that topic.

You mentioned packaging as an option (is this a per product item or for across all the items in the order for instance). You may wish to incorporate this in at the checkout stage for the whole order, as you have the ability to create multiple shipping plans to offer the shopper on checkout, so maybe your shipping plans offer the packaging types at this point?

Anyway, just some thoughts for your consideration.
Best wishes.

[lauralil]

ok heres where it gets complicated!

I have 10 main products, and each product has its own theme.

For each product there are various options available but the price of each depends on the products as some products are small, some are large!

Packaging is individual to each product as they're different sizes.

I think theres only one product that can be applied to all products with the same price!

I'm basically looking for the same functionality as OScommerce which can be customised easier.

[shopintegrator]

Hi Laura,

Have you looked in to your shipping/delivery companies yet and the price matrix they provide for you to work out the shipping costs for items delivered with them. The same principal could be applicable for your packaging costs?

Shipping companies generally give you a delivery pricing matrix based on the total weight of the items being delivered and the destination country. However, when they say 'weight' they mean the larger of the physical item weight or its volumetric weight. They provide a formula for calculating the volumetric weight based on the width, height, depth of the item, and will charge you on the larger value of the items physical or volumetric weight of the product. What this means for you is that you will be able to accurately calculate the volumetric weight of all your items the same way delivery companies do.

Shop Integrator allows you to enter the weight (choose the larger of the physical or volumetric product weight) when you set up each product. You may then create a Shipping plan which models the cost matrix of the shipping providers, different weight brackets, different delivery countries etc. Shop Integrator will then run the total order weight through the shipping plan matrix and add this charge to the customers order. So if your items were created with the larger of their physical weight or volumetric weight, all your shipping costs will be calculated on checkout for the order instead of having to have the person factor it in for each product on an individual basis. You would be able to create the same type of matrix for calculating packaging costs for an entire order.

[lauralil]

I'm actually offering free delivery for my products as its bespoke and an average purchase is approximately £300.

All shipping costs will be relatively low as the products are small and lightweight, so don't anticipate the need for shipping costs for each order.

Laura

[florenceij]

Hi Laura,

Since your are able to do your own designs. It may be more cost effective for you to do all the designs for the pages and pay for installation of the designs to an e-commerce solution.

If you can send a detailed information to me, I will supply a quote.

Ij