E-commerce Websites
If you've read anything about the growth of online shopping recently, you'll know that study after study shows more and more people are choosing to buy online. From this study by the Office for National Statistics showing that two thirds of adults bought goods online in 2011, to September's study, also by ONS stating that nearly £1 in every £10 was spent online in September 2011, you can't ignore that fact that every business with products capable of being sold online should be doing so.
But where do you start? How do you choose an e-commerce solution?
A quick search online reveals hundreds of e-commerce solutions, costing anything from zero to thousands of pounds. How do you decide what's best for you? What's the difference between the cheapest and the most expensive options?
Here are some things to consider, and comparisons between the two:
Cheaper options:
- Look and feel: Options usually limited to choosing a template. It won't be designed specifically for your business, but you may find something that will fit well with your image.
- Ordering process: How extensive are the shipping options, payment options, product options, etc?
- Administration: How easy is it to use, how much control do you have over customers, the order process, etc?
- Product management: Does the solution include stock control, cross- and up-selling, offer codes, discounts, etc?
- Support: Is there telephone support, email support, or is it user forums only? Do they have a good reputation for dealing with problems quickly?
More expensive options:
- Look and feel: Bespoke design specifically for your business.
- Ordering process: Likely to have a more extensive feature set, with the potential to add bespoke features which can't be catered for with the cheaper options.
- Administration: More extensive control of customers, order processing, etc.
- Product management: Indepth stock control and product options, cross- and up-selling, offer codes, discounts, gift vouchers, etc.
- Support: Usually one-on-one, or a small group of dedicated support technicians, usually telephone and email support, and fewer customers overall, so receive more personal and timely support.
So which one should you go for? Your head may be saying, "Go for the cheap option - we don't need all that fancy stuff", but your heart might reply, "But we want our business look professional - better than the competition, and have better features, and both of those will help with sales. You get what you pay for".
Cheap and cheerful may be the way to go if you're on a very tight budget and simply don't have hundreds (or even thousands, depending on what you need!) of pounds to spare, but if you are able to do it, the more expensive option can often be the most cost effective in the long term.
What does Bee in Clover offer?
We create e-commerce websites with a professional, unique-to-your-business design (you won't find any 'instant templates' here!), easy navigation and a straight-forward checkout procedure. Your e-commerce website will help you find new customers, give them the confidence to buy, then return and buy again.
Our e-commerce websites use Jshop Server; professional, reliable software used by many successful e-commerce stores large and small. It's loaded with features to make your life easy and help your products sell, including:
Is this far too complicated for your needs? We can also build a simple PayPal basket and checkout integation into our brochure-style websites.
- Easy to use, browser-based administration system, where you can add and modify categories and products, and manage your orders, and add information about your business using a built-in content management system.
- No limit to the number of categories and products, including digital products with instant download and key control.
- Cross- and up-selling facilities, discounts, offer codes, and gift certificates, automatic site map generation, and SEO facilities.
- Product and category search system with 'search suggest'.
- Stock control system, including stock levels for product options (such as different colours and sizes).
- Integrates with multiple payment gateways, including SagePay, PayPal, Secure Trading, and WorldPay.
- Ability to have different pricing for different groups of customers, for example, wholesale and retail.
- Extensive shipping configuration options, including tax, rate selection by weight, total, number of items, flat rate, or location.
- Supplier notification system - ideal for drop-shipping.
- Multi-currency and multi-language support.
- Customer account area, which includes delivery address books, order status and history, and 'wish list'.
- Affiliate system, with commissions either by percentage or fixed amount, affiliate account area, and payment reporting.
E-commerce from start to finish
We handle everything from helping you choose your domain name (website address), through designing and building your website, helping you decide on some of the finer points of e-commerce (for instance how to charge for postage), adding products prior to launch, and finally hosting your website.
We can also get your products listed in Google's product directory, add your site to the most popular business directories and search engines, and set up a Facebook page to help promote your website.
Finally, if you're busy, or would simply prefer someone else to take care of your website, we can help you here too, including preparing product images and information, and adding products.
Prices start at a not-too-scary-for-most £1500. If this isn't too far out of your comfort zone and would like to find out whether our service is what you're looking for, please get in touch.
