Working with Ecommerce Developers

As a developer myself, I know a lot of the problems that developers might run into with clients. This is not to say that these things are easy to accomplish, however, it might give you a good idea on how to approach a developer. Before moving on, I want you to understand that I am not complaining about any clients. This is not meant to be a ranting article, but it is intended to give you an idea of how things are approached by other developers in the marketplace. Below is my idea of what you should be doing throughout the process of having your ecommerce website developed.

#1: Layout Exactly What You Want

I have seen a lot of people say, “Hey, I want a website.” The problem is though that they really do not know what they want. For example, I did a website for a young man who was starting up a local graphics company. I advised him that the ordering process should be simple and since all graphics are custom, it might be better to have more of a contact form than an order form. He bounced the ideas around, I ended up having to do the order form over again about three times before he was satisfied. It started out very complex, then went to the contact form, and finally ended with a compromise between the two. These are things you really should think about before you contact a developer though. Get an idea of what you like and what you do not like before you do anything. What I even prefer, is that my clients go out and find websites that they like. Then tell me what they like about them. It gives me a good idea of the design preference as well as the layout of the website.

#2: Be Decisive

In the example above, you may be wondering “Why did you ever get started before asking him what he wanted for the order form then?” In all actuality, I did. I was simply trying to satisfy what he wanted since he was paying me for the work. When I would ask him, “what do you think about doing the order form this way?” His response would be, “That sounds okay.” He really just was not sure what he wanted. Therefore, when working with a developer and they ask you a question, you should know that they are going to take your response to heart. If you say something is okay, that means that it is okay and they can move on with the project. However, if you are unsure, tell them this so that they do not have to redo work.

#3: When you see things you do not like, notify them immediately

Sometimes as a developer I just make it my responsibility to do things like I would like them done. This means that on occasion I can find myself doing something that the customer does not want. This is not a big problem as I take that risk. However, it can sometimes be frustrating to be working on a certain portion of the website for a while, and then have them notify me several days after the fact that I have put hours into it that it isn’t something they want. Just try to keep them up to date.

#4: Be Patient

A lot of times developing a website is done all behind the scenes. Forms do not naturally work as they are intended as soon as you can see them on a website. There is some backend coding that causes them to become functional in the way you would want them to be. Therefore, sometimes you may not see any progress for days at a time. A good developer will notify you of this. However, do not panic if they don’t. Just email them, ask them what the status is, and they should tell you. Most websites will take weeks to develop especially if you are working with an individual so you will have to have patience.

#5: Never Pay All of It Upfront

With any developer, myself included, I would encourage you to not pay the entire amount of upfront. Most developers will require that you pay something. However, this is usually 20% of the total amount in my experience. After this, they may ask you to pay installments as the project moves along. However, you should be leery of developers who want the entire amount upfront.

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Ecommerce Development Tips

Developing an ecommerce business can be somewhat difficult if you are not familiar with the internet or marketing techniques. Doing business online is one of the highest growing markets for business right now. Because of the rough economy many small business owners are turning to the internet to save their business from closing or bankruptcy.

As you begin you new business venture online there are some recommendations that may help you with this process. Creating a website that will fit the needs of your online company is an important first step. If you do not know how to create your own site, then you will want to hire a web designer that can do this for you. You want to have a website that is unique. You want something that people will remember.

If you are going to hire a web designer, then you will want to do some research on what company best fits your needs. You want someone that is experienced so that you will get a good product for the money that you will spend on this service. Checking customer reviews is a great way to learn about how a company really works. You will want to make a list of your needs so that you can limit the amount of research you will have to do in order to find the right company.

Once you have found a design for your site, you are ready for the next set of developing your ecommerce business. You are going to want software that will help your customers will buying your products. Software will also allow them to register or login as returning customers. This software is often referred to as store management software or solution software. Both are designed to help you run all aspects of your business.

There are many different software companies on the market. It can be difficult to find the one that best fits your needs. One of the best things that you can do before you really get started is to make of list of the top three to five most important features that you consider necessary for you to manage your site. Once you have your list, you will be able to eliminate a lot of the companies that do not match or cannot match all of your needs. You do not want to forget about how much you are willing to spend to get the right company. This can be a very big factor in which company you will end up choosing.

Eliminating all the companies that do not fit your needs will save you a lot time. Once you have done this, you will want to find out how the company treats its customers. Some question that you may want to ask are “what the response time in customer service is” and “what kind of technical support that they offer.” These are just a few of the question that may not be answered in the customer reviews that you will want to read. A good way to test these particular areas is to send a set of “test” questions to see how they respond firsthand. This is one way to know that you are getting the best for your ecommerce business.

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Web Store Marketing Tips

Getting traffic to a new or old website can be a difficult task, at first, if you do not have a plan. One great way to get your website known is to start with your family and friends. Ask them to go to your site and check out what you have going on. Once they have checked out your site ask them to pass the info on to the people that they know as well. This will help generate some traffic flow to the site. A small community of user can quickly turn into a large number.

Once you get people there, you want them to continue to return as well. A great option to get people to come is to offer discounts or special onetime deals. Many sites offer a small discount on your first order. This is the kind of thing that a lot of users are looking for. “Buy one, get one” is a great tactic to get people to your site. People truly feel that they are getting a great deal with these kinds of offers. Free shipping on orders that are more than a certain amount is also a good way to get people to buy from you. If there are two products for the same amount, then the price of shipping could be the deciding factor. Eliminating the shipping will greatly increase your chances of a sale in a large market.

Placing your items for sell on sites such as eBay and Amazon will greatly increase the traffic and the possibility of sales. Your items on a popular shopping site with a back link to yours will allow the purchaser to search your site for more items. This will give you a higher percentage of a sale and a return visit.

Once you get people to your site, you want to use this opportunity to prompt them to return. Offering customers a place to sign up for newsletters or updates is a great way to remind people of your site since these reminders will go directly to their personal email address. Emailing new deals is a great way to increase your odds of returning customers. Emailing customers is great, but often times these emails are just deleted. Using a strong tag line offering a great deal will increase the odds of them actually reading the email or newsletter. Frees shipping or new product information is great way to get their attention.

While you are trying to get people to your site, you are going to come across things like AdWords offered by Google. This is a great way to generate traffic to your site, but these services are not free. Generating traffic to your site will mostly cost you some money at one point in time. Using a “pay per click” service is definitely a great option for getting your web address available for a lot of people to see. Though this kind of service is not a guarantee, it will still increase the odds of visitors. The more visitors that you have; the higher chance you have to make money. There is no way to guarantee how much money you will make, but this service gives you a better chance of visitors to your site on a daily basis.

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Choosing a PHP Shopping Cart

I could sit here and tell you everything that I look for a shopping cart. It would probably be a laundry list of things. However, that is for my own website, and may not fit yours. Since you are selling different items more than likely, you may have a demand for different things. This is why there are also so many shopping carts on the market. Several of them have good customer service, they all run well, but it’s the little things that make their products unique. For this reason, several different shopping carts do sell well online because they are tailored towards different types of business needs. Below though, I have created a few things that should be true for all people who are looking for a good PHP shopping cart. I hope it helps you narrow down your choices.

Must Be Easy to Update Your Website

The most frustrating thing that can happen to anyone is to get their website up and running. The developer helped you get the products added to the website, you go live, and a few weeks later you realize that there are some missing items. You should be aware of how to update your website, because it is only going to be a matter of time before you have a desire to do so. You will want to tweak wording and change things to hopefully help you improve your sales. Believe it or not, there are some shopping carts on the market that make this process near impossible for anyone who is not familiar with HTML or PHP Programming. With that said, if I were you, I would make sure that before you purchase a PHP shopping cart that you understand how to update your products and those types of things. It will save you a headache in the end.

Must Have Good Support from Developers

It is simply natural that anyone who purchases a script is going to have some questions. They will want to know how to work a specific feature, how to set something up, or if there can be a feature added in a future release. Unfortunately, not all shopping carts are supported well. You essentially buy them “as is” and the minute you make your payment you are left on your own to figure things out or fix problems that might be in the script. The tip I offer to anyone who wants to see how good support is, is to simply ask a few questions to their customer service. Generally, in small businesses the people helping in sales / customer service will be the same people answer technical questions after you purchase the script. You will get a good idea of how helpful they will be, how clear their emails are, and how quick you might get a response. It is safe to say that no response probably means you will not get a response when you purchase the script and ask a question then either.

The Shopping Cart Meets But Does Not Surpass Your Needs

This is a tough line to follow because the first priority is to ensure that the script contains all of the features you might need. However, having one with too many can be almost an equally bad thing. Shopping carts with too many features can quickly become so complex that you will find it hard to manage your website. As well, those shopping carts that will virtually work for any website may have a very complex ordering form. This is not something you want if you really do not need it. The idea with ordering forms online is to have exactly what you need and nothing more. Therefore, even a script with too many features may need to be heavily modified just as if one you purchase that maybe does not have all the features you need. Therefore, both are going to cost you money. It is better to find a shopping cart as close to what you need as possible. It will save you money in the long run.

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Ecommerce Shopping Cart Hosting

I completely understand when someone who really does not know how to setup a website decides to go for an “all inclusive package”. The ecommerce shopping cart hosting that many businesses are doing these days does have a one stop solution to your needs. However, you should be clearly aware of the real benefits and disabilities of these types of services before you get involved in one.

The Benefits

#1: Easy to Setup

If you are doing a completely custom website, it would take several weeks to get completely setup the way you want. Most businesses simply require a lot of time to be able to complete a job. However, when you get ecommerce shopping cart hosting they will almost always help you setup your shopping cart and get you going pretty quickly. They do it all the time, so they are pretty quick about getting it done.

#2: Good Customer Service

The average web hosting customer service you might get probably will not help you with problems that come up with your shopping cart. Instead, you will have to either figure it out on your own or contact the developers of the script to get help with any problem. When you have ecommerce shopping cart hosting, they are more likely to help you get rid of any problems you may find with your shopping cart itself.

#3: Frequently More Suggestions

This is particularly the case if you are going with ecommerce shopping cart hosting with a relatively small business. They naturally have more interest in ecommerce themselves. With that being the case, and with their more often than not vast amount of experience in ecommerce, they might help push you into the right direction that you need to go. General web hosting the people only help you if your website is down or you have specific problems related to their service. Beyond that, you are on your own most of the time.

The Disabilities

#1: Limited in what you can do

Almost all ecommerce shopping cart hosting uses one, maybe two different kinds of shopping carts. You really do not have a lot of options when it comes to which shopping cart they will setup. This being the case, they will do the bare minimum of a default installation and pretty much leave you at that. It is your responsibility to change anything over that.

#2: More Expensive

You may be thinking I am lying here. But in reality, you are intending for your business to be thriving in roughly a year. Most ecommerce shopping cart hosting I have seen is roughly four times more expensive than standard web hosting. In that time, you could probably purchase most decent shopping carts several times over in what you have invested in monthly expenses of ecommerce shopping cart hosting. Therefore, I still recommend that you weigh out the options for you from a money situation. It could pay off to fork over a little bit of extra money and purchase a good shopping cart and get it installed on cheaper web hosting.

#3: Default is what you get

If you think that just because you purchase ecommerce shopping cart hosting that they will help you setup your products, change colors, and modify the script for you, you must be living a dream world. Businesses almost always will do the bare minimum. It increases their profit margin because they are spending less time doing things. Therefore, when you search for ecommerce shopping cart hosting, you must look at how the demo appears. You probably will not get much more than what is shown there, if anything. That includes changing themes or doing anything to alter the visual appearance of your website as well.

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Software Shopping Cart for Ecommerce

I understand how it is when you are trying to find a shopping cart. It is kind of like going to shoe store where all there are is small black and white pictures of the shoes. You do not get to try them out, you have a fairly fuzzy point of view of whether they will work for you, and yet you are expecting them to work flawlessly. Unfortunately, ecommerce shopping carts are exactly this way. There are so many on the market it is tough to make a decision without fully trying them out. The demo’s are typically limited so you can not fully see how the shopping cart is going to perform for what you need. Just before making the purchase, you almost have to depend on the developer’s description of what features it includes and take his word for it that it will work for you. Here is some things to really look for though that you might be able to find before you make your decision on which shopping cart to install on your website.

Stick to PHP Shopping Carts

There are numerous shopping carts on the market in several different programming languages. PHP shopping carts, however, give you the security you need along with the flexibility to make modifications. As long as the script is not going to be encoded (which is something you should verify), you should be able to find developers at affordable rates to help you add or remove features as you see fit. This is the key for saving you money down the road.

Find Ecommerce Shopping Cart’s that are as close to what you need as possible

If there is one thing you get from this entire article, it is that you should find a shopping cart that meets your needs as closely as possible. This means from both angles as well. You want a shopping cart that has all the features you need. You also want a shopping cart that limits the features that you will not be using. What I did when I was looking for a shopping cart is print out a sheet that gave all the features a shopping cart had. I crossed through the features that I did not need, I also added to the list with a red pen the features that were not included. After doing this, I evaluated my red markings. If there were tons of things that were crossed through, but I had another shopping cart that just had one thing that I needed added to it, I would go with the one that was lacking my one feature that I needed for my website. In reality, it was cheaper and easier for me to get one feature added than it was to remove tons of features for an overly bloated ecommerce shopping cart script.

This is not to say that if you marked two features off but had one feature to add that you should go with the shopping cart where you need to add a feature. Frequently it is cheaper to remove something than it is to add to a script. So you really need to weigh your options. Other features may not need to be removed at all as long as it is not something that gets in the way of the ordering process or causes problems when trying to maintain the website. Overall, you are looking for the cheapest, yet best option for the long run of a successful ecommerce business.

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The Problem with Free Ecommerce Shopping Carts

I am really not shocked why people would contemplate using a free ecommerce shopping cart. Most of the time you would prefer to spend your money in other areas if you can by with it. Also, general development of a website is not always the cheapest of things. If you spent money already on other things, you may simply be limited on funds. However, finding a good free ecommerce shopping cart is not always the easiest thing to do. There are many problems that you might be faced with that you should consider beforehand.

#1: Lack of Customer Service

Generally speaking, there is a severe lack of customer service on free products. Since there is no funding coming in to support projects, generally, they simply do not have any customer service to help with issues at all. Therefore, if you ask a question, it may sit in a person’s inbox for a long time before answered or even worse, perhaps no response at all. When there is no incentive to really support a product, most developers will get bored or move on to other projects.

#2: No Leg to Stand On For New Update Requests

One of the biggest problems I have ran into is when I would like to see the software updated with a new feature. When you have purchased a product, generally they are much more willing to help you. This is especially the case if you are paying a monthly fee or something. They want to keep you as a customer and make you happy in anyway they can. So if they can add a feature, it is not so uncommon to see it added later on in future updates. With a free shopping cart, asking for specific features is like pulling teeth. They just do not want to do it and many will take the mentality that since the product is free, you have no right to give input on what features it needs to include.

#3: Very Few Updates

Most people just assume if there is a bug found in software that the developers will hurry up and release an update for it. This is rarely the case though. As mentioned previously, many developers who release free products will move on to other projects or simply stop offering support. Therefore, they are no longer working on it to ensure that it works flawlessly and as intended. If it is a PHP script, then this is even a bigger problem. As PHP does frequently upgrade, if you are forced to by your web host, you may be impacted by seeing that the script no longer works at all. This, of course is the worst case scenario. Generally, it will be small things that you find broken, but you know they will never be fixed.

#4: Sometimes Poor Coding

This is not always the case, but I have run across several free scripts were simply not written very well. The code can cause load times to be slow and sometimes use more resources than really needed. As well, poor coding can result in doing your own updates near impossible if you are fairly new to programming. Many times you encounter scripts that were simply given to others because they worked, but nothing more than that. It was not that they worked flawlessly or to perfection. But many free scripts simply serve their purpose and nothing more. It is a sad situation when you want to modify a script to work specifically for you and not what the developer had in mind.

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The Amazing Online Shopping Cart

So you are searching for the single most amazing online shopping cart ever? Let me tell you, I could probably give you a name of the one I prefer. However, you may take a look at it and realize that it simply would not work for you. That is why there are so many shopping carts on the market right now. Many have the same basic function of allowing people to order products. However, some are tailored to those actually mailing items. Others are tailored towards people who are offering a product for download online. There are so many differences in people’s needs that it has increased the demand for a wider variety of shopping carts. For this reason, I can not simply give you a name and you go buy it. You will have to continue to do your own research. The one thing I can do though is give you some things to look for. Below is my list.

Easy to Integrate into an Existing Website

There is nothing more frustrating than to purchase a script but find out it was nearly impossible to get installed on your website and have it look good. This is a good question to ask the developers of the ecommerce shopping cart so that you can see how easy it will be to get it installed. You might even ask for the documentation that comes with the script before you make the purchase. This way you can look it over and see how complex it is.

Very Customizable

Even though the script is easy to integrate into a design, this does not mean that the script is going to be customizable. The colors may not match at all. You will want to ensure that you can change the color, font, and widths of the shopping cart so that you can get it as close to looking like it is a custom one as possible. Generally, this is not a huge problem for anyone who is familiar with CSS and HTML. However, it is nice if they have it setup in a way that will make it even easier for you by changing just a few variables or something along those lines.

Easy to Update

When most people think of the term “shopping cart” they simply think of a way for people to order their products. However, something that goes unnoticed frequently is the ability to add new products or manage existing ones. Part of being in internet marketing is that you will want to test things out. You may want to change the wording on the description of a product, change the name a little bit, or maybe even change the picture of the product. If this is not easy to alter, then you will be spending a lot of unnecessary time making changes. Ensure that products are easy to update.

Good Customer Service from the Developers

It does not matter how savvy of a person you are with programming or websites in general, you will almost always have to ask a question or two. Unfortunately, not all shopping carts have great support from the developer side. What I always try to encourage people to do before buying anything online is to contact the company and just ask them a couple of questions. Even if you already know the answer, it is a good way to see how quick they respond and what kind of quality of response you might get. If all they do is send you to their documentation or give you a short one sentence answer, then you might decide to look elsewhere. Especially if it took you several days to receive any type of response, I would not buy from such a company. Worst yet, if you did not receive a response, do not buy from them!

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Web Shopping Cart Features to Consider

It can be hard to find the right shopping cart for your needs. However, there are some features that you should be aware of that you might need. It is not safe to assume that all shopping carts include all of the features listed below. When in doubt, ask them! It never hurts, if anything, it helps, to talk with the developers about what features you need. You can see if they really want you as a client of theirs or not when you tell them you need specific features and see what their response is. They may or may not add the features you need, however, below are some of the basic ones that you might keep an eye out for.

Shipping Prices

Lucky for us, USPS, UPS, and FedEx are all businesses that people commonly use for shipping certain items. To top it off, they actually have systems in place so that web developers can calculate shipping expenses right from their own website. Therefore, many of the shopping carts on the market right now will automatically figure out the expense and add it to the total price for you. This is something to consider if you are going to be shipping products that are bought from your ecommerce store.

Electronic Software Delivery (ESD)

If you are not going to have a demand for shipping products, you are most likely going to be providing some type of software or files of some kind. For example, if you sell an ebook, you will not be mailing this on a CD to a house. Instead, you might send them a link to download it via email or send the file as an attachment in an email. If this is the case, you will need an ESD feature, or Electronic Software Delivery feature, to help get the software and/or files quickly to those who make a purchase.

Taxes

Unfortunately, many states are beginning to regulate the internet sales. They see that more and more people are selling and buying items online. They just want a piece of the pie. However, it has always been mandated that you apply tax to items sold to other people in your state. In a nutshell, this feature will apply taxes for your state to the total price when it is deemed necessary. This way, you stay legal in your online business and it does not require a lot of effort from your end.

Discounts and Promotions

Apparently some shopping cart developers have assumed that once you have an ecommerce site you will never offer a single promotion or discount on any of your products. This is annoying and typically something you will want to change later on down the road in any shopping cart software you have. Many shopping carts though offer this feature upfront and it is something you should keep an eye out for.

Variety of Payment Methods

The unfortunate side of online business is that not everyone uses the same type of payment method. Some prefer to send a check, others will want to pay with a credit card, and still others will have some type of service like PayPal that they will prefer to use. The fortunate part is that you can accept all these types of payments if you use a shopping cart that will support all of them. It will pay off in the end to accept a wide variety of payments that way you are not limiting which visitors to your website can actually buy from you.

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How to Buy the Right Shopping Cart Software

With so many shopping carts on the market, assuming that you are looking for one, you may find it a little bit overwhelming when trying to make a choice on which one to purchase. To be quite honest though, it does not have to be as tough as you may think. Below are a few quick tips on helping you narrow down your options to the right shopping cart software for you.

#1: The Shopping Cart Must Have the Features You Need

This is without a doubt the first priority. There is no sense in wasting money on a shopping cart that will not fully work for you. Many people make the mistake of purchasing the software with the intention of finding a developer that will modify it for you. This is a great theory; the problem is that the vast majority of developers out there do not really like to work on other peoples software. You may have to pay quite a bit more than expected to get the software working like you would like it to work. Overall, you should ensure that the script has everything you need before you make the purchase. The only exception would be if you have something in mind that is so rare that there is nothing on the market that would fully work for you without having it modified. In this case, I would get quotes from developers before making the purchase of software.

#2: The Shopping Cart Should Limit Features that You Do Not Need

There are some really hefty shopping carts on the market. They really did not want to just tailor their shopping cart to a specific industry. Instead, they built it in a way that essentially covers almost every type of ecommerce site out there. The problem is that they frequently have features on them that you will not use. This is referred to as bloated software. You may find it harder to manage the areas you need to because there are so many factors and elements of the shopping cart. Be sure that the shopping cart is not too bloated for you.

#3: The Shopping Cart Author Should Have Good Customer Service

Customer service on shopping carts is almost always overlooked by buyers. They assume that documentation is going to crystal clear or that they can get a developer to help them get it setup. The problem is that even developers may have questions that require the original author or shopping cart seller to help them with. The worst case scenario is that you have purchased software that no one knows how to setup and that you are stuck with without anyone answering emails, phones, or support tickets.

There is an easy way to determine whether the company has good customer service or not. You can simply use their method for contacting them to ask them a sales question. Perhaps whether their shopping cart would work for what you have in mind. Evaluate how accurate their response is and how quick you receive a response. This should be a good indication of what you can expect if you ask them other questions dealing with setting up their software and managing it.

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