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Electronic
Store Specification Chart
We
have tried to explain in detail here on what goes into the building
of an online store. As always we custom fit our E-Commerce solutions
to fit your needs.
| Store-Building
Software, Installation, Configuration, Basic Site Advertising and
Store Directory Page |
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All stores need store-building software as an infrastructure
to run the shopping process and this software always needs
installation and configuration for your particular needs.
Think of it as leasing a storefront shell from the building
owner. We have selected our store software for price, functional
excellence, and ease-of-store-maintenance by the merchant.
Note we do not sell store software except as included in our
turnkey stores.
We
install the shopping cart software on your web hosting service,
configure tax, shipping, order forms, e-mail order confirmation,
traffic and sales tracking based on your requirements. We also
configure the main Index page, search, customer tracking, promotion,
setting the universal headers and footers that give unity to the
store.
Every
store needs a directory. This is the main page for your
store listing your main product categories. This must be
carefully arranged; else you customers will not easily find
what they are looking for. This can feature graphics, buttons,
and special offers. If the graphics are not already sized
properly, an additional charge will apply for graphics formatting.
Note:
This does not include setting up of product database, product
organization, or main store layout. These services are also available
at an additional cost. The more preparation you have done ahead
of time, the faster and less expensive your setup will be.
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| Shelves
and Pages |
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If
you think of building a physical storefront, you begin with
the basic shell with utilities, which you lease from the
owner. Then you build fixtures and shelves to display your
products. The more products you have to display, the more
shelves you need, or you'll be cramming too many products
together and the customer won't even see them.
Product
categories and subcategories translate into linking pages
or "department" pages. Once these are built, the shelves
can be stocked with products from the database. Such pages
often have text describing the category as well as a photo
of a typical or featured product in addition to links to
the product pages.
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Linking
Pages, Product Pages and Regular Web Pages
A minimum of two "regular" Web pages is recommended, such
as the welcome page, "about the company," shipping and ordering
instructions, etc. The best Web pages are 3 to 6 "screens"
maximum, but may include up to 1,200 words for this price.
Photos and client-supplied graphics are extra. Pages include
system graphics: masthead, top-of-page graphic, lines, bullets,
and image map at bottom of each page linking to various
sections of the Web store.
Some
products are displayed with a great deal of product description
and several photos, and are essentially hand-designed (rather
than template designed) "regular" Web pages. We charge the
page price, plus the per product and per-photo prices.
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| Products
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Our
store pricing assumes that you have your product data in
a spreadsheet or database format. A typical product database
will have these fields: SKU, Product Name, Description,
Price, Weight, Photo filename, Category, Subcategory, and
perhaps other fields such as manufacturer's catalog number
or ISBN.
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Prepare
existing database
(tab- or comma-delimited, spreadsheet, ODBC compatible database)
for uploading into store software. Since this may vary a great
deal from one business to another, we can't quote an exact
price. Your business may have your data in excellent order
and only need an hour or two, while another's may be sloppy
or inconsistent -- perhaps missing important fields -- and
need lots of work, perhaps a day or two if you have a complex
store. If your database is needs to be typed or is presently
in a word processor or desktop publishing program, we can
put it into a database for you. We bill according to our hourly
rate. If you would prefer to minimize your costs, we can provide
you with a Microsoft Access template database so that your
staff may enter your data for you. Note: You must have MS
Access or a compatible database program. We can not provide
you with the software.
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| Photos
and Graphics |
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Photo
preparation and placing constitute a substantial portion
of the cost of your store, but good product photos are very
important to motivate the shopper to actually purchase the
product. Unless you specify otherwise, we size photos to
about 2-1/4" to 2-3/4" for the longest dimension each so
they don't take too long to download.
You
can save a substantial amount of money by doing part of the preparation
yourself, so long as you have the proper tools, such as a scanner
and good-quality graphics software. We use Adobe Photoshop, considered
the top-of-the-line for this kind of work. This makes a noticeable
difference especially on sizing and then sharpening the photo.
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| Special
Configuration and Integration |
Search
Engine.
Configure simple search engine to search up to 200 Web pages on
the same domain. |
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Real-Time
Credit Card Authorization
an add-on module is available for connection to over
10 different online processors.
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Digital
Certificate processing (optional).
Some servers allow you to use their Digital Certificate. However,
when a separate one is needed, normally the store owner works with
VeriSign or Thawte and the Web server to obtain a Digital Certificate
for the SSL Secure server. When you ask us to take on this task
for you we charge our hourly rate. We recommend to our clients that
they obtain their own certificate. The cost is nominal and shows
your clients that you care about the security of their credit card
data. |
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