Crucial elements of an online store
Published December 12, 2006
I have been reading questions from Shop-Script users which we have received during the last couple of months, and found that many people are anxious about the facts that are really not so important when you only start online selling.
Here I will list some issues that came to my attention which many newbies mistakenly find crucial for online selling and to which they are paying their attention; as well as issues which are of much more value but being ignored (though I agree that for various businesses rules are different, these are the basics which apply for the whole ecommerce industry).
Storefront design.
I believe this is the most common mistake of online entrepreneurs: many of them think that stylish storefront design is the first thing they need to think about when establishing a store. If you goal is creating an artistic storefront which your visitors will admire, I agree that you should start by searching for a professional designer.
But if your goal is online sales, exclude web design issue from your everyday business worries - you can return to this issue at a later time when you start get first sales. At the beginning, start with a simple and practical design which would be usable for your store visitors. However, please don’t understand it in such a way that you do not have to worry about look and feel at all - just make it simple, but don’t spoil it (e.g. don’t use pink font color on a blue or purple background).
Openness to customers.
Believe it or not, many merchants obviously forget to present their contact information when they establish their online stores. This is a mistake!
Reveal your contact information to customers.
The core idea is that your customers should be confident that they can contact you anytime at least by email. Though it is better to provide more alternative contact options, like phone number, physical address, ICQ, Skype numbers, etc.
Don’t be afraid of high volume of customer appeals. Publishing your contacts will not make all your customers contact you. This is only about credibility (of course, if you provide customers with the service you are advertising).
Simplicity of ordering.
‘Add to Cart’ button should always be in customer’s attention.
If it is not visible, you are about to loose your sale because customer may think that you only show (advertise) products but do not sell them.
Checkout process should be clear and straightforward. Do not offer customers advertisement like “click here to get super discounts!” during checkout, since by doing this you are only increasing chances that customer’s shopping cart will be abandoned.
Quick reaction.
Imagine a person who places an order in a certain online store, but does not receive any response from the store personnel regarding the order status for several hours (or even days!). Wouldn’t you cancel your order and go shopping somewhere else?
Don’t let that happen! Do your best to give a customer your response at the earliest opportunity, especially when it is about her order, whether placed or potential.
Product pricing.
Providing lower product prices is usually not the best way to get more sales. Getting a customer to make a purchase is, first of all, making her confident in the purchase. Customers are likely to buy something and overpay a little, but be sure to receive the order safe and in time.
Always put yourself on your visitor’s place and try to think as your customer would. Answer yourself frankly - would I like to buy from this online store (keeping in mind that you see it for the first time)?
If your answer is “Yes”, congratulations! Go ahead and good luck in your ecommerce experience.
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Excellent points here. I agree that too many (me included) initially are too worried about the “look” of their online store. Functionality and simplicity are the keys though as you say.
Also, having the “About” page where customers can see that you have an address, phone and email where they can contact you helps too.
Thanks for the post.
It’s very easy to handle the shopping cart created by SHOP-SCRIPT team. They keep adding the “modules” “features” according to requirements. I feel technical team is very talent and smart so that they can troubleshoot any kind of technical issues as soon as possible. This is the best part, that’s why anybody can use this SHOP-SCRIPT shopping cart even more or less or non programming knowledge. Design part is very professional and still getting better than before because of more new skin templates.
Thanks,
Gyanu Shrestha
http://www.fragrancesky.com
USA
Excelent point. My first mistake was and still is main worry about the look, now I try to move to functionality and ease of use. Best shopping cart software on the market, meaning price and functionality combination.
Darius Balsaitis
http://www.truebalticamber.com
Lithuania
Excellent software/script. The best software for e-commerce. Its really easy for me to build a shopping online, it so easy to customize the front store without touching the source code because the design part is pure html and totaly separate with the scripts/source code.
There only one thing for shop-script team to consider for the next update is to put an option “add selected item to cart”.
Thanks.
Ben
Ben, thank you for commenting.
I will add your suggestion to the list of features for future development
thanx
I want to say Thanx , becox this cart give me guideline into Smarty , this is very excellent shopping scripting , Thnax to all
team of this script programmer.
I my personal experience since last 5 years, yes you are right I have observed same things.
Once again, I appreciate your research.
Regards,
Firstly, thanks for the message you sent me.
Second, I am just beggining in this area of internet, ecommerce.
Well, I got surprised with the self-explanatory content of this issue, it goes exactly on my needs!
Thanks, good article!
In this site we are not providing customer account so that he/she can visit again and no need to enter whole information regarding themselves. If we provide account it will be best. So the customer can login and check the earlier orders placed by him and status. With this if possible provide address book so the customer want to send the product to other person as gift he can do it. I have many queries but this for now. bye
Sailesh, if I understand correctly you are referring to customer profile? Yes, it is definitely true, a customer-friendly online store should have options for customers to log in and be able to bring up order history, status and other info. I also agree, address book as a part of saved profile could be very handy. All these functions are includeed in Shop-Script PRO and Shop-Script PREMIUM
Excellent software/script. The best software for e-commerce. Its really easy for me to build a shopping online, it so easy to customize the front store without touching the source code because the design part is pure html and totaly separate with the scripts/source code.
but i face on problem add to cart
Arvind,
You can find answers to various Shop-Script questions in our Online Help or contact Support Center if online help doesn’t resolve your issue.
Im new to ecommerce and agree totaly with these comments. However, i do think your shop should be colour schemed in with the rest of your site therefore portraying a constant image. For example you dont see McDonalds shops red in one town then in another town blue.? But i get the idea and recommendations.
Thanks for the script, its great. Il post more about my successes. Heres hoping. Cheers and good luck all.
the script shopping cart is very insteresting. it reviews and tapeworm to it much information. in addition this developed with smarty.
it reviews script well to it.
Please i need help am a webdesigner venturing into ecommerce and would like someone to help me with the design of a simple shoping cart.
If you know the best site with good tutorials please help
We can offer you our PHP shopping cart tutorial and Shop-Script FREE. Feel free to use this info for building your shopping cart.
The script needs a paypal shipping prices section……
unless i missed something theres no s/h places in the script so i never ended up using it
I have already sucessfully installed Shop-Script to my computer. From here how do I proceed to create my shop? After creating the shop can I just upload all the files from the shop to my we-server or do I need to re-create the store after installing the Shop-Script on my web-server? Is there any web-hosting service provider who already has shop-script installed?
Hello J.Kumar,
Answering your question about web-hosting provider offering Shop-Script: we will be releasing this fall WebAsyst Shopping Cart service, which is the exact replica of Shop-Script PREMIUM, except it will be a hosted online store which will not require installation. (Read this post: http://blog.shop-script.com/webasyst-web-services-move-to-web-20/).
If you are interested in setting up your store on your local computer, please consult user guides for detailed instructions (user guides for all Shop-Script products are found on the page: http://www.shop-script.com/php-shopping-cart-software-3.html)
Gyanu,
Nice site at : http://www.fragrancesky.com
Where did you get this template? I can’t seem to find it anywhere?
Thanks,
Sam.
If this is not the best in the support and shoping cart services in the Internet.. Than this must be on of the best frankly said from my personal experience.. Thank you to all the hard working people from shop-script. You guys are the best. Cheers
I have just downloaded your Shop-Script for beginning sell online, I’m looking for someone to design my frontstore. I have no experience in this field, I dont know this program is safety and protect from hackers? last time i hvae a web to be hacked many times. I hope to be shared from you.
Thanks & Regards,
Excelent point. My first mistake was and still is main worry about the look, now I try to move to functionality and ease of use. Best shopping cart software on the market, meaning price and functionality combination.
I’m afraid I don’t agree about the looking of the storefront because, at least in Europe, people don’t trust in something that is not attractive at first sight. Imagine you receive two flyers from a differnt dentists. One is made with an accurate design and the other is not. In which hands you will leave the responsibility of taking care of your mouth? That’s the way the things work in our society I guess. Reliable matters lie on good image.
Anyone know how to tie this cart into the streamline payment system? Is it easy?
thank you..
I’m sure that shop-script fulfills many online business needs, and this Blog entry is very valuable in making points that are very important. I downloaded it and tried it out, but it didn’t hit me straight between the eyes how I could use it for delivering ana managing digital product delivery.
Sadly the site doesn’t make it obvious either, and at the risk of being labelled pessimistic, I am waveringa way from using it to sell digital products through my blog.
I’d be pleased to hear that I’m wrong. robsabloggin
i think that within the admin side it needs a place for putting ad banner coding, so to show up on the website templates, top , bottom , side
ads like google adsence coding that can help make some nice extra income for a lot of website owners.
as a lot of pepole really do not like hacking in to the templates coding with frontpage, macromeda ect, just to add a banner that really should be done in the admin side..well thats what i think anyway…
regards
mark
Excellent
I sucessfully installed Shop-Script to my computer. it work very well by this script i learnt lot thank you very very much.
i requested you that you provide a lot of script in your websites like shoping script
I agree with Mark. A dedicated place for the real ’special offers’ / ads would be nice, especially if they could be managed from within the back-end.
Now they’re somewhere underneath the products on the home page.
Tim, take a look at our new WebAsyst Shoppin Cart web service — http://www.webasyst.net/shop/
This service allows creating online stores easily — it allows integrating custom HTML codes easily (e.g. widgets, adwords ads, etc.) right in the backend (Presentation — Design editor section). Soon we will be introducing the same functionality in Shop-Script.
I don’t know what the problem is I installed it and the admin form doesn’t work at me , I don’t even know how or where can I login to make some product changes etc.
“Add to Cart’ button should always be in customer’s attention” … I do not agree with this. Most shopping carts put an “Add Now” button on the front page.
This wouldn’t work for Apparel stores, where the customer must have options like size and color.
I prefer a ‘normal’ presentation page when entering the store and not immediately a “Add to Cart” button with lots of products.
This is how a shop should be: http://www.branchesonline.org/
Cheers!
The shop is fantastic, simple, but attractive. I just regret it is not in Portuguese also.
But thanks for the script.
The script is so easy to install it’s frightening. The support team are truly excellent, solved my problems in a couple of hours. I wish I had found shop-script years ago instead of plodding away at manual coding.
I disagree about the look/style of your site - it is critically important. Sure, functionality and ease of use are prime, but third comes the appearance of the site.
If it looks messy with stuff like clashing colours, inappropriate fonts and font sizes, poor layout, poor spelling and grammar etc., visitors will be put off and simply click off to somewhere else that looks more professional.
I have developed over 50 websites during the last 15 years and I know from experience that the better looking ones sell more product. I have even tested and proved this theory by running exactly the same product range and prices on 3 different sites, each with it’s own domain name, style and layout. The site that looked best using the above criteria won hands-down.
Once a shop is up and running and successfully processing orders I would urge any would-be internet trader to take a critical look at the appearance of the pages.
I am convinced that after product range and ease of use, the things that count most are style, clarity, and accuracy of content.
runemaker, thank you for your comment.
We are also dissatisfied with our current website as well, and we plan to introduce completely new redesigned and overwritten web site in a couple of months. We expect it to be much better than the current one
shop-script-FREE. What a great program! I was able to install, customize and hook up in about 4 hrs. Excellent installation manual. I’m just opening the store-front so I wanted to keep the software price down (free is good). As sales come in, I’m going to upgrade to PRO for a more consistent look. Is the upgrade from FREE to PRO seamless?
Thanks,
Steve Dule
http://aaccurate.info
http://aaccurate.info/Store
Upgrade process is very similar to installation — simply input your database connection settings and your database will be upgraded to a new structure.
it is the simplicity, flexibility, functionality and c# style coding of your php script we like most.
thanks
nowitwiz
Excellent! It work hebrew language very well by this script i learnt lot thank you very very much.
So far this is great software, I have yet to tap into any of the things on it. I’m still in the planning/getting things together phase. I will be upgrading to premium as soon as my first local sale goes through. Hopefully I catch it at the amazing price it is at now!
Keep up the good work!
Good job! Just 10 minutes installation! It really work even for free version. Hope my sales increase and I can upgrade to Premium verson soon!
Hi Vladimir,
Can you please provide me solution to shop scriptregarding currency conversion at the time of checkout to final paymentgateway. When i add products to shopping cart (in INR indian currency)and proceed to
checkout for final payment (in USD), it still shows finalvalue in INR. The currency is not converting to USD to final gateway,can you provide urgent solution, i can pay for it. as this is veryurgent, as my shop is online.
Can you test transaction to the site.
My address of site iswww.ronin-exports.com/shop
Amit KKumar
yes
Great ideas!
Warning: Smarty error: unable to read resource: “./templates/tmpl1/index.tpl.html” in C:\public_html\httpdocs\php\Nsp\Smarty\libs\Smarty.class.php on line 1094
how to get this solved? Since I am evaluating this for Chinese Type of Contents.
Hello everybody,
I live in Bulgaria, an Eastern Europe country. The longest distance a man can travel without leavin the country is about 250 miles. I live in Sofia. I’ve been spoken with many friends about e-commerce. I couldn’t find even one who would buy something from online store. Everybody says that there is nothing in a online store that couldn’t be found in the local supermarket or mall. They find usefull only the information they can get from Internet, but to purchase something they prefere do it themselves when they can see the real goods. I don’t speak about purchasing online Lamborghini fo $300000. We say “My eye must see and my hand must touch”. No one wants to order “a cute mower” and to recieve chinese shit for example.
hello, actually i tried it out
last days, and must say that the most i like of this free script is its simplicity.
actually, also to customize its design should be pretty easy.
if you know some of php and css div styling you could completely
create your own template.
for the beginning im satisfied about it even if some more
functions could be implemented in the free script offer, like: user registration for ordering, email verification, user database for order overview or customer account for overview and newslettersystem.
i installed it for a friend whose having a pizza delivery and for that purpose
its absolutely okey..but i will try some other opensource e-commerce shops too..
THANX a lot SHOP-SCRIPT Team
:)
sincerely
oh, i forgot…if you havent already done it, i translated the english language file
to german i could send to you. just let me know
bye
;)
I have been designing in Dreamweaver and CSS for a good while and I have never had such a hard time down loading free software as I am with Script Free. I have had two e mails to support, have read the instructions (repeatedly) and it still tells me it can’t find the “local host”. I am about to give up!
Hi there, I plan to get a shop-script soon and I have tried out the Demo version. I found that I can only upload one picture for a single product. Is it possible to upload more pictures in a single product?
Also is it possible to upload 10 pictures or more in the same time?
Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks
thnx