Web Design
What's involved: Commercial Sites
First there is data that is needed. Data about the Site -
About Us, who you are, about the store, and any interesting information about Location, Historical, Products etc. This is your Store Bio and should be a bit about yourself. Let your customers get to know you, your store, employees and other information. Make it interesting keep your customers entertained and informed.
Store Policies, turnaround time, disclaimers (are you selling items that may not be allowed in other states, countries?) Store hours (for calls) and don't forget days open!
Shipping, methods offered, and anything unique about your business shipping.
Categories, the sections under which your various products lay. You'll need to have a list of them and the Subcategorizes if any. (Example Category Teas, Subcategory Green, Black, Herbal etc.)
Descriptions or Text Copy you'd like under each Category, Subcategory and finally individual item descriptions.
Item or Product Numbers/Codes, for each item you have in your Store you'll need to have an inventory system for them, we'll need a complete list. Otherwise items in your Store will Not have an inventory number but become assigned a random sequential number. (Example 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.) There is a draw back to this, controlling products in your stores inventory can become a nightmare, but if you have a small inventory this does not have to be a problem. You'll have to rely on Product Description, Category and Image of item when an order comes in to be filled.
Images of items, you'll need clear images of you inventory. Remember the saying 'A picture is worth a thousand words' it is but a nice description is very important. How else do you entice customers? Using an inexpensive Digital Camera is not wise unless your selling houses, boats, and other large items. The better the picture the better it comes across in sales. Lighting is also an important consideration. Good lighting means less time correcting images. Time is money if it's your time or our time it's still valuable. These images will need to be converted and resized to full size image for Shopping Cart display about 235 pixels in height, and Thumbnail images that the Shopping Cart will display as you look at the store. In other words Thumbnails are what you see when you go to most any Shopping Cart, the full size images are what you see when you click on the item to see "more."
OK now you have a lot of Store data, text files about you, the store, policy, and inventory. Now what?
Well it all gets put together into a tab delimited file for importing into the Shopping Cart. This is a file that is separated by Tabs, that contains, the information for each item that will be listed in the shopping cart.
What so of information? Category, Category Code, Item Number, Item, Description, path to thumbnail, path to full image, Taxable, Active, Weight, and what ever else the Shopping Cart you are using needs for inventory information.
Once this is all together and the images, are uploaded to the Server, we're ready to import the delimited file and if all went well your Store is ready for the fine tuning that it'll need. Setting up Sales Tax, Shipping, Order Processing, ECommerce Gateway (what allows Credit Card Processing) and customizing the Cart to look and feel the way you want it, unless your happy with it right out of the box.
None of this is accounting for any extras, like custom editing of images, customizing pages colors, display, adding your logo and custom navigation buttons. But of course Customization, including Feedback Forms, and Custom Product Pages that allow you to select from variables are just a matter of time. Customization can be added later as your budget allows.
Now your pretty close to ready to go, assuming you have a Hosting Plan, leased or bought the Shopping Cart, and have bought a Secure Key for ECommerce.
Secure Keys if you don't know about Secure Keys, read on. Secure Key is what encrypts data so if anyone tries to intercept it they get gibberish. 128 Bit encryption is nearly impossible to break, and to date it's the best of what is Commercially available. It is something you purchase either on an annual or every 3 years basis. When you have a Secure Key and you get to a page where critical information is to be given you'll notice a yellow key appears on Windows Explorer on the bottom right of the window. It is what let folks know their data is secure and gives peace of mind to continue shopping.
Setting up a Shopping Cart (not adding inventory) runs $200, this includes testing and trouble shooting, and takes the better part of a day.
Again it's all about time. If you wish to supply ready to use images, and text files the more you'll save. Text format should be in Wordpad, or if you use Word please do Not 'mark it up' just dump the data into each file and name the file accordingly (Example) Shopping With Us, About Us-Bio, About Us-Store Info, Category Soaps Description, Item Sandalwood Soap Description, you get the idea. But Please do not format the text, it will only create more work from here removing the markup and add to your cost. Remember it's all about time.
Once your Website and Shopping Cart are up and running it's time to consider Search Engine placement. Please Email us about this as this technology and methods are constantly changing.
Well that is enough here for now, for further information or to discuss any part or your website, please give us a call 828 634-4468. 9 - 7 EST. Or Email
Louie
Kampouris
Webmaster
Essencial Dreams