Tips When Shopping For Ecommerce Development

You’ve decided to hire a professional for ecommerce development and have begun the processes of getting bids. The problem is that you are getting bids everywhere from $500 to $5000 and you don’t have any clue as to what you actually need. Can you get away with a $500 ecommerce website or do you have to go all out and get the $5000 one. What’s the difference? Is there a difference? These are questions that business owners deal with all the time when it comes to ecommerce development. What is too much and what is not enough?

Before you begin this journey you need to determine one thing up front. How are you going to get paid? Are you going to accept credit cards? Are you going to accept Paypal? Are you going to have people mail you checks? This is the first question you need to have answered before you even pick up the phone to call a web designer because this will play a factor in who you hire for your ecommerce development and what sort of options you will need with your ecommerce software.

Here is a a bare bones list of what you need to run an ecommerce store that accepts credit cards.

If you decide to go with Paypal as your payment solution then the rest of this article doesn’t really pertain to you. Click this link to read some of the benefits and drawbacks of using Paypal.

First – You’ll Need a Payment Gateway

The proper way of setting up an ecommerce store is to accept credit card through what is known as a payment gateway. This is not a merchant account. Many people confuse merchant accounts with payment gateways but they are not the same. Merchant account services act, for the most part, as a liaison between your business bank account and the payment gateway. When a customer orders a product from your online business their card is processed via the payment gateway. The money is then moved over to the merchant account service. The merchant account service then moves those newly captured funds to your business bank account.

Payment gateways allow online merchants such as ecommerce store owners or auction sellers to accept credit card payments over the Internet. They authorize the cardholder s credit that is, they check to ensure that the customer has enough money on their credit card to cover the charges. They then place a hold on that amount so the buyer can t turn around and spend that same money elsewhere before it gets transferred to the retailer s merchant account. Banks describes this as the technology necessary to consummate a payment transaction.

Second – You Need a Domain Name

You will need to purchase a domain name for your website. This is the part that comes after the “www” such as http://www.yourwebsitehere.com. Domain names are billed annually and a .com name can be purchased for $9.99 or even less if you shop around.

Third – You Have Put Your Store Somewhere and That is Known as Web Hosting

When you have an ecommerce website built you need to put it somewhere and that is where website hosting comes in. This is paid for in advance by the year. So if you purchase a $6.08 per month plan your initial bill will be for $72.96. This will keep your ecommerce website online for 1 year. There are different price plans based on how much space you will need for your website, how many emails you want associated with your account and how much security you want added your ecommerce website.

Fourth – You Need to Prove Your Website is Secure With an SSL Certificate

If you are planning on accepting credit cards or any personal information on your ecommerce website then you will need to purchase a SSL Certificate. This is proof to your customers that your ecommerce website is secure and that the likely hood of their personal information getting into the wrong hands is minimal.

Fifth – Ecommerce Software

Something needs to run your online store and that something is ecommerce software. This is where the cost starts to fluctuate based on whom you hire to build your store. There are plenty of free ecommerce software solutions out there. That’s right, they are free to download and use as you wish. Open source ecommerce software such as osCommerce and Zen Cart are very popular.

Here at Digi Donkey we use Kryptronic Click Cart Pro software for ecommerce development. It costs $199 but we have specialized in this software so that our ecommerce websites can be built quickly. This software has an easy to learn user control panel. There are plenty of free ecommerce solutions out there but we have found that the learning curve for most non-tech users is so high that it is not worth using it since our customers still ended up having to call us to make all of their edits and changes for them. Plus, Kryptronic has great customer support which is nonexistent with the free ecommerce software that is out there.

You will most likely be at the mercy of your web designer as to which ecommerce software is used for your online store. You definatelty want them using software they are familiar with so that your site is built as quickly (economically) as possible. Just make sure that if they are using licensed software to build your ecommerce site you own the license. The software needs to be registered to you so that you own it.

Sixth – Pictures and Words

Believe it or not this is probably one of the most left out aspects when people come to us for ecommerce development. The business owner has 5,000 products they are wanting to sell without any pictures or product descriptions and they want us to contact their supplier to get that information for them. This is one of those requests than can cost you a lot of money. You really should have your photos and words ready before you hire a web designer. What you’ll need written are these basic things; categories, category descriptions, product descriptions, product options, pricing, your return policy, your privacy policy, your terms of use and a home page greeting. Now there is plenty of more that you’ll need but these are the basics. If you are not good with words then hire a writer . If you don’t know of a writer only then ask your web designer, they probably work with one.

You’ll also need to have pictures of all your products on a CD, DVD or flash drive. The chances of someone buying something online they can’t look at are slim to none. If you are selling 10,000 items then you need 10,000 pictures of those items. Many times we have had clients ask us to go online and download the pictures for them. I’ll tell you now, that is a horrible idea. You need to get your own pictures before hiring the web designer.  Having them do it is going to cost you a ton of money. Now if you have it budgeted and really don’t have the time to do it fine but don’t get upset with your web designer when they hand you an invoice for 80 hours of downloading photos at $50 – $100 per hour before they have even started on building your ecommerce site.

And Finally – Website Design

You are obviously hiring someone because you can’t do this yourself so you will need to pay someone to put all this stuff together for you. This is where the cost really fluctuates. The best advice I can give is for you to do your homework and get a lot of bids. If you are looking at spending serious money on ecommerce development I would even suggest hiring a consultant to go over the bids with you. Dropping a couple hundred dollars on someone who knows more  about this stuff than you to go through the bids you get may save you thousands of dollars.

For any competent web designer the actual set up of your ecommerce website shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. That is getting the server and database set up, installing the software, turning on your SSL certificate and getting it to the point where you can start adding in your categories and products.  The real cost is in the customization of the site and plugging in all your categories, products and options. The more you have your designer do, the more it will cast you. You will most likely need your designer to customize the look of the site for you but beyond that you should be able to take over from there if you want to. Adding in the information to an ecommerce site is usually as easy as filling in a form. If it isn’t then you are using the wrong software.

Make sure you keep all these things in mind when shopping for ecommerce development. What you don’t know will cost you.

Is Twitter Right For Your Business?

Twitter has made the news again with the recent Ashton Kutcher vs CNN race to 1 million followers. Now that piece of pulp news has given ammunition to all the so-called social media “experts” riding Twitters jock. I’m going to borrow a line from Chuck D and Flava Flav and caution some of you business owners out there, “Don’t believe the hype”.

Your local ad agency, web guy or God forbid “social media expert” may be trying to use this as an example as to why your business should start tweeting. They may even show you examples of various tweeters with thousands of followers trying to convince you that that kind of audience is waiting for your message. After all, what business owner wouldn’t like to have tens of thousands of people to market to on a regular business.

I’ve read some recent blog postings from “social media experts” hailing this event as proof that Twitter can be used to reach a huge audience for business. The scary thing is that I believe some of these “experts” actually have people paying them money for this kind of advice. Someone needs to step up and drop some common sense on the public.

I guess I’ll have to do it.

First thing I have to say is this. Twitter can be useful tool for some businesses. That’s “some” businesses, not all of them.  Another thing is the fact that Ashton Kutcher and CNN have some things going for them that 99.9% of the business owners out there reading this probably don’t have. Fame, popularity and the ability to get their message to the masses through TV and radio for free.

People, if you’re not an “A” list celebrity or a huge corporate entity with a zillion media outlets to promote through then you may need to scale back your Twitter expectations just a little bit.

Here are just a few things you need to ask yourself when considering using Twitter as a tool in your overall marketing scheme.

Do to have time to do this right?

Using Twitter for business works best when you stay consistent. Can you post messages and check responses multiple times per day? Can you do it once a day or once a week. The more you post using Twitter the better the chances are of someone finding one of your tweets interesting and following you. If they follow you, then they are at least interested in something you had to say and maybe, just maybe, they’ll become a client or refer someone to you.

Do you have someone to do this for you?

If you don’t have time but see value to your business ask yourself this question. Are you willing to pay someone to keep up with this for you or are you willing to add tweeting to an existing employees workload. Again, consistency is key. Someone needs to be blasting out messages and responding to your followers in a timely manner.

Are you willing to pay someone to show you how to do it?

There are strategies you can use to promote your business through Twitter. Do you know them? If not, are you willing to attend a seminar or workshop to learn them? Are you willing to pay a marketing specialist or consultant to put together a marketing plan for you. Just because it’s free and 16 year olds are tweeting it doesn’t mean you should just start blasting out messages without knowing what you are actually doing. Just as quick as you can get your business message out a bad rep can be spread by becoming too spamming or self serving in your tweets. The goal is for people to like your tweets – not be repulsed by them.

Will using Twitter bring in actual business or just waste your time?

If you don’t know, you better ask somebody. Some people will immediately see the benefit Twitter can bring to their business others, not so much. Like I said before, it’s not for everyone.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet consulting firm located in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida. He is also the creator of the Cheap Ass Website.

Basic Information About Website Hosting

A website hosting company provides a place where the files used to build your website are kept so that they can be viewed and accessed by people on the Internet. Your files are kept on a web server. This is a basically special type of hard drive that has software running on it so that it is accessible to people surfing the Internet. Think of it like a folder on your computer where you keep pictures. If you want to look at the pictures you have to open the folder to see them. A web hosting service provides the ability for people to see your pages by clicking on your URL. Your URL is directed to a folder on the web server that contains all the files needed for your website to work. When the web designer finishes building your website they will upload all the files to your web server and then your website will be viewable to the world.

There are two main types of web servers that can host websites and they are Linux servers and Windows servers. If you are setting up your hosting account yourself yourself, ask your web designer which type of server you’ll need to run your website. Sometimes it can be a hassle having to switch over from one type to the other which in turn could end up costing you more money. They both basically do the same things but certain e-commerce shopping carts, websites, CMS systems and other software will only run on one or the other.

The three most relevant types of web hosting for most businesses learning about the Internet for the first time are shared hosting, dedicated hosting and self hosting.

Shared hosting involves putting your website on the same part of a web server with other people’s websites.  The equipment and server are owned and managed by the web host provider, with technicians on hand to monitor and manage the servers. This is a popular option because it is inexpensive and gives you many of the benefits that dedicated hosting provides. The drawback is that you will have limited access to the server which means you may not be able to run many of the applications you see on other websites. This is a good option if you just want to have basic website.

Dedicated hosting allows you to rent an entire web server yourself and have access to all its resources to host one or more websites. The website hosting company typically does not take responsibility for anything other than the hosting operations. Setting up files, databases, permissions and other technical things may (depending on the company) be your or your web designer’s responsibility. Most web hosting companies provide built in tools to make doing these things easier but the learning curve can be steep. This option is good for larger websites and ones used for e-commerce. If security is important then dedicated hosting is what you need. The cost can be a little bit more than shared hosting but there are many web hosting companies out there where there is no difference.

Self hosting is when you host the website yourself on your own web server. To do this you’ll need the proper hardware, software, technical skill and Internet connection. This option gives you complete control and responsibility over everything. Hosting your own web server will normally require a specialized Internet connection depending on your particular needs. Before going this route you’ll want to speak to an Internet consultant or IT person to get all the particulars.

When you sign up for web hosting you will given a login and password to your account so remember to write this information down and keep it somewhere you won’t lose it. You may even be able to sign up for hosting when you purchase your domain name. Speak to your web designer before doing this if you are not sure as to what you are doing or what type of hosting you need. If you don’t have anyone to consult with when you buy your domain name then purchase the hosting at a later time. It won’t cost you anymore to do so as hosting can always be added to your account later on.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet consulting service located in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida. He is also the creator of the one and only  Cheap Ass Website.

SEO Explained

According to the bastion of knowledge known as Wikipedia, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks,” the more searchers will visit that site.

Now I’ll attempt to explain what SEO is for people who don’t know an algorithm from an enema.

The search engines use an algorithm to determine the placement of a website when someone types in a search phrase for content contained on that website. Here is an extremely over-simplified example. Someone types “plumber Boston” into Google’s search box. What happens then is Google displays all of the websites that have the words “plumber” and “Boston” in them. Now if one website has more instances of the words “plumber” and “Boston” in it than another then, in theory, it will rank higher. Google knows which websites have these words because is has indexed all the websites that are out there and it has given relevance to each and every one based on certain criteria. This is predominately based on two things: the text on the website and how many other websites with similar content have linked to the website. There are other things that factor in too like how long the website has been online, the names of the files used to build the website, the frequency of updates, the title and description meta tags, the domain name and the technical makeup of the website.

What it boils down to is this. If you want someone to find your business by typing in “pool company Phoenix” then you better have the words “pool company Phoenix” sprinkled throughout your website. An even better way to do this is to use proper phrases throughout your website’s content. Instead of “pool company Phoenix”, since that isn’t really proper grammar, you could use “pool company in Phoenix” such as “Are you looking for the best pool company in Phoenix?” and “If you need a pool company in Phoenix then ABC Pools is the place for you.” That will increase the chances of your website being listed higher when someone searches for “pool company in Phoenix”.

Now if two or more websites have the exact same amount of instances of the phrase “pool company in Phoenix” then the amount of incoming links will factor in. An incoming link is another website linking to your website. Google factors in how many websites link to your website when ranking pages. It doesn’t appear at the time of this writing that the other search engines place as heavy an emphasis on incoming links as Google. It helps out even more if the links are coming from websites with similar content. Links from other pool company websites, websites about pools, pool suppliers and directory listings under the category of anything pool related would help your website out more than links from flower shops.

It can take up to 3-4 months for a brand new website to show up in the search engine rankings. If your website is built properly it should start showing up in various searches during that time frame. You can test this yourself by typing in various word combinations related to your products, services and service area. Your placement will be determined by your website’s content, incoming links and how much competition there is for the keywords used for the search. If you are one of only 5 roofers with websites in your area then your website should show up within the first 1 or 2 pages or so if someone types in the word “roofers” and a city or town in your service area, for example “roofer Bay City, MI”. If it doesn’t, then you need to make sure that your website has enough mentions of the words “roofer” and “Bay City, MI” in the text because the search engines have not deemed your website relevant for that particular search phrase.

I hope this sheds a little light on the subject for you. If you want more information on how to not get screwed when hiring someone do SEO work for you then click here to read this previous post.

Jayme Ward is the owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet consulting firm located in Historic Cocoa Village, FL.  He can also hook you up with a Cheap Ass Website.

Advice on Choosing a Domain Name

One of the first things you’ll have to do when planning your website is come up with a domain name and then register it with a domain name registrar like GoDaddy.com or Netfirms.com. Typically the cost to do this is around $6 – $12 per year depending on who you register it with.

Even though many web designers may offer to do it for you, it is in your best interest to register your domain name yourself. This way you have sole access to the account and can choose whom you share the information with. Now, if you hire someone to develop your website for you, they will need access to your domain name. But keeping it in your name will prevent future hassle, especially if you have to terminate your web designer.

You will be given a customer number or login name as well as a password when you register your domain name. Make sure you write this information down and put it somewhere you won’t lose it as recovering this information, if lost, can be difficult.

When selecting a primary domain name consider these points:

• How will you be marketing your website?
• Does the name of your business tip people off as to what service you provide?
• How much online competition do you have?

Write down about 5-10 different names you would like then check online for their ability using GoDaddy.com, Netfirms.com or a similar service.

One of the choices you will need to make will be to go with .com, .net, .org or something else. The .com extension is the most desirable due to fact that most people will assume that is the extension unless your advertising has effectively branded something different. As far as the search engines are concerned, it doesn’t really matter which extension you choose because the content on your website and other factors will determine your website’s search engine placement. The .org extension is typically used by non-profit organizations.

Here is an additional note about your domain name and the search engines. It does help a little bit if your domain name states what it is you do as opposed to just being the name of your business. If, for some reason, the name of your business isn’t available then a good way to choose your domain name would be to name the service you provide as well as the area you provide it. For example, if you’re a plumber and your business is named Joe’s Pipe Works and you are located in Orlando, Florida but the domain name joespipeworks.com, .net and everything else isn’t available then you could consider going with orlandoplumbing.com or joesplumbingorlando.com if they are available. You can also try using dashes. For example: joes-pipe-works.com or joes-plumbing-orlando.com.

If the domain name you prefer is available with multiple extensions (.com, .net, .biz, etc.) you will have a decision to make. Should you just purchase the one you want or should you purchase all of them. This will really depend on how much control you want over the name. For example, if the domain name you choose for your BBQ business is PigInThePoke.com would you be okay with a porn website setting up shop as PigInThePoke.net.? That may sound extreme but it has happened many times to many businesses before and it will continue to happen in the future. The other concern is that of a competitor getting the same domain name with a different extension. If you can afford it, it would be a good idea for you to buy up all the different extensions of your domain name. This is especially true if you want tight control over your branded image. There are other benefits to owning multiple domain names for your business too such as using them to promote landing pages, blogs and other online marketing tools.

Jayme Ward is the Owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet Consulting firm located in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida

6 Tips To Save Money On An E-commerce Website

The title says it all this week. Read on for some tips that can save you hundreds of dollars when you have your E-Commerce shopping cart built.

Now these tips apply to people that are considering having a real bonafide shopping cart built. Not a web page with some PayPal buttons on it. We’re talking real E-Commerce ability here: credit card processing, inventory control, complete administration access, wholesale pricing, affiliate programs, real time shipping quotes, newsletter capability, 24 hr support, the works.

Tip 1: Hire Someone Who Actually knows What They Are Doing

This is not a joke. We get a handful of clients coming to us every year with these aborted abominations they call shopping carts and, of course,  they want us to fix them. My answer is usually to put their existing waste of money out of it’s misery and do another one from scratch the right way. This isn’t to get more money out of them, it’s because, in the world of web programming, fixing someone’s mistake usually takes more time than doing it from scratch the right way.

The problem for the business owner looking to get an E-Commerce site built is the fact that they are usually looking for a bargain (which is akin to using a coupon for cosmetic surgery) and they hire someone who doesn’t know what in the hell they are doing because there bid was the lowest. Why was it the lowest? Because they figured since the software is available for free online they would take your money, learn how to do it on your dime and everything will turn out right. Unfortunately, and ask your local web guy who really does know how to build E-Commerce site to verify this, there are plenty of “freelance web designers” that participate in this practice. And, yes, I did write that the software is available for free. You can download Zen Cart, OS Commerce and a slew of other open source shopping carts for free. As a matter of fact, these carts are sometimes included with your web hosting  tools. Go ahead you do-it-yourselfers. Knock yourselves out then call your web guy once you’ve been at it 50 hours and haven’t figured out how to change the color of your buttons yet.

The point is this. If you hire someone who has experience then the setup and programming won’t take as long. You are most likely going to be billed by the hour, so the less time it takes, the less money you spend. Ask to see a portfolio of shopping cart sites. Do they all look the same or are they different? Do they actually work? Does the designer give you excuses like, well it’s not quite done yet? Have they built more than one? Do they know how to set up credit card processing, PayPal, E Checks? Can they set up real time shipping quotes? If you wanted to set up an affiliate marketing program, could the cart handle it? These are just some of the questions any competent designer with E-Commerce experience should be able to answer. If they can’t, then call someone else.

Here’s a common example of something that happens all the time in the world of web design. A cheap business owner wants a cheap shopping cart. He gets three quotes. Two  for $100 per hour and $95 per hour from professional design firms and one for $50 per hour from some kid just out of college. He reads the three bids and has no clue as to what he’s reading. It’s all too technical so he goes for what he perceives as the better deal of $50 per hour. 40 hours and $2000 later his cart still isn’t quite working right. Instead of taking credit cards the proper way, the kid has convinced the business owner to just have the credit card numbers and orders emailed to him (believe me, this really does happen) since there is some sort of technical problem he can’t figure out with the cart. The business owner gets fed up with the kid and hires the $95 per hour design firm to fix the cart. They build him a new one from scratch (since the one the kid built is crap) that works perfectly in 15 hours for a total cost of $1425. Even if the kid got his cart working, did it really save the business owner anything?

Now, assuming you hire someone who’s competent, the rest will be up to you. If you deliver your materials to the designer all ready organized and set to go then you’ll shave hours off of the production time. If you are paying by the hour you need to make sure that the designer doesn’t have to sift through all your crap looking for what they need to set your cart up. Organization is the key to keeping production time down.

Tip 2: Put All Your Products Into a Spreadsheet

Every cart requires the same information so make sure you create a spreadsheet with all your products on it whether it’s 10 or 10,000. If your products are in Quickbooks or some other type of proprietary software you need to export it into a spreadsheet that anyone can open and read. At the very least have this information organized into columns:

• Product Name
• Keywords – no more than 10 words associated with the product
• Short Description – a one sentence description of the product
• Long Description – a full description of the product
• Image Name – the file name of the photo for this product
• Price

Now this is a bare minimum of the info actually required but just getting this stuff into a spreadsheet can save you hours upon hours depending on how many products you have. If any of your products have options (size, color, brand) you’ll want to list those too.

Tip 3: Organize Your Images

First, rename your images to what they are actually pictures of. Instead of “KDK00398834598627265347.jpg” rename it to “YellowHat.jpg”. When renaming images make sure to not use leave any spaces and only use letters and numbers. This will make it easier for the designers and the easier you make their job the quicker your stuff will get done. Also, deliver large versions of all your images to the designers. Let them resize your images for you. If they have Photoshop this can be very quickly. This way you’ll have high quality images on your site and the designer won’t have to take extra time working with tiny, junky images.

Tip 4: Have Your Shipping Info and Equations Ready

If you are going to be using real time shipping quotes have all your equations written out and ready to be handed over to the designers. DO NOT I repeat DO NOT just give some of the info and expect them to come up with your shipping rates for you. This can be a real time killer, especially if you have thousands of products with different rates for each. It’s your responsibility as the business owner to know what your shipping situation is. Have it ready to save money. Call the carriers you will be using and have them help you come up with your rates. They’ll do it for free, your web designer will bill you for it.

Tip 5: Create an Outline

Once you have all your products in the spreadsheet create an outline just like the ones you did back in grade school. See, you should have paid more attention in writing class. Anyway, organize your products into categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories. Make sure that every product, category, option and sub category is accounted for and organized. This is another time killer if not presented to the designer in a clear organized manner.

Tip 6: Use a Skin

Another money saver is to use a skin for the design of your site. Most of the top line shopping cart software has these things called skins available for them. Skins are basically design templates that can be added with the click of a button to make your E-Commerce website look more professional. Now, any designer can customize your site for you but that can be expensive considering that most carts require PHP, ColdFusion or ASP programming skills to customize the look. Your won’t be able to just hire the kid down the street at $10 per hour to do it. A skin can be added to a cart and modified much quicker and cheaper than having a design custom built. Most quality skins cost money but they are also way less than hiring a designer to do the same thing.

There are many, many other things that need to be done when putting together an E-Commerce site like setting up the server, database , SSL certificate, photography, home page content, email set up, affiliate programs, wholesale programs and more but if you at least follow these six tips then you should be able to save yourself some production time. Again, the most important thing is to hire someone who is competent. That decision alone could save you thousands of dollars in production costs.

Well, smart guy. How long should it take?

I’ve received some feedback since posting this that I’d like to address and that’s how long it should really take to build a cart. Now this varies depending on a variety of factors. But, unlike websites, shopping carts are software programs that really only need to be loaded, set up and then customized. Whether it’s 10 or 10,000 items the amount of time to set up won’t vary much if the information is presented to the designer the way they require since they will most likely upload a spreadsheet to populate the cart and run batch image processing to resize the images used. Now, yes, 10,000 items will take a little longer than 10 but not as long as you may think. Customization is where the real time is spent. But back to the question, how long should it take? I know some solid designers than can have skinned carts with hundreds of items up within 7 hours from beginning to end if they get the materials sent to them the way they require. That includes server, database and SSL set up. Now in your area you may have designers who are faster and some who are slower but I can only speak from what I have personally seen.

Jayme Ward is owner of Digi Donkey, an Internet consulting firm located in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida