STOREFRONTS
If you are in the retail business why not let the web sell it for you? Thanks to the rise in e-commerce, it is now easier than ever.
You've seen those online stores, the ones with the "Buy Me" buttons and the little shopping carts. In the early days of the web, a typical web store relied on a printable order form that the buyer filled out and mailed with payment. It was then up to the seller to verify the check or credit card before filling the purchase request. But now there are many new software products and services that automate the entire process online and give you more time to spend at the beach. Of course, like everything else, they don't come free. There are extra fees above and beyond what you will pay your web designer. What are they?
Just when you thought you were making money...
Depending on the type of store you set up, your pocketbook may be running for cover. Here is a breakdown of those extra charges you can expect:
Ready-made Shopping Carts
The least expensive way to go is to use a ready-made shopping script that an increasing number of service providers have made available free for their clients' use. Usually there is a setup fee of between $50 and $100, and hosting prices will vary between $50 and $125 a month. Examine the particulars carefully when deciding where to park your site. For $50 a month, some host providers limit your inventory to only 25 items.
We recommend SITE-sMart by SITE-etc to our clients. It is a full featured shopping cart system and SITE-etc lets you use it free with hosting. For $59.95 a month you can have up to 2,500 items in your inventory. For stores with small inventories, you can use the Mini-sMart for only $29.95 a month. But even more than that, SITE-etc lets you use a number of other web applications that help with your marketing efforts such as eNews and Tell-a-Friend.
Just two SITE-etc shopping cart sites
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| Palomar Ballroom uses the Mini-sMart, a SITE-etc shopping cart system for stores with a small inventory to sell class registrations online. |
Vanilla.COMpany uses both the SITE-sMart for the general public and the Mini-sMart for selling its smaller wholesale inventory. |
Custom Applications
If you need custom features, as many stores do, your costs will go up considerably. It is not uncommon for custom stores with large-scale databases to cost $25,000 and more. And if you want your online database to tie into your offline warehouse inventory, costs can easily go up to $100,000. Kat & Mouse can create a custom application specific to your needs, but in consideration of our clients' pocketbooks, we often recommend starting out with SITE-etc's SITE-sMart and customizing it from there. It's always much more economical to start with a ready-made foundation.
So, are you ready to make the commitment in cost for a shopping cart to add to your website? You should be if you have the right product for the web. Here at Kat & Mouse, we'll help you make the right decision so that you will be putting more money into your pocketbook than is going out.
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