E-Commerce And Shopping Cart Systems

If you are developing an e-commerce based website, for example: you are going to sell products, it does not matter physical or digital you will need a shopping cart system.

You can choose between three choices:

• Free carts such as OS commerce, ZEN Cart
• Licensed carts like Actinic, Cube Cart, ViaShop,
• Miva Bespoke in house developed.

Free Carts

A free cart can deliver very similar features to that of the well known licensed ones so why doesn’t everyone use them? Free carts are supplied on the Open Source licensing arrangement so core code is available to programmers and developers to make modifications, this means a somewhat irregular update schedule is operated so new versions or security updates come out as individuals get round to it.Like a lot of open source software there is a core team that oversees the development, provides support and works with many developers to improve the product. This does mean that getting support for a particular issue may be difficult if it relates to a third party developer. The free carts come with a very basic template with which you need to be fairly skilled in HTML and PHP to make changes to suit your business brand.Where you may save on the license fee you may end up paying a developer to build a layout that you need for your business, you also need to be aware that security on free carts is a problem as they are targeted more than licensed software, and you may need to keep the product updated.

Not all the free carts are supported by payment processors so you will need to check this first.

Licensed Carts

These are E-Commerce Software programs built by a development team like any other normally purchased software.

The difference is support and updates is via the developer you will contact them and they will know what to do straight away. The templates will be a lot more professional looking, and you will find by internet outreach that specific localisation features.

Many of the licensed carts are able to work with accountancy software like SAGEpay and they are normally preferred systems for the main bank processors like WorldPay, Netbanx, EPDQ services.

The software can be a bit more complicated to set up and also limit you in certain ways so it’s a good idea to go through the demos and check they can do what you require for your business.

Bespoke Carts

When a free or licensed cart is not going to deliver what you need, then building your own may be the only option.

Many of the major online stores operate their own system as it’s effective to have something you can adjust and update as you need to. This will be an expensive route and is really only viable if you are going to outreach more than £10K per month in online sales. Building your own also means building your own requirements for accounting and banking links.

The Truth About Social Media

Software and communication networks were becoming an extension of our creative and intellectual life. Our neurons today are not alone and had an amplifier.

Twitter was also part of this puzzle and offered a different experience. Instant, simple and a tad confounding.

The new social networks also provided public validation of our creations. That simple tweet, like or share showed acceptance and popularity.

The other thing to love about these shiny new social toys was that they were free and devoid of ads. So we all played. It was like the Wild West. Land claims, some unsavoury characters and a sense of adventure were all part of the landscape.

These platforms are more than friend networks….it is much, much more.

Reversal

Marketers, publishers and bloggers started to discover the power of a tweet and a Facebook update. The broad global adoption of these online communities reached critical mass. Hundreds of millions started to pile on. This mass community made content move, drove traffic and brand awareness. It gave the invisible attention. Made videos go viral. No permission was needed to publish except the access to a computer and the Internet.

Small creative mind were discovered and businesses started to flourish online. The social networks didn’t make us creative they just allowed us all to be noticed. You just had to learn how to use it.

Then Facebook decided to reversal.

The Facebook profile had a new sibling. The Facebook page. Social media was now touted as the marketing nirvana for business and brands. Advertising banners appeared and the masses got a bit annoyed but the marketers were chuffed. Google Adwords had a serious competitor.

But then something happened.

The bad truth

An Intellectual data scientist was sitting in a smart bar in Silicon Valley and idea was born. Let’s jumble the newsfeed on Facebook. We will tell you what is important to view and……we will serve up ads on your timeline.

They have retired to the Bahamas and are now drinking Pina Coladas on the bonuses from that one idea!

Reaching your fans and friends was now dictated by the network’s computer algorithm. Organic traffic from fans almost disappeared overnight.

But the advertising revenue soared. It must to. It was past time to make payroll and keep the lights on without begging for more money from the venture capitalists. With old social you had built a tribe, they had found your visible content and shared it with passion. Now it was buried and often never to be seen again.

Twitter has followed and Instagram is on the verge.

So the social media I knew had died. It is now just becoming another media channel that is pay to play. The financial reality is turning social into a freemium business model. The hard truth is that the free and organic social media marketing doesn’t work like it used to. And that’s a bit annoying.

The Beautiful Web Design

Beautiful Design

What is beautiful design? In most cases we all see many elements on a page that we know look beautiful.
One of the most important elements of beautiful design is the logo, there is nothing worse than having a poor low res image or badly reproduced image it is not going to look very good.
If you are using images are they professional photographs? Not amateur phone camera images at odd angles with an odd mixture of elements, or poor lighting.
Get professional images for the site or hire a professional commercial photographer.
Images should not just represent the product or service but tell a story to the user, showing application and use, sparking the users, imagination and subconscious.Consider the overall layout, is it appropriate for all the elements that will be displayed throughout the site.Use complimentary colorful combination as well as your business brand colors.
How do you know if the design is good? Simple, stop take a look at the site and use it, test it and get feedback from customers, not friends or relatives but opinions from the people who will be using it.

Beautiful Content

Content, for most small businesses is a very difficult thing to generate.
The first page is the most important, because people visiting the site will make up minds to use you in less than 30secs. Do some market research to find good copywriter to create text content for the first few paragraphs. IT is a worthwhile investment. Also as part of SEO you need the right words so you can be found in search engines. What are the keywords for your business, your USP (Unique Selling Point) do you have a TAG line, think of some lines that describe the products or services in an emotional, dynamic or out of the box concept. Also do some online customer research, to fit your content best for your customer needs.
The first paragraph should be no more than 30-40 words, followed by either a further paragraph or bullet points and links to specific pages you want users to go to.

Beautiful Navigation

All beautiful visual contents will be wasted if the users cannot get from one page to another in a logical and easy manner.
Make the menu navigation obvious, with beautiful buttons or text linking pages, use drop downs or pop out menus for pages if they are in sections or different categories.
Keep it consistent and have several main links located in an easy to see place (usually at the top) for the main homepage and contacts, so your users can get back to a starting point easily.A text linking site map as a separate page or perhaps in the footer area (bottom of page) can also be very useful to users.