Shopping Cart

Either module supports real-time shipping cost look-up via UPS online for either domestic or international shipping. Either module sends an automatic update to the customer via email on the day the order is shipped. Tracking information is included in the email if you use a shipping service which offers package tracking. This automatic email answers order status inquiries preemptively, increasing customer satisfaction and decreasing calls to to your customer service staff. With either module, you can define promos, like online "coupons", to offer percentage discounts on specific products.

With either module, you can have the shopping cart configured to send a notification email to your shipping staff whenever an order for tangible goods is placed. Your shipping staff should check a secured area of the web site at least Mon/Wed/Fri (if not more often) for orders to be shipped, and enter a waybill number on shipping each order. Easily outsource your warehousing and shipping, as your fulfillment house can just as easily receive email notices and log in to fulfill your orders as in-house shipping staff. With either module, your customer service staff is provided with a friendly interface enabling them to check status of orders and cancel orders not yet shipped. With either module, you or your staff can directly create/edit/delete items in your online store without contacting us, although the method of doing so will depend on which module you select. You may need to contact us for training, configuration, and/or importing a database containing the initial store population. (Database import function pertains to large-store module only.) Hourly charges apply for such services.

Either module requires that your web hosting provider supports MySQL. Each unique product must have a unique part number. Variations such as color or size require a different part number for each variant. Each item for sale in your online store must be defined with enlargement image, unique part number, short description, long description, price, shipping weight in pounds, and category. For intangible items not covered by our Pay-Per-Download or eTicketing modules, simply set the shipping weight to zero, and the shopping cart will behave accordingly. With Web Builder v4.017 and later, the ideal image size is 560px wide x 420px high. With the small-store shopping cart, you must manually shrink larger images to <= this size, either before or after upload. With the large-store shopping cart, larger images are automatically shrunk for you. (With older versions, the ideal image size is 400px wide x 300px high. You must manually shrink larger images to <= this size regardless of whether you are using the large-store shopping cart module or not.) Thumbnail image is automatically created from your enlargement image, so need not be provided separately. Category required for large-store module only. Items in the large-store shopping cart can be set to in-stock or special-order status. This may enable you to offer a wider selection of products than you are able to stock. Wider selection translates to more sales. Customers receive advance disclosure regarding in-house delay for special-order items, thus mitigating customer dissatisfaction that might otherwise arise.

Either shopping cart module accepts payments via major credit cards and processes such payments in real time. In order to accept credit card payments in your online store, high-volume stores will need a credit card merchant account compatible with Authorize.Net. We can help you find service providers with the best rates, which may mean significant savings. Low-volume stores will need a PayPal business account. We suggest starting out with PayPal, then switching to Authorize.Net when PayPal per-transaction fees are no longer cost-justifiable due to your growing sales volume. More on credit card security.