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Before adding this shopping cart to the product line, I
reviewed dozens of offerings. Luckily, I spent a decade in
Marketing and systems Product Planning for industry leaders in
the
point-of-sale (POS, or cash register system) business. That
enabled the functionality test to quickly zero in on each one's
weaknesses. Results? Not only does this work, but it's
actually easier than many. The second primary criteria was
product
support. Thus far, the word which applies here is
"incredible." The last one of the "big
three" was cost. Another success.
Now, that's a three-way win!!!
Only a short step down in importance was flexibility. Take,
for example, the New York State sales tax --
one rate for clothing under $110, another rate for clothing over
that amount, yet another, separate tax rate for non-clothing
items, and -- just to round it all out -- these rates can all be
determined separately by over 80 discrete county and city
tax jurisdictions! That's almost 250 separate variations!
Wow! And we can handle them all. Automatically.
On-line. In real time. Great for luxury tax situations
country-wide.
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Note: New
York State temporarily repealed
their clothing exemption as of June 1, 2003. When/if
it is re-enacted, we can already handle it.
In the meantime, it still handles their 80+ separate
county and city tax jurisdictions, and multiple tax
rates.
Now, that's ready!!!
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Where will Internet sales tax collection go?
A generalized tax rate? Or will you have to collect a
separate tax for each state? Complex. Painful. But if it ever
happens, we already have you covered. Painless.
Even shipping can be made taxable or nontaxable in
this special configuration.
Now, that's different!!!
An on line shopping cart should be in your
full control.
Want to move away from a service which insists
that you use their hosting? Then they force you to start over.
Or, want
to move from one independent host to another which offers an
incompatible shopping cart? You start over. Don't have
a local backup of your on-line cart for that day when the host
heads "south?" You start over.
We've solved all of those problems for our
clients. Our approach is customized to
your special needs. Indeed, we deliver it configured, even
with its pages designed to meet the layout and color of your
site,
and ready for you to load inventory, complete with step-by-step
instructions.
Now, that's service!!!
In addition, an on line shopping cart should be
technically adaptable --
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...Runs on all Unix or NT/2000 servers with
Perl 5 installed
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...Operates on Explorer or Netscape browsers
version 4.0 or later.
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...Should not require that you have
special programming skills such as cgi scripting, or Perl, or
asp.
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...Is expandable to new functionality as your
needs grow
-
...May be added to your already existing Web
site, or built anew.
-
...Really should have effective vendor
support. And, for good measure, a Users Group with thousands of
posts in place. Answers at your finger tips.
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...Uses either the IP address or cookies to
track the users purchase.
-
...And -- should we say it? -- handle a very
small or a very large database equally as well -- without
empty vendor surcharges!
Now, that's adaptable!!!
It should be as comfortable as a brick-and-mortar store --
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...Must have an almost instant learning curve.
Not just for your customer's use, but your own staff, as well.
It must be easy for you to add or delete items, and to change prices
or artwork.
-
...Helps customers find products by department
or product type.
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...Offers a built-in database search engine to
find items directly.
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...Should reflect your corporate image.
Page layout, color tones, the whole shopping environment must reflect
the high quality of the rest of your Web site.
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...Must be directly accessible from various
points at your site. Are you running a special promotion from a
separate Web page? Now you can go directly from that page to the
same item in your cart.
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...Emails receipts after the sale to the
customer and the store.
-
...Provides opt-in sign-up for future
promotions.
Now, that's user-friendly!!!
It needs to do business the way you do business --
-
...Offers an unlimited number of product
options such as color and price -- both optional and enforced -- and
with automatic add-on pricing for specific options.
-
...Allows complex transactions -- buy two, get
one free -- special unit pricing for 10 through 19 items, and a
further price break for 20-29 items, etc.
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...Allows departments / categories the way you
really handle them.
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...Offers multiple forms of payment.
-
...Supports a wide variety of popular online
credit card gateways such as Authorizenet, LinkPoint and many
others...
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...Can optionally support PayPal.
Now, that's real world!!!
It needs to offer the other controls that you want, too --
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...Is SKU or product code compatible.
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...Enables discounts instantly based on coupon
code entries.
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...Offers a variety -- an expandable variety --
of shipping methods and rates.
-
...Automatically calculates shipping cost based
on weight, or item count, or sales total, or form of shipping.
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...Offers built-in order encryption for credit
card security.
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...Needs to be affordable. Why on Earth
would you pay over -- or even anywhere near -- $1,000 to buy or lease
a package, or effectively more than that amount over time
through a "low monthly service charge?"
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...And more!
"Now, that's what we want!!!"
Think you should have all those things? Well, we
have you covered! We are proud to represent the QuikStore line,
customized to meet your specific needs.
Now, that's great!!!
A War Story: The client was a small operator...
didn't think he could afford a "big time"
operation. His current ISP charges $19.95/month for a
good, standard Web site service. However, if he started to
use the shopping cart they offered, that would go up $10 per
month. It's a very affordable operation... for under
50 items. (It would have been an extra $30/month for 100
items, or an extra $80/month for over 100 items.) For a very
small operation, that's hard to
compete against. For a larger one, we blow them right out of
the water. Here's what we did. While it compares
favorably for even the smallest shopping cart operation, it
readily handles large stores, as well...
We offered our shopping cart including credit card
interface. A one-time charge. The cart would now be
his, and he could move it to any number of ISPs. However, as
part of the package we would put it on a secure server (you
need
one with a shopping cart). Instead of the price going up
each month, it actually went down.
This story has a dual bottom line -- compared to where he is
now, and compared to the cart his ISP offers. First, by the end
of
the second year, his cost is $136 higher than not having a cart
at
all. (That's for the smallest store. If his were a
large store, he would have saved $824.) By the end of the third
year, his
small-store cost is $7 cheaper
than not having a cart at all.
The second bottom line -- our cart vs. his ISP's cart:
End of the first year... his costs go up by $161. End
of the second year... he's not only reversed that, but
he's
saved $103 overall. End of the third year... he's
saved $367 overall. And that's for a small operation. For
that period of time, for a large store savings would be almost
$2,900.
In fact, you can now get into e-commerce for as little as
$750!
Now, that is truly low cost!!!
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