Services : E-Commerce

Services .:. E-Commerce

Not only has E-Commerce changed the face of the Web, it's changed the shopping habits of Internet users worldwide. The Web is a perfect medium for retail commerce, offering convenience yet unparalleled by any other method. For hard-working people in the 21st century who just don't have the time to shop the traditional way, the Internet saves time, money, and effort. The bottom line is this: If you run a retail business and do not sell on the Web, you are most definitely losing business to your competitors who do.

Don't take our word for it though, check out this excerpt from an article entitled Spend Smart in the September 2003 issue of Money Magazine:

"Bargain hunting in the real world can be time-consuming and usually involves putting on pants and leaving the house. On the Web it's oh-so-easy. ... [The Internet] can help you find good bargains, often from merchants you might not have otherwise considered." - David Futrelle

But isn't an online store expensive to build and a hassle to keep updated? With Ellanet's new all-in-one E-Commerce solution package, it's probably not as expensive or hassle-ridden as you might expect.

Ella-Cart

Ella-Cart comes with everything you need to open a Web store and begin selling your merchandise over the Internet:

Online Catalog: Before anyone can buy something from you, they must be able to find it on your site. Ella-Cart provides you a way to "stock" your online catalog very easily using a private, intuitive set of online administration screens. Don't worry, you won't need to know a single bit about web page design or computer programming to use it.

Ella-Cart's catalog system allows you to organize your merchandise however you see fit. You can create separate shops, departments, and categorize your inventory into an unlimited number of levels. Whether you want to lump all of your items into a single category or divide them up into several hundred nested subcategories, Ella-Cart's catalog system can do it.

The more information you provide about your merchandise, the more likely your customers will be to commit to a purchase. Ella-Cart's catalog allows you to provide quite a bit of information about each item including the item name, brand, manufacturer, SKU or item number, description, MSRP price, your price, item weight, dimensions, photographs, quantity in stock, and so on. Special item characteristics and quantity-based pricing are also available.

Shopping Cart: After your customers find items they wish to buy, they need to have a way to select these items for purchase. If you've ever shopped on the Web before, you probably know that online stores use an "Add to Basket" or "Add to Shopping Bag" type of button. This idea of having a computerized Shopping Cart provides a natural way of selecting items for purchase because it mimicks the way consumers have shopped for years.

Ella-Cart provides a fully-featured shopping cart that integrates seamlessly with your online catalog. After an item has been added to the cart, a customer can either remove the item from the cart, change the quantity desired, proceed to checkout, continue shopping for additional items, or save their cart for a later checkout. The ability to save a cart for later can be useful to repeat customers who often order the same items as well as customers who want to save up or budget for a later purchase.

So what happens if your customer tries to add 50 units of Item X to their cart but you only have 30 left in stock? No worries! Since your shopping cart is seamlessly integrated with your online catalog, it can automatically alert your customer and change the quantity in the cart from 50 to 30. So what if you don't like this feature because you can restock another 20 units if Item X in enough time to ship to your customer? Still no worries! This feature is entirely optional to fit the needs of your business -- hence the name, Ella-Cart.

Secure Checkout: As nice as Ella-Cart's fully-integrated online catalog and shopping cart may be, they're virtually useless to you until an order is placed and money is transacted. Furthermore, they're useless to your customers unless their information can be sent to you securely. Because your online customers are sending private, sensitive information to you over the Internet, Ella-Cart's entire checkout system utilizes Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and 128-bit encryption. SSL prevents any third parties from hijacking this information while in transit over the Internet.

Ella-Cart's checkout system completes all of the necessary information-gathering steps involved in placing an order. If your customer has never shopped at your store before, a new account is opened using the customer's email address. The customer then provides a billing address, and optionally, a separate shipping address. Shipping & Handling can either be set to a flat rate, or your site can be integrated with UPS, FedEx, and/or the US Postal Service to receive real-time delivery and insurance options and rates. After all of this information has been gathered, it's time to receive your payment.

The most popular form of Internet payment is the credit card. Ella-Cart can either save credit card information for you to charge yourself through a land-based merchant account, or automaticlly charge the customer's credit card in real-time using an Internet-based merchant account (we recommend Authorize.Net for this, but you can choose any merchant you like). Online "electronic checks" can also be provided for customers who wish to pay from a checking account. Ella-Cart can even print up an order form that your customers can mail to you along with a check or money order.

Order Processing: Once a customer has placed an order, it's your obligation to fill and deliver it. Each time an order is placed, the customer is emailed a printable receipt and you will receive a notification either via email or pager. You can then login to the administration section of your site to view the order details. The administration screens will give you all of the information you need to fill the order including what was purchased, where and how to send the shipment, and how the customer intends to pay.

After an order has been paid for, pulled, packaged and shipped, you can email your customer a Shipment Notification message with a single mouse click. How easy is that? If you know the tracking number for the shipment, it's as easy as pie to include that in the Shipment Notification email as well. If you don't entirely trust computers and want to keep your own paper trail, don't worry; we already thought of that. Each order detail page can be easily printed and filed away, and since each order has a unique order number, they will be easy for you to locate if you need them.

Like we said, E-la-Cart has everything you need to start up your own Web store. Click here if you'd like to see other Ella-Cart sites in action. To inquire about pricing or to get a quote for your store, feel free to contact us any time!

Ella-Cart