Not just another shopping cart

It is simple to think in terms of an online Shop. The system however, may be used for many purposes, not necessarily restricted to eCommerce; the reference therefore, is to a *Webshop which indicates that it can be a shop or any other functionality website.

Webshop(s)

The *Webshop is controlled from both the online Administration system and Back-Office. The three components (together with a central database that is accessible from all), comprise the basic system.

The system is however, built with the idea that a single Administation and Back-Office is capable of controlling multiple shops. In this case, the front page images and text, categories, products, information pages etc., etc., can be different for every *Webshop in the collection. Content can therefore be global (appears in every *Webshop), grouped (appears in a selectable combination of *Webshops), or individual to a particular *Webshop.

On this demonstration website, a simple example shows England, Scotland and Wales shops. Each looks pretty much the same but with different content. This doesn’t necessarily have to be the case though; different shops within the collection can be totally different in both appearance and behaviour.

Administration Website

The Administration Website provides the means of completely managing the website, although some bulk features are much better performed in the Back-Office system.

An extended version is provided where the Administration is to maintain multiple shops. This provides the extended functionality of generating unique content and configuration for each *Webshop and of allowing content such as Categories and Products to be selected from combinations of *Webshops.

The Administration Website supports User Groups each with their own set of permissions to allow different levels of access and functionality to be controlled.

Back-Office

The Back-Office system is installed on nominated computers within your company. It is designed to run on Microsoft operating systems from Windows XP SP3 (but ideally, Windows 7). It will also integrate with any version of Microsoft Office (but ideally, Office 2007 or later).

There is no requirement to have any other software installed although a number of (free) components may need to be installed if they are not available (eg. 3.5 .NET Framework). Any required components aside from the Back-Office itself are considered part of the install and will be made available where necessary.

No additional Microsoft licensing is necessary to run the system.

Wrapper Website

The wrapper Website is seperately managed (although content is in the same database which allows powerful possibilities) and is designed to accommodate a *Webshop or collection of *Webshops within it.

It can be thought of as a top level website where it is not appropriate that this should be a *Webshop. The Wrapper website provides the means of selecting a specific shop from a collection where appropriate.

A Wrapper Website can be added (or removed) from a *Webshop (or collection of *Webshops) at any time.

General

In the same way that a *Webshop is completely modular, the system as a whole is equally flexible. An example growth may be as follows:

• Establish an online *Webshop
• Add an additional *Webshop using the same (extended) Administration and Back-Office
• Add a further *Webshop together with a Wrapper website to provide top level access
• Move one of the *Webshops from the collection to be controlled by its own Administration and Back-Office
• Add a Wrapper website to the extracted *Webshop and link the two
• Add a new *Webshop to each of the Wrapper websites

This would result in something similar to this

The cost of the system will of course depend on the amount of work required but below are typical guidelines.

In some cases, particularly for companies that are in the ‘start up’ stages, the option of having a system on a ‘monthly rent’ basis with no initial cost may be considered (together with the option of paying for the design at a later date with an appropriate reduction in monthly costs).

Business Software

The Back-Office system provides the means of exchanging data in and out of your office systems. What office systems?!

Most businesses get far less value out of their office software than they could. Very often, using software tools already owned, such as Microsoft Office, it is possible to automate tedious office tasks and save hours. Automated documents such as customer statements, standard letters, invoices, printed labels, promotions etc., can be as simple as setting simple criteria such as a date range, and clicking a button.

Automated updates such as product details, prices, stock levels, customer details, orders, statistics etc., can mean that the information presented on the website completely reflects the information in office databases, and vice-versa. Custom reporting can provide you with whatever data you want in whatever format you want it.

Where desired, we can talk to you in terms of the benefits to your business rather than ‘techno-speak’ to improve your efficiency freeing up time for you to spend more usefully than working through unnecessary, tedious tasks.

Migration

In many cases, businesses already have an online shop that may have been running for years. Therein to an extent lies the problem. It looks very dated against competitors sites and fails to take advantage of the way in which the Internet and browsers have developed since the original website was created.

What might seem like the biggest obstacle is that over time, the shop has built up many products, customers and orders and the effort of re-establishing everything again seems like a mountain to climb.

Where desired, we can migrate almost all of your existing categories, products, orders, customers, information pages, images etc., etc., to make the transition to a new modern looking website as smooth and effortless as possible.