Shopping Cart Showcase
Are you getting the most from your web site's shopping cart? Would you like to add more complex products to your offerings, have your shopping cart help you with inventory control or offer an advanced product search on your website? Custom program may be the answer you've been looking for!
To give you an idea of what custom programming can do for your shopping cart, we've showcased three of our client's websites, all enhanced with custom programming options.
Drums Etc. (www.drumsetc.com)
What sets Drums Etc. apart from other retailers is the thousands of products they sell - everything from drums and guitars to sound and lighting systems. They needed a shopping cart that would show all their products in clear categories and make it easy for customers to find what they were looking for. In addition, Drums Etc. also wanted the customer to be able to search for specific products to make finding what they wanted even easier. They also wanted to include an advanced search feature that would allow customers to find products by brand name, category or price range.
EZSolution was able to accomodate their needs by programming an easy to use advanced search feature that searches the product database by a number of different criteria and presents the products found in a convenient list. Customers can search by keyword, item number, category or price range to find exactly what they are looking for among Drums Etc's thousands of products. This makes shopping convenient for customers and encourages repeat purchases.
Fox Sheds (www.foxsheds.com)
Charles Fox, owner of Fox Sheds wanted to set himself apart from other shed retailers in the area by allowing customers to choose a shed, customize the shed options and purchase their shed online. In contrast, most shed retailers show pictures of their sheds, highlight the available options and sizes and then ask customers to visit their showroom or call the retailer for additional information.
What stops most businesses from offering their sheds for purchase online is the complexity of the options available and the complicated shipping calculations that are required to make it work.
EZSolution was able to build and customize an effective shopping cart to allow customers to customize and purchase their sheds right online. Customers start by choosing the type of shed they are interested in and inputting their zip code. This allows the shopping cart to immediately establish where the shed will be shipped to begin the shipping calculations. Customers then choose the size of their shed, the colors, door sizes and even door placement options. They can also add additional features including flower boxes, extra windows and doors, lofts and more. After the customer has customized their shed, the cost is shown at the bottom and the customer can proceed right to checkout, purchase the shed and have it shipped anywhere in the United States!
Giving customers the ability to customize and purchase online saves customers time and definitely sets Fox Sheds apart from other shed retailers!
Genuine Tobacco (www.genuinetobacco.com)
Genuine Tobacco's website is the perfect example of a simple shopping cart. All of their products are broken down into categories and each product includes a picture and quantity information so the customer knows exactly what he or she is buying. There are no complicated color or size options, no complex shipping options, no model numbers or other details to worry about.
What makes this site's shopping cart special is what goes on behind the scenes...
Inventory Control
Genuine Tobacco processes hundreds of orders everyday and found it difficult to keep an accurate inventory of their available products. They wanted a way to link their UPC codes directly to the products sold on their site in order to keep an accurate account of what was on hand. The solution was to add each product's unique UPC code to their product database. EZSolution added a bar code module to the backend of their shopping cart that allowed the staff to input the UPC code of all their products into the database. The module then converts the UPC number that's input into an actual bar code using the bar code font supplied by Genuine Tobacco. Now, as orders come in, they can simply use their UPC scanner to scan the items ordered and they are immediately taken out of the inventory they have on hand. As a result, Genuine Tobacco always has an accurate count of their inventory!
Phone Orders
While most orders come into the site through their online shopping cart, Genuine Tobacco did not have good way of handling phone orders. As a result, phone orders were often handwritten and needed to be added to the system at a later date in order to maintain inventory control and ensure accurate record keeping. Recently, EZSolution was able to add a phone ordering module to the backend of their shopping cart to make taking phone orders much easier. Employees simply login to the shopping cart's admin interface and can easily pull up the last order placed by the customer. They can also input information for new customers and add the customer's order to the system. In this way phone orders are handled by the same system as online orders -- customers placing phone orders even receive an email receipt just as they do if they place an order online. This ensures that every order that comes in is accounted for in their inventory and streamlines the process for their staff.
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