We know what makes the customer tick - it's not rocket science
STOP PRESS - Maple are now offering e-commerce integrated directly into Sage 50 accounting systems - see full info at bottom of this page !!- Make the shop front attractive
- Make an e-commerce site that's easy to use
- Make the shopping experience intuitive
- Make the shopping cart clearly signposted
- Allow multiple methods of payment
- Cater for account customers
- Provide a receipt
- Produce an order confirmation and shipment email
We individually design the look and feel to your requirements
Make the shop front attractive
The online image that you wish to portray of your company (or brand) to the customer is critically important - it should be relevant to the type of business/ or products and look attractive. Colour, animation, graphics, imagery and navigation all play their part in the look of the site.
MAPLE's web developers develop their unique designs from the brief given with development of the site viewable at all times by the client.
Make an e-commerce site that's easy to use
Navigation to the product must be clear with the customer being able to find what they want quickly. The description(s) must give them enough information to decide if this is the item they wish to purchase, with pricing and additional costs being clearly marked to enable them to make an instant purchase decision then and there. An eight-second guideline is frequently cited - if customers are unable to find the product within that time, they are likely to go to an alternative site.
Whether it's split navigation or conventional dropdown menus - Maple will be able to advise the best fit.
Make the shopping experience intuitive
The design of the shop front should make shopping intuitive, with the customer knowing at all times what stage of the buying process they are at.
Our database designers and ecommerce integrators have years of experience on site design
Make the shopping cart clearly signposted
Navigation to and from the shopping cart should be clearly signposted with the system processing the order speedily. It should include details on packing and if relevant cater for alternative shipping modes and clearly indicate their costs.
Quick calculators enable instant calculation of the total cost of an order.
Allow multiple methods of payment
Most customers use debit or credit cards to make payment, these payments can be credited to the company via
- a merchant account with your bank
- using a payment processing company
- through payment systems like paypal
Maple can advise on the best payment routes and help or finalise them for you
Cater for account customers
In many instances trade is needed to be account customer based, this can be catered for with a secure client database. This database will also speed up the transaction process for repeat purchases by non account customers.
Maple can bespoke integrate this customer database into your accounts or CRM system
Provide a receipt
Once payment is processed the system needs to generate a printable receipt and give the facility to produce an order confirmation email.
Standard to Maples sites are the following features:
Product database - Full content management through secure log-in - allowing you to add, edit and delete products.
SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY - all sites are constructed in the very best manner to encourage the best natural placement in the search engines. ADDITIONALY - the product database is constructed to ensure that all items are indexed by the search engines.
Short and long descriptions - length definable by the design of the site.
Price, unit of sale, vat indicator
Images (up to 3) including enlargement and picture swap
Customer database - maintainable through secure log-in with customer registration system if required.
Order history, which is sortable and searchable and allows comments to be added.
Additional options:
Manual order entry of other orders to the system
Related product display - e.g. this shirt goes with these trousers
People who bought this - also bought
Image rotation
Additional services offered
E-shot to customers / prospects, design of HTML newsletter and full analysis of its success
Logo and Branding design
A4 colour flyers, based on brand / web site design
Ecommerce Hosting costs
Maple can offer very competitive hosting costs, with the majority of ecommerce sites only costing £250 a year. Large database sites or those with high traffic would be quoted for on an individual basis:
- Visitor Analysis
- How many hits per month which can be broken down to:
Unique visitors
Which country they are from
How search criteria did they use to find the site
Where in the search engine did the search term rank
How many times was each page viewed.
Maple is pleased to announce that as from March 2008 we can offer ecommerce integration into Sage 50 accounts systems.
As a Sage business partner for the last 15 years we can also offer support and training on the accounts package.
Features
Integration of customer files between the web and accounts. This can be set up to in a number of ways to suit the business needs. In it simplest form the customer details including user id, password, billing address and shipping address are held in the accounts package and 'sinked' to the web when necessary.
Sales orders.
Again this can be set up in a number of ways. Orders are placed on the web and are automatically sent to the accounts package where they appear in Sales Order processing. An email order notification is sent to both the client and the company, with all orders taken via the web having a unique identifier in the system. Normal accounts procedures take place from here.
Integration of product files. The product information file in accounts includes stock information and pricing, again this can be set up in number of different ways. The information in the accounts package is updated to the web as required, or can be set up as a live integration which allows actual stock information to be displayed.
The system allows you to not charge VAT to foreign customers, use price lists to display different prices to different customers, have discrete carriage charges against specific items, have a ‘ you may also like this item facility' , show OEM part numbers against your part number. And much more
