Need an e-commerce web site?
If you need an e-commerce web site you have come to the right place. I have successfully set up e-commerce solutions for a number of successful web sites, check out my web portfolio for a full list. If you already know the e-commerce solution you require please get in touch via the contact page.
What is e-commerce?
In a nutshell, e-commerce (electronic marketing) consists of the buying and selling of products or services over the Internet. This is normally done in the form a web site making use of a shopping cart facility.
As with content management systems, there are a number of e-commerce solutions available including Lemonstand, Zen Cart and OS Commerce. Before you decide on an e-commerce solution it is worth comparing the various features on offer. My personal preference is Lemonstand however if you require a site using one of the many other e-commerce solutions out there please get in touch.
If none of the open source e-commerce solutions are an option you may need something built from scratch. If this is a requirement contact me for further information.
LemonStand
Definition
LemonStand provides a solid platform to build online stores with. Incredibly flexible, easy to use and full of powerful features out of the box; everything you need to knock that eCommerce site out of the park.
Feature List
LemonStand has a lot to offer, check out the full Feature List.
Customer Gallery
Take a look through the customer gallery to see what LemonStand can do.
Forum
Get support from LemonStand staff and the community here.
Examples
Zen Cart
Definition
Zen Cart is an online store management system. It is PHP-based, using a MySQL database and HTML components. Support is provided for several languages and currencies, and it is freely available under the GNU General Public License.
Addons and Contributed Modules
Community contributed additions for your shop. Visit the Zen Cart site here.
Live Showcase Shops
There are currently over 4500 Zen Cart sites in the Live Showcase Shops. Take a look through the sites for design inspiration and to see what can be achieved with Zen Cart. Visit the Live Showcase Shops here.
Community Forum
There is a lot of support for Zen Cart, any issues you have with your store will more the likely have been experienced by someone else already. You can either Google your query (something I’d highly recommed) or check out the forum here.
Examples
I have designed several web sites using Zen Cart, check out the following sites for some Zen Cart inspiration.
WordPress
Using WordPress for e-commerce
WordPress is a superb content management system with a host of e-commerce options available. By far the best and most powerful e-commerce option is the WP e-commerce plugin. The plugin is an easy to use fully featured shopping cart application suitable for selling products and services online. The feature list is huge, check out the full list of features here at WP e-commerce.
For more information on WordPress as a content management system please check out the info below.
Definition
Dynamic publishing tool for managing website content using a web browser. The platform is opensource and widely used by leading news agencies and corporations. Has a user friendly interface for publishing text and media. Also works great to optimize a website for search engines with plugins.
User Friendly
You don’t have to be experienced to use WordPress. The administration section is easy to navigate and it is easy to add articles/content/photos to your website.
Standards Compliant
WordPress fully adheres to all the web standards proposed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
SEO Friendly
WordPress uses different functions which allow it to be search engine friendly. For example sending pings to other sites, making categories, tagging your posts, use of h1/h2 tags etc.
Large community Support
Recent statistics suggest WordPress is used on more than 1% of the websites on the Internet. There is a large user community backing WordPress development; so, whatever problems you face, you can easily find the answers through the available WordPress forums and communities.
Plugins
Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine. For a full searchable list visit the following page http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/.
I use a number of plugins on the various WordPress sites I have designed, here is a short list of the best.
- NextGEN Gallery is a full integrated Image Gallery plugin for WordPress with a Flash slideshow option.
- Nextgen Smooth Gallery is a WordPress Plugin that allows you to use the amazing JonDesign’s Smooth Gallery viewer on your NextGen-Gallery galleries.
- postTabs allows you to easily split your post/page content into Tabs that will be shown to your visitors.
- Twiiterfeed is not a plugin as such, but is a very useful tool to keep your social media accounts such as Twitter and Facebook up to date. By using the WordPress RSS feed whenever you post a new article Twitter and Facebook will be updated automatically, rmoving the need to add the update manually.
Examples
I have designed a number of web sites using the WordPress e-commerce plugin, check out the following sites for some WordPress e-commerce inspiration.
