Shoptric is Citric's complete solution for selling over the internet. Whether you have an existing shop in the real world and need a "clicks and mortar" solution, or your selling will happen purely online, we can help you set up the all the necessary processes to get you e-commerce enabled.
A Complete Solution
There are many e-commerce solutions available that will give you part of a solution - some will give you storefront software, others will provide a payment solution. With shoptric, you get everything. This is an end-to-end solution - you start by telling us what you want to sell, and then we do it all.
1. Shopfront and Shopping Cart
We have developed a robust, high performance and easy to use shopfront site application that's ready to use by your shop. Our designers will work with you to brand the site, so it complements your existing shop's branding, come up with an entirely new brand, or you can supply us with artwork or concepts to use. Whichever you choose we'll ensure users are impressed with your design and become loyal customers. The shop includes a number of upselling features to drive sales - suggesting complementary products, highlighting bestselling products - automatically.
The shopping cart can be configured to suit your products. For example, you may need to allow users to choose different sizes of a particular product, or offer discounts based on volume. Because we develop the product, we can adapt it to suit the way you want to sell, not expect you to change your business to suit the software!
2. Product Catalogue
Depending on what you are selling, you may have a product catalogue - a list of what you sell, with prices, descriptions, photos etc. If not, we can help you create this in a format suitable for an e-commerce site, by sourcing or taking photos, creating descriptions and price lists. We'll then work with you to create categories and other ways of finding products - for example, by occasion, by color, depending on what you are selling. The catalogue will always include a search feature, and you can add products to the catalogue at any time, or change any aspect of the items in the catalogue - updating a picture or reducing the price for example.
3. Admin Area - Shop Management
This is where you will manage the shop from, using an online interface that is as easy to use at the shop. Here you can update the product catalogue, see your customer's details, and most importantly, track your orders. Our shop keeps a complete record of all orders, and includes a number of reports so you can see how your shop is performing - orders placed per month, order value, best selling products etc.
4. Taking Payments and Security
We've built-in a number of ways of taking payment, to ensure maximum flexibility.
- Online, realtime payments - for most shops and users, this is the best method, as it allows the shop to effectively manage itself, and users get instant confirmation of payment. This requires a merchant account and to accept credit card payments, which we can set up for you if you don't already have one.
- Online, payment gateway solutions - using a service such as PayPal or Google Checkout, this has similar advantages to the user as above, but doesn't require a merchant account. You can also offer PayPal in conjunction with realtime payments.
- Online, with offline payment processing - this means you still take card details online, but process them offline. This slows down the payment process (you user still gets instant confirmation, but you may need to contact them manually or cancel their order later if payment details are incorrect). You'll obviously need to process the payment using an existing merchant arrangement (e.g. using a card terminal with the cardholder not present option)
- Offline - some customers may prefer not to give payment details online, or instant payment may not be appropriate or necessary for you products. In these cases we can take all the details you need to process payment later, e.g. by invoice, cheque or telephone call-back.
All aspects of the site that take customer-specific information are secured using SSL (the encryption standard you see on sites like Amazon, Ebay and banking websites), each customer must register with an email address, and each has a unique username and password. Customer details are also encrypted within the database. When displaying information on the management side (where all customer and order information is displayed), a further 3 layers of security are employed: The PC used must identify itself with an SSL certificate, the details on this certificate must contain authorised credentials, and then a username and password are entered. We believe this is about as secure as a website can be, which is an important part of gaining customers.
5. Increasing Sales
As your site grows and you watch the money starting to roll in, we'll work with you to increase sales through a variety of methods, both online and offline. This could include:
- Search engine analysis: The shoptric system is optimised for search engines, but it takes about three months from launch before the site will start appearing in most search results. From that time onwards, we'll be looking at how people are searching for your site (what words they are using) and how successful the site is in the rankings, to then tweak the site's content and raise it up the rankings.
- Site Stats: We use a comprenhensive stats package which shows the overall site usage, and also how people are using the site. For example, if a particular page is more popular than other, or if many users are leaving the site at a certain point, we can examine what is good or bad about those pages.
- Other Sites: Driving traffic from other sites to your site is a critical part of online advertising. We can help you establish banner advertising campaigns, affiliate programs and link with partner sites to help increase visitors and sales.
6. Hosting and Support
The final aspect of this solution is of course our hosting and support service. We'll ensure your shop stays open 24/7, 365 days of the year. if you get any problems, need any questions answering - all you need to do is call us. With a complex solution such as e-commerce, having just one point of contact for everything is a rare advantage, and we're sure you'll find the reassurance invaluable as you sell more and more through your new shoptric site!
Pricing
- First shop from £6000 - final price depending on payment and cart options
- Annual hosting and email support £1200
- 1 year premium support option - includes unlimited* telephone support - £600
All Prices exclude VAT. Please call for a written quotation. 30% deposit for site payable on order, balance on handover to client. Hosting/support minimum 1 year contract, subsequently pro-rata per calendar month.
*subject to fair usage