Unlike most online stores - our system isn't out of a box, we haven't bought it from someone else and we didn't download it free. We've built it from scratch with not only the customer and store owner in mind, but also Google.
Why did we spend all this time in developing our own store product?
We've heard plenty of horror stories where clients have wasted good money buying what is often a free store engine, only to find that when they need to customise it - it can't be done because the web designer doesn't have the skill to do it. With our store, we've written the code and know it intimately so we can customise as you need.
When something goes wrong, there's can often be a lot of head scratching...
The online shopping process if pretty simple.
This means search engine optimisation (SEO), content, email marketing and inbound links.
Our SEO engine is built into the store, so you not only get dynamic keyword rich page titles, urls, and meta data on each page but you'll have a data feed of all your page urls registered with Google so they don't miss you. This all happens in the background based on your content. You just add your products or content pages let the store take care of the technical stuff (that's what it's there for!).
If you want to advertise your products on other shopping sites, we can even setup automatic data feeds, so products and images within your store can be promoted in multiple websites across the web.
Ever been to a website and you see a tiny little image of a product that takes ages to load. Chances are you're looking at a huge picture that is crunched down in a webpage - not good.
When you add products to your Efront Online Store, we automatically create 3 different size versions of your image - each for specific use in different parts of the site. This means your pages load faster, your products and page layouts look consistent and when you click on enlarge you get a gorgeous presentation of the full image view.
If you want to have more than one image for a product - no problem it's all taken care of - this way you can give your customer the best perspective of your product and its features.
Many off the shelf systems require you to register as a customer before you can checkout, wasting time setting up usernames and passwords - just another hurdle that makes buying online harder.
Don't bounce people around unnecessarily - this means when they add something to a cart, just do it, but don't bounce them to the cart and make them work to go back to look at other products. We use AJAX technology to you can streamline this process, minimising page loads while still being informative and responsive to the customer. With AJAX, our stores feel more like software than a traditional website.
In a nutshell, if you can make it simple your customers can spend more time buying and browsing rather than working out how to use your site. Remember, if customers are frustrated with your site - the perception will be that it's hard to do deal with you and your business.
Here are a few examples of our online stores.
Sankofa
Crimson Home and Giftware
Jewelry Zoo
Pure Destiny Aromatics