Some questions you may ask about your shopping cart may be.
1. Why do I lose customers at the point of transaction?
2. How do I increase my online sales?
3. How do I make my website perform better for my customers?

These are just a few of the many questions I get asked on a regular basis. As ecommerce website designers it is only when we look at the website in question can we see the answers to the problems. The main points I discover are: a poor layout or ecommerce design, the website is difficult to navigate, and the URL is often unreadable - something like ‘product.aspx?id=4321&SID88772221133 - which makes no sense to search engines or your customer.

The key elements that you need to display on your product page are as follows.

The specified product - This is the most obvious one.  It should be displayed clearly with as many images as possible, including large size images along with any technical specifications, sizes and dimensions.
Associated products - Are there any other products associated with this product?
Delivery charges - It is important that you display the delivery charge on the product page and any extra taxes or VAT.
Delivery time - How long will it take to deliver, display all delivery options available.
Availability - Is it in stock?
Customer Support - Who do I contact if there is a problem?
Hours of business - When can customers contact you?
Warranty or guarantee - Is there a warranty or guarantee with the product?
Terms and conditions - A simple link so a customer can read your terms if they wish.
Pricing - A clear fixed price for the product.
Quality - Ideally a paragraph of text explaining the quality of the product and a good reason why the customer may want to purchase the product.
Customer review or testimonials - Allow cutomers to write reviews or a testimonial for your products. Real customer reviews can increase sales.
Benefits of ownership of the product - What are the benefits of buying the product? Will it save your customer time or money?

Contact our ecommerce designers to see how we can improve your shopping cart and the design of your ecommerce website to help you gain more customers.

Update your shopping cart with the change in VAT.

As a business you are aware no doubt that as of 1st December 2008 VAT in the UK is being reduced from 17.5% to 15% (confirmed by HM Revenue & Customs).

What impact does this have on your business?
Not all companies will be VAT registered. Some companies trading will be VAT exempt. For  example Childrens Clothing. However most are commercial VAT registered companies.  If you display VAT in your terms and conditions or as a seperate value in your shopping cart it will need changing straight away.

• Your shopping cart will need to display the new VAT rate of 15%
• Some prices are VAT included and will need to be reduced by 2.5%
• The new VAT rate will need to be shown to your customers.
• Email confirmations and delivery notes may also need changing.

You do not need to go through every individual product in your database to implement the changes. Microedge are experts in ecommerce design in both PHP and ASP written online shopping carts and can write a bespoke solution to solve your problem.

To ensure your business is correct and up to date when displaying and calculating VAT in your online shop to your customers, Microedge can make all the relevant changes to your website with prices starting at just £99. We support all shopping carts written in PHP or ASP, including off the shelf shopping carts. 

If your ecommerce website (Shopping Cart) is designed and set up correctly then the VAT element will be set in a seperate field or element and may even be something that you can quickly and easily change yourself. This is how we set up ecommerce websites and shopping carts here at Microedge. If you can not change the VAT rate in your control panel / administration  this is where problems can occur and we can rewrite your shopping cart to take into effect the new rate.

Please Contact us to see how we can solve the VAT on your shopping cart quickly and easily.

For more details on the Pre Budget Report and VAT changes please visit the  HM Revenue & Customs website.

 

“IMRG and Capgemini estimate £320m will be spent on the internet on 8 December with the peak between 1pm and 2pm.”

Now that’s a pretty accurate date to be given in the BBC report, but I believe it to be true, especially in todays current economic climate. We are finding more people shopping online than the high street . Also we find that every Christmas people like to ensure their presents purchased online arrive in good time.

When businesses are struggling to survive it is clear that companies with a successful ecommerce design website will be the ones to benefit the most.

The growth in online sales continues with a 15% growth this Christmas

The report predicts sales to be 15% higher than the same period a year ago.  This is amazing as it shows the continued growth area in ecommerce. All traders should ensure that they are also trading online. It makes good business sense and provides a good ROI to our clients who have an ecommerce website design.

When we design a bespoke ecommerce system we take your customer into account first. So that when they purchase one of your products the transaction is carried out as simply and securely as possible. Your customers on the internet may not be loyal and if they find an alterative website that is better they will make the purchase from them. That is the simple reason why your website has to be better than your competitors.

Please contact us to see how we can improve your exiting website, improve sales and also improve your customers experience of buying online from you. We can also streamline your office administration time by providing delivery notes and automated purchase notifications.

The report is on the BBC website.

 

The idea of taking the High Street to the website created online shopping and the now infamous shopping cart and add to basket!