Shopify

Solutions like Shopify can be good for some online stores - Shopify Online pricing starts at $42 AUD per month up to $431 AUD per month. They have a starting transaction fee of 1.75% + 30¢ AUD to 2% AUD for 3rd party payment providers. But eCommerce systems like Shopify have a steap learning curve.

Calculating Shipping Rates with Shopify

• Flat shipping rates
• General rates
• Priced-based rates
• Weight-based rates
• Calculated rates

Shopify: Adding multiple package types is available only for stores in the United States and Canada. If you are outside the United States and Canada, then you can add only one preferred package type.

Calculating Discounts with Shopify

Discounts and coupons offer incentive for shoppers. They are complex, Shopify has detailed help on applying coupons and discounts.

You can specify the following:

• the dates for which the code is valid
• the number of times that a code can be used
• a minimum order amount before the code can be used
• which products, collections, or variants the discount can be applied to.

Shopify also include customer eligibility, where you can specify Everyone, Specific groups of customers or specific customers.

Specifying the quantity of a product people can order with Shopify

It seems you need an app to specify the number of items for a specifc product or number of items for a group of products.

Various payment options

There are various payment options like PayPal, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay and at least 40 Payment Gateways supported in Australia eg eWAY Rapid 3.1, SecurePay (Australia) and Authorize.net.

Themes and Product Media with Shopify

You can purchase themes with Shopify, and within those themes there will be various media options like Images, 3D models (selected themes) and Videos.

Creating videos is a time consuming task - we analyse this in our article Web Video Marketing.

Shopify Payments

Shopify Data

Shopify allows you to export/import product data in a CSV format. This is designed to work for other platforms and even custom websites-:

• CSV can be edited in spreadsheets or text editors
• CSV can be converted to JSON and used on custom websites
• Using the Shopify backend you can store 1 version of your product information
• There is a comprehensive guide to using CSV wtih Shopify

If you have a Shopify solution we can add value to it with eCommerce SEO. You have the data, this can be enhanced to gain more traction from your website.

Shopify vs Stripe

Shopify is an ecommerce platform. Stripe is a Payment Gateway that can be connected to various applications. You could setup Stripe and use if for various aspects of your business, not just your online shopping cart. The complexity of Shopify absolutely requires good general web skills. Whether that is the website owner or an employee is a decision to make. Stripe does not require monthly fees, it has 'pay-as-you-go pricing'.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is built on top of WordPress - a recipe for a slow site since WordPress has issues. In some cases you could wait an extra 5 seconds for a page to load. Just check the number of searches on "Fix a Slow WooCommerce Store". A good strategy before engaging any platform is to search on existing problems and check issues existing users have.

An alternative
- a fast custom shopping cart

If the primary source of sales is going to be via a search engine like Google, having your site designed for SEO from the outset is important. There is a difference between a site with tacked on SEO and one designed with SEO in mind.

Some systems connect to multiple APIs. Our system connects to one - the payment gateway. We personally manage and monitor everything daily for less than the price of some eCommerce platform's monthly fee.

W3C validation Errors and Site Speed

We analysed one page from an example in Shopify put it into a W3C validator which revealed error after error in the code. Refer to our SEO Page - Website Migration Guide on validation techniques and other structural issues sites need to overcome.

It is safe to say many Shopify sites would be full of errors. For that matter it is hard to find a WordPress site that validates properly. These may not stop the site from functioning or selling, however it will not function or sell as well as a site with cleaner optimised code and few errors.

Making a shopping cart simpler - less is more

With a custom online shopping cart that uses one payment solution like Stripe.com, your online shopping system can be so much simpler. The site structure is designed around your products not the other way around where your products must fit a set structure. It is less complicated and can really look good because the theme is customised to suit the shopping experience. A shopping experience needs to inspire confidence, removing any obstacles to a person purchasing. Choice paralysis is a well known phenomena, where more choices leads to being less likely to take action. Psychologist Barry Schwartz, calls this choice paralysis. He argues that more choices make us less likely to take action, and to be less satisfied with our eventual decision

When things go wrong - one of the difficulties of developing a shopping cart is tracing the process and being able to make updates when the system is live. When a system is live any change must be tested via a live order. A fraudulent attempt may be made, or a person may abandon the shopping cart screen and return a day later - you need to be able to recover from this gracefully and securely. You can pick up the phone and discuss any issue with the developer of the system - us. We can trace every step of a transaction, with the latest Stripe Payment Intents API you create a traceable path from the outset.

Custom Security we can add custom security on top of the considerable security provided by SSL and Stripe. Denial of service attacks can be annoying, custom code can dramatically reduce these. In extreem situations custom code may be required to halt an attack. Stripe is constantly evolving security procedures, and recommends best practise techniques for reducing fraud.

Updates Reduced...

A major benefit of limiting the options on your online shopping cart is that the need for constant updates due to changes in APIs is dramatically reduced.

A major benefit of limiting the options on your online shopping cart is that the need for constant updates due to changes in APIs is dramatically reduced. Stripe is still supporting much of its original legacy code, meaning if you created a shopping experience 5 years ago - the code still works today. Other providers send an email like "Payment System no longer Supported" - you have to rebuild and test the system again.

Updating your site design

Some of our sites have had 4 complete redesigns but still maintain the core structure created over a decade ago. We can update your entire look and feel without wiping out original pages or structures.

Features of a custom shopping cart

Many of the features listed below occur in off the shelf shopping carts like Shopify. However to avoid being overwhelmed with detail, we modify the features to suit your products.
We would create the image uploads at the ideal size for the presentation of your product. Not every product is sold via a shopping cart, take for example the purchase and download of an eBook. In most cases this is a once off purchase for one product only.

Some shopping carts do not automatically refresh total calculations (real-time updates), they require the purchaser to understand the page is not sophisticated enough to make that calculation on the spot and there is an update cart button for that, so that the totals can be calculated correctly.

• Multiple example designs to choose from new 2024
• Varying prices styles and sizes
• Indicate out of stock items
• Vary how payment is received (e.g. login or straight to payment)
• Secure system more difficult for hackers to guess logins
• Varying delivery calculations depending on location and product
• Design to best match how a shopper prefers to browse
• Group products how it suits your shoppers
• Manage Photo uploads to suit your business
• Instant shipping cost calculations and updates to totals
• Coupons discounts and special time limited offers
• Up to date security and SSL setup
• Generate a pdf invoice, update and replace it automatically or download and edit it (Adobe PDF online)
• Generate bulk default photos
• Generate bulk product updates

Some examples of sites with a custom shopping cart-:

• Future Shape Publisher 3rd Print Run
• VPMS Soap Cutters
• Adelaide Hills Wines

Latest value add upgrades to our shopping cart

Basket

Add or remove items, adjust quantities and update pricing without needing a refresh button. Have an image of the item for sale. Allow amalgamation of products and stock control.

Shipping

Differentiate between items with shipping and those that do not ship. Allow options for calculation of shipping and different providers. Allow address updates and confirmation at any stage of the process. Provide updates and tracking.

Coupons and Discounts

Provide coupons and discounts that can be applied with immediate results shown to the purchaser. Differentiate between products that have a discount and those that do not.

Payment Options

Provide secure payment options tailored for the location or preferred option of the customer. Produce an invoice and update if necessary. The ability to trace a transaction in its entirety and allocate an order id to the payment system.

Advanced Analytics

We setup advanced Google Analytics for SEO and monitoring of visitors behaviour.

SEO value of Shopping Cart

Design the Shopping Cart to be enhanced for SEO. The Shopping Cart is not an add-on it is integrated into the entire structure of the site from an SEO point of view. Products provide infinite SEO possibilities. The site accounts for suppliers and categories or styles.

Additional fields are added to allow HTML content to be added to the product listing. HTML allows you to add titles, bolding, any content you see on a webpage.

Computers are very good at doing the same thing millions of times - so why should you?

Managing Complexity in Processing Payments

A custom shopping cart liaises directly with the customer and the Payment Gateway. There has been an explosion of new payment methods with options like Afterpay.
Managing the constant changes requires a system that can adapt to changes. Recently Stripe announced to members of its Developer Digest its new Payment Element -:

"The new Payment Element lets you build a custom payment flow that supports 18+ payment methods with a single integration."

Integration of this new system is quite easy if you have been working with Stripe systems because it is based on previous versions and integrates "Webhooks" which are a means of receiving staggered information from the Payment Gateway. So in our case we could quickly upgrade systems to accept multiple payment types and had pre-made test examples to adjust and work with.

Online eCommerce Trends 2024

About the author

Philip Hoile has lectured at Griffith University in e-business, advanced e-business, e-commerce and User Interface Design. A web developer since 1996 specialising in programming website Content Management Systems.
My interest in web marketing stems from a desire to improve client outcomes.

07 55320651

0423 926 852

Disclaimer Information is presented here that may go out of date or expresses an opinion. This does contain information from sources I have an association with (i.e. I use their services)

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