e-commerce website design
iDigLocal is one of the leading e-commerce website development agencies in Gloucestershire. We offer a comprehensive ecommerce website design service that will not only design and build you an online shop but we can also give guidance on some of the things to think about when setting up your new ecommerce business, from marketing to the logistic of running an e-store.
Custom ecommerce website design
We can either set up an off-the-shelf web shop using paid for or free CMS templates or we can design a branded e-commerce website to make your store stand out from the crowd. Our services include website design and set up, Product import plugin development, website maintenance and e-commerce SEO.
Unlike most website design agencies we don’t rely on using other peoples templates. As such we have an in-depth knowledge of website content management systems meaning that we can adapt the website to suite the needs of your business and design both the front and back end to fit with both yours and your customer’s needs. As a result our websites are very stable and do not respond badly to CMS updates. It’s the difference between asking a car salesman to build you a car or asking a mechanic. So even if you are happy to use a pre-existing template we can adapt it, both it’s design and functionality for you.
What e-commerce platform to use?
There is quite a large number of Content management Systems that you can use to run your e-commerce store with. The main players are Woocommerce for WordPress, Magento, Prestashop, Opencart, Shopify are the most popular. The main things that you will want to consider are ease of use, ongoing expenditure (additional plugins or e-commerce plugin development), scalability and cost. For most of these points Woocommerce for Wordress wins, but if you are thinking big then Magento is probably the best option.
Woocommerce for WordPress
Custom Woocommerce Website design
This is probably our favourite for ecommerce website design. One of the main advantages is that it is built on the very versatile and safe WordPress platform. This means that it has blogging capabilities built in which is great for social media marketing and adding additional, on message, content so that you can easily add lots of new content to help improve your rankings in the search engines. The additional advantage is that it is free and most plugins for WordPress are also free so adding extra functionality is not a problem. It’s biggest downside is scalability, although it is possible to run multiple websites from WordPress it is not as straight forward to do as something like Magento. Woocommerce has the following functionality:
- Shopping cart
- Product categories
- Simple, grouped and product variations
- Product attributes (used for product specifications)
- Discount Coupons
- Customer accounts
- Stock Management
- Shipping zones & Shipping classes
- Up-sell & cross-sell linked products
- Order management including Invoice and packing slip generation
- Sales reports
- Very easy to use
WordPress & Woocommerce Website design is one of our specialities.
If you would like to talk to us about setting up a Woocommerce e-commerce website
Magento
A powerful dedicated e-commerce platform
Magento, Community edition, is a free e-commerce platform, specifically designed, like Prestashop and Opencart, for running an e-store. It is slightly less intuitive than Woocommerce, in terms of setting up products in the first place but the management of orders and the shopping experience for the user is very good.
One of it’s great advantages is that it is very good for running multiple store fronts, in multiple languages and with multiple currencies. So if you are thinking multi-national this is the best place to start.
It’s down side is it can be a bit resource hungry although it’s in-built cache feature does well to ensure that site loading times are fast. The other disadvantages are that plugins are not free, it has no inbuilt blogging capability and security patch updates can sometime be flaky requiring a well managed update process. Due to the extra time Magento takes to develop this is the more costly option. Magento has the following functionality:
- Shopping cart
- Product Categories
- Product bundles
- Up-sell & cross-sell linked products
- Multi-tier pricing for quantity discounts
- Customer group
- Discount Coupons
- Multiple store capabilities
- Order Management
- Stock Management
- Sales reports
If you would like to talk about get a Magento Website:
Opencart
Custom Opencart e-commerce website design service
Opencart like the others does not require a license and like Prestashop it is light weight and simple to use with a good admin interface, good documentation and comes with some good features out of the box.
However, again like Prestashop, its light weight nature means that you are likely to fall back on purchasing additional plugins or having them developed for you, for example caching and SEO. One of the disadvantages here is that it does not lend itself to customization. It is a good starting point though and for a small business is a good choice. Some of Opencart’s features are:
- Data Import
- Additional Search Modes
- Product Categories
- Multi-Language
- Multi-Currency
- Product Reviews
- Product Ratings
- Downloadable Products
- Multiple Tax Rates
- Related Products
- Information Pages
- Shipping Weight Calculation
- Discount Coupon System
- Backup & Restore Tools
- Printable Invoices
- Sales Reports
If you would like to get an Opencart website set up:
Prestashop
Simple e-commerce system great for a first time e-commerce store
Prestashop like Magento is, as the name suggests, designed as an e-commerce CMS and it is also free. It is very simple and easy to use making it a good choice for first time shop owners.
The advantage that Prestashop is simple can also be one of it’s disadvantages as there is often a need for extra functionality that can only bee added through costly paid for plugins or by asking us to develop those plugins for you. It’s scalability is also limited and doesn’t match that of Magento. Prestashop features include:
- Product categories
- Product attributes
- Product comparison
- Product up-sells
- Stock Management
- Shipping fees by weight or price
- Discount coupons
- Customer groups with custom pricing, shipping settings etc
- Geolocation – settings based on your customer’s location including language
- Sales reports
If you would like to get a Prestashop website:
How to set up an ecommerce website
First things first, give us a call (tel: 01453 807234) so we can discuss your business, how your logistics are organised, where you are planning on taking your store. The main concern with running an e-commerce site is not the development of the website as we will do this for you, the main thing is have you ironed out how you are going to provision this service. Also, if you have 5,000 products how are you going to put them on your website?
If you already run a retail outlet then you will likely have all your suppliers in place but what you will have to think about is how you will integrate stock management with that of your high street store and also shipping.
But have no fear we are happy to talk to you and offer what guidance we can give to make your new business venture a success. We also offer Website maintenance, SEO services and Pay Per Click campaign management to help you make the most of your website and keep it running in optimal condition.
