[thelist] Front Page - (is ecommerce really that hard?)

Kathy Long kathy at site-etc.com
Fri Aug 2 10:20:03 CDT 2002


Susan,
Thank you for your response, and I do understand where you are coming from,
however, I'd like to add a few  comments of my own.

> I don't mean to sound rude, but with that being on *my* head to deal with,
> there is no way I would trust anyone's out of the box solution unless I
> could spend a heinous amount of time digging through the code, see exactly
> how things are handled, scour the web and the evolt site looking for all of
> the pitfalls - and find out how to deal with them, before I would even
> attempt to try to "sell" the service to anyone - set it up for them,
> customize, etc.

We already did that for our clients and our designers, but it is not meant
to take that away from persons like yourself who would rather spend the time
doing it yourself. We're trying to empower others who don't have that skill
nor the desire. But more than just with tools, we also empower them with our
experience and knowledge so they can build on their own. (And, yes, we do
hand-holding from time to time.) In addition, we have years of experience
doing this (our online store processed over 200,000 orders for HP before we
offered it as a web hosting plugin), and I personally spend probably 60-80
hours a week refining what we have, mostly because I listen to all our
clients and our designer's clients wants and needs - real life situations
putting our code into practice and then trying to make it better. And how do
you think other out-of-the-box ecommerce providers developed their software,
if not doing just that? I think there are a lot of really great solutions
out there for any designer to use and I'm all for it. I've been building Web
sites for over 6 years now, and during that time have only had one customer
who can afford a completely custom ecommerce solution. That's my clientele
and I'm sure the clientele of many other designers as well. SITE-etc and
other companies like ours are trying to provide AFFORDABLE solutions for
those very important and valued businesses.
>
> Because it would be too long, I won't go into the other parts about having
> to know and understand your client's business model, shipping practices,
> etc, the fact that all businesses have different ways of handling book
> keeping, shipping, order processing - and an "out of the box" solution does
> not _necessarily_ fit with their business model.
Absolutely agreed! I tell everyone that the best possible solution is a
custom one and we quite often take the foundation we've built (cutting
tremendous costs!) and then build upon that to meet their specific needs.
Our designers do the same.
>
> I don't say that to be mean, but I think it sets a new person up for a bad
> fall and possibly a lawsuit if they are led to believe that this is
> actually a cake walk and then they find out later that they only knew about
> one tenth of what they needed to know.

We've never had a problem and neither have any of our clients or designers,
but we don't make it a part of our agenda to direct someone else's business
practices either. When asked to recommend a business model, we may make
recommendations based on experience (such as B of A for their merchant
account so that they don't end up with extra fees on their merchant
statement), but we refer them to a qualified business consultant. No web
developer or designer is qualified to play that role and they shouldn't, in
my opinion, unless they also have the necessary credentials for doing so. We
provide a product and a service. How our clients choose to incorporate those
into their business is their responsibility. It is our responsibility to see
that the tools we provide work.

Now that I've written all this, it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps your
comments don't apply to what I was offering as a solution at all. SITE-etc
provides these tools with hosting. We don't sell a box to a designer and
send them on their way. We put their sites on our server and then carefully
watch over them like little children, nurturing them and coaxing them along
the way to grow. We also hold our designer's hands through the entire
process if need be. Ask Catherine Jampierre of Aurora Design. She put up her
first ecommerce site on our server and hardly even knew what a merchant
account was at the time, certainly had no idea of what online credit card
processing was, but we helped her through it and provided instruction as
needed. This was just a year ago and she is now happily building sites on
our server with our software continually. She is also customizing code for
her clients as well - all without any hand-holding at all at this point.

So, from our experience, I have to disagree that building an ecommerce site
really requires all that you say it does. But I wholeheartedly agree that
just any out-of-the-box solution is no real solution either. Without a good
set of tools from a trusted, knowledgeable provider, as well as either
experience or guidance from experienced professionals, building ecommerce
sites can definitely be tricky business and lead to mishaps, just as you
say.

Kathy

--
SITE-etc
Instant Site Enhancements
831.335.7118
http://www.SITE-etc.com

Enabling and empowering your business. Simply. Affordably.


>
> Hope this helps someone,
>
> Susan
> (hoping that I did not come off too snippy)
>
>
> --__--__--
>
> Message: 30




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