E-Commerce Special - How Products Are Managed and Maintained
Many people approach us, wondering:
What information can be held for each product in an e-commerce site from Coos Creations?
We have prepared the following notes to give you an overview of the kind of information you can store for each product in your Web Store...
Read on to find out the answer!
 Each product record contains the following 'variables' or pieces of information:
- Name
- Categories
- Which of the categories will each product feature in?
- A product can be listed in more than one category!
- Price
- Does this price include VAT?
- Do you offer a discount (% or fixed amount) to certain group of customers, such as retail outlet owners?
- Are you selling at a discounted price for everyone to encourage sales?
- Example:
£99 - ONLY £79!
- SKU
- Do you have a product code or ID for each item?
- If not, you could start now!
- Image / Images (see below for more information)
- Introduction
- Product Description
- Product Status
- If a customer orders, how long until they can expect the item?
- Stock
- If you want the web site to manage stock levels, would you like us to insert current stock level information?
- I a product is sold off-line - independantly of your web site, would you like us to manage stock levels?
- If not, this requires very little training - you'll pick it up in no time!
- Size
- Attributes
- Is the same product available in a variety of sizes or colours?
- Does the customers' selection affect the price?
- > If yes, please specify
- Measurements
- Where applicable:
- Length
- Width
- Height
- Unit of Measurement (inches, cm, mm etc.)
- Weight
- Unit of Measurement (kg, g, lbs, oz)
- Unit (i.e. each, pair, set, box)
- Units in Packaging (3-pack, set of 4)
- Units in Box (for distribution-level sales)
Product Images
Images will need to be submitted, categorised within product listings as you wish them to appear on the site. This could be done by using folders or a particular file-naming system.
To give you an idea, creating the product images for our Web Store took over two weeks - although we created custom graphics for each product!
Example 1 - Folders
This option is the only way for a shop containing more than three categories of products:
Example 2 - File-Naming
This option is possible for a shop with less than three categories or a total number of products less than 20:
 Can We Help With This?
Image processing and management is another service Coos Creations offers, chargable by the hour - due to every store we create having a different number of products in it!
Discount Codes
The on-line sales system we will create for you will support discount codes.
These can either be single-use or unlimited-use codes.
They can be for a percentage % of an order total, or a set amount, such as £10-off.
These codes can be used in conjunction with newspaper and magazine advertising to increase sales and monitor return on investment - a powerful sales tool!
Legal Requirements
You will need to supply full Company Details including all addresses and contact information.
You will also need to produce a set of Terms & Conditions of Business if you do not already have one, for us to add to the site when purchases are in place.
Our Terms & Conditions are here: http://www.cooscreations.com/about-us/system-articles/terms--conditions.html
Please feel free to use these as a guide if they help at all!
Expectations
Do you have an idea of the results you expect to see from the store?
Some clients do, others don't!
If you are gearing up to make £20,000 sales per quarter - or even per month - what affect will this have on your business? Please do not forget to prepare for growth!
Second to this is the cost per sale...
If you know that for £20,000 worth of business you would clear £10,000 operating profit, when is the best time to spend £1,000 on advertising?
This information will help you to calculate a reasonable cost for your e-commerce system, as well as help you to estimate a long-term budget for on-line sales - something that will see this side of your business becoming a fun and profitable operation!
Are You Ready To Take The Next Step?
We've prepared you for the level of detail we work at to make sure you get the very best from your investment...
Let's Push Things Forward!
Click here to complete out Initial Client Questionairre - giving us all of the basic details required for your site to start with a bang!
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