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3a2) The cart you will get will be similar to the one you are looking
at. The lead time is one week or more depending upon the number
of items in your shop.We can usually proceed without delay as
soon as the client has paid us in full PRIOR to starting
the work.
You do not need your own domain,virtual domain or special hosting
service or a dedicated server to run your site.Your ISP's server
will do.Ofcourse you must have an internet account with an ISP.
ISP is your Internet Service Provider eg America OnLine or
Ireland OnLine etc etc.
The Cyber Shopping Cart implements automatic currency
conversion. For example on this site ( the one u are currently
in ) the shop currency is US$ with Irish Pounds as the
alternate currency. When a customer points at a Product
Item he sees the price in the shop currency ie US Dollars
but he also sees a translation in the the alternate currency
ie Irish Pounds in a small display box. Pointing at the total
order value in the lower right corner produces the same
result.However a shopper in Johannesburg will be
interested in translating prices to SA Rands and not Irish
Pounds as the latter is not his currency.All he has to do is
click on the CURRENCY tab in the lower left corner and
select his desired currency from the displayed drop down
currency list box.Once he has done that all Product Item
prices and the total order value will appear in dual currencies
ie in US Dollars and in the selected currency.
This cart was designed by eCommerce software developers to
improve shopping for online buyers, to lower development
costs and to eliminate the need for complex support for ongoing
maintenance. The cart's most obvious feature,"an uncluttered and
very stable interface" which always,displays purchaser's total
value at all times, eliminating the need to scroll back or
"check out" to see a cart's contents and totals.Unlike
other carts this one does not suffer from page jumping once
the user begins to select items to purchase.
You can test this cart by placing a TEST order.Go on.Do it
now. On the screen where you provide personal details,just
enter "TEST" in the "your name" box.By return you should receive
an e-mail acknowledging your order.
The customer has to provide following info on a 1.44Mb floppy
disk before we can create the site for him.
1)Price List.
A text file (this must be plain ascii text file)
stating product number,brief description (30 or so
words) and the price.Call this file PRODUCT.TXT
Since shipping issues are also involved the shipping charge
should be included in the price.Therefore your list
would look something as follows.This example assumes
you are runing a book shop in the US.
ProdNum
Descript
Price
Dept
a28
Hamlet by W.Shakespeare incl airmail postage to North& South America
$3.50
Classics
a28
Ditto incl airmail postage to Europe
$3.89
Classics
a28
Ditto incl airmail postage to Rest of the world.
$4.01
Classics
This is the best approach to deal with Shipping
Issues on an International site since you do not
really know from the outset which part of the
world the prospective customer will be ordering
from.Post offices in each country apply different
Shipping Zones when dealing with international parcel
despatches.In the above example I have assumed 3 shipping
zones.The list ( i.e. the plain ascii text file ) that
you will submit to us should contain as many entries PER
PRODUCT as the number of shipping zones involved,with
each entry containing a price that is inclusive of shipping
costs.Basically you only need 2 or three entries per product.
For example I know some countries where the Post Offices only
operate 2 shipping zones,one for domestic parcels and another
for foreign parcel despatches.
If the above method is not acceptable to you we can still design
the cart to show the shipping charge as a seperate item.In other
words the shipping charge need not be included in the item price.
If you wish Shipping to appear as a seperate item on the cart then
up to three Shipping Regions are available.These for example
could be as follows:
USA ONLY:
EUROPE:
REST OF THE WORLD:
Only one Shipping Mode namely AIR is allowed.
If Shipping is being dealt with as a seperate item then the
PRODUCT.TXT file that you will submit to us should be arranged
as follows:
ProdNum: A28
Descript: etc etc
Price: whatever
Dept: whatever if applicable.
Shipping within USA: insert a value here eg $2.00
Shipping to EUROPE: insert a value here eg $3.00
Shipping to REST of the WORLD: insert a value here eg $4.00
The next product will then go here.
Note that each product could have a different shipping charge
as their weights may differ.
To calculate the Shipping Costs you will need to know the weight
of the Product.Then call your local Post Office and ask them to
send you their Parcel and Small Packets Tariff Rates.These rates are
often quoted by weight unit,e.g per pound or per half kilo etc.Once
you have this,working out shipping cost per item should be easy.
The point here is that your site should contain enough info to
enable the customer to place an order ONLINE rather than have the
customer email you for a shipping quote.If you have credit card
Merchant Accounts with your Bankers then you can have the
customer pay you ONLINE by credit card and wrap up the deal.
If you have go back to the customer a few days later with a
shipping quote,by then he is gone or has changed his mind.
You will notice in the above example that the last column says
"Dept".This refers to Departments and is optional.A
small shop may only have one department or none at all.
The Departments may be arranged by Product Categories as a large
shop may sell several different types of products.
If you have a lot of items you may find it convenient to
group them by departments.In this case the text file that
you submit to us should list the items grouped by departments
exactly as you would like them to appear on the site.
As mentioned above please call this file PRODUCT.TXT
If this file does not contain the Dept line we will simply
assume that your shop does not contain any Departments.
Please note that if you have more than say 200 items then
it is preferable to arrange them by departments, each containing
not more than about 100 items. The reason for this is that each
department resides on a seperate HTML page.A single page with
several hundred items would take too long to load thus putting
off prospective customers.An ideal solution here would be to
simply categorise the products by Departments to make the
Departmental HTML pages load faster.
Product Quantity Discounts:
If Product Quantity Discounts are used then the PRODUCT.TXT file
that you will submit should be arranged as follows:
ProdNum: A28
Descript: etc etc
Price: Quantity 1 to 10 Price $10 ea
Price: Quantity 11 to 20 Price $9 ea
Price: Quantity Over 20 Price $8 ea
Dept: whatever if applicable.
Shipping within USA: insert a value here eg $2.00
Shipping to EUROPE: insert a value here eg $3.00
Shipping to REST of the WORLD: insert a value here eg $4.00
1A) Tax Issues:
Most countries implement some form of tax or the other.Some
countries have Sales Tax, others levy Value Added Tax.The tax format
follows a general pattern which can be defined as follows:
The definition of Domestic Zone may vary in different countries.
In the U.K. for example the Domestic Zone covers the whole country
and the merchant must collect Value Added Tax for any
merchandise shipped within this zone.Anything shipped outside
this zone does not attract any tax.
In USA the tax is not Country wide but State wide.A Californian
merchant shipping within his state will charge tax but if shipping
outside his State will NOT charge any tax.
We will need one plain ASCII text file from you called TAX.TXT
containg the following info:
2) Product Description Files.
This is an optional item.You could if you so wish
provide, a seperate text file for each product
( this must be plain ascii text file ) describing it
in detail.This file can be as long as you wish.
This file must have the same name as the product number.
For example if the product number is A28 then the
file must be a28.txt
If you are selling very simple items that can be described
in 20-50 words then you do not need product
description files.
2a) Product Image Files.
If you need to link your products to image files then
please provide a seperate Product Image file for each product
that you wish to link to.
The image file naming convention is the same as for Product
Description files.In other words the image file must have
the same name as the Product Number.If the Produnt Number is
A28,then Product Image files would be a28.gif or a28.jpg.
If these files currently have different names you can easily
rename them in order to conform to above scheme.
This particular option which allows you to link to a Product
Description files and / or Image files is optional and requires
a small additional payment.Please see the pricelist on the
main page.
All these image files (*.gif or the *.jpg) are
not an absolute must.Our own site does not use any
image files.Usually pages load a lot slower if
they are linked to image files and some users
who could be your potential customers may find
this irritating.
You the Shop Owner is responsible for ensuring
that your Product Description Files are well written,
properly paragraphed and spaced.No attempt will be made by
us to edit these files in any way.What you give us is what
you will see on your site when it is uploaded to your
ISP's server.This file ( the one u r looking at ) is a
typical Product Description File.Also as already mentioned the
text file you submit should be a plain ASCII DOS text file.
Your word processor should have the facility for
saving the file in this format.
Once the file is received by us we will simply convert it into
an HTML file.If you have already written Product Description
Files in HTML format then we could simply use these files if
you wish.
3a) Shop Name.
You also need to provide a name for your shop.This
can be any name or the name of your company.You
can also provide a shop logo file if you so wish.Please
name it as SHOP.GIF or SHOP.JPG .The logo will then appear
on the first page of your site when the user first
loads it.Please also provide a single text file named
NAME.TXT containing the name of your shop.
3b) The Name of the Payee:
This is needed so that customers paying by cheque
or a draft know who it should be made payable to.
Please provide a single text file named PAYEE.TXT
containing the name of the Payee.
3c) Credit Cards.
If you have credit card Merchant Accounts with
your Bankers you may wish to accept payment by credit cards
the way mail order companies do.Curently CyberShop
offers following Credit Card and other payment options.
American Express
Novus ( Discover )
Visa
Mastercard
Diners Club
Banker's Draft in merchant's currency.
Cash ( convertible equivalent ) by Registered Post.
Pease provide above info in a text file named
PAY.TXT specifying which credit cards and payment
options you are accepting and the shop currency.
Also include any other cards not mentioned above
that you are willing to accept.
4) Shop Address.
The shop's mailing address,email address,fax address,
telephone numbers and your site's URL.The phone and fax numbers
must also specify the Country and the Area Code.
The email address is where the customer's order will be
emailed to.
When your shop is online,as soon as the customer hits
the " next " button on the last screen, his order will
be automatically emailed to you,the Merchant.Within a few
seconds the customer will be emailed an Order Acknowledgement.
This will be done automatically by the program and does not
require any input on your part.
Please provide a single text file named ADDRESS.TXT
containing the above information.If you don't understand
what "site's URL" means please read the next section.
The reason the site's URL is required is so that after
the customer has placed his order he can be redirected back
to your sites main page.
5) Your Internet Service Provider.
If you wish us to upload the file into your space
on your ISP's server then we will need to know
some additional info as outlined below.
If you are living outside Ireland you would probably want
to do the uploading yourself as it is quite easy.Alternatively
we can upload the site for you.
The required info is as follows.If you do not already
have this info,you can easily get it from your ISP.
a.. The URL address of your directory at your ISP's server.
This is usually in the following form:
http://members.myisp.com/~mydirectory
Therefore a typical address might look something as follows:
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~frankie
b.. The URL address of your ISP:
This is usually in the following form:
http://www.myisp.com
c.. Your UserName and Password.
Please provide a single text file named ISP.TXT
containing the above information.
Most ISP's automatically provide 10 Mb of free space
to their clients.The total size of the files that
we will need to upload would be approx 0.5 mb EXCLUDING
image files.It is up to you to ensure that you have enough free
space in your area on your ISP's server.
If you want to upload the files to your ISP's server yourself
then we will simply supply the site files to you on
one or more 1.44 Mb floppy disks via Air Mail.
If you have not paid us the "upload to ISP" fees then
we will assume that you prefer to upload the files yourself.
6) Free ISPs
If you are using a free ISP then they may not give
you the free 10 Mb space but you can easily rent that
from them for a nominal fee.Please check with your
free ISP.
Also if you are using a free ISP you must make
sure they will NOT install banners on every page on your site
as the shop files will NOT run if your ISP's server attempts to
place a banner on them.Banner placement is done automatically
by some servers and many of them will attach a banner to
every page.In this case you would be better off by getting
a paid ISP account if you wish to run a shopping cart.
7) CGI Issues:
As explained above the cart will run on any server e.g.in your
directory on your ISP's server.Therefore there are no CGI issues
involved here.Even if you have your own domain such as www.mydom.com
the cart will run from which ever hosting server you are using.
What if you wish to use your own CGI? In this case we will supply
you the necessary files and instructions for setting up the CGI scripts
on your server.It will then be upto you and your hosting provider
to ensure that CGI scripts are functioning satisfactorily.
A more satisfactory alternative would be to NOT install your own
CGI scripts.The carts that we write for you come complete with
these scripts which are placed on our own secure server thus
obviating the need for you to get involved in CGI issues.
8 ) Payment Security ie Secure Socket Layers.
In the shopping carts that we design, when the customer is ready
to choose a payment method eg via credit card or whatever,this
will happen on our secure server employing SSL technology
unless you have told us that you will be running the shopping
cart from your own server.If you are running your own server
then please discuss this with your system administrator.
Although the normal shop files will reside, say in your directory
on your ISP's server, the file that handles the payment resides
on our secure SSL server.SSL stands for Secure Socket Layers.
SSL is an encryption feature built into web browsers, preventing
access to the information exchanged between the browser and the SSL
server by anyone else. In Internet Explorer you can tell if you are
on a SSL server from the padlock image that appears in the middle
of your browser's status bar.You can also tell from the URL of the
page.Instead of seeing the usual http you will see https signifying
that you are now on a SSL server.
An SSL encrypted server therefore protects the transfer of credit
card details as this is done in secure envoronment.
Your shop will therefore work with SSL between the customer and the
processing server.However this is subject to our Standard Disclaimer.
------*****------
Frank Mathiote, 35 Nottingham St., Dublin 3, Ireland .
e-mail me at: fvm@fvm.8m.com
phone: +(353) (1) 855 9260
http://fvm.8m.com