Utilizing a Prepackaged Storefront
| The easiest way to create an online store-front is to let somebody else do it for you. Several of the big auction services' sites offer prepackaged web storefronts you can use to sell both auction and nonauction merchandise. The advantage of using a prepackaged storefront is that all the hard work is done for you: You put your storefront together by filling out the appropriate forms. The disadvantage of a prepackaged storefront is that, in many cases, it's not really your storefront; there aren't a lot of customization options, and you have to settle for a somewhat generic look and feel (which means that your store is going to look like every other store managed by the same servicenot necessarily a good thing). Still, if you want to launch a storefront without a lot of fuss and mussand get it up and running in record timethen a prepackaged storefront service might be for you. We'll look at some of the most popular services next. Ándale StoresÁndale (www.andale.com) lets you build your own storefront on its service. As you can see in Figure 28.1, an Ándale Store is similar to an eBay Store, but maybe a bit nicer looking and somewhat more functional. An Ándale Store can be fully customized with your own personal color scheme and graphics. Figure 28.1. The AstroGadgets.com Ándale Store (www.astrogadgets.com). Pricing to open an Ándale Store is $9.95 per month, cheaper than the $15.95 fee for an eBay Store. You also have to pay Ándale 5% of all your online sales. These fees cover everything you need to run your storefront; as with all these third-party services, Ándale provides all the web hosting and storage space you need for your store. Ándale also does a little marketing for you. When you open an Ándale Store, your items are listed on the Froogle, Shopzilla, and Shopping.com comparison shopping sitesin addition to Ándale's own Ándale Plaza shopping destination site. It's good exposure, something you don't get with many other e-commerce services. ChannelAdvisorThe ChannelAdvisor Stores service (www.channeladvisor.com), which is part of the ChannelAdvisor Merchant package, helps you incorporate a full-service storefront into your eBay About Me page or create a more full-featured online storefront, including integrated checkout and payment services. (Figure 28.2 shows an About Metype store page.) You'll need to contact the service personally to get a price quote for your particular needs. Figure 28.2. A ChannelAdvisor storefront on an About Me pageSophia's Style Boutique (members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=sophias*style). eBay ProStoresI guess eBay got tired of losing business to third-party storefront services, because in 2005 it launched its own prepackaged storefront service, dubbed eBay ProStores (www.prostores.com). eBay ProStores offers much the same types of services that you find at the third-party sites, including domain hosting, real-time credit card processing, and an e-commerce shopping cart. Figure 28.3 shows a typical ProStores merchant site. Figure 28.3. The Travelled Home's ProStores site (www.thetravelledhome.com). ProStores offers four different packages for different-sized businesses. These are detailed in Table 28.1.
The chief advantage to eBay ProStores over competing services is the seamless integration with regular eBay auctions and eBay Stores. You can copy your eBay listings directly to your ProStores product catalog, transfer items from your ProStores inventory to an eBay auction or eBay Stores listing, display your eBay listings in your ProStores store, and manage all your eBay listings from your ProStores store. No other e-commerce service offers this level of eBay integration. Homestead StorefrontHomestead Storefront (storefront.homestead.com), which is powered by the same technology that powers eBay ProStores, offers an easy-to-setup solution, especially for smaller sellers. You get your choice of packages, priced from $6.99/month to $59.99/month, depending on how many items you want to merchandise and how much storage space and data transfer you need. Storefront sites can look quite professional, as you can see in Figure 28.4. Getting started is as easy as working through a few wizards. Figure 28.4. The Homestead Storefront of Worldwide Child (www.worldwidechild.com). InfopiaInfopia (www.infopia.com) is one of those companies that cloaks what it does in a suffocating blanket of business-to-business buzzwords. According to its website, the Infopia Marketplace Manager "is an all inclusive multi-channel e-commerce platform." In plain English, that translates into web storefronts that link to your eBay auctions, like the one in Figure 28.5. (For what it's worth, Infopia drives many of the big consignment drop-off chains, including Auction Mills and iSold It.) Figure 28.5. Collector Bookstore (www.collectorbookstore.com), an Infopiaclient. A full list of features includes auction-listing creation, automated communication and feedback, image hosting, email marketing, tracking and reporting, inventory and order management, and a "smart" shopping cart and checkout. To determine pricing, you have to contact Infopia for a "no-obligation assessment" of your needs. NetStoresNetStores (www.netstores.com) offers a variety of online storefront services, from shopping-cart integration into your existing website to complete store-front design. Figure 28.6 shows one of its online storefronts. Figure 28.6. The NetStores-driven website of V i X (www.vixswimwear.com). In addition to the shopping cart, you get sales and traffic reporting, bulk product uploading, web hosting, customizable layouts, real-time credit card authorization, and a secure checkout system. Prices start at $19.95 per month. VendioVendio (www.vendio.com) offers web storefronts as part of its Vendio Stores service. Stores, such as the one in Figure 28.7, include a free gallery, mailing-list management, and a fully customizable look and feel. Vendio also promotes your store items on the Dealio, Froogle, and Shopzilla comparison shopping sites. Figure 28.7. The Rare Performance DVDs store (shop.vendio.com/RareDVDs), driven by Vendio Stores. Vendio offers three different pricing plans, as detailed in Table 28.2. All plans let you list an unlimited number of items in your store.
Yahoo! Small BusinessThat's right, along with all its search-related services, Yahoo! offers small business website hosting, too. Yahoo! Small Business is actually one of the largest hosts for small online retailers, offering all-in-one e-commerce solutions that link back to the Yahoo! Shopping marketplace. Yahoo!'s merchant solutions start at $39.95/month for the Starter plan, and go up to $299.95 for the Professional level. You get all the usual features, including integrated shopping cart, credit card processing (via PayPal), automated shipment processing, easy-to-use site setup wizards, and the like. Figure 28.8 shows a typical Yahoo!-powered online store. Figure 28.8. Trains4tots (www.trains4tots.com), powered by Yahoo! Small Business. ZoovyZoovy (www.zoovy.com) offers its Zoovy Storefront service for online merchants. Figure 28.9 shows a typical Zoovy merchant. Figure 28.9. The Zoovy store-front of Perfect PJs (www.perfectpjs.com). With Zoovy you get order and inventory management, integration with shipping and payment providers, hundreds of predesigned store layouts, and the ability to sell your items on eBay and other online marketplaces. Zoovy also pipes your store inventory for listing on the Froogle, NexTag, PriceGrabber, and Shopping.com comparison shopping sites. As with several others of these services, you have to contact the site to get a custom quote. |
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