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Hey again
I am trying to figure oit the best and cheapest way to get a website up and running that customers are able to order maple products online? What have people had the best luck with as far as design and functionality for processing orders. Is there a feature that allows shipping to be figured in? I kinda suck at computers and dont really wanna pay someone thousands of dollars to get it rolling
Thanks in advance
First off, best and cheap cannot be had together.
Didnt know everything had to be so literal, best return for my money spent. Or inexpensive if that’s allowed to be used
It doesn't. IMO, if you don't have the capabilities and knowhow, you should contact a web design company and talk to them about options. They are unlimited and prices are highly variable.
Kevin give me a call. ill get you in touch with my guy. we are in the middle of a revamp. he has lots of options.
I didn't have the computer knowledge to set my own up, so I hired it done. It is in Woo Commerce and once set up does the entire sale. I had to input the container sizes and weights plus I picked the boxes I wanted to use. Then the program figures which box to use and gives the customer the price for shipping. At first there were problems when the program wanted to use a bigger box than necessary. I eventually got it right by fudging the sizes until the right one was used. Then in the website, they can use a credit card or PayPal to pay for it. When the order is placed it appears in my website on my end plus I get an email telling me I have an order.
I then pack the order, print the shipping label on my computer, then sign into USPS and schedule a pick-up at my house. I just use USPS now, but you can chose USPS, UPS or FedEx or all 3 and let the customer chose which they want.
Doing it thru Woo Commerce the postage is discounted for me because enough is shipped using Woo that the discount is earned. There may also be discounts from the others too, I 'm not sure.
While you my want to save all you can, a website can do big business, but it must be seen. Getting it seen is the hardest part. A web developer can give you ideas.
I have a registered domain and website on squarespace.com for a non-profit I run. They have templates, support and marketing help. They can handle secure payment and shipping cost. I thought what I got was reasonably priced. They have good support. My future son-in-law is a commercial web developer and he recommended them to me, because he said I didn't need to pay professionals to do my small needs. I don't know if they have what your looking for, but take a look and see. www.squarespace.com
We just got our website going. It's still a work in progress and will take sometime to tweak everything to the way I want it to look. You can check it out at www.mowrysmaplesyrup.com
Mine is at www.cnymaple.com Woo Commerce keep track of my inventory too, so it will never sell an item or grade I do not have in stock.
I have no idea what professionals charge to design and set up a website. My son did it, I just paid the registration fees.
A good website can sell a lot of product. It does take time and it really helps if you get your name out there. I only advertise on one forum for my syrup and it has over 30,000 members. The ad costs me $180/yr. Last month it sold just over $2100 worth of product but by now many are repeat customers and did not see me on that ad. If you find a real popular forum to advertise, your site will come up much higher in the list when someone does a search for Syrup, just because the search engine associates your ad with that site and it gets a lot more hits.
I've only had an ad on the site I use for about 5 years, but when I placed that ad the orders climbed soon after. The figure for last months sales are the best ever, but as I watch my orders, they climb a good amount each year, like mine were 34%, 41%, 65%, 74% and last year was 114% over the previous year. ( I wouldn't normally know those percentages, but I just calculated them last week because my sales were so good). Those figures are just my online order increases, I also sell locally and from my home and in season from the sugarhouse. Those also climbed a lot in 2018 compared to 2017.
I think the investment in a good website takes very little time to repay the cost but only if you then advertise the site in a good place. Telling us what it is, will not likely help because a very high percentage of our members have our own syrup to sell.