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Ecommerce -Website Functionality (continued)

So where do you find such a guru?  Let’s see.  There’s cousin Bruce, he has built several for other people and is a self-professed Geek, and then there’s the old school buddy that keeps pushing to let him at it.  Nope, we need a real professional, so far so good.  The Yellow Pages has some real established local firms that always deliver a top-notch product. A few visits to them educate you to the price of good business.  If they are out of your reach at the moment, you continue to search.  Next there is the Internet. A search brings up tens of thousands of Gurus.  Everyone can do you a slick looking Ecommerce site and it includes a shopping cart and credit card gateway.  Prices range from “$500 and I’ll have your site up and running tomorrow” to $1500-$3000 and a couple of weeks, on up to equal the prices you got from the local established firms.  The problem that you will soon discover is that artistic ability doesn’t translate to functional.

So many new entrepreneurs are forced out of ignorance to make bad choices.  Not only do these developers have to have artistic ability on staff, but they must completely and deeply understand Ecommerce and have the tools in their tool box to make it work.  Due diligence will turn over companies that can deliver for the low-end ($1500) and just as surely turn up individuals masked as big outfits that charge the high-end and deliver a poorly functional product.  It takes due diligence and if you can borrow one, a crystal ball.

My advice is to pay extra attention to your research before you decide.  If you have the funds to go with the local, well established company, do it.  If your budget doesn’t allow for that at this point, then make sure the Internet based Guru you hire isn’t just another pretty screen.  Get a list of sites they have done. Make sure that the list includes Ecommerce sites.  Then don’t get caught up in the visuals, shop these sites. Buy products and take the system all the way out to where you have to click on “submit” for your credit card.  Was it easy to get where you wanted to go? Were there always enough links on each page to take you where you want to go next?  How many unnecessary screens (drill downs) do they take you through?  Was the product displayed in a “come and buy me” format?  Was the Shopping Cart available from any page on the site?  Could you modify, add or delete items in the Shopping Cart at any time?  Was the check-out system explained well and easy to do?  The more yes’s you answer to these questions the closer you are to choosing a web designer for yourself.  Looks are important, but functionality is foremost. You can change the look and feel with some ease, but to fix functionality, you have to tear it back down to its root.

As a website developer, I am constantly amazed at the volume of clients that get anal about the color, design, fonts and images on the home page while ignoring my advice to discuss functionality.  If the draft of the home page (which will then be used as a template for the rest of the pages) is, in general, what you were looking for, then pay close attention to what your web designer is doing with functionality.  Fonts, verbiage and pics can be tightened up as a final walk-through. A good Web Designer sets the look-and-feel up in include files, which means that when they make changes to that file, it affects all pages.

The point to all of this is, be very careful on your selection of web designers. Educate yourself to what will make your site as functional as your competition and make sure that’s what gets delivered to you.  Keep in mind that look-and-feel is an individual thing. Don’t get boxed in by your vision of  “a great looking site”.  If we all had the same idea of beauty then all art would look the same, all houses would look alike and many, many men and women would never find a mate because they didn’t fit the mold. I shop a lot of websites I find ugly, but the functionality is designed to make my experience easy. I have also taken many off my list because, even though I found them to be gorgeous, they were a bear to get around. And, of course, there are a few I am forced by my vocation to still shop, even though they lack any thing near functionality.  I get the Grrrrr’s every time I have to go to one of those sites.  Be careful not to have a website that potential clients find to cumbersome to use.  You will never know how much business you have lost because of lack of functionality. They only clue you will have is that your competition is selling more than you are.

I am always happy to answer questions concerning website design and Ecommerce.  I can be contacted at Advice from DPS

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Joe Job - Know what to do if your site ever comes under attack by a disgruntled user or under-handed competitor