Your Guide to Custom E-Commerce SolutionsIn recent years, e-Commerce has been gaining in popularity so rapidly that it threatens to engulf traditional retail commerce, and it continues to increase its share of global sales year by year. There are some very good reasons for this, since e-Commerce does hold some definite advantages over its more traditional cousin.

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The Appeal of e-Commerce For instance, an e-Commerce

storefront never closes its doors for

the day, its marketplace is the entire

globe rather than the neighborhood,

the distribution network is vastly

more simplified, and consumers

have the tremendous advantage

of shopping from the comfort of

home, rather than at a busy mall or

plaza. These are appeals that benefit

both the customer and the store

owner, so e-Commerce is a win-win

arrangement for everyone concerned.

For these reasons and more,

retailers are clamoring to either

establish an online presence or

enhance it through the vehicle of

an online storefront. In order to

really establish company branding,

the best approach to take is to

customize an online website so it

strongly identifies with the company.

Many software vendors offer

e-Commerce customizing services to

startup businesses as well as more

established businesses to help them

take advantage of the boom in online

sales and marketing.

Add-onsAdd-ons extend the functionality of any software platform beyond what is available out of the box. To take advantage of potential add-on modules, a base software program must be able to integrate with the add-on software, so the two can work together smoothly and efficiently.

When evaluating vendors for their customization services, there are some value-added features that should be borne in mind which may have particular appeal for you and your business. Some of these are discussed below, but all function requirements of interest to a business should be discussed with a potential development partner.

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ASP.NET storefront development

Custom Shopping CartsCustomized shopping carts can be a big boost to company branding because all screens used in the checkout process can be a good representation of the company itself, and can keep the company logo in the mind of the customer beyond the checkout process. The other value of customizing the checkout process is that it can be more closely aligned with the business process and products being offered by the company.

This is a software development package that can

either be used by in-house developers or can be

completely managed by consultants to produce

a custom storefront for a business owner. This

strategy makes use of the ASP.NET framework and

C# programming language. AspDotNetStorefront

utilizes a custom data and layout system called

XMLPackages that knowledgeable developers

can use to easily manage the data and layout

of storefront pages. AspDotNetStorefront also

provides for content management, so that all web

content can be updated or changed completely

with minimum difficulty.

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Mobiledevelopment

Credit Card ProcessingAny storefront that provides credit card processing capability to its customers brings much more convenience into the process, and increases the appeal of the shopping experience. Generally, credit card processing is an add-on module provided by a third party which integrates well with the storefront, because it must reconcile between bank accounts and the store business.

Mobile e-Commerce is one of the fastest

growing aspects of online sales, simply because

of the incredible popularity and usage of

cellphones. Practically everything can be done

on the cellphone these days, and shopping is no

exception. Any online store that does not target

mobile users is missing out on a huge segment of

the shopping public, which will drive customers

to some other website that does have a mobile

version of its storefront. These days, when having

a customized e-Commerce site developed, it is

almost a necessity to include development for

the mobile version as well.

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CMS CustomizationA content management system controls all the components of content on a website, like video, text, and sound files. This kind of management system does not require programming skills, but can easily add content or change whatever is currently on a website to be a more current reflection of what the business wants to convey to customers. A consultant team with developers will do the initial design and development, and then turn over the ongoing maintenance to the business owner, who is then able to keep content aligned with company goals on an ongoing basis.

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