Please email using our contact form or email direct to enquiry@wadiam.com if you have a project you would like us to look at. Please include a brief description of your business along with a landline contact number and the best time to phone you.
Basic Ecommerce Solution
A simple easy set up and running approach to having an ecommerce website is to use an all in one hosting and ecommerce solution such as that offered by UK2. Ecommerce hosting package..
- Low cost.
- Easy Setup.
- No need for a web designer.
- Ideal for small number of items or entry level.
- Cannot add new functionality.
- Restricted to those services offered by hosting company, such as payment service.
- Restricted to using hosting companies customization services.
- Can be very expensive if you want to develop to more than the basic offering.
All in one ecommerce solutions such as UK2. Ecommerce hosting package can be beneficial as a low cost secure solution. You still have a good hosting platform with domain name and dedicated ip address that enables good exposure to search engines, vital as no matter what the solution you need visitors to your site to make your website a success. But you are restricted to developing the ecommerce website within the boundaries of their application.
Small Business E-commerce Solution
A company needs an e-commerce website that enables them to stamp their own mark on the site, to add functionality to their website both for their business requirements and to enhance the user experience. The company is also likely to have a small but modest budget to spend on the website along with staff that can routinely administrate website orders, maintain the website content and administrate the marketing activities required to make an e-commerce site a success.
The basis of the e-commerce application would be an off the shelf package such as OpenCart e-commerce that is an open source e-commerce shopping cart application; as opposed to one that is proprietary licensed. ( see Open Source brief for more about open source versus proprietary.) Although depending on license most e-commerce applications allow you to make changes to the source code, meaning that you can add or modify functions to your own needs, this however does also mean that you need a developer fluent in the language the e-commerce application is coded in.
The hosting of the e-commerce application is usually on a shared server that supports the language and other services (such as database) required by the application along with other requirements such as security certificates and a dedicated ip address. As an example UK2. Business hosting.
If you do not have the in-house knowledge or expertise you will need a web designer and developer such as Wadiam to set up your application and hosting services.
- Less cost than having to develop your own solution.
- Can be customized (usually with a developer) to your specific needs.
- Usually can be hosted on a shared server.
- Control over the application so can be optimized for Search Engines, including adding SEO custom functions .
- Customized functions usually subject to limited testing.
- Need for a web developer at some level.
- May be restricted by license of the software.
- Choice of application needs to be as close to your business requirements as possible to limit customization.
Usually the e-commerce solution is required to enhance and diversify an existing business and as such it is necessary to buy in assistance of a developer. Appropriate consideration should be given to both the selection of the application and developer to avoid restricting your options. The initial cost of buying an off the shelf shopping cart is usually irrelevant. If you are using an open source e-commerce cart then you should make a contribution to help support the project, but even if it is a proprietary licensed cart chosen you will find that the purchase cost is usually far less than 10% of the total cost of running your e-commerce site over its life.
- The model-view-control architecture of OpenCart along with a strong contribution forum means there are numerous additions of functions and features that can be added to your ecommerce site.
- To view additional functions and features please visit the OpenCart contributions section that includes contributions from Wadiam.
- www.OpenCart.com demonstration
- Wadiam customized and development store front Note: This site is used to demonstrate customization so may not appear attractive.
OpenCart Samples
Big Business E-commerce Solution
For larger businesses it is most cost effective to create their own ecommerce solution. Their solution would require a large number of users to be able to access their ecommerce site simultaneously, this would warrant an infrastructure of dedicated web servers working in clusters to ensure the load placed on the ecommerce application could be met. In line with this the ecommerce application and cart would require the architecture to accommodate such scalable solutions.
E-commerce applications of this magnitude require large budgets and a dedicated workforce to handle the requirement of design, programming, security, servers and network, user interface, marketing and advertising, and then those of administration and operation of the live site.