Mail order business and accounts

[manalishi]

I run a mail-order Web site, and want some advice on software.

So far I've been handling orders by email, with receipts in a Word template and a 3-sheet Excel spreadsheet for keeping accounts (Income, Outgoings, month-to-month Summary). I've been running this as a sole trader using my personal bank account (cheques, transfers, PayPal) and personal credit card.

It's doing well enough that it's now worth streamlining the process to reduce the admin overhead. So I'm looking into shopping carts (any ideas?) and adding CC merchant services (likely to be Barclays or possibly HSBC) as a new payment method. The idea being to capture those buyers who want to buy at that moment, but who can't be bothered to email, wait for a reply with price and payment methods and then pay.

On the software side, Barclays resells Sage Instant Accounts for their business account, and I had a quick look at it yesterday... seems like it's got a lot more overhead than I have right now. Maybe I haven't drilled deep enough into it, but it seems more appropriate for business-to-business than consumer retail. I don't want to assign customer account numbers, credit limits, etc.

And I'm not sure if it can/will dovetail into any shopping cart setup (obviously I'm trying to avoid copy and paste from one program into another).

So I thought I should at least try to find out if there's a system that is more appropriate for small retail businesses.

I know we have a real mix of people and business savvy on here and thought maybe someone's been through a similar process? So if anyone has any ideas on this, I'd be very happy to hear them.

FYI, the Web site is www.ampmaker.com (mods - not a plug, just to give an idea of the products and typical transaction values).

 

[Benzowner]

I can only comment on Sage instant accounts. It is designed for business to business sales, however there is no reason why it cannot be set up as retail sales, you will end up with a lot of account on your sales ledger that may be used only once, but I have no idea what records you will be expected to keep as a retail sales outlet. On sage, there is also a cash sale and new account sales acounts. The one thing is that once you have put your customer on sage, you can then use that infor to create an address label.

We are with HSBC and we are looking into internet sales, I do know the HSBC have a scheme, but we havn't looked too deeply into it yet, a new year project I think.

 

[Tan]

The customer data that you will end up with in sage, can then also be used to keep them informed about new products or promotions and thus generate future business.

 

[Shude]

Last time the e-commerce question came up I recommended OSCommerce and my position hasn't changed . It's free, open source and very flexible. Fairly easy to deploy and configure too.

 

[Sp!ke]

What he said.

 

[manalishi]

Thanks - I'll look up OScommerce (just had a quick look, and I have to say that it looks rather 'developery' and I don't have time to get anywhere near code). I'll look at it more closely later.

Haven#t found a cart that says much about integration with (Sage or other) accounts software yet. Ideally, I'd like the incoming shopping cart data to populate the income side of my accounts without me having to intervene.

Have also found Actinic, which seems 'less developery' and might be worth looking at.

 

[Noodle-Pulp]

A lot of people use OSCommerce for the online catalogue and shopping cart and then have a range of choices about which payment processing system to use - Sagepay is a very popular one right now and their support is really quick and efficient.

My wife and I have a little project we're working on that soounds really similar - we looked at our options and to be fair ... like you say.. OSCommerce can be quite development intensive but if you stick with the barebones and don't want to change it too much you can still get good results.. also there are OSCommerce templates you can get that may be more suited to your own business.

 

[franey]

For card processing, either as a basket integration or telephone I recommend 'cardsave' they are cheaper than the banks and very supportive for any problems (not had any yet)
HSBC were very much biased to the customer in relation to chargebacks whereas cardsave were the other way.

Also HSBC required us to have an overdraft facility set up in case of chargebacks which, depending on your business status costs a fee to set up. HSBC also required we traded for at least one year before granting the facility, if we had set up a petrol station that would have meant it would have been impossible.

hth

 

[Baron_Samedi]

Informative thread

Nicely laid out website by the way

 

[lynall]

Well as a web purchaser i want quick easy info,price breakdown p+p etc, options on how to pay card paypal etc and thats pretty much it.

Dont know if that helps but if a sites difficult to navigate im back to google looking for another outlet pronto.



Lynall

 

[lil.smartie]

EKM Powershop. Not sure if it integrates but we use it along with HSBC and paypal then invoice via Quickbooks but we also have face to face customers who we need QB for so this isn't too much work! We didn't get on with Sage as it was too complex and 'accountanty' for us. EKM is very windows like, follow your nose & it's easy! (Welcome to your 24/7 shop for genuine and non-genuine smart car parts & accessories and genuine smart Brabus Parts & Accessories worldwide! is ours)

We used HSBC as we also bank with them so kept it all together!

Kate

 

[Noodle-Pulp]

Informative thread

Nicely laid out website by the way

+1

Small criticsm - it's not optimised for SEO at all - PM me and I'll send you a document about how to optimise your site to get the best results from Google - it's not my job but I have 6 years experience getting 2 of my sites to the first page in Google.

 

[manalishi]

Excellent - thanks all.

I'm trying to get to the Amazon idea of '3 clicks to buy' for the most popular products and I'll check those leads you guys/gals have given. Just trying to avoid a front-end and online payment system, that would make the site look like every other retail site.

Thanks for the kind words on the Web site - I've just tried to keep it clean. Mr Pulp - I will PM you in a mo for that SEO info. Right now I'm already #1 in Google for the most important searches - valve amp kits and guitar amp kits. That's without optimising whatever SEO is. So far, it's all down to links and word of mouth forum mentions from satisfied customers. But everything helps and I don't take anything for granted, so extra tips and advice are useful.

I'm still having a nightmare on the accounts side. I spent a couple of hours with Sage Instant Accounts last night, and it just doesn't seem to streamline for cash sales to retail customers, with data entry spread over several dialog box screens, etc. It's definitely more of a chore than my current manual system. I'm thinking that a cart-based front end that created paperwork and could output the data into XLS, CSV, etc would be a less painful change...

 

[Mr E]

+1

Small criticsm - it's not optimised for SEO at all - PM me and I'll send you a document about how to optimise your site to get the best results from Google - it's not my job but I have 6 years experience getting 2 of my sites to the first page in Google.

I'm looking at something similar for Mrs E at the mo - would you mind if I dropped you a line too?

 

[Noodle-Pulp]

Feel free to contact me - there may be a queue so I plead for your patience

 

[manalishi]

Bried update: tried Actinic and it seemed to get in the way more than it helped. Next step is EROL and EKMpowershop. EROL in particular seems to have flexible design capabilities (re keeping my site looking much as it does now) and good order management with exportable data that I can pump into Excel for simple accounts.

Have looked (briefly) at oscommerce and magento, but found it quite hard to get an overview of how I'd implement them - definitely seem more developer-oriented.

Have completely given up on proper Sage accounts!

Barclays ePDG CPI is on special offer at £0 setup and 3% (£10 minium). Will check cardsave later today.

My December sales are already +30% on last year, and I'm starting to make annoying mistakes so I think it's definitely time that I quit using a calculator and email.

 

[nick mercedes]

Bried update: tried Actinic and it seemed to get in the way more than it helped. Next step is EROL and EKMpowershop. EROL in particular seems to have flexible design capabilities (re keeping my site looking much as it does now) and good order management with exportable data that I can pump into Excel for simple accounts.

Have looked (briefly) at oscommerce and magento, but found it quite hard to get an overview of how I'd implement them - definitely seem more developer-oriented.

Have completely given up on proper Sage accounts!

Barclays ePDG CPI is on special offer at £0 setup and 3% (£10 minium). Will check cardsave later today.

My December sales are already +30% on last year, and I'm starting to make annoying mistakes so I think it's definitely time that I quit using a calculator and email.

Consider:

Shopping Cart Hosting | Ecommerce packages from UK 2

 

[manalishi]

Consider:

Shopping Cart Hosting | Ecommerce packages from UK 2

The online demo doesn't work (it's all online - no standalone software), and the sales guy I spoke to didn't seem particularly interested in helping me find out if it would suit my business. Looked promising (SLA, specs, etc) - shame...

Meanwhile - I have now spent half a day with EROL, and it's OK, but it's all over the place. Turns out that it's MS Access in fancy dress. If only I can discover how to 'flatten' the store (instead of using categories)...

EKMpowershop looked good, but fell by the wayside as soon as I noticed that it allows just 4 non-sales pages, and those are typically used for Webshop 'small print', whereas I need to use dozens as integral parts of my service.

 

[lil.smartie]

Email EKM as they also do custom templates & might be able to help. UK based & always been helpful for us!

Kate

 

[SL300-24]

I have used quickbooks for the last 7 years and find it an excellent package, simple to use and I belive that it will do what you are looking for......I recommend you take a look...