ShopSite has long offered an accessible
e-commerce service for small busines owners who want to develop and publish
Web-based catalogs without speaking HTML. It also offers greater depth for
Web site designers who want to create more sophisticated
online stores. In its latest version, 7.1, it adds support for gift
certificates and additional payment gateways, XML upload capabilities and
intrusion detection — all of which make a first-rate product even better.
At its core, ShopSite allows you to set up a
professional-looking online store through a Web-browser interface. You can use the
program to build a site from scratch, or add ShipSite's shopping cart feature to an
existing Web site. After building a site, you can use ShopSite to accept
credit cards through major payment gateways and manage the store through a
Web browser.
What's News
While much of ShopSite remains the same, which is a good thing, the
biggest new feature is support for physical and digital gift certificates
(Pro version only). This useful feature can provide vendors with a new
revenue stream. New XML support lets you upload and download
pages and products to update online inventory or pricing from an existing
database — a nice addition for businesses that maintain separate product databases.
 |
| Among ShopSite 7.1's additional features is support for new payment gateways. |
The system offers support for two new payment gateways: WorldPay, which
is used by many international customers, and YourPaySM. These gateways
augment the existing payment options, which include VeriSign's PayFlow Pro,
Authorize.Net, Cardservice International, eBay's PayPal's IPN (Instant
Payment Notification) and Paymentech Orbital Gateway.
Impressive new intrusion-detection features log access to all orders
and alert you when an outside party attempts to access orders. ShopSite has
also improved its fraud protection features to discourage automated programs
that randomly generate credit card account combinations and try to make one
that works. Both may help you sleep better at night.
Version 7.1's new cababilities also include the following:
- setting a default shipping method in case a customer forgets to select one
- displaying a customer's savings when using a coupon
- a cart update button that shows last-minute changes to a customer's shopping cart contents
- stronger image management to rename and move images.
Building Online Catalogs
ShopSite works through a Web browser and
doesn't require you to download or install programs on your desktop to
create and manage a ShopSite store. ShopSite actually consists of three
products: ShopSite Starter, ShopSite Manager and ShopSite Pro.
ShopSite Starter is for merchants that have relatively few products to
sell and are getting their feet wet in online sales. The more powerful
ShopSite Manager supports an unlimited number of products and pages, can
send e-mail receipts, offers custom templates, data upload and download
features, and can calculate shipping costs and taxes based on zip code.
ShopSite Pro allows stores to work with coupons, gift
certificates, volume and other discounts and affiliate sales. It also offers
sophisticated product searches, can alert businesses to low stock
situations, and edit product prices and other parameters based on
percentages.
Regardless of the ShopSite flavor, each creates an
online shopping site and cart with clear and intuitive pull-down menus so
shoppers can easily learn about items, select and manage them in shopping
carts and choose options for payment and shipment.
At its easiest, most basic level, you can follow ShopSite's step-by-step
Web-based wizard, which walks you through the process of creating and
publishing a catalog and shopping cart. The program prompts you to enter
product information (description, SKU, weight, price and more) and define
payment options (credit cards, checks and so on) and shipping terms (ground, air
and more).
After that, you select a look from an assortment of themes and layouts,
and the program builds the site, complete with shopping cart functions. The
company claims that anyone can create a site in 15 minutes. If the intended
result is a minimal site with only a few products to sell, the claim is
essentially true. Note that while ShopSite claims some 50 themes and layouts
to choose from, there are actually only nine layouts, each available with
several different color schemes.
Moving Product Data Online
If you have existing product database, you can upload inventory as tab-delimited text files
and the program provides good options for matching database fields with
those in its catalogs. Pictures, however, aren't as easy to manage because
ShopSite can't modify image sizes or depths. You have to edit images
offline, using an image editor such as Adobe PhotoShop. You can see how
they look only after you've uploaded and published the picture in your
online catalog.
Professional Web designers can go further, creating custom pages and
templates using their favorite HTML editors such as Macromedia DreamWeaver
or Microsoft FrontPage, and integrating ShopSite shopping cart features
within them. And if businesses don't want to re-invent their Web sites,
designers can introduce and integrate ShopSite elements into existing Web
pages. Based on our evaluation, the process is straightforward
and allows a business to create the e-commerce site that it wants.
Site management is also performed through a Web browser, and the program
offers a menu bar that effectively serves as its access point to various options. By the way, if
you use Intuit's QuickBooks accounting software to manage your business, you
may download orders from a ShopSite e-commerce site in a QuickBooks file
format or as a tab-delimited text file to integrate sales and order data
into QuickBooks.
Pricing
ShopSite is sold through reseller partners that, according to the company,
number in the hundreds and include NTT/Verio, BizLand, LexiConn,
YourHost.com, pair Networks, SiteSell, BroadSpire, Globat.com and more. In
addition, you can purchase a ShopSite license for a one-time charge or pay
on a monthly basis.
If you already own a server to host ShopSite and don't want to host
through a reselling partner, you can purchase Manager for $495 and Pro for
$1,295 from ShopSite (Starter is not available in this pricing model). An additional $695
provides you with phone and e-mail support, free upgrades and installation
assistance. Monthly rates through resellers range between $29-$49 for
Starter; $55-$75 for Manager and $120-$139 for Pro, which includes hosting
fees and free upgrades to new releases.
You can evaluate ShopSite 7.1 for free through a demo version that is
available on the company's Web site.
Wayne Kawamoto is a frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com.
Managing the Modern Network
Business Service Management: Generate Revenue Through IT 
Evaluating Software as a Service for Your Business
Storage Networking: Configuration and Planning
Is Your Disaster Recovery Plan Good Enough? 
IE 7
Firefox 2.0
