by Mike Masin on June 8, 2010
I wear my jeans below my, ahem, waist. It’s easier but it isn’t my best presentation. When I want to improve how I present myself, I put on a suit with braces. My suits are tailored to present me in the best manner possible and braces keep my trousers where they’re supposed to be worn.
Your e-commerce site presents you and your business to your shoppers. Until recently, most e-commerce design only had to accommodate different resolutions and different browsers for the desktop/notebook . M-commerce is a reality now. If your shoppers are using mobile devices then your site needs mobile versions that are tailored for those tiny browsers.
Now there’s a new challenge. I read Dell Streak Brings Tablet Computing Down the Mountain on E-Commerce Times this morning. Dell’s Streak, Apple’s iPad, Asus’s Eee; tablets are here and they’re a new browser frontier with new resolutions, and probably, new browser quirks to accommodate.
Designing for more browser flavors increases your site’s complexity and workload. Where do you start and which browsers are more important for your site and audience? The clues are in three places:
- your web server visitor logs,
- your competitor’s sites,
- your shoppers.
Your web server logs will tell you which browsers you’re serving. If your shoppers are using browsers that your site doesn’t support you are losing potential sales. Look at your competitor’s sites on friends and associates’ smartphones and netbooks. Are they optimized for that particular device? If so, maybe there’s an audience that your aren’t reaching. Finally, talk to your shoppers. They might not be ready to make the purchase on a mobile device but they might be doing their research while they’re waiting for the train, walking down the street, watching TV, etc.
How about you? Are you using your smartphone or netbook (or tablet!) to research or buy? Is your site optimized for m-commerce browsers or are you thinking about diving in? Tell me how you use the smaller display and if you think it impacts your e-commerce site.
Photo credit: Mykl Roventine
by Mike Masin on March 6, 2010
ShopSite is a versatile shopping cart with many built-in features that can be customized for your requirements. But sometimes you need more functionality and ShopSite knew that you might. They included APIs so you can use custom programming to expand and enhance your cart.
API is an acronym for “Application Programming Interface.” Simply put, it’s a socket where your custom program can plug in to exchange data. Data is sent to the program and in some cases the program sends information back.
Order API
An Order API connects after the order is complete (i.e. payment has been approved). It receives all of the order data, but it can’t return data (i.e. it can’t modify the order in ShopSite). For example, Order APIs can be used to send order data to fulfillment services and shipping services (e.g. to create a shipment) or to update an external database.
Shipping API
ShopSite has built-in support for real-time quotes from UPS, FedEx and USPS, as well as calculations based simply on weight or order amount. If you need more complex calculations (e.g. shipping rate quotes from multiple origin zip codes) or you need rate quotes from a different carrier (e.g. a freight carrier) then you need a Shipping API to calculate shipping quotes. The Shipping API receives the cart data and destination zip code from ShopSite when the items in the cart change and it returns a list of shipping rate choices that ShopSite displays to the shopper.
Inventory API
ShopSite has built-in support for monitoring inventory quantity on-hand, preventing sales of out-of-stock items and sending low-threshold notifications so that you can replenish. If your cart inventory needs to be synced with an outside source because you carry inventory or sell in more than one location, you can use an Inventory API to connect with the outside source. The Inventory API receives item data from ShopSite when an item is added to the cart and during checkout. It returns quantity-on-hand data and can also return an alternate SKU for an item.
Sales Tax API
The Sales Tax API gives you more control over sales tax calculations. ShopSite’s built-in sales tax feature can select the sales tax rate based on zip code, VAT/GST, or based on a shopper-selected tax rate. It can include shipping and/or handling charges in the tax calculation. However, if you have to calculate sales tax on different combinations of product, shipping and handling based on the destination, or have to calculate sales tax on data other than the destination zip code, you need a Sales Tax API. The API receives cart data whenever the cart contents change as well as during checkout, and it returns a sales tax amount.
@stuff is a Certified ShopSite Designer. We develop APIs that are customized for your store and requirements. Contact me if you have questions about custom development for your store.
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