How to Create a Logo with BigCommerce

July 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Your logo is an important part of your store identity. Essentially, it is the image that customers will immediately associate with your store, so it needs to say in an instant what your store is about. For example, if your store is selling party supplies, like balloons, hats and streamers, your logo should be brightly coloured and reflect a sense of fun. Or if your store is selling fashion shoes, then a more sophisticated logo design is needed.

A professional looking store always has a professional looking logo, so it is worth looking at the options you’ve got on BigCommerce in designing one.

The whole process of designing your own logo for your store begins when you select your preferred store template. It should match what your vision is, not just in terms of layout, but also the general colour scheme and font style.

The good news is that BigCommerce does a pretty good job with the logo on their 101 design templates. And, tweaking them in small ways, to reflect your store’s identity, is made simple and easy.

But like everything else, we would advise that you resist making too many changes because of the havoc they can play with the template. So, when you reach the Store Design page, ignore everything except the ‘Store Design’ and ‘Logo’ tabs.

To Create Your Logo

Step 1: Click on the Logo navigation in the top of the Store Design screen.

Step 2: To Create a Logo, click ‘Create a New Logo Image’ (2nd choice)

Step 3: In the ‘Logo Designer’ section, write your store name in ‘Text 1′ and perhaps slogan in ‘Text 2′.

Step 4: Click ‘Refresh Preview Image’ it check, then ‘Save Logo Image’ to apply to your store.

Step 5: Click ‘View Your Store’ to see the finished look.

Small Revolution

Aleksandar is a photo retouching, editing and color correction specialist. He has twelve years of experience processing photographs for both web and print. Follow the link below to visit his contractor profile at oDesk.

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How to install a BigCommerce Template & Upload Your Logo

July 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

Each eCommerce store requires a template. A template, in this case, can be defined as a set of files that make your store look the way it does. It is the template controls where the logo sits on the screen, what colour the background is, what font is used for the headings, where the products are placed on the screen and more. Quite simply, a template governs the aesthetic layout of the store.

BigCommerce provides 101 templates as part of your account purchase, so finding one that matches your ‘vision’ of your store is not a problem. But there are more advantages to them than that. Having access to pre-built templates from BigCommerce means that you can be confident the template, when installed, will ‘just work’. Also, BigCommerce are good at making templates for their own software, and this represents a considerable saving in time and money.

The fact is that sticking to a pre-designed template is the safe and reliable option, and is ideal for novices. BigCommerce will keep maintaining these templates, ensuring they are always compatible with the main BigCommerce engine. As soon as you deviate from the default template, some problems can occur. Layouts break up. Functionality breaks down. Buy Buttons stop working. But, by using the default templates, you’re almost guaranteed to have a trouble-free store, from a technical perspective at least.

A disadvantage of using a BigCommerce template is the quality of the design. The templates are simple and functional, at best. None of them could be recommended as the ultimate example of eCommerce design, and perhaps none of the templates on offer truly represent the branding in your own business.

Either way, some simple customisation of the templates is required in order for you to integrate your logo, and possibly even branding colours. But, as a starting point for your own BigCommerce store, just choose one of the available templates that you feel best fits your store.

How to install a BigCommerce template

Step 1: Login to your BigCommerce account.

Step 2: Click on the Design navigation in the top of the screen.

Step 3: You’ll now be looking at the Store Design page.

Step 4: You’ll notice the Default Blue store design set as ‘Current Store Design’. Beside it are four buttons – ignore them.

Step 5: Scroll down through the ‘Choose a Store Design’ section to find the design template you like. Click ‘Apply This Template’.

Step 6: A box will pop up clarifying the technical consequences of changing template. Just the boxes and press the large ‘Apply’ button.

Step 7: When this is done, click ‘View Your Store’ button at the top of the page to see your store up close.

Step 8:  All that is needed next it customize it – like choosing your own Logo.

How To Upload Your Own Logo

Step 1: Click ‘Upload Logo’ in the ‘Logo Settings’ section.

Step 2: At the bottom of the screen, click ‘Choose file’ and browse for the file you want to use.

Step 3: When you’ve selected your file, click ‘Upload Logo Image’.

Step 4: Your logo will  appear in the ‘Current Site Logo’ section.

Step 5: Click on ‘View Store’ at the top bar of the page, and your own logo heads your store.

Small Revolution

Aleksandar is a photo retouching, editing and color correction specialist. He has twelve years of experience processing photographs for both web and print. Follow the link below to visit his contractor profile at oDesk.

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Custom Design Vs. Pre-Built BigCommerce Template

July 8, 2012 By

Customers appreciate an online store that is professionally and consistently branded. It makes them feel like they are dealing with a professional and trustworthy organisation. So with this in mind, it can be tempting to invest your time and money into the best branding possible. Is it however worth your time and money? Yes and no.

Custom branding results in a look that is uniquely associated with your store (or product) and is comprised of a logo, branding elements and templates. In the case of an online store, a branding project would result in a unique logo and store templates. To achieve a custom brand you will need to engage the services of a graphic designer, and then to implement the custom brand you will need a web developer. Both have additional cost and time associated with them.

Custom Design vs Bad Design

Both of the below store examples are built on the BigCommerce platform. One has been professionally designed and produced. Can you guess which one? When you’ve decided which store looks more professional, think about how that affects your likelihood of ever purchasing from them.

 

 

Do you need custom design and branding?

Yes, you need some custom branding. Some branding being applied to your store is always a good idea.

If branding is very important to your customers then the additional expense and effort may result in a significant return on your investment. If you sell fashion items then having your own strong branding helps to create a sense of identity and association with your customers.

If branding is less important then you can minimise the effort you need to apply to your own store. In all cases good branding increases feelings of trust and professionalism, and always has some impact on whether your customers go ahead with their purchases.

How customised should your store design be?

A highly customised design will affect your budget and your launch date. The more you customise your store the more it will cost, the longer it will take and the more complexity you will have to manage in the long run. To begin with, it may be a more efficient use of your time and money to restrict yourself to a simpler branding project.

A highly customised design will add anywhere between an additional $1000 to $5000 to your project. Costs will be associated with several rounds of design iterations. Once the design has been completed it then needs to be converted into HTML/CSS code for integration into the shopping cart templates. Getting more complex work completed will also extend your store’s launch date, particularly if there are many tweaks along the way.

Keep in mind that you can easily improve your branding later on, when you have more time.

What are the impacts of having a highly customised store design?

If you do decide to go down the road of creating your own unique store template, you are going to face technical challenges. The design templates need to be monitored on a regular basis to ensure they remain compatible with the BigCommerce system. The two pieces – design templates and BigCommerce system – are interwoven and reliant on each other to create a working store.

To use an analogy, it’s just like your clothes and the body they’re on. If your body puts on 10kg, you won’t fit into the same jeans, no matter how much you try! So, as your body changes shape over time, your clothes need to change too.

You could say the design template is the clothes that you wear, and the BigCommerce system your body. As BigCommerce change the underlying structure of their software, the external templates sometimes need to change to match it perfectly. A competent developer, knowledgeable in BigCommerce software, is required to maintain the equilibrium.

From a technical point of view, the best option is to leave your store with a default BigCommerce template. But from a design aesthetic point of view, it’s best to create an entirely new design. And therein lies the quandary: choose a default or custom designed template? Perhaps the best solution is somewhere in the middle.

At a minimum …

At a minimum, to launch an online store, you will need a professionally designed logo and an attractive pre-configured store template with some basic modifications.

Small Revolution

Katrina McKinnon is a Founder of SmallRevolution, and AusCommerce. Katrina is eCommerce Webmaster of Camping Central and Gazebos Australia. If you'd like to connect, head over to @smallrevolution

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Setting up Your Email Account in BigCommerce

July 5, 2012 By

Like every other form of business, your online store has to provide customers with a way of direct contact. So, it’s essential you set up an e-mail account with your store’s domain name in it. BigCommerce makes the whole process pretty straightforward and easy, so there is little you need to worry about if your are not the most technically minded.

Why Include the Domain Name?

It is tempting to simply go straight to one of the establish email service providers, like Gmail and Hotmail, but this not the wisest option, for two main reasons.

Firstly, many business emails that end in generic email providers are linked with scams. The last thing you want is for your store to be greeted with suspicion or associated with any illegal activity.

Secondly, an email address that includes the company domain name projects a professional image. People feel more confident in dealing with a company established enough to have their domain names in their email addresses.

The username at the front of the email address is also important, and it’s worth being imaginative with your choice. The generic contact address, for example, reads as ‘admin@randomizedstore.com’, but people tend to associate ‘admin’ with busy administration departments, where their queries might get lost in the system.

Projecting a different image is more beneficial, so consider some more direct, pro-active and even caring usernames, like ‘help’, ‘helpme’ or ‘myquery’ etc.

Create Your E-Mail Account

As part of your store, you can create email accounts at your store’s domain using the BigCommerce email service. You can then setup these accounts in Outlook, Thunderbird, or your mobile device.

Step 1: Login to BigCommerce, and to your store’s control panel

Step 2: Click on the ‘Tools’ button at the top of the page, and select ‘Email Accounts’ from the menu

Step 3: Choose ‘Create an Email Account…’ button

Step 4: Fill in the requested Email Account Details

      • Username – fill in your preferred choice. BigCommerce will confirm if it is unique. If it isn’t just try again.
      • Email Type – choose between a Regular Email Address or to Forward Email Address, where emails will be forwarded to another (perhaps a personal) account. Identify which address you want your store email to be forwarded to.
      • Password/Confirm Password – choose a password and confirm it, but don’t make it too easy

Step 5: Fill in the Advanced Options

      • Spam Checking – No need to change this. Disabling the built-in spam checking program is asking for trouble.
      • Set Storage Quota – Limiting the storage quota saves a lot of space on the disk. But be realistic as emails received after the limit is reached will be bounced back to the sender. Regular mailbox clean-ups will be necessary when quotas are small.

Step 6: Press on the ‘Save & Exit’ button, or the ‘Save & Add Another’ button if you want to add a second email address, but this shouldn’t be necessary for now.

Google Apps and Third Party Email Services

It’s important to note that BigCommerce does not provide a mail interface, so it is necessary to open an account with a third-party email provider.

BigCommerce lists several options, including Gmail, AppleMac, Windows Mail and iPhone, and provide step-by-step details on how to set up a BigCommerce email address with each of them.

But there is an alternative – Google Apps. The chief advantage with choosing Google to manage your email activities is that the mailbox takes up no room on your store’s disk space on BigCommerce. So, there is practically no email limit.

To send your BigCommerce emails to a Google Apps inbox, it’s necessary to configure your domain. This means creating and adding MX records (7), a CNAME record and a TXT record.

An MX (Mail Exchange) record essentially identifies the server that will handle your email messages. MX records are listed with a priority value to ensure that if there is a problem with the first, then messages will be sent to the second etc.

As technical as it might seem, the process for setting up Google Apps as your email service provider is quite simple.

 

Setting Up Google Apps

Step 1: Login to your store’s control panel

Step 2: Click on the ‘Tools’ button at the top of the page, and select ‘DNS Records’ from the menu

Step 3: Add the new MX records with the format:  ‘mail.randomizedstore.com  -  MX  – ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM’. The follow with ‘ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM’, ‘ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM’, then ‘ASPMX2.L.GOOGLEMAIL.COM’ etc (see below)

Step 4: Set the Priority Rating for each in the space to the far left

Step 5: Add CNAME record in the format: ‘mail.randonizedstore.com   -  CNAME  -  ghs.google.com’

Step 6: Add a TXT record (or SPF record) in the format: ‘randomizedstore.com  -  TXT  -  v=spf1 +a +mx include:_spf.bigcommerce.com include:_spf.google.com ~all’

Step 7: Delete 2 of the original MX records to avoid malfunctions due to conflicting addresses. Click the red minus icon on the far right.

 

Change SMTP Server

If you are going to switch from BigCommerce to Google as your email service provider, the SMTP mail server should also be changed to Google. The SMTP server handles vital outgoing messages like order confirmations and order status updates.

 

Making the Switch:

Step 1:  Choose the ‘Store Setting’ button on your store’s control panel

Step 2:  Choose ‘Miscellaneous’ at the end of the options bar

Step 3:  At ‘Use SMTP Server’, click the ‘Let Me Specify My Own SMTP Server Details’ option

Step 4: Fill in the ‘SMTP Hostname’ box with ‘ssl://smtp.googlemail.com’

Step 5: Enter ‘SMTP Username’ – it’s your full email address on Google Apps

Step 6: Enter ‘SMTP Password’ – it’s the same as your Google Apps account password

Step 7: Set ‘SMPT Port’ to 465

Step 8: Click on ‘Save’ at the top of the page.

 

Small Revolution

Katrina McKinnon is a Founder of SmallRevolution, and AusCommerce. Katrina is eCommerce Webmaster of Camping Central and Gazebos Australia. If you'd like to connect, head over to @smallrevolution

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How to Setup a New BigCommerce Account

July 4, 2012 By

Setting up a BigCommerce Account is a very quick, easy and straightforward process – quite the opposite to what many people have experienced before when setting up an online eCommerce solution. As soon as you have finished the setup process you will essentially have a ‘complete’ store that is nearly ready to push live. 

To complete this activity you will need:

  • Preferred contact details such as business address, email address, phone number to provide to BigCommerce.
  • Access to the email address you use, so you can retrieve further setup instructions.
  • Secure, reliable method or process for storing the username and password that BigCommerce provide. Don’t think you can just ‘remember’ the details!

14 Day Free Trial Gives You a Head Start

Perhaps the best feature BigCommerce offer is a free trial to newcomers, meaning you can use the software for 14 days before having to enter your credit card details. With our own stores, we use the 14 day trial period to set up the store so that once we start paying BigCommerce, we are able to push it live and start making money from it straight away. This gives you a good timeline to work within.

Start The Registration Process

Step 1:

Go to www.bigcommerce.com

Click on the TRY BIGCOMMERCE FREE button.

 

Step 2:

Enter your details as requested.

Use an email address that is easy for you to regularly access. BigCommerce will use this email address as the primary Administrative contact. You will receive their marketing promotions (which you can unsubscribe from) and also store orders. So, don’t use an email address that you don’t want anyone else seeing, if possible.

Choose a Shop Address name that is similar to your domain name. This will just be a temporary address that you can use before you have attached your own domain name (companyname.com) to the BigCommerce store.

Choose a password that is not used for any of your other tools or online services. For example, don’t use the same password as you need for your online banking. You will need to be able to share this password with other people such as web developers. Pick something sensible, not “password123″.

 

Step 3:

BigCommerce will automatically start setting up your store. Magic!

If Magic! doesn’t happen and your computer freezes, wait a few minutes and then check your email account to see if the store was created and it was just a glitch with your computer, before you try to make another trial account.

 

This is your first view of your BigCommerce Administration panel.

 

Step 4:

You will receive a Welcome letter to your email address. Keep this Welcome letter in a safe place, for future reference.

Write down your password in a safe place as you will need to refer to this every time you login to your store.

You have now completed the first, albeit very easy, step on your way to building your own online store. Well done!

 

Small Revolution

Katrina McKinnon is a Founder of SmallRevolution, and AusCommerce. Katrina is eCommerce Webmaster of Camping Central and Gazebos Australia. If you'd like to connect, head over to @smallrevolution

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BigCommerce is not perfect

July 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Like most things in life the BigCommerce software is not a perfect product. Mitchell Harper, owner of BigCommerce, has a vision to create a software tool that is easy to use, accessible and works for nearly everyone. His vision results in a good tool for sellers and merchants to run a simple, reasonably straightforward online business.

BigCommerce operates under a Software-as-a-Service model. This means that BigCommerce has a team of top-notch web developers continually improving the software. Every. Single. Day. Improvements, enhancement and security fixes are pushed into your online store on a regular basis. In return, you pay a relatively small fee of a few dollars each month to be at the receiving end of this powerhouse of talent. Instead of downloading and installing shopping cart software on your own server, you instead ‘rent’ the cart software and run it from BigCommerce’s servers. This is popularly called software as a service.

Gone are the days where you need to manage a team of web developers to build a custom eCommerce solution, or even to install an eCommerce store. If your intention is to run a simple eCommerce store you can now leverage the new generation Software-as-a-Service eCommerce solutions such as BigCommerce.

Whilst BigCommerce is seemingly shiny and new it does have a few glitches every now and then; it isn’t perfect. It doesn’t always run smoothly when a new software version is released and occasionally the software won’t behave exactly as you might expect it to. This is normal for all software. Software is not perfect but is instead a never-ending cycle of iterations and improvements.

Should you find a different eCommerce software that fits your needs perfectly? In most cases the answer to finding perfect software ends up being a custom-built eCommerce solution. You do not want to go down this road unless you have a seriously healthy cash account, and plans for world domination to continually replenish said cash account. Building a completely customised, good quality eCommerce solution that perfectly matches your requirements will usually cost in excess of US$10,000, plus running costs of at least US$5,000 per month.

BigCommerce offers a good option for merchants to build a store and start selling product for a low start up cost.

Embrace Uncertainty and Imperfection

BigCommerce is a constantly evolving tool, made by imperfect human beings. Sometimes the software might change. Perhaps a new button is introduced in the Administration panel, or perhaps the colours change, or perhaps something you were using disappears. Keep in mind that you are paying a small fee each month to tap into an incredibly complex piece of software. It will change sometimes when you least expect it.

Some people don’t like change, and feel threatened when the software tool is not entirely within their control. Try to appreciate that behind the scenes there are numbers of engineers working to evolve the BigCommerce product for you. If you are able to embrace the notion that you can’t control the software, but instead are benefiting (sometimes) from the changes that are made in the background, then you’ll be more intrigued and less anxious when you next login to the store administration panel and find changes that you weren’t expecting.

What To Do If Catastrophe Falls on Your Store?

Don’t panic. And don’t shout at anyone. You might need their help later on. Because BigCommerce is a constantly evolving software product change occurs when you least expect it.

A few common issues:

Your store has disappeared

1) Check that your account with BigCommerce is in good standing. Is your credit card still valid? Login to http://account.bigcommerce.com

2) Check that your domain name is still registered and valid. Sometimes a domain name (for example: yourcompany.com) will expire without you knowing, and this makes it look like your store has disappeared. You can work out if it might an issue with your domain name by checking the original URL given to you by BigCommerce. Your welcome email from BigCommerce, when you first signed up, contains a temporary URL such as mystorename.bigcommerce.com. If this temporary URL is still valid then the problem may instead be with your domain name.

3) Perhaps there is a network outage. BigCommerce provide constant status updates on their network and software issues at http://status.bigcommerce.com. Check this page to see if the engineers already know there is a problem and they are working to resolve it as you start your panic.

4) If all else fails then ask their support team at http://support.bigcommerce.com/

Something is broken

1) If your website looks “funny” you need to contact your web developer. Sometimes BigCommerce will do a major upgrade of their software and this can create a conflict between your custom design templates and the new software upgrades. Keeping your website templates compliant with the core BigCommerce software is a normal part of maintaining your store. The Internet never stops evolving so your website and its templates must always keep evolving as well.

2) If you can’t buy a product in your store perhaps you have listed that product to no longer be for sale? Check that the product is correctly listed for sale in the BigCommerce Admin.

Shoulder the Responsibility for your Store

A common problem for merchants is that because they don’t understand software development, or because they haven’t built an online business before, they feel out of control. If you have chosen to run an online business you need to understand the implications of this and the responsibility that you are shouldering.

A few tips:

  • Learn a little bit about how software development works. Ask developers to break down the steps of their work for you, to explain what they are doing and the possible implications.
  • Keep backup copies of all development and design work that you pay for. If you pay for designers or developers to work on your store then ensure there is a process for them to follow so they can provide you with original copies of their work.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask silly questions. You are paying for the help and service of others. The more you understand their point of view the more empowered you will be to run your store profitably and effectively.

Small Revolution

Katrina McKinnon is a Founder of SmallRevolution, and AusCommerce. Katrina is eCommerce Webmaster of Camping Central and Gazebos Australia. If you'd like to connect, head over to @smallrevolution

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Choosing BigCommerce for selling online

June 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Over the last 15 years we have worked with Shopify, WP-eCommerce, X-cart, Magento, Adobe Business Catalyst, BigCommerce, Paypal Carts, V-ASP Cart, Websphere and have even built our own in-house eCommerce software.

We’ve switched eCommerce solutions many times. Why? Because you don’t really know how the software works until you actually try to work with it and the technology has been maturing very slowly, until more recently.

In all this time I have only found two eCommerce solutions that I would personally use for my own online stores – BigCommerce and Shopify.

As a small business owner running online stores I just want software that works, straight out of the gate. Both Shopify and BigCommerce offer excellent small business solutions and are both worth a closer look. They are easy to use, inexpensive and have a well supported development base.

My final choice however has been BigCommerce, mainly for two reasons:

Reason 1 – Funding and Development Momentum

They have both have received considerable venture funding. Shopify received $7 million in late 2010 and BigCommerce has received $15 million in early 2011. However, I personally get the feeling that BigCommerce has considerable momentum in their business and therefore I want to use software that has a promise of ongoing development. My own online stores need cutting edge technology to stay ahead of my competition. BigCommerce appears to be in th best position to offer this consistent improvement to their software.

Reason 2 – Complexity that I don’t need, yet.

BigCommerce, last time I looked, has a more complete set of additional solutions built onto its core eCommerce solution than Shopify. Straight out of the box BigCommerce has exceptional Search Engine Optimisation built into the software. I can also manage 301 redirect from the Admin panel; I can control banner advertising; I can run email marketing campaigns; and I can automatically hook in Australia Post delivery. BigCommerce has exceptional customer service support.

Even now I am still discovering more components that BigCommerce offers that I can make use of, as I learn more about running my online store. So while I don’t need all of the complex functions offered by BigCommerce it’s nice to know that I can grow into them.

Why not build your own eCommerce software?

Building your own eCommerce software is difficult, expensive and requires ongoing maintenance/money.

It’s Difficult

It’s difficult because you need to ensure that the software and databases are totally secure. You are fiddling around with people’s credit card details and you don’t want to stuff that up (Like Aesop recently did!). Using a pre-built eCommerce software means you’ve outsourced tricky compliance issues such as website security, database integrity, PCI compliance and ensuring a hacker proof server. These become your headaches if you build your own eCommerce software.

It’s Expensive

Building your own eCommerce software can be expensive as there are many, many complex technical requirements. Not only do you have to cope with customer information but also product information and then marketing aspects.

Building custom eCommerce software for even just a simple online business can start at $10,000. You might get a lower quote from your developer but the software will be so simplistic that it won’t be able to adapt to your changing needs.

You might put your initial cost down to being an “investment”, but the problem is that this “investment” then needs more “investment” as software changes and breaks. Browsers and servers get updated constantly and this causes problems with software that doesn’t evolve. Your custom eCommerce store might break because the web host upgrades from PHP 4 to PHP 5. You then have to re-engage the web developers to rebuild parts of your software. Your initial “investment” doesn’t end up being a one-off cost.

If you build your own eCommerce software then you also need to manage your own hosting environment. Engaging a server technician to maintain a server is an additional cost and technical process that most small business owners could do without.

Ongoing Maintenance

eCommerce software is either offered as custom (see above why you don’t want to do this), one off purchase or leased.

If you buy the software outright it means you need to maintain the software upgrades and the server. Often a company will sell you a new software patch each year which fixes many technical issues. You still need to pay someone to install the patch for you, update the server and ensure that nothing breaks in your store as a result of the patch.

Making a one-off purchase is simpler and less expensive than devleoping your own solution, but it still requires technical, proficient maintenance and is best left to a web developer to handle.

If you lease the software then the provider will take care of software upgrades and server hosting for you. Leasing is usually constructed as a monthly payment and commonly referred to as Software as a Service. This type of software payment is getting more and more popular.

With a monthly payment from hundreds event thousands of customers the eCommerce developer is able to receive a guaranteed, reliable income that then allows them to continually improve their software. And you pay a low monthly amount for the eCommerce developer to take away a lot of worries and pain associated with maintaining software.

***

I have switched eCommerce software many times because I was never able to find one piece of software that I thought was easy to use for running a small online store.

A small online business needs software that gets out of the way and just allows you to service your customers and sell more product. In future a better eCommerce solution will no doubt come along but I believe that BigCommerce is an excellent solution for right now.

Small Revolution

Katrina McKinnon is a Founder of SmallRevolution, and AusCommerce. Katrina is eCommerce Webmaster of Camping Central and Gazebos Australia. If you'd like to connect, head over to @smallrevolution

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Why BigCommerce?

January 29, 2012 By

BigCommerce is a relatively new, but very promising do-it-yourself eCommerce platform. Since the McKinnon Group first started developing eCommerce software in the late 1990s the industry has evolved and matured considerably. In the beginning an eCommerce license from IBM’s WebSphere would set you back US$100,000 per year, and that was just the license, not the completed store!

The software industry has now evolved to a point where there are many reliable and accessible eCommerce solutions available to web developers (experts) and DIY-types (novices). BigCommerce is the first of a new breed of eCommerce solutions using Software-as-a-Service mechanisms to enable DIY-types to truly do-it-themselves.

BigCommerce is easy to use and if you do get stuck with a technical glitch the company has good customer service support and a free Knowledge Base with detailed instructions.

BigCommerce can be used to sell physical products (eg: t-shirts, tents, shoes) or digital products (eg: music, ebooks, digital downloads). It can be used to sell from any country in the world to virtually any other country, using many different currencies and delivery services.

For most online store owners running typical product-based businesses with less than US$5,000,000 in annual turnover BigCommerce will be just fine.

We use BigCommerce for our own online stores Camping Central (www.campingcentral.com.au) and Gazebos Australia (www.gazebosaustralia.com.au) and can confidently recommend the platform to others also wanting to sell online.

BigCommerce is available from www.bigcommerce.com

Small Revolution

Katrina McKinnon is a Founder of SmallRevolution, and AusCommerce. Katrina is eCommerce Webmaster of Camping Central and Gazebos Australia. If you'd like to connect, head over to @smallrevolution

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Gazebos are everywhere, nearly.

July 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You’ve probably never had cause to think of how many gazebos there are in Australia, nor how many are sold each week.

I personally would never have really thought about it until I met Shahin, but once you see one then you see them everywhere. (Bit like Alsco trucks!) Go to any weekend market, dog show, exhibition, athletics carnival, fair, show or camping ground and you’ll see that the majority of the portable shade shelters are gazebos. And not only are there more gazebos than you ever thought but the majority of them are the OZtrail Deluxe Gazebo. Truly. The things are everywhere. Triffid-like, but less sinister.

Shahin owns Camping Central one of the largest online camping suppliers in Australia. Within his range of camping gear he stocks OZtrail gazebos. Because gazebos are such a popular seller this presented as a good opportunity to spin this product out separately and create a website dedicated just to that particular product range.

By creating a separate site we are able to tailor content and online marketing specifically to an audience interested in purchasing just a gazebo. We can buy search keywords at a better price with a more targeted campaign, focus on keyword density in content, create highly detailed product content, run promotions highly targeted to the audience and more. The customer focuses just on the product rather than getting distracted by tents, in this case.

To keep development costs low and give us a boost on search engine indexing we use BigCommerce software to run the online store. It’s a fantastic, new breed of eCommerce software with just enough grunt for a small online retailer. It has all the functions and good security a store like Gazebos Australia needs in order to run quickly, efficiently and cost effectively. One of the functions we enjoy most in BigCommerce is its ‘instant’ search engine results. We found that stores created with BigCommerce had an almost instant effect in search engine indexing.

My theory is that there are plenty of Amazon style big retailers who will sell you everything and anything, but not many truly great specialists. There is even a growing number of Catch Of The Day style sites. These businesses, in my mind, are essentially just shifting massive volume of products at hugely discounted prices further cannibalising existing online channels. Both business models threaten smaller online retailers just like Woolworths threatens the income of a local grocer in the offline world.

I strongly believe however that there still has to be room for smaller niche etailers who are able to provide superior product knowledge and faster customer service than the behemoths. There’s space for everyone on the Internet. It’s just a matter of using your elbows to make a little bit of your own room, and that’s what we did for Gazebos Australia.

Particulars That Make Us Proud

  • The site design, created by Natalia looks particularly fantastic. It’s fresh, vibrant, colourful and friendly looking. A good quality design helps customers feel confident in the quality of the business and it’s ability to supply the products, as well as casting a ‘good quality’ light on the actual products.
  • Melanie has created customised video, photo and content reviews of the products. This really sets Gazebos Australia apart from competitors by having unique content on the website. We are able to backlink the videos and photos from YouTube and Flickr respectively, creating a pseudo social channel. This one, simple addition increased daily visitors x 2 on the day we launched.
  • Ivy is continually improving the product content by accepting customer testimonials, requesting feedback from customers, answering pre-sales product questions, finding new photos of the gazebos in use and generally working on creating more detailed specifications for customers. Creating a sense of new content and live customer support gives customers even more confidence in Gazebos Australia’s ability to ship the product on time and to spec.

Small Revolution

Katrina McKinnon is a Founder of SmallRevolution, and AusCommerce. Katrina is eCommerce Webmaster of Camping Central and Gazebos Australia. If you'd like to connect, head over to @smallrevolution

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