Family businesses, micro businesses, buy-local businesses are often on a small budget and seeking an inexpensive way to sell products online. The following solutions can pertain to you if you have a technical inclination, especially the PayPal button options. To implement an eCommerce solution, I recommend that a business have a reasonable budget for technical web development assistance. I also suggest that establishing your PayPal account will go quicker and smoother with the assistance of a developer that knows the ins and outs. [Read more…]
Was Email A Mistake?
Interesting article in The New Yorker about historical business productivity:
https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/was-e-mail-a-mistake
WordPress vs. Custom CMS
A client recently shared their concern that WordPress with WooCommerce might not be a sufficient platform to support their own growth. A bit of research yielded the following sampling of robust WordPress websites.
Winning WP summarizes a list of WooCommerce sites, noting it’s been estimated “WooCommerce now powers over a staggering 30% of all active eCommerce sites.” Understand that any of the sites mentioned can change at any time.
Better yet, let WooCommerce users tell you themselves in the showcase.
A few non-eCommerce sites worth noting display WordPress’ utility:
BBC America the site, and rationale explained in a case study: “Being a part of the WordPress and open source community in general has allowed us to accomplish things that could have only happened with great difficulty if we had to build another proprietary CMS.”
Small Dollar Pricing Discussion, DNS and Email
Mad River Web provides some clients with the minimal services of “DNS only” or “DNS and domain email” without website hosting or development. DNS (domain name service/server) is the mapping that leads people to the email and website locations. Support for small dollar items can consume a significant amount of time and is more easily absorbed when we have the website business as well. That is why our pricing may be more than you would pay elsewhere and/or for the first email account.
Alternatively, you could take over your own domain registration/mapping and save $50. Coaching or instruction on how to change services is not included, but we do provide the industry-standard courtesy of assisting a transfer.
Forms: PDF or Online?
What is the best way to collect information?
Simple, least costly
Create a form to be printed and filled out. Use a program such as Word, and save as a PDF so that it cannot be altered. [Read more…]
Managing the Client Relationship
What do I get charged for? How much does consulting cost? Do I pay for email correspondence?
In a nutshell, all time is billable except for hosting and email support requests. This is also clearly stated in our terms and website pricing, where many answers can be found. If you read our mission and philosophy, you will understand that we put our “client” hat on before spending your money. [Read more…]
Elements of a Successful Internet Presence
Define your goals
The internet is not only used for marketing, but for a variety of services and commerce, i.e. streamlining operations on an intranet vs. networking your office, supporting the needs of field personnel, posting information that your customers or suppliers use, setting up on-line ordering… [Read more…]
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