Looking at the possibilities and scaryness of an ecommerce website

[pfmflowermarket]

Thinking about someday upgrading to an ecommerce website. How do you have an ecommerce website if your shop isn't open 24/7. All I can imagine is flowers being ordered either late at night or early in the morning for a funeral or certain timed event that we might not be able to do. Is there a way to accept or decline them? What if your delivery charge varies? How do you go about charging them? With the extra costs in having product sold on the website, does that mean you can go up in price to accomodate for this? Like say maybe a product that is $35 in your store maybe sell for $40 on your website? Don't know if I'm making sense. Any help appreciated.:hug:

 

[BOSS]

First of all I would suggest an immediate upgrade to Ecommerce, the sooner the better.

As for the rest of your questions, statement pages on your site explaining your policies should handle the rest and any good web site will accommodate for delivery times, delivery charges, etc.

I would not price things higher on the site than I would sell them for in the store! You have to remain competitive.

Charging them is no different than a regular customer.

And should you get orders for funerals first thing in the morning, I'd assume your in the store early enough to get them done in time. We often come in to web orders placed over night for funerals the next day. They take priority first thing in the morning, and are made and delivered on time.

 

[pfmflowermarket]

Boss - I'm apprehensive because a good portion of our customers are a very I want it now type. Come in like twenty after and want something deivered by the next 40 min 'cause the person goes home.

OK I can see that I should have a good delivery explanation page. I do have a delivery page already.

Not pricing higher on website than instore? Online though you have paypal fees i believe. I think they take a percentage of your sale.

Our funeral homes are sticklers about having the floral pieces 2-3 hours before the viewing. One has even gone to putting up a note saying if it is delivered after this time frame it might not make it to the viewing.

We have had calls for pieces 20min before the viewing is to start and we have to tell them about the 2-3hrs.

We have even had customers who have the funeral as the wrong day or it already ocurred. What would you do in that case? Just offer to take something to the home? Would you have that customers personal information?

 

[Missy]

I echo Bosses comments.....get to an e commerce site and quick. There is nothing scary about it. You will handle the overnight orders the same way as you do a early morning phone order. You will always have access to your customer and providing that there is not great time difference you can always contact them buy phone or email if you have concerns about the order. As far as pricing goes, what I sell in the store is the same as what I sell on line and I think that is important. You want to truly represent to your customer in store or on line the same value and quality. Often my on line shopper will eventually end up in my store, I want them to feel they already know us before they come in. So make sure that your website really reflects what you are all about. There are lots of resources here on flowerchat for building an e commerce web site. Have a look at mine, it is a Strider site.

 

[pfmflowermarket]

nice site..thank you:hug:

 

[BOSS]

Boss - I'm apprehensive because a good portion of our customers are a very I want it now type. Come in like twenty after and want something deivered by the next 40 min 'cause the person goes home.

TOTO... you want to handle this one? Deliveries in 20 minutes incur the "Stop, Drop, and Deliver" fee of $25.00 on top of product and normal delivery chare. Plain and simple.

As far as the funeral homes go, I have a very good relationship with mine, (I send them alcohol and food) and my pieces get into the rooms even during the visitation, and up to 10 minutes before the service. Not all funeral home are so accomadating I hear tho...

 

[artistry in bloom]

One of the main reasons for having an e-commerce site is that you can get orders 24/7 even though your shop is not open 24/7.
I have cut off times programmed for ordering so that I can check my emails to see if I have any early morning orders before I go to sleep at night and start work earlier if need be.If orders are placed in the middle of the night for the next day they are told it will be an afternoon delivery and that they have missed the morning delivery cut off. This gives me time to get to the wholesalers before the studio opens if the order is for something I don't have on hand. I love seeing orders from all over the world which is a great benefit of the e-commerce website in that people can order at times convenient to them that might be 2am to us.
As far as accepting or declining I have a system built into my site where I can turn off online ordering if I have to close for a day for any reason or if I run out of flowers at Christmas or Valentines etc . I can put a comment on when they try to order saying whatever I want such as " I'm sorry we have had to shut off online ordering due to a shortage of some selections. Please call toll free at --------------for availability. We regret any inconvenience this may cause" or whatever else I want to say so that customers will know the reason they temporarily can't order online.I also put a comment on my monthly specials page to advise customers that they will have to call to order during the period I have to shut off online ordering.I rarely do this but sometimes it is unavoidable such as running out of flowers for Valentines orders and the wholesalers being closed.I think in the 3 1/2 years I have had the website I have only had to do this a few times.I had to do it for 24 Dec this year when we had record snowfalls and the delivery service cancelled all deliveries on that day.
As far as delivery charges go I decided to have just one delivery fee based on the average of all the fees since most fall in the category of the fee I charge and a few I loose a dollar. It wasn't worth the extra charges I would have had to pay to program different fees based on postal codes.
I hope this information helps you.

Dianne

 

[marigold]

"Not pricing higher on website than instore? Online though you have paypal fees i believe. I think they take a percentage of your sale."

You don't have to use paypal. There are many options for payment.
I use mal ecommerce
www.[B]mal[/B]s-e.com.
The customer uses their credit card but it is secure....I get the order by email and I go to a different site to pick up my payment.
I choose to input the credit card myself, just as if this is a phone order. Then there is not "middleman" fee, only the fee I am charged when I
take any credit card.
There is really no difference from a web order to a phone order. You can
either fill it or you can't. You really should not charge a different price on the website, than you would to a person who calls in.

 

[bloomz]

Not to sound harsh, but ecommerce is something that should have been done at least 5 years ago.

You're losing a gaggle of sales to those that have it.

Don't let anyone fool you with the "lots of people order from our site by phone" line...

The ones that don't are the ones you never heard from, and they outnumber the phone orders by at least 2 to 1.

They're still ordering, just not from you.

 

[blumen]

I've been very pleased with my Media99 site. It handles the problems you raise: different delivery fees for different areas, ability to change prices and product easily, ability to not accept deliveries for certain dates, etc.

These are customized sites, not cookie-cutter. The folks behind the scenes are very helpful and responsive. Check them out.

 

[Palms]

My ecommerce is not live yet but i would recommend you get in touch with Ryan (infinite) who runs this site. They have been great with doing mine, send him a pm or he will probably come in on this thread.

Its so easy to use and Jim has answered all my stupid questions (probably banging his head against the wall as he does like lol).

Go for it, i think its the only way to go, sorry i didnt do it ages ago.

 

[theRKF]

Thanks, Palms

I've PM'd PFM with some contact info. I'm a big evangelist of ecommerce in general. The scariest thing for me is someone NOT having ecommerce.

Cheers