Zen Cart

Mavis asks,

I have already spent thousands of dollars on my [Zen Cart] website. What would be your advice for [a company] who wants to transfer their site to a new host but not redesign it?

Just like a physical store, the costs of running an e-commerce site very quickly exceed the costs of opening it. And any time you're handling money, you automatically become a target for thieves -- you need to take security seriously, or you're bound to get robbed.

Well, we finally put the foot down with some of our clients who are clinging to their aging Zen Cart sites this past month, and convinced several to pack their bags for the bigger and brighter lights of Ubercart. There were a couple of reasons for us to open up this can of worms, but as I would come to find out, it definetely pays off in the end.

We've built custom shopping carts, as well as implemented several different open source shopping carts, including Zen Cart, OS Commerce, VirtueMart with Joomla, and Ubercart in Drupal. We've also built SOAP servers to allow manufacturers to take orders from distributors. We've built payment gateways for several of these systems, and imported products and images from other content management systems and existing online stores.

An Open Source Content Management Platform

Drupal is powerful content management platform that is capable of supporting a multitude of websites. With a strong development community and rapidly growing user base, Drupal has built its platform around a sleek core infrastructure upon which modules can be added to enhance the features of the site.

Running Wild Spirit is one of our earliest Zen Cart projects and has greatly contributed to the success and growth of their business. Based out of the small town of Maltby an hour and a half away from Seattle, this Zen Cart site is able to reach customers around the world interested in their various soaps, lotions, bath fizzies, and other great gifts.

The site has increased the exposure of the business and we have supported and hosted the site since its inception.

Create top notch websites in Drupal and Joomla

Any growing business needs to be able to maintain a relationship with their current customers while reaching out to new potential customers. Balancing how much of the budget will be spent keeping customers vs. finding new ones is a budget decision that keeps many organizations awake at night, and it doesn't have to.

Bringing Ideas to Life

A web site is an essential marketing tool of a business. These days, especially in the Seattle area, people will check out your web site before doing business with you. The work you do with a graphic designer like Peter Mckinnon can have a big impact when someone decides whether you're the right fit for what they're looking to buy.

Just having a web site, however, does nothing to get customers beating down your doors. People need to find your web site somehow, amidst the millions of other web sites out there. For small, local businesses, they don't find your web site online--they find it from your business card, a sign on your car, word-of-mouth, or all the rest of the traditional ways people market their business.