e-Commerce
Future-proof your business with a modern website equipped with an online store. From selling and shipping products, to selling appointment times and reservations for lodging, there are many ways to take advantage of e-commerce trends.
Thrive With Online Sales
More and more people want to avoid contact, and the year 2020 made it even more crucial for businesses to sell their products or services online. When you give your small business a platform to reach the world, you drive sales and provide your customers with the convenience of safely shopping from home. Now is the best time to leverage the changing market with a website equipped to sell online.
39% of consumers are more likely to shop locally than with national or global retailers if local businesses offer their products or services online.
59% of shoppers say they would be willing to pay more for products and services if they can purchase them safely.
85% of consumers say they expect to do as much or more holiday shopping online after the Coronavirus pandemic.
Get In On The Future
E-Commerce is undoubtedly the future, and the spending is growing. By 2021 worldwide retail sales will reach $4.9 trillion. Online shopping will only keep dominating the market share and taking the lead over in-person shopping; by 2040, it’s estimated that 95% of all purchases made will be facilitated through E-Commerce.
Your business can take advantage of these changing forces through a website with built-in E-Commerce shopping. We can help you build the foundation to grow with the future. We have experience integrating payment platforms such as Square, Stripe, and PayPal. We also can link commercial shipping accounts like USPS, UPS, or FedEx to automate shipping cost calculation and label making.
Sources: Let’s Talk About Money and Nasdaq.
Retail Shopping
We can help you sell a variety of products online and provide a clean and simple experience that online shoppers are used to, while also making it easy for you to facilitate the sales and keep track of inventory.
Besides being able to login to your website’s back-end and create new product listings that feature pricing, descriptions, variable features, categories, SKU numbers, and image galleries, you can also add each product’s weight and dimension info. Your website will automatically calculate UPS charges with weight and size data and apply shipping fees to each order. On top of that, generating shipping labels and connecting to your commercial UPS account is a breeze.
Still not convinced an E-Commerce site will make your life easier? Whenever a customer purchases a product, your inventory count will automatically update and alert you when you’re running low.
- Product Management
- Shipping Management
- Inventory Management
Appointments & Reservations
Even if your business is service-based and you focus on selling time, we can help you increase your sales by developing a smart web solution.
If you’re booking appointments and reservations, customers need access to a calendar so they can choose the day and time that works for them. Perhaps you only book on weekdays between noon and 4 P.M. To make it worth your while, maybe you want to restrict booking to a two hour or two-day minimum. Perhaps you want to charge a slightly higher rate for weekend reservations. We can help with each of these scenarios, and when someone books, your calendar of availability will automatically adjust, and you’ll get a notification.
- Lodging Reservations
- Appointment Bookings
Ticket Sales
Whether you’re wanting to sell tickets for virtual events or social distancing events, we can make online ticket sales easy for both you and your customers.
Some of the smart solutions we have to ticket sales include limiting tickets sold per customer, scheduling ticket sales to expire a certain number of days before the event, and offering premium upgrade options on each ticket, like VIP and other add-on options.
- Event Tickets
- Workshop Tickets
Invoice Processing
In some cases, it makes more sense to send a customer an invoice. Perhaps a customer requests bulk pricing or some type of special service you don’t normally offer. Maybe you don’t even want or need to offer an online store because sending invoices fits your business model better. Whatever the case, we can develop a great-looking website that serves information to customers on the front-end and, on the back-end, allows you to send invoices and process payments.
- Invoice Creation & Tracking
- Payment Processing
- Past Due Reminders
- Automatic Payment Receipts
By 2040, 95% of all purchases will be made through E-Commerce.
Preparing You For Online Selling
Posting your products online isn’t enough to make a successful e-store. Do you want an out-of-this-world advantage? We recommend a comprehensive approach. Below are some other top-notch services we can provide while building your online store.
Product Photography
Online selling can be disastrous without solid product photography. First, you want your customer to fall in love with what you’re selling instantly. If you’re not hooking them with visuals, you’re probably falling short and not capturing potential sales.
Secondly, you want to showcase your products to set the right expectation properly. Where online shopping reduces a customer’s ability to look and touch items, it’s imperative to give multiple aspects of your online store products. If a customer does purchase an item with the wrong impression, they’ll likely return the item, give you a bad review, or both.
Product Strategy
Having a product strategy is everything. From which angles do we need images of each product, what keywords should we focus on for each product? What about the descriptions? How will we categorize everything?
These are a few questions we will aim to answer when approaching product strategy. Without addressing these topics, you’ll be neglecting a number of potential sales.
Keyword Research
Even if you have a unique product or service, search engine optimization (SEO) is imperative to break through the interference of competitors and related web pages with similar information. A major part of a sound SEO strategy is the keyword plan.
Which keywords do you want to rank for in search results? How will you support the keyword plan with body copy? Researching keywords is apart of how we approach all website builds.
What Questions Do You Have?
Let's discuss how we can help you as your dedicated web design and support company. We offer customized and professional services for new website development and existing website maintenance. Send us a message, and we'll schedule a time to talk and see if we're a good fit.
Word Of Encouragement
We'd love to work with you and are confident we can exceed your expectations. We have experience managing both small and large marketing/web projects. But don't take our word for it, check out the awesome things our clients say about us.
Frequently Asked Questions
Website Hosting & Upkeep
Will you host the site and keep it updated once it’s launched?
Certainly! The majority of our clients prefer to leave their new sites in our capable hands. We offer a few Website Hosting & Upkeep subscriptions. Click here for more info.
Transparent Pricing & Discounts
If you offer professional customized website design services, why list your prices? Your competitors don’t.
Aside from wanting to establish trust by showing you what we charge anyone and everyone, we decided it’s best not to waste your time and our time by making you contact us just for an idea of whether or not we fit your budget.
Do you offer any discounts?
Yes! We offer a handful of discounts, including a Nonprofit Discount and a Community Discount for businesses in and around Mercer County, WV. We also offer a Partnership Discount for organizations that we’ve teamed up with, such as business accelerators/incubators and other marketing agencies that subcontract our services.
For more information about our discounts or becoming a partner, please call 1-800-889-8343 or email brandon@starryeyesmedia.com.
If I do my own copywriting, photography, or SEO, can I get a discount?
Our best work results from our clients entrusting us with all aspects of the website development process, including writing the text, taking care of the photography, and optimizing the site for search engines. However, if you would rather take care of one or all of those tasks, we’d love to hop on a call with you to discuss the details, and of course, give you a fully customized estimate.
Since I already have a website with a general layout and content that I’d like you to use on the new site, does that mean I can save a little money?
Possibly so! This is definitely something we should discuss so we can get a better idea of how much time we’ll save. Does your existing content/structure save us time on copywriting or SEO? These are some factors we consider when working with existing websites.
We also offer Site Refresh & Updates, where we can simply improve or make simple changes/updates to your current website. We’ve got options; just get in touch, and we’ll get you fixed up.
Pre-Existing Website Data
I currently have a website with a lot of pages and information on it that I would like to keep. Can you transfer that somehow?
We sure can. We’ll make an inventory of your current site’s structure and determine what content needs to be migrated, as well as your current pages’ URLs (aka their “addresses”).
It’s important to use either all of the page addresses you’re currently using or make sure the old page addresses redirect to the new page addresses. Taking the time to do this will help avoid the old “broken” links from showing up in search results and to prevent indexing issues with Google crawlbot.
Since I already have a website with a general layout and content that I’d like you to use on the new site, does that mean I can save a little money?
Possibly so! This is definitely something we should discuss so we can get a better idea of how much time we’ll save. Does your existing content/structure save us time on copywriting or SEO? These are some factors we consider when working with existing websites.
We also offer Site Refresh & Updates, where we can simply improve or make simple changes/updates to your current website. We’ve got options; just get in touch, and we’ll get you fixed up.
I’m satisfied with my current website but I need some updates made to it, can you help?
More than likely! Get in touch with us so we can discuss the details. We have experience with updating websites built with platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Wix, Adobe Muse. Whether you’re using a site-building theme (Elementor, Divi, Themify, Avada, etc.) or raw code, we can help. For more information click here or call 1-800-889-8343.
Development Processes
Do you offer “cookie-cutter” website services or customized professional services?
Every website we develop is unique and meant to serve individual needs and goals. We don’t use templates; we start with a ground-up approach that considers planning, branding, and photography before creating the first web page. Most websites do share some structural similarities, like Contact and About pages. The packages above represent a jumping-off point to give you an idea of what we can do, but also provide flexibility for a variety of budgets and needs.
With which website platform do you develop?
We proudly use WordPress as our preferred website development platform (read more). We are able to develop on other platforms, such as Drupal, Wix, and Weebly. If you have a specific platform you would like us to develop on, contact us for a custom quote.
Are your websites “mobile-friendly”?
Absolutely. We design our websites to be responsive, meaning they automatically “respond” and adapt to the screen size of the device from which they’re being viewed.