StoreFrontNow Overview
What is StoreFrontNow?
StoreFrontNow is a service-based e-commerce solution
provided by your web host. StoreFrontNow allows merchants
to build, deploy, and manage e-commerce webs easily and
quickly. The StoreFrontNow service solution is fully
web-based and requires no web development experience.
Manage store operations, process orders, administer sales
and promotions, add and update product information, and
more right on the web with the easy to use StoreFrontNow
E-commerce Manager.
Is StoreFrontNow easy to use?
The StoreFrontNow E-Commerce Manager makes building a web
store easier than ever. Simply enter the store’s business rules,
design preferences, and products to create a feature-rich,
customized web store. All store management is done using
the E-commerce Manager, which is accessible through any
web browser.
Also, StoreFrontNow’s web store templates greatly reduce
the time required to create a visually compelling site.
Does StoreFrontNow support International merchants?
Support for all windows currency types, foreign currency
conversion, varied payment methods and two-tier tax
systems make it easy for merchants to do business around
the world.
Currently the StoreFrontNow tools are only available in
the English language. The StoreFront application can be
used to build webs in any language and any currency that
can be supported by the web server, which the web store is
running on. Most NT servers support the standard Windows
languages and currencies.
Is there a demo of StoreFrontNow available?
Yes. A demo store,
The Coffee Connoisseur,
is available to provide a working example of a
StoreFrontNow web site.
How do I purchase StoreFrontNow?
StoreFrontNow is included at no extra charge with FWHN's
ecommerce
hosting plans. You select the plan based on the
number of products you have to sell.
StoreFrontNow Features
Building an E-Business
How do I get
started?
Sign up for
ecommerce hosting with FWHN. Then simply add products
to the store, configure shipping methods, set tax rates,
etc., specify store design settings, and start selling.
Do I have
complete control over the design of the store?
Yes. StoreFrontNow allows you to define the web store
design, layout, and navigation, even down to button
detail. In addition, you have the ability to take
advantage of professionally designed web store themes.
Does StoreFrontNow include any web store themes?
Yes. StoreFrontNow includes professional web store
themes that can greatly reduce the time required to design
an effective online store. You can create customized
themes or use existing site designs.
Merchandising Products
How do I manage my product inventory?
Product
information, along with store setting and customer and
order records, are stored in the StoreFrontNow database,
including:
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Product ID: A unique product ID is assigned for each
product.
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Product Name:
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Product Name Plural:
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Category: This field can be adapted to meet a variety of
cataloging needs. For example, a bookstore may want to
enter the Genre in this field instead of a category.
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Manufacturer: This field can be adapted to meet a
variety of cataloging needs. For example, a bookstore
may want to enter the Author’s Name in this field
instead of a manufacturer.
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Vendor: This field can be adapted to meet a variety of
cataloging needs. For example, a bookstore may want to
enter the Publisher in this field instead of a vendor.
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Price:
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Short
Description: This field is displayed in the search
results.
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Long
Description: This field is typically displayed on
dynamically generated product pages.
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Confirmation Message: This field is used to enter a
suggestive sales message. It is displayed when an item
is added to a shopper’s cart and suggests a
complimentary product. This field can contain images and
hyperlinks, perhaps directing shoppers to a product page
for a suggested product.
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Link:
This field is used to enter a link that will be
associated with the product image. For example, a
merchant may want the shopper to be able to click on the
thumbnail image displayed in the search results and load
a larger image or more detailed product page.
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Product Weight: This field is used for real-time
shipping rates calculations.
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Thumbnail Image:
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Large
Image:
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Unlimited Price Sensitive Attributes: Here merchants can
enter product attributes, such as size, style, and
color. Each attribute can impact the price for the
product. For example, a store selling t-shirts may want
to charge an additional $2.00 for all XXL shirts.
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Sale
Price, If Applicable: Merchants can set a sale price for
each item and elect to activate the sale.
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Country and/or State Tax, If Applicable: Merchants can
select whether or not country and/or state tax will be
applied to this item in these two fields.
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How many products can I sell?
FWHN
ecommerce hosting plans include options to sell 20,
50, and an unlimited number of products. You can
always upgrade your plan at anytime. For example, if you
start with the plan that supports 20 products, and later
you want to sell more than 20 products, you can upgrade to
the 50 or unlimited plan.
Marketing
Effectively
Does
StoreFrontNow include tools to help market my store?
StoreFrontNow includes a Promotional Mail Utility which
allows you to send targeted promotional e-mail to
customers by date range or product purchases. Visitors can
manage their subscription preferences online.
StoreFrontNow also includes a fully automated Affiliate
Partner Program, which allows you to build referral sales.
Powerful affiliate management tools allow affiliates to
securely track all referral sales.
What types
of discounting does StoreFrontNow support?
Advanced sale features within StoreFrontNow allow you to
mark down individual product prices, run storewide sales
and offer free shipping for orders that exceed a set
dollar amount.
How does the affiliate
program work?
The affiliate program is a program where the merchant
may pay an associate a commission or some type of
compensation for business that is referred to the merchant
via a link from the partner's web site. Affiliate partners
register for the affiliate program on-line and are given a
Referer ID, they create a link to the merchant's site
using the Referer ID. The merchant then can track all
sales referred by that affiliate using the StoreFront
Affiliate Report and pay a commission or some sort of
compensation for sales.
Affiliates can register on-line. The StoreFrontNow
affiliate program includes a registration form to allow
potential affiliates to register on-line. After
registering, StoreFront will give the affiliate a Referer
ID which will allow them to create their link and start
referring sales. The affiliate also sets up an Affiliate
ID and password for checking his account status online.
Affiliates
are given a username and password which enables them to go
online using any browser to check the status of their
affiliate account and sales total.
What is promotional mail?
Promotional Mail
is an automated utility for sending routine e-mail to your
web store customers. It can be used for such mailings as
sale announcements and newsletters. To use the utility,
you will open the Promo Mail ASP file in the web browser.
The Promo Mail program will extract the customer name and
e-mail address for all orders based on specified dates or
product purchases and automatically invoke the server's
mail handler to send the message you entered.
Shoppers can sign up to
receive promotional mail without ordering from the site.
StoreFrontNow includes a function that will allow you to
create a page on your site for shoppers to sign up for
your mailing list without having to purchase.
Serving
Customers
Does
StoreFrontNow allow customers to save items for later or
place items in a saved cart?
Yes. Capture window shoppers and cater to corporate
purchasing agents by allowing customers to save items and
orders for later retrieval, review and completion. The
customer can then retrieve the cart using his logon and
password which are retained in the database.
Can a
customer's data and order information be saved and
retrieved by the customer when they return to my web
store?
Yes. StoreFrontNow includes built-in CRM (customer
relations management) tools which allow returning
customers to retrieve and reorder from previous orders and
recall customer profile data to speed the checkout
process. When customers place their first order, they can
set up a username and password for logging in and
retrieving information upon returning to the site.
Can a shopper e-mail product information to a friend?
Yes. StoreFront includes a feature that allows a
shopper to e-mail information about any product to a
friend.
What if a foreign customer wants to know how much a
product will cost in their native currency?
StoreFrontNow is integrated with OANDA's currency
conversion services, allowing shoppers to instantly
convert product prices to any of over 142 currencies when
the store is using OANDA's services.
Processing Orders
How are orders processed?
StoreFrontNow merchants can choose to have completed
orders passed to a payment processor, such as PayPal,
CyberChash, Verisgn, or AuthorizeNet, for real-time
transaction processing or automatically forwarded to the
Store Administrator for manual processing and fulfillment.
Order confirmations are automatically forwarded to the
customer if a valid e-mail address is provided and to the
e-mail address selected by the merchant.
How do I receive notice of sales placed at my web store?
StoreFrontNow supports e-mail confirmation of sales.
When a sale is finalized at a StoreFrontNow web store, the
customer is automatically sent a confirmation e-mail from
the purchase. The merchant can specify up to two e-mail
address to which an e-mail notification will be sent as
well.
How many different sales tax rates can I apply?
StorefrontNow supports a two-tier tax rate
calculation. You can apply as many different country sales
tax rates as you wish and as many state or province sales
tax rates as you wish. StoreFrontNow does not support
applying sales tax below the state/province level. You may
have non-taxable products as well.
Can I price my products in any national currency?
StoreFrontNow can support any currency supported by
the web server. Most NT servers support all Windows
currencies.
How is shipping calculated?
StoreFrontNow supports three methods for determining
shipping costs. They are as follows:
Carrier Based
- Accurately manage shipping charges with integrated
support for real-time
shipping costs directly from UPS, FedEx and USPS rate
servers.
Value Based Rates
- This options allows the merchant to assign shipping
costs based on the total price of the order.
Product Based Rates
- Merchants may assign each specific product a unique,
quantity based shipping cost. When a customer purchases an
item that has been assigned a Product Shipping value this
value is added to the total shipping cost for that order.
Which payment methods can I accept?
Acceptable StoreFrontNow payment methods include
credit cards, e-checks, purchase orders, Internet Cash and
a Phone/Fax option.
Do I have to use an online payment processing service?
No. Merchants may choose to process orders either
manually using the confirmation e-mails that are
automatically delivered following each order or real-time
using an online payment processing service.
Which payment processing services can I use with
StoreFrontNow?
StoreFrontNow has fully integrated support for a
number of transaction processing services.
Contact FWHN
with the name of the payment processing service you would
like to use as some may require additional configuration
by our technicians.
Managing Sales
Does StoreFrontNow notify me
when I have a new sale?
Yes. StoreFrontNow both sends a notification e-mail to the
merchant.
Does StoreFrontNow generate sales reports?
StoreFrontNow is fully configured with powerful store
reporting features. StoreFrontNow reports include Sales
Detail, Sales Summary, Transaction Services, Affiliate
Sales, Products Summary and Order Retrieval.
Does StoreFrontNow include the ability to print invoices?
Yes. StoreFrontNow allows you to create attractive
invoices straight from the customer orders database.
Can I search for a customer's order?
Yes. StoreFrontNow includes within the Sales Reports
tool a feature for locating a customer's order by
searching either the customer's first name, last name or
order number.
Securing Online Operations
How is the web store secured?
StoreFrontNow utilizes SSL, which allows for
information such as credit card numbers to be sent in
encrypted form.
Either a
shared SSL or SSL certificate is
required.*
In addition,
the following steps are taken for added security:
What is
StoreFrontNow?
