Experience in the development of an online store for free CMS
After reading the article about the basics of creating an online store, I wanted to share my experience of raising from scratch and developing into a large (by provincial standards) online store.
It was chosen (according to reviews on the Internet) the most common hosting for 1500 rubles per year plus a domain as a gift. It is very profitable, given that there was no budget and everything had to be done as free as possible.
For the first site, CMS WordPress was chosen, a simple news engine to which a gallery of pictures was connected and several free plugins (feedback form, lightbox and Seo-pack). After several days of setting up the most usual free design, the site was ready to be filled.
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The company produced no more than 30 models with 5-10 options of options for each model, so the question of hiring a person who would score products on the site was not. They took the usual photo soap box and started photographing, the pictures were miserable, but then it did not seem so to us. Filling took a little time and consisted of a photo, the name of the product and a few words about the material from which the model was made. They wrote that the products are sold in packages (this item will be the key to business development). When the site was filled and all the contact information was in place, I began to “promote” this miracle.
Promotion was standard and only free. He himself registered in all search engines, he himself placed information about the company and the site in different directories. It lasted about a month. In parallel, he brought the site to mind, made contact details in sight, described in detail the terms of cooperation, payment and delivery. At that time it seemed that this was enough.
A month later, the first orders began to arrive and trade went up. But there was a big inconvenience, there was no normal functionality of the basket on the site, there was nothing at all that resembled a basket. Clients had to send in free form mails with orders. Order processing was as follows: the order came to the post office — bringing the order into a readable form — printing a piece of paper with the order — entering in 1s — printing the invoice from 1s (to understand the problem, I want to say that the order consisted on average of 100-500 positions). It was decided to set the cart directly on WordPress. Then there was the first and last purchase of a plug-in that adds a basket to the site (cost 600 rubles). After this, the processing of orders was of the following type: order on the website — printing the order on a piece of paper — entering into 1s — printing the invoice. We see that by setting the basket, we got rid of one unnecessary action - “bringing the order into a readable form.” It was a great progress in the development of an online store and saving a lot of time for an accountant. In this mode, the site worked for a year. There were more orders and an understanding of which online store should actually be added, and constantly inventing crutches was no longer advisable. It was decided to switch to CMS, originally sharpened by an online store.
The choice fell on the free OpenCart. This is a fairly common CMS in the CIS with a well-developed community, an ever-expanding assortment of plug-ins, and most importantly, it is easy to master, even for an initial PHP specialist. A site was created on the subdomain and great work was started on its improvement and development in a normal online store. The design was completely redesigned from the default theme, several free plug-ins were bolted (news, improved reviews of the store and several others that expanded the functionality of the administrative part). It was decided to improve the quality of the photos (they did it themselves). Also, a little work was done on analyzing the market and the key decision was made to sell the goods individually, but the minimum amount of purchases was raised (after that, almost all competitors in our region will translate our principles for selling such products) . Also, a free for all Russia phone of the 8-800 type (1000 rubles per month) was introduced and an online consultant was added (free of charge). I would like to dwell on these two innovations in more detail, since our products are designed for girls and women of different ages, because of the small buying experience on the Internet (our website was often the first to make a purchase on the Internet) for many of the key elements in trusting the website were a free number. where it was possible to call and ask about the products, terms of payment and delivery (at the same time everything is detailed on the site and the main thing is clearly marked), as well as the opportunity to consult on the same issues, but only about chatting. After we launched a new version of the site, the company's profits soared dozens of times. With this, the work of the accountant increased, because the scheme: order - printing on paper - entering into 1c - printing the invoice was also not productive and it turned out that the queue of unbilled invoices reached under a hundred, and given that the number of models produced increased 5 times, getting out of this vicious circle was very hard. It was decided to connect OpenCart directly to 1c. At that time, when the new site was just launched, there were no decisions on the organization of this bundle: OpenCart + 1C, there were only poorly made and very buggy solutions. But a year later, an office was found that specializes in OpenCart + 1C bundles and there was already a proven solution. This was how 1C Trade Management (17,000 rubles) and a module for the site (16,500 rubles) were purchased, and we also had to pay for setting up and running all of our women (9700 rubles). Now, the scheme of the online store was just perfect and most importantly fast: order - 1c - invoice to the client. That's all about the technical side of the development of a provincial online store.
Of course, there are many interesting things that can be told about how not only the online store was promoted, but also a provincial brand that has become widely known throughout Russia and the CIS countries. But more about that next time.
Starting 4 years ago, creating a site-catalog of products for one of my friends, I did not expect that the project would be so successful and not only the site, but the entire production and management system of a small enterprise would be modernized.
It was chosen (according to reviews on the Internet) the most common hosting for 1500 rubles per year plus a domain as a gift. It is very profitable, given that there was no budget and everything had to be done as free as possible.
For the first site, CMS WordPress was chosen, a simple news engine to which a gallery of pictures was connected and several free plugins (feedback form, lightbox and Seo-pack). After several days of setting up the most usual free design, the site was ready to be filled.
')
The company produced no more than 30 models with 5-10 options of options for each model, so the question of hiring a person who would score products on the site was not. They took the usual photo soap box and started photographing, the pictures were miserable, but then it did not seem so to us. Filling took a little time and consisted of a photo, the name of the product and a few words about the material from which the model was made. They wrote that the products are sold in packages (this item will be the key to business development). When the site was filled and all the contact information was in place, I began to “promote” this miracle.
Promotion was standard and only free. He himself registered in all search engines, he himself placed information about the company and the site in different directories. It lasted about a month. In parallel, he brought the site to mind, made contact details in sight, described in detail the terms of cooperation, payment and delivery. At that time it seemed that this was enough.
A month later, the first orders began to arrive and trade went up. But there was a big inconvenience, there was no normal functionality of the basket on the site, there was nothing at all that resembled a basket. Clients had to send in free form mails with orders. Order processing was as follows: the order came to the post office — bringing the order into a readable form — printing a piece of paper with the order — entering in 1s — printing the invoice from 1s (to understand the problem, I want to say that the order consisted on average of 100-500 positions). It was decided to set the cart directly on WordPress. Then there was the first and last purchase of a plug-in that adds a basket to the site (cost 600 rubles). After this, the processing of orders was of the following type: order on the website — printing the order on a piece of paper — entering into 1s — printing the invoice. We see that by setting the basket, we got rid of one unnecessary action - “bringing the order into a readable form.” It was a great progress in the development of an online store and saving a lot of time for an accountant. In this mode, the site worked for a year. There were more orders and an understanding of which online store should actually be added, and constantly inventing crutches was no longer advisable. It was decided to switch to CMS, originally sharpened by an online store.
The choice fell on the free OpenCart. This is a fairly common CMS in the CIS with a well-developed community, an ever-expanding assortment of plug-ins, and most importantly, it is easy to master, even for an initial PHP specialist. A site was created on the subdomain and great work was started on its improvement and development in a normal online store. The design was completely redesigned from the default theme, several free plug-ins were bolted (news, improved reviews of the store and several others that expanded the functionality of the administrative part). It was decided to improve the quality of the photos (they did it themselves). Also, a little work was done on analyzing the market and the key decision was made to sell the goods individually, but the minimum amount of purchases was raised (after that, almost all competitors in our region will translate our principles for selling such products) . Also, a free for all Russia phone of the 8-800 type (1000 rubles per month) was introduced and an online consultant was added (free of charge). I would like to dwell on these two innovations in more detail, since our products are designed for girls and women of different ages, because of the small buying experience on the Internet (our website was often the first to make a purchase on the Internet) for many of the key elements in trusting the website were a free number. where it was possible to call and ask about the products, terms of payment and delivery (at the same time everything is detailed on the site and the main thing is clearly marked), as well as the opportunity to consult on the same issues, but only about chatting. After we launched a new version of the site, the company's profits soared dozens of times. With this, the work of the accountant increased, because the scheme: order - printing on paper - entering into 1c - printing the invoice was also not productive and it turned out that the queue of unbilled invoices reached under a hundred, and given that the number of models produced increased 5 times, getting out of this vicious circle was very hard. It was decided to connect OpenCart directly to 1c. At that time, when the new site was just launched, there were no decisions on the organization of this bundle: OpenCart + 1C, there were only poorly made and very buggy solutions. But a year later, an office was found that specializes in OpenCart + 1C bundles and there was already a proven solution. This was how 1C Trade Management (17,000 rubles) and a module for the site (16,500 rubles) were purchased, and we also had to pay for setting up and running all of our women (9700 rubles). Now, the scheme of the online store was just perfect and most importantly fast: order - 1c - invoice to the client. That's all about the technical side of the development of a provincial online store.
Of course, there are many interesting things that can be told about how not only the online store was promoted, but also a provincial brand that has become widely known throughout Russia and the CIS countries. But more about that next time.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/286240/
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