There
are many opinions on how a furniture retail web site design
should look and also how it should work. Each with their own
valid points too.
In2Retail don't offer the actual design of web sites at all,
we prefer to leave that to the artists within that field.
But what is important is the material sent to and used on
your site and the method by which a consumer can find what
they're looking for quickly and easily.
Typically a store has access to over 150,000 different products
and if you only show a dozen or so of them, then the consumer
will simply look elsewhere if they can't find what they want. |
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Web
designers |
Professional web designers are welcomed to get
in touch.
To find out more about integrating your designs
to In2Retail systems and how you can showcase
your work to hundreds of furniture stores without
charge click below.
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The consumer is sitting at home with the google
page open, types in 'furniture Wine Rack Midlands'
and it brings back several hundred results. Your site might be
in there but if you haven't got something to show the consumer
they will simply move onto the next site. They want ideas and
inspiration, not just 'Established since 1900' etc. Although a
local store with a professional site will score points, another
company an extra 10 miles away with pictures, prices & a choice
of appropriate products will usually win-over the consumer to
visit the store or buy online.
The X-Margin web
export is probably the easiest and fasted on the market. Just
to show you what's involved please follow the instructions
below to export e.g. 10,000 products, images, dimensions directly
to a virtual web site.
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Please read the notes on the right before using X-Margin
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Fire up the demonstration
store database by clicking on the X-Margin button above. This
will open in a new window so you will need to flick back and
forth between this page and the system, or print this page.
The first step in this example is to re-calculate a furniture
supplier file so that we can then send the same supplier directly
to a web site. Typically this is what you would do for a new
store or web promotion. Instructions in blue below e.g. Calculate
| Calculate mean, select 'Calculate' from the main
menu bar in X-Margin and then select 'Calculate' from the
sub menu option visible after selecting the first.
Click on the X-Margin Calculate |
Calculate and select a supplier from the first
dropdown list. In order to export to the virtual web site,
you must select a supplier that has lots of images attached
to it. In the demonstration database try 'Alstons Cabinet'
or 'Wood bros'. Then choose a range or 'All ranges' from the
next dropdown list.
From the bottom row of choices select the following,
Price point = 'Monte Carlo'
Calculation type = 'Percentage on'
Apply to = 'Cost'
Figure = whatever figure you like, e.g. '140',
'100', '75'
Result in = 'Usual'
You should end up with the X-Margin calculator screen looking
like the diagram below.
click on the 'Calculate' button.
What you've just asked for is, take the Cost price and multiply
this by 140 percent, put the result in the 'Usual' price column
& automatically price point all prices using the 'Monte
Carlo' method. You could then repeat this with a different
figure and store the result in 'Sell' giving you an 'Event'
price too.
Once you click the 'Calculate' button, you've instantly re-priced
either, the entire supplier or your selected range. You've
also applied one of several professional price rounding routines.
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Click on Export
and toward the bottom of the list will be several web design
companies. Select any of these and you will be presented with
a dropdown list or other instruction. You simply select the
supplier that you wish to export and click 'Send'. Each web
design company may have slightly different selection criteria
but the actual work and effort involved will be similar. Basically,
instant.
Whilst you're there, you may notice stock control system exports,
these too are just a button click to send all of your newly
created products, newly calculated costs, selling prices etc
directly into your stock system.
RIght at the bottom of the list you will see 'Live web catalogue'
you are welcome to explore this, but it is difficult for In2Retail
to control this on an 'Open' demonstration database. On your
own private database this would be under your own full control.
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One of your biggest
tasks in creating a professional web site for your furniture
store is going to be gathering all of the required images
together. What you will probably do is to contact your supplier
and ask for a CD of all available images. You will then need
to go through each image and rescale it to different sizes,
different types and then somehow attach them to your products
through some form of content manager.
The supplier is going to send out the same images to all of
their stockists, so what's the point in everyone doing all
of this work when it can be done once and made available for
all stockists to use. In2Retail offer a shared image library
where subscribers can simply hookup any product to any image
with just a tick box. Every image that is uploaded is automatically
rescaled into several sizes suitable for all types of page
design.
You can upload the images yourself or you can simply send
in a CD to In2Retail and we will upload it on your behalf.
In2Retail also offer the facility for 'Detail' images or images
of product options. Meaning that you could show an image of
e.g. A Wardrobe, and then attach several other images of close-ups
of shelf arrangements, tie racks etc. |
In2Retail do not
charge for the hosting of images and there is no monthly bandwidth
restriction either. Many companies will charge you for both
space to hold your images and everytime a comsumer accesses
them (Bandwidth charges).
In X-Margin you will find a list of several other web functions
under Web on
the menu bar including attaching images to items, excluding
items from being published to web e.g. Shelves and more. |
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What's involved
in connecting your X-Margin directly to your own web site?
This really is no work on your part and is taken up between
ourselves and your web design company. The decision you need
to make is the type of interface that you require. There are
basically two very different types.
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| Mirrored data |
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Code integration |
| Mirrored data is where your design company will set
up database tables to match X-Margin. The X-Margin export
then writes the product information directly into your
web designers tables by clicking on the export button. |
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Your web design company inserts special keywords within
your current or new web design. Special In2Retail functions
then insert all of the required server code into your
pages to allow for access to your database. |
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The main difference between the above two options is that
if your web company simply receives the product information
they will then need to develop code to present this information.
Things like, product options, price affecting options, detail
images etc. All need to be coded.
The code integration method means that any functions added
to X-Margin are also then developed and offered to users as
part of the same package. Where your web designers would just
concentrate on the design and have the code automatically
inserted.
Also, externally hosted often means extra charges in the form
of bandwidth etc. But you may prefer to let your own web design
company do-their-own-thing with the data sent to them. Live
examples of both can be provided through a telephone demonstration,
please do get in touch. |
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