By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
July 17th, 2001

See Also   How to Choose a Shopping Cart   StoreSense Pro   Click and Build   eCongo Free Commerce   EasyCart   FreeMerchant   Merchant Planet   Merchant Manager   Yahoo! Store   MerchandiZer

Overall
In my experience, one of the most common – and the most expensive – mistakes that new e-tailers make is to only take in to account their current needs when choosing an e-commerce software package. Then, almost inevitably, they find that with time their requirements grow and change and that the package they have chosen is no longer suitable. And trust me, while building a new store from scratch can be a lot of work, moving a store from one e-commerce package to another is a major nightmare.

It is therefore vital when choosing e-commerce software to select a package that is flexible enough, both in terms of its scalability and its feature-set, to meet current and potential future requirements.

Without doubt, StoreSense Pro will meet the needs of many Web merchants. While it is not the cheapest package available, it is loaded with many useful features including, for example, supplier and inventory management tools, sophisticated sales tax and shipping calculators, and is integrated with a multi-currency payment system. Purchasing add-on modules, which add tools such as an affiliate program manager, can further extend its functionality.

StoreSense Pro is scalable too: it will cope quite happily with small stores having 50 or less items right up to stores having many thousands of items.

And e-tailers searching for a package that gives advanced control over the look, feel and content of a store need search no further as StoreSense Pro allows for the online and offline editing of all template elements as well as providing full access to all the data items filed in a store's database.

Set Up
The quickest way to set up a StoreSense store is to use the supplied wizard, which leads the user through a simple, four-step process.

The first step is to choose the “target medium”. This is a very useful option and it is the first time I have come across it in a storefront builder targeted at smaller businesses. This feature gives the choice of how a store is going to be viewed, either in a computer Web browser or on a wireless device such as a cell phone. The store is then automatically created in HTML, HDML or WML according to this target selection.

Next, the look and feel of the store is defined by selecting a pre-packaged store theme, a page layout for the major store sections, and the fonts to be used in it. StoreSense provides some useful “hand-holding” here for the novice store builder. For example, each theme comes with an author's note describing how it can be most effectively used, and recommends which fonts and font colors should be selected to coordinate with that theme.

The third step is to enter some basic store data, for example the name of the store, some contact information, and which payment methods are to be accepted. Entering product data for up to five products completes this step.

The final step is the easiest of all – just click on a button and a new store is automatically generated!

While this wizard can quickly produce an attractive store, it is possible to modify the store to meet exact requirements. Each area of the store has its own template that can be modified using one of three methods. Minor modifications can be made using the supplied online template editor or wizard while major modifications can be made by exporting the templates to a favorite HTML editor.

These template modification features are better than I have seen on any comparable e-commerce package – but StoreSense provides even more. It comes complete with its own custom tags that allow complete access to all data items in the store's database, for example store settings, customer history or product information. It is also possible to use advanced features such as JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets. Static HTML pages can be added to the store too.

It is even possible to create multiple template sets. This enables a store to have, for example different templates for different target media e.g. a normal HTML template set and a WML template set for wireless devices like phones.

As far as graphics are concerned, StoreSense only supplies a few basic buttons, but graphics and images can be easily imported in to the store either singly or as a zipped archive. These files – along with any other store files – can be managed via a Server File Management function.

Adding products in to the store is also straightforward and can be done via online forms or by uploading a CSV file. Either way, the first step is to define online all the categories and sub-categories needed in the store. StoreSense does have rather an unusual limit here. While there is no limit to the number of categories that can be defined, or the number of sub-categories each category can have, it is not possible to specify further levels i.e. there can be no “sub-sub” categories. That said, there is a strong argument for not structuring a store in this way, as prospective customers would need to spend a lot of time “drilling down” through levels trying to find the item they want. The golden rule for any Web store is that a customer should be able to locate and purchase a product with no more than 3 clicks.

As well as the ability to import product data, it is also possible to import other tables in to the store, for example customer or manufacturer information.

Each product can have options or attributes defined for it. Options are basic variants of a product that do not affect its SKU, price etc., for example color or size. Attributes on the other hand do affect these parameters and StoreSense makes it is possible to specify a different SKU, price, inventory level, weight etc. for each product attribute.

StoreSense has some other features worthy of note. The Manufacturer feature makes it possible to specify the manufacturer for each product – this allows visitors to search for products by manufacturer and for the storeowner to track inventory by manufacturer too. Similarly, it is also possible to create a full supplier database and define a supplier for each product. There are also optional modules available. For example, the Supplier Connect module builds on the supplier feature mentioned above by enabling fax/email communications between a Web store and its suppliers.

StoreSense comes with three detailed manuals (supplied as PDF files) that cover all aspects of running and administering a store. There is a quick start guide, a detailed user's guide and a designer's reference guide. Detailed, online, context-sensitive help is also provided. Beyond this support is provided by Kurant's partner ISPs and support policies will vary amongst them.

Pricing too will vary from ISP to ISP, but a typical StoreSense PRO store containing up to 50 products will cost around $150 per month.

Order processing
Like most storefront builders, StoreSense assumes that the majority of orders will be placed online and paid for by credit card, with the payment being processed in real-time. However, StoreSense can handle other payment methods, for example money orders, checks and COD while integration with WorldPay allows multi-currency payments to be accepted.

Shipping costs are automatically added to orders based on custom shipping tables. These can take a considerable amount of time to set up, but they do offer the most flexible approach to specifying shipping costs. The shipping tables can contain up to three shipping methods (for example one day, two day and overnight) and shipping costs can be based on the quantity of items, or the total value or weight of the order. Exceptional items can have specific shipping costs specified for them.

It is also possible to specify different geographic shipping zones (e.g. USA and Europe) and then to define a different shipping table for each zone. However, StoreSense has a rather bizarre limitation here, as it is not possible to specify different shipping methods for different shipping zones. Many merchants will want to offer different options for different zones, for example 1 day / 2 day / 3 day for domestic shipments and sea freight / air freight for overseas orders, but this is not possible with StoreSense.

Sales tax is handled in a similar manner to shipping charges, by defining tax zones and the applicable tax for each product category shipped to that zone.

As well as the more mundane back end functionality such as email acknowledgements and order tracking, StoreSense has some useful extra features. For example, there is a sophisticated inventory control tool that allows for low-stock items to be either removed from sale or automatically backordered. A store subscription feature allows for password-controlled access to areas of the Web store that expire after a preset time. Promotions can be set up easily, for example a storewide sale with a discount on all items, or quantity discounts (e.g. “five for the price of four”) can be defined for individual items. And a gift feature enables customers to specify that they wish an order to be shipped as a gift and to choose (and pay for) a gift-wrapping service.

Administration
The day-to-day administration of a StoreSense store is carried out through a series of “managers”. The Order Manager provides access to pending and complete customer orders and allows orders to be manually authorized (e.g. where the payment is made by check) or for credits to be issued. The Customer Manager provides access to customer profiles and order history.

The Report Manager provides access to one of the most important areas. There is an extensive suite of reports available including Executive Reports (for example the best and worst selling items and shopping cart abandonment ratios) and Sales Reports (for example sales by product).

To keep things under control, StoreSense allows for different users to be defined and for access permissions to be granted to these users on a module-by-module basis. This means, for example, that a profile could be set up that allows customer service personnel access to customer and order details, but prevents them from modifying prices or the store layout.

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Links
StoreSense		http://www.kurant.com/products/storesense.shtml