Custom Design
Our graphic designer will work closely with you to design a website that will reflect and enhance your company image. You will receive mock-ups to review which can be changed and tweaked to suit your specific needs and vision for the site.
We will create up to 3 designs or revisions (mock-ups) based on the materials you supply and feedback you provide. We can provide further mockups if needed but we have found that due to our experience in website design, we usually are able to produce a design that exceeds your expectations within the first or second mockup.
We do not use templates or pre-built designs. Our graphic designers have many years of experience in designing websites for a variety of industries and know how to easily reflect your image in a beautiful, functional and user friendly website design.
Content Management System
Your website will include a full featured, easy to use content management system. This enables you to log into an ‘admin’ area from any computer connected to the internet and modify certain aspects of your website. The content manager will let you add and remove products & photos, links and process orders via a simple, intuitive menu system.
This gives you great power and flexibility, allowing you and your staff to update information on the website immediately without going through a website designer.
The content manager will also include a ‘page editor’ system allowing you to lay out pages in an interface very similar to Microsoft Word. The page editor includes the following features:
- Microsoft Word compatible editor.
- Spell Check (including customisable dictionary).
- Upload / insert images, PDF files, videos, flash and documents.
- Add, edit and remove an unlimited number of pages and subpages
- re-arrange the order of pages shown on the menu and add pages an infinite number of levels deep.
- Easy to use visual editor – what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG).
- specify titles and Meta tags for each page you create which will help with your search engine optimisation and rankings.
- Works on all modern browsers and computers (PC's, MAC, IPAD, etc.)
Check out the screenshots or watch the demo of the content management system by clicking on these icons in the top right of this page.
Support for unlimited products, brands, categories and subcategories
The products area supports unlimited categories (and unlimited levels of subcategories), items and photos (only restricted by your hosting package disk space). Addition and editing of products is done via the content manager. When uploading a product photo a thumbnail is automatically generated.
You will be able to store multiple photos for each product if you wish.
You will also be able to store multiple options and prices for each product (such as sizes, colours, etc.)
You will be able to mark products as ‘on special’ and also easily hide them from public use (a good idea if a product is temporarily unavailable).
Products can also be assigned to more than one category at a time. This allows you to add a product and tick which category it belongs to without having to add the product to each category individually.
The products area of the content manager also has a ‘bulk update’ feature that allows you to see all your products on one screen and updated prices and options at the click of a button (saving a great deal of time and effort when needing to update prices).
We have spent many years developing ecommerce solutions and we can assure you that your site will be very easy to manage.
Easy to use shopping cart system
A complete shopping cart system is integrated into the website.
When browsing through your site, visitors can add products / services to their shopping cart. At all times, they are guided towards making a purchase.
It is essential for a successful ecommerce site to have a very easy to use and intuitive shopping cart system so extensive research into marketing psychology, usability and years of experience has helped us create one of the world’s most efficient, user friendly and successful shopping cart systems.
Product search engine
A complete product search engine is incorporated into your website. The search box will be accessible from each and every page of the website and will enable visitors to search for products in your website.
We can also customise the search engine to enable people to search by brand, size, colour, style, etc. – whatever is relevant to your specific products.
Sales & visitor reporting
Your website will be integrated with Google Analytics reporting and ecommerce tracking.
This system gives you a wealth of information about your customers and their purchases. Some of the reports you have access to are:
- How visitors found your website (email, search engines, links from other sites, etc.)
- Which pages people are visiting on your website.
- Most popular products and categories (this is great for identifying what people are looking for on your site).
- Highest selling products, brands, categories, etc.
- Total revenue earned over time.
- And much more.
All of these reports can be generated over a date range of your choice.
Automated Order tracking
The number one thing a new customer will be wondering once they make a purchase from your website is "How long will it take for me to receive my order and where is it?".
The MantisShop automated order tracking system lets customers log in at any time and view their orders and the status of them (if they are being processed, shipped, etc.).
If you use a freight carrier that supports tracking numbers (such as Express Post, Couriers, UPS, etc.) then you can also store the tracking number on an order so customers can easily track their order delivery.
Customers also receive an automatic email to let them know when you have shipped their order. This all saves time and provides great customer service with no effort on your part.
Automatic Freight calculation
The number one reason for shopping cart abandonment (when someone adds items to their cart but never completes the purchase) is due to complicated freight systems that make it hard to understand how much freight will be.
The MantisShop system integrates with Australia Post to automatically work out the freight charges and display them on the screen for the customer. This allows customers to see how much freight will be at all times and even allows them to choose different freight methods (such as standard post, registered post and express post).
This system also gives them an estimate on the number of days their order will take for delivery to their location.
If you are not using Australia Post or wish to use a different freight method, we can also customise this for you to whatever rates or system you want at no extra charge.
Currency converter and support for International Orders
Why limit yourself to your own local area or country when there could be potential markets in other regions around the world?
An international currency converter is built in to your website. All prices are shown in Australian dollars (or your local currency if you are outside Australia). Visitors from other countries can click on the ‘global currency converter’ to convert prices into their own currency within seconds.
International customers will also be able to place orders which will expand your market globally.
Full customisation is available to restrict countries/regions if you wish.
Customer database
Any great marketing consultant will tell you that your number one asset in your business is your customer database.
Statistics show that it is 3-5 times easier to sell to an existing customer than a new one therefore it only makes sense that you can easily access details on your customers to market to them and provide support to them.
The content manager will have an integrated customer database. This will keep track of customer contact details and purchase history.
You will be able to add, edit and remove customers from this database, make notes for each customer and also view details of previous orders.
When proceeding to the checkout, customers will have the option of entering all of their details or entering a username and password. If they enter their username and password, they will not have to enter their contact details, making it quicker for them to complete the transaction. The other benefit of this is that their purchase details will be stored in the customer database so you can keep track of what your return customers are purchasing and how much they are spending. Customers will also be able to look at their order history and track orders in progress.
Registered customers will also have the added benefit of being able to add products to their favourites list (which can then be purchased at a later date) and leaving product reviews (which are shown to help boost sales of products).
Stock control and alerts
Stock control allows you to have your website keep track of stock levels to ensure that they do not sell when out of stock. This is an option that can be switched on or off at any time depending on if you want stock control running or not.
If switched on then you will be able to specify the amount of stock you have for all products and also at what point to show products as 'low stock' and 'out of stock'.
Customers will be able to add out of stock items to their 'favourites' and when the item is put back in stock, they will receive an email to alert them that the product is now back in stock.
You will also be automatically emailed as soon as a product goes out of stock so you know immediately if you need to order more stock in or discontinue the product.
You can also at any time export all of your stock out to an excel spreadsheet as a report on your current stock levels.
Works with all credit card payment gateways
When starting off in the world of ecommerce, one of the most important things you need to do when developing your website is to choose an appropriate payment gateway.
A payment gateway is the facility connected to your website that allows you to take credit cards as payment methods. Credit cards are a necessary payment option on successful ecommerce websites so you should never consider not having this facility on your website.
Some ecommerce websites may offer a downloadable form to print and send with credit card information or have a statement saying that the customer will be contacted for payment once the order has been placed. Although this can save money in the short term by not utilising a payment gateway, our research has found that this severely limits the number of customers who will place an order on your website.
Online customers want to know exactly what they are up for (including freight) and will want to pay and complete the order there and then. If you place hurdles to this (such as a downloadable order form or saying you will ring them for credit card details) you will usually find the customer will just go elsewhere.
For more information on choosing a payment gateway, please visit http://www.mantistech.com.au/news-starting-an-ecommerce-website-choosing-your-payment-gateway-11.aspx
Cheque/fax/bank to bank transfer payment methods
Acceptance of credit cards, cheques, postal orders, fax and bank to bank transfers opens up the options for customers to purchase products and services.
We can enable some or all of these payment options for your customers to give your customers the flexibility to pay the way they want.
Online blog / news / articles
Having a blog or news / articles section in your website can provide the following benefits:
- Keeps your website up to date with fresh news and information.
- Search engines such as Google love news/blog sections on websites that have new information added regularly and can really help boost your search engine exposure.
- Adding news, articles or blogging can help boost your image as a leader and expert in your field and encourage existing and potential customers to keep returning for new information.
Your website will include this system to allow you to add, edit and delete news or articles whenever you want.
Contact form
By making it easy for your customers to contact you, you are showing that you provide great customer service and will help instil confidence in potential customers.
This all results in a higher number of sales on your website.
The contact page of your site will feature the contact details of your choice (which you can update at any time via the content manager) and an enquiries form that customers can fill out which will be emailed to you. This form features spam resistant technology to ensure it is not used by hackers to send spam.
We can also put an interactive Google location map on this page if you wish for customers to be able to easily find your location.
Product Reviews
Registered customers will be able to add reviews and a 0-5 star rating for any products. These reviews and ratings will appear on the product description screen.
When a customer makes a review, it will be in 'pending' status waiting for your approval before it will show on the website. You will be able to manage product reviews (editing, removing and approving) via the content management system at any time.
MantisMail integration for email and SMS marketing
A trial subscription to the MantisMail email list management system is included in this package.
MantisMail is the easiest yet most feature rich email and SMS marketing solution around. You can quickly and easily create and send attractive email newsletters and SMS marketing campaigns to your target market.
Email marketing is the single most effective way of promoting your products and services to new and existing clients. Since 2001 MantisMail has been helping businesses from all over Australia manage their online marketing.
This will allow you to use MantisMail to send promotional newsletters, special offers and other emails to your customers.
MantisMail features the following:
- Create unlimited 'groups' for your contacts
- Add, edit and remove contacts in one or multiple groups
- Store notes, phone numbers, addresses, etc. for contacts
- Create, edit and send email campaigns to one or multiple groups
- Build and save email templates to be used at a later date
- Send pre-built web pages as actual email campaigns
- Manage and send SMS campaigns to groups (Australia only)
- Access comprehensive statistics on email and SMS campaigns
- Fully integrated with your website contacts database
- And much more!
More information can be found at
www.mantismail.com.au
Please note that MantisMail is not a requirement to run your website but a useful add-on if you decide to utilise it.
Links & FAQ's
A frequently asked questions page can help customers by answering the most common questions about your products or services. This area can be updated with new questions and answers at any time via the content manager. Having a frequently asked questions page helps sell your products and services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by providing extra information about your products instantly.
A links page enables you to easily add links to other websites that may be of interest to your customers.
Site Map
Site maps are an excellent way for impatient people to find what they are looking for. The site map is a page that shows all of the sections of the website in a ‘tree’ format, allowing the visitor to quickly find and go to the page they are looking for.
The website also includes an automatically generated XML site map which is used by search engines such as Google to find all the content on your website easily.
Packing Slips
You can easily generate batches of packing slips / invoices via the CMS. This is ideal for high volume sales making it easy to pick, pack and process multiple orders in one go rather than flicking between multiple screens for each order.
Packing slips can be custom designed to look exactly the way you want with your branding and any other information you want.
Much, much more...
There are simply too many features to list here. For the full list of features in MantisShop, please click on 'Request a quote' on the top right of this page to receive a free proposal.
Logo Design
If required, our team can develop a professional logo for your business and website. A high resolution EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) version of the logo will be also supplied which can be used for printed material (such as business cards and other stationery).
We will create up to 3 designs or revisions (mock-ups) based on the materials you supply and feedback you provide.
Examples of logos we have designed
Twitter, Facebook and newsletter design
Twitter
If you use Twitter, we can design a custom background and avatar for you that will reflect your business and tie in with your website design.
Facebook
If you use Facebook, we can design a custom image and avatar for you that will reflect your business and tie in with your website design. We can also design a custom welcome page and newsletter subscription box to get the most out of your Facebook page.
Newsletters
We can design professional newsletter templates that you can simply type your content directly into and send. This will give your business a highly professional look and feel.
Interactive catalogues / brochures
If you have seasonal stock that comes in and out, sales or launches of new ranges, an interactive catalogue is ideal for advertising key products.
We can custom design interactive brochures or give you the ability to build them yourself via the content management system.
Click on the brochure below for an example of interactive brochures we have created..
Gift vouchers
Giving customers the ability to purchase gift vouchers on your website is a great way to increase sales and exposure of your website.
Customers have the ability to choose how much the voucher will be for, who it is for and purchase it straight from your website. Everything is automatic so that once a voucher is purchased, it is automatically generated and emailed to the recipient.
They can then use it towards purchases on your site.
MantisShop allows customers to use part of their gift vouchers on purchases and the remaining amount on future purchases.
The setup of gift vouchers on your website includes custom design of the vouchers to match the branding of your business.
Discussion Forums
Research shows that adding 'community' features like discussion forums help generate traffic to your website in three main ways:
1) It encourages your customers/audience to keep returning to your website.
2) It helps populate your site with more content (posts in the forums) which help you with your search engine rankings.
3) It builds a sense of community and trust on your website, helping you to easily expose your products and services to your target market.
Shopping Portal Feeds
Many online shopping directories, fashion websites, etc. allow us to send your products to them to display on their sites via an automatic 'feed'. We can set these feeds up so that you gain massive exposure on these sites.
Some of the sites that support feeds from MantisShop are:
- Covetish
- Missy Confidential
- Get Price
- Shopping.com.au
- Shopbot.com.au
- MSN shopping
- Yahoo!7 Shopping
- Myshopping.com.au
- Google Product Search
- Any other site that supports feeds
Wholesale pricing and purchasing
Do you offer your products at wholesale level to other retailers?
Do you offer discounted prices to certain customers or groups?
If you answered yes to either of these then multi level pricing is an ideal feature to have on your website. This allows you to set different level pricing (such as wholesale and retail or multiple tiers of prices) and then choose which customers have access to special pricing.
These customers, once logged in to your site, will then be able to see and purchase at the pricing level you have specified for them.
This is an ideal solution for selling both wholesale and retail or if you offer discounted pricing to certain customers.
If you offer wholesale pricing, your site will also have a 'wholesale enquiry' form which allows potential customers to fill in their details requesting wholesale pricing. You will then be able to approve a wholesale account to then instantly access new pricing.
Ongoing search engine marketing
Once your site is launched, it is important to continue ongoing search engine marketing to dominate your search engine rankings and ensure you get the most relevant traffic you can.
We can advise on and assist with putting together a complete strategy for ongoing search engine marketing to ensure you remain ahead of your competitors and enjoy ongoing success with your online business.
Ebay Stock Control Integration
Do you have an Ebay store?
Our stock control integration add on allows your site and Ebay to talk to each other automatically in the background.
This allows you to manage all your products from your MantisShop content management system and product stock will then be automatically updated on your Ebay store whenever
you add new stock or sell stock. The system also checks whenever your Ebay store sells stock and automatically updates your website stock levels.
No more headaches, overselling stock and trying to keep two online stores running with different stock controls. Our Ebay stock control integration module handles this all automatically for you.