Advice needed on new web site

[Steve Burke]

Our paperweight business continues to expand and we've now outgrown our existing web site. This is because the template we use restricts the number of pages that we can have and the number of photos per page. We've partially got round this by using external links to Photobucket, and the firm doing our web site (Webstall)has divided it into 2.

 

The service we've had from Webstall is excellent, and we've had just a couple of very brief outages in 9 years. We're also very high in search engine rankings for the keywords that our customers would use, in fact often number 1, although these words now need updating. Whether we would have got there anyway without Webstall's optimisation I don't know.

 

We've put off having a new web site but now feel that we can do so no longer. Having sent a questionnaire to our existing customers (that will shortly be repeated on the web site) we've had excellent feedback, and the concensus is that nothing major needs changing.

 

One of the keys to our success has been the personal service. In particular much of our business is for customised paperweights and so a shopping cart is a disadvantage, as has been highlighted by our questionnaire. We also do business all over the world, especially in the US.

 

Something that would save us work would be to have the facility for prices in US Dollars and Euros to be updated automatically. At present we have to do each item manually whenever they get out of line, and this takes us a few hours every few months.

 

It may be that Webstall can do a bespoke site for us and this may help with continuity (we need to have a seamless changeover).

 

However we know next to nothing about web sites so hope that you can guys can up with some ideas as how to proceed.

 

Our web site is at www.paperweightsplus.com.

 

Many thanks.

[Steve Walker]

Something that would save us work would be to have the facility for prices in US Dollars and Euros to be updated automatically. At present we have to do each item manually whenever they get out of line, and this takes us a few hours every few months.

Steve, can you describe the process you go through to do this task?

[kirisute]

don't understand why your host is limiting your photos?? that really doesn't make sense...heartinternet limit on downloads if your offering them but not on things like photos or anything...that's just weird! but I guess its linked to the template...however looking at your site there is nothing there that requires a template really.

as to your currency conversion..why not just use a freebie converter widget and allow the customer to figure it out themselves? if your not bothered about a whole ecommerce setup then a client use widget seems the logical resolution...

http://www.oanda.com/rates/web-tools/converter

something like this one?

or this

http://www.foreignexchangeresource.com/free-currency-converter.php

 

one uses java which most hosts allow and one uses PHP which might be limited if your on a very very basic hosting package.

 

other than that even if you change hosts then there shouldn't be any significant downtime if you plan ahead; set up new hosting; transfer website files across; activate domain on new hosting, job done.....if you plan it correctly then there shouldn't be any loss of service other than maybe 15 mins.

Edited August 15, 2013 by kirisute

[Steve Burke]

We help our customers in 2 ways with currency conversion. Firstly there's a link to the XE currency convertor web site, as per below.

 

"All our prices are given in UK currency, i.e. GB pounds. However, to help overseas customers plan purchases click here to link to a currency conversion page. Please note that these are mid-market prices and so don't take into account the cost of conversion. This varies depending on which bank or credit card company you use. Customers tell us that PayPal is very competitive, charging only around 2 1/2% from this mid-market price.

 

To help our many US and EU customers we also give a guide price for each item in US dollars and Euros. These are updated only when there's a major change in exchange rates (it's a big job!) and so is indeed just a guide. Mind you, with the way exchange rates are fluctuating these days we're likely to have to do updates a lot more often! We therefore err on the side of caution, and more often than not you'll pay a little less than that shown, even after the cost of conversion.

 

However please note that the cost in your local currency is always based on the exchange rate on the day you pay."

 

Secondly, as mentioned in the above blurb, we give guide prices in US$ and Euros. For instance:

 

"Price to UK residents £37.60 + VAT = £47

Price to EU residents including VAT approx €56

Tax-free price to US and other non-EU addresses approx US$61"

 

Steve, at present I have to redo the prices every few months. Even using the automatic constant facility on a pocket calculator it still takes several hours.

 

Kiri,in a sales situation you have to make it as easy as possible for the customer to buy from you. This is an example of where we go the extra mile and why we're still here. US customers in particular can't be bothered to go to a currency conversion site. Indeed, for a few of them the only currency in the world is the almighty dollar - and I can see where they're coming from!

[nick]

for the conversion to dollars or euros should be fairly straight forward to pull the daily exchange rate from XE and then use php (or script of choice) to carry out the required calculation directly on each page

 

or use the xe tools http://www.xe.com/ecc/shoppers/

Edited August 15, 2013 by nick

[kirisute]

Steve; the widget sits on YOUR website and they just input the numbers...its part of your website and would appear wherever you wanted it to. they don't need to leave your site at all. it just saves you doing the manual conversion and people can convert currency to what they wish at todays current rates instantly,

[Steve Walker]

Steve, at present I have to redo the prices every few months. Even using the automatic constant facility on a pocket calculator it still takes several hours.

I'm just wondering if - without changing how your website works - the manual process you go through could be automated. Do you have to manually edit some files?

[Steve Burke]

Kiri, I may have misunderstood you, but many customers simply can't be bothered to input anything into a currency converter! They want to know at a glance what the price is in their local currency, otherwise they buy from a site in their own country and we miss a sale. This is especially so when they may be looking at lots of different products.

 

All, if it were a case of simply clicking on US dollars or whatever on a dropdown menu next to every GB price then some, but not all, might do that. So we need to make it as easy as possible for them. We now just need to make it as easy as possible for ourselves.

 

The ideal would either be a click on a dropdown menu when they enter the site to change all the prices to a given currency. One of our former competitors used this system. Alternatively, a way for us to automatically update every price by inputting just the exchange rates would help.

 

Nick, I'm just off to Wingham (alas, not fishing) and will look at that when I come back. Webstall restict what we can do with the template, but of course that won't apply with a bespoke site.

 

You may have to hold my hand though! I may know about sales and marketing but I know diddly squat about web sites and programming.

 

Thanks both!

Edited August 15, 2013 by Steve Burke

[Steve Burke]

I'm just wondering if - without changing how your website works - the manual process you go through could be automated. Do you have to manually edit some files?

I believe Webstall don't allow us to manually edit the files willy nilly.

 

We'll be deciding next month how we're going to expand, so almost certainly we'll be having a new web site then anyway.

[Andy_1984]

If you don't want to go down the eCommerce route then what Nick suggests is by far the better option, forget about adding widgets and calculators have it all done in the background.

 

with minor changes to the coding where the product prices are listed you could set one price in GBP and have the euros and dollars automatically updated by retrieving the exchange rate from a reliable source.

 

one way would be to do a conversion using google on the fly (in the background, not seen by customers).

 

what happens is that your website makes a query to google asking "what is 20 GBP in USD" and google will return the value that you can display on the website. As its coding you will need webstall to do it or someone else.

 

the programming to do it isnt a lot when i think about it, probably done in less than 200 lines of code. so no major overhaul.

 

problem is i cant determine what programming language your website uses and also you mention there are limits to what you can do with the template ? it might not even be possible at all if you cant change the coding, somthing you should ask webstall.