For those of you who want an easy way to sell things on your websites, have we got something for you! Here’s product designer Rina to tell you all about our new SimpleStore product – Rochelle.
There is a common misconception that if you have a website, you’re equipped to sell online. However, if you really think about it, all you have is real estate. Where’s your storefront? Where’s your shopping cart? How do you accept your customer’s payments? And if you have more than just a handful of products, how does a customer search through all of them?
As many of you may know, Homestead offers something called Homestead Storefront, an advanced ecommerce product designed to give you a way to offer your customers all those services and more. Storefront is jam-packed with great features, including shipping and billing tools, inventory management and QuickBooks integration.
Sometimes, however, people just don’t need all the advanced functionality of Storefront. They want to sell online using something simpler.
So here it is—the Homestead SimpleStore! The SimpleStore is just what its name implies: a simple way to add a store to your website, and one that matches the look and feel of your site to boot.
SimpleStore provides you with a clean, intuitive layout that makes it quite easy to give your customers a professional-looking store, complete with built-in shopping cart, product search and category browsing capabilities. You’ll be able to accept credit cards online without a merchant account by using a free PayPal account.
Perhaps best of all, you don’t need to learn any new tools to fit it into your existing website—the SimpleStore is simply another element in SiteBuilder or SiteBuilder Lite!
Here are a few sample stores that we’ve built. Click on the screenshots and you’ll be taken to each SimpleStore sample. Feel free to play with them as much as you want, just to see how they work. And don’t worry—you won’t actually purchase anything because for these samples we didn’t set up a PayPal account to accept orders.
Now, how do you get one of these? SimpleStore is currently available for Gold and Platinum website members as a paid add-on to your website account. If you have one of these accounts, you can easily add a SimpleStore to your site by logging in to your online website account and finding the Selling Online section, followed by the Simple sub-section, using the left-hand navigation menu.
Getting the SimpleStore on your website
After purchasing the add-on, you can just drop your SimpleStore onto your existing website like you would any other element in SiteBuilder or SiteBuilder Lite. In SiteBuilder, the SimpleStore element will appear under the coin icon in the menu above your page after you purchase the add-on:
In SiteBuilder Lite, the SimpleStore element is the green shopping cart entitled ‘Add Store’ that shows up in your element palette after you purchase the SimpleStore add-on.
Your SimpleStore element will first appear on your page in its default size and color. The example below shows how my store first appeared in SiteBuilder, right after I added the SimpleStore element to a new store page.
It’s really easy to change these defaults. Your SimpleStore element acts just like any other part of your website, so you can use the tools you’re used to in SiteBuilder or SiteBuilder Lite to make the changes you want. Resize and position your store wherever you like on your page, or change around your store’s size, colors, font and more until it blends in perfectly with the rest of your website design.
Building a SimpleStore is fast, and it’s fun too. Tomorrow I’ll show you how easy it is to add products to your new SimpleStore!
June 11, 2008 at 9:38 pm |
Great. Now, how much does it cost as an “add on”? And what are the limitations? Up to X number of items in the Quick Store or what other limitations? I just wasted my time going to look this up on the main homestead page and this important information isn’t even shown there. Wasting time is always annoying. I don’t know about everyone else, but both of these items are critical points to consider before I would seriously consider this option.
June 12, 2008 at 10:24 am |
Where do i find the cost of this ?
June 13, 2008 at 4:36 am |
I was delighted to see your post about Quick Stores. It is such a great alternative to Store Front for those people who have limited products. Easy to use, looks great. I used a Quick Store on a client’s site and the only thing I didn’t care for is the double scroll bar – one for the products, one for the page. In terms of usability it can slow the visitor down and create extra scrolling when you chose the wrong scroll bar! I was able to eliminate the second scroll bar by moving the bottom navigation and copyright info up so that it actually sets (in edit mode) within the Quick Store section.
http://www.saintmarysmission.org/giftshop.html
I recommend Quick Store for a simplistic yet effective storefront for Homestead users who have more than a handful of products to sell yet don’t require the full blown capability (and confusion) of the Store Front program. Since QS will handle up to 100 products it’s perfect for those users.
Keep on webbin’
Susan
SEO Building Blocks
Homestead Connection Forum
June 13, 2008 at 5:12 pm |
Good questions, thank you! For posts on the product blog, we generally focus on the product itself and how to use it. Rina’s post on QuickStore was large enough that we thought we’d split it into three parts; information on how many products you can have on your QuickStore is in part 2. And there’s a lot more information about the QuickStore packages and pricing on our website under the “Create an Online Store” tab. Thanks for your interest, and let us know what you think of QuickStore!
June 14, 2008 at 2:55 am |
How are shipping charges handled in QuickStore?
June 14, 2008 at 5:32 pm |
This really is a great add-on to the site builder. Very simple and to the point; just what people want.
Keep up the good work, and keep updating your software/service. I have to say, I’m very excited to see these new (and hopefully more to come) additions.
July 15, 2008 at 3:58 am |
To omestead.
Can Quickstore be used with other than American dollars (ex. Norwegian kroner (crowns))?.
Sincerely,
Arvid Tunholt.
October 1, 2008 at 6:49 pm |
i appreciate the simplicity and ease of use that the QuickStore element provides. One key thing missing though is its inability to handle the itemization of sales tax. As it turns out, whether a business is big… or very, very, very small, most states including Idaho where I live require that sales tax be itemized as a separate line item for those purchases made by residents of that state.
it’s the law as simple as that… state legislated code.
What this means is you need to be able to provide a table load/look-up or something so that sales tax will be calculated based upon buyers zip code location.
having companies bundle sales tax into a rolled-up price is not appropriate. Another alternative of having the sales tax calculation taking place downstream within the PayPal entity is not acceptable because then the shopping cart within the Storefront element would not indicate the total price of purchase for the customer.
So…. simple means simple but your challenge is to make the complex be…. simple. This includes the explicit line itemization of sales tax.
I won’t even mention shipping and handling.
January 28, 2009 at 5:49 pm |
My church uses Homestead for it’s website. It’s been great for helping the average person create a website without a lot of advanced knowledge.
February 15, 2009 at 9:13 pm |
I never dream i would be able to build a web site and have it up and running so easy. This site builder program from homestead is amazing. I have recommended a few people who tried the site builder program and they love it but the best of all is the customer support that homestead provide is nothing short of fantastic. I always get a live person to help me and they are always polite and very helpful. I would recommend anyone to do business with homestead.