any small business owners with a website?

L

libby

New Member
My family's small business has a website that was built on a platform (?) and shopping cart service called 3D Cart. My mother has been at the helm since dad died, and she hasn't paid as much attention to her online store as she should have. It also appears she hasn't been making any demands of the web manager/s, etc. I'm stepping into the business, and hope to participate by managing the site, and today I got my first look at the backside of the site.
There were about 5x as many orders "Not Completed" as there were "Completed". I found this to be a big deal. In the past week our little specialty shop has received two messages that the website gave them a bunch of errors until they finally gave up. I called our tech guy (who we paid to build our site) and he says not to be alarmed at those numbers.
If you have a business, have you found disparities such as this? I think I'm not getting a good answer from this tech guy, and I'd like to look around for advice, and maybe another service. Any thoughts or experience are appreciated!
 
L

libby

New Member
GURPS said:
change hosts
Click to expand...

Well, I will if I find out that this is all abnormal, which is what I am trying to ascertain now.
Personally, I can't imagine going to the site of a small, specialty business, and getting through to Step 3 of the checkout process and then bailing. I'm hoping to find a way to communicate with those customers to see if they gave up because of errors, or did they leave for some other reason.
 
Hank

Hank

my war
libby said:
Well, I will if I find out that this is all abnormal, which is what I am trying to ascertain now.
Personally, I can't imagine going to the site of a small, specialty business, and getting through to Step 3 of the checkout process and then bailing. I'm hoping to find a way to communicate with those customers to see if they gave up because of errors, or did they leave for some other reason.
Click to expand...

So, in the control panel of your host site it is not alerting you of any issues?
 
L

libby

New Member
Hank said:
So, in the control panel of your host site it is not alerting you of any issues?
Click to expand...

I haven't found a "control panel", but I do have many "not completed" orders that have one form of an error or another: 'login error', 'incorrect verification word', are two examples.
Nothing seems to be sending us an alert.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thread.
 
Hank

Hank

my war
libby said:
I haven't found a "control panel", but I do have many "not completed" orders that have one form of an error or another: 'login error', 'incorrect verification word', are two examples.
Nothing seems to be sending us an alert.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thread.
Click to expand...

Control Panel meaning the Administer Page on 3D...

Have you tried logging into your site by starting a new account to see if you receive an error when attempting to log on as a new customer?
 
L

libby

New Member
Hank said:
Control Panel meaning the Administer Page on 3D...

Have you tried logging into your site by starting a new account to see if you receive an error when attempting to log on as a new customer?
Click to expand...

Okay, I am an admin as of this week, so yes, I have the control panel. Yes, I have shopped, and have not received errors such as the ones I describe. I have found lots of great tools, such as stats on what our customers are buying, and which promotions they have responded to. This is part 2 of what is making me angry at our tech guy and PR gal.
If 5 to 1 is a reasonable ratio of shoppers vs. buyers, then I have nothing to fuss about. We've just gotten the sinking feeling that with my mother's age and lack of knowledge on the subject, that she's been taken advantage of. The length of time we (my sister and I) have been told it takes to edit the site doesn't add up. We are waiting and waiting on these people for changes to the site, etc. Now that I've gotten the admin info and can see the activity for myself, it's pizzing me off. Do you know of any resources to give me a crash course in managing a web site?
 
Hank

Hank

my war
libby said:
Okay, I am an admin as of this week, so yes, I have the control panel. Yes, I have shopped, and have not received errors such as the ones I describe. I have found lots of great tools, such as stats on what our customers are buying, and which promotions they have responded to. This is part 2 of what is making me angry at our tech guy and PR gal.
If 5 to 1 is a reasonable ratio of shoppers vs. buyers, then I have nothing to fuss about. We've just gotten the sinking feeling that with my mother's age and lack of knowledge on the subject, that she's been taken advantage of. The length of time we (my sister and I) have been told it takes to edit the site doesn't add up. We are waiting and waiting on these people for changes to the site, etc. Now that I've gotten the admin info and can see the activity for myself, it's pizzing me off. Do you know of any resources to give me a crash course in managing a web site?
Click to expand...

Ok. So if you aren't seeing any messages concerning "sick" products or errors on the administer page then it could be something as small as a customer keeping items in a cart and not completing the "purchase".

You're registered with 3D, so I would take advantage of these tutorials. eCommerce Webinar Archives - Build, Promote and Grow Your Online Business
 
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