This post is about our first significant collaboration on a WordPress website. “The Gaits of Chelle” website is an online store selling Crystals, Jewelry and other Gemstone related products. Our first foray into an online store has been a real learning experience.
About WordPress
WordPress is a content management system widely used across the Internet for many purposes, including blog sites, affiliate marketing sites, and online stores. The core product is available to anyone to use for free. The basic functionality is augmented using plugins which generally provide a specific function. It is common practice for plugin developers to offer a free version of their plugin with limited functionality and additionally offer a “premium” version with enhanced functionality for a fee.
Challenges
We quickly determined that while the technical act of setting up the store was relatively simple, making it into a functional, user-friendly online store presented multiple challenges, which were not trivial. There are many considerations that must be taken into account, such as taxes and shipping.
Sales taxes for online stores have the potential to be a tremendous challenge. Every state has their own laws about when sales taxes must be collected, when they have to be paid and how much to collect. To make it worse, not only does each state have its own rules, often counties and cities pile-on too. Of course, there are plugins that will handle all the variations, but the monthly fees are excessive for a small online store.
Shipping is another challenge. Because of Amazon, everyone expects free shipping. The problem is for a small retailer, shipping is often times more expensive than the product. We have bounced around trying to find the right balance between shipping cost, convenience, and functionality.
Collaborative Effort
As noted above, this website was and continues to be a collaborative effort. Jeff is responsible for the technical side and Jae does the design work. Jae also handles all of the product related work. The website continues to evolve. As we learn more about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media marketing. we continue to make adjustments.
Please take a few minutes to browse the “The Gaits of Chelle” website and provide any feedback that you wish.
