| E-Commerce
- Online Shopping Frequently Asked Questions
Overview Examples FAQs
Frequently
Asked Questions:
-
What
is Actinic Catalog?
Actinic Catalog is a complete ecommerce
solution developed
specifically for the small to medium business, incorporating
everything you need to set up and run an ecommerce site.
What is Actinic Business?
Actinic Business offers all the features of Actinic Catalog,
with
additional functionality designed for business-to-business
transactions and advanced business to consumer features.
What is Actinic Developer?
Professional tools for business development. Actinic
Developer
is a new toolkit for web designers and ecommerce companies
to
design, build and manage multiple ecommerce sites.
Is Actinic software secure?
Yes.
Actinic Catalog and Actinic Business both use 128-bit
encryption to safely encrypt credit card information.
This means that only the purchaser and vendor can read
customers credit card information. The vendor can process
the credit card numbers in the normal way.
Barclays Bank, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland approve
Actinic software for their merchants to use.
Alternatively, Actinic Catalog and Actinic Business can
be integrated with a secure server (SSL) or a number of
Payment Service Providers (who take credit card numbers
securely and carry out the transactions online).
What do I need to use Actinic Catalog or Business?
Actinic Catalog
requires:
Pentium PC running Windows 95, 98, 2000 or NT 4.0
Minimum 32MB of RAM and 60MB of free disk space
Internet access.
At the web site, Actinic Catalog requires a standard commercial
web package including at least 5MB of web space (depending
on
the size of the catalogue), a CGI-bin with Perl 5 or later
and FTP
Access to CGI-bin. Harlequin can provide this instantly
if needed.
How do Actinic Catalog and Actinic Business work?
Actinic Catalog and Actinic
Business each comprise two components:
1. An easy-to-use
Windows programme that installs on
your PC. This creates your commerce site and downloads
and processes your orders
2. A set of scripts
which are automatically installed at your
Web site and provide the features of an electronic shopping
cart and ordering system
How do I enter
product information into my online catalogue?
Actinic Catalog and Actinic Business are best suited
to sites with between 10 and 10,000 product lines. These
can be arranged in sections and sub-sections, with an
unlimited number of levels.
If you already
have a list of products in electronic format, this
data can be easily imported via the import wizard. Alternatively,
you can manually enter the information via the Windows
user
interface.
Entering product
information is simple. All that is required is to
enter a part number and name, a description, price and
VAT
treatment. You can also link an image file with the product,
and even put a hyperlink in the product description to
a page
of more in-depth information.
Can I link
dynamically to an external database or spreadsheet?
Actinic Business offers dynamic linking to an external
data source
as a third option. This allows you to build your product
range in
any application and pull your data into Actinic Business
to publish
it.
How can I
offer a range of choices with each product?
Actinic Catalog and Actinic
Business allow you to configure attributes and choices
for each product in the online catalogue. For instance,
you can have a t-shirt that is available in both a range
of sizes and
a range of colours. It is also possible to make each combination
of choices a different price.
You can associate
product choices with other products in the online catalogue.
For example, a customer can assemble a PC online by selecting
from a variety of available components such as memory,
monitors and hard disk space.
How
is my online catalogue generated?
Actinic
software generates your commerce site as a set of normal
HTML pages. The pages are created from three components:
1. Information
provided by the vendor about names, description and prices
of products together with information on terms and conditions
in the company. The vendor also provides information about
the colours to be used in the catalogue (e.g. background
colour, font colour etc)
2. Images,
such as navigation buttons and product images, which are
used in the catalogue
3. Templates
which are used to create the layout of each part of the
online catalogue
When you
upload your catalogue, the complete HTML pages are generated
on the desktop according to the specifications of the
above three groups of components. These are then automatically
sent to the web site. Once complete, your commerce site
is open for business.
How
do customers place orders at the web site?
Customers
can visit and browse through the online catalogue. If
a customer sees a product they wish to purchase then they
click on the Add to Shopping Cart button. The online
catalogue then registers which product this customer has
selected and the customer is shown an electronic shopping
cart that contains their product. This shopping cart
is carried with them while they are visiting the site
and it goes with them into the checkout.
How
can I keep an eye on my stock levels?
Actinics
stock monitoring feature allows you to monitor each product
line individually, warning you as product levels run low
and automatically suspending online ordering when necessary.
You are able to print off reports detailing stock levels
to help you with re-ordering stock items in plenty of
time to fulfil your orders.
How
can I change the appearance of my online catalogue?
As
with all good software, Actinic Catalog and Actinic Business
can be customised, providing a look and feel that meets
your companys requirements and style sheets. The product
is shipped with dozens of pre-designed themes and colour
schemes that can be combined and customised. This give
you access to literally thousands of different design
looks at the click of a button.
When your
catalogue is ready to be transferred to your web site,
it is generated as a series of HTML template files.
These files are installed in the Site 1 (or equivalent)
directory and can be accessed by viewing the Template
Manager. By changing these files you can change the appearance
of your catalogue and make it look just as you wish, while
still enabling you to add, change or delete product and
other details through the Actinic application.
Alternatively,
we can provide professional web designers to design a
custom site to match your requirements and budget. Please
view our design information online
or contact us for further details on freephone 0800 080
2077.
Can
I integrate my online catalogue with my existing web site?
Online
catalogues cannot be exclusively maintained using Microsoft
FrontPage, or similar web design applications. However,
because Actinic software creates static HTML pages, any
part of your online catalogue can be easily linked to
your FrontPage site using normal hyperlinks. Actinics
extensive design options allow you to make sure that the
look and feel of your online catalogue is fully integrated
with the rest of your site.
How
can I make sure my customers are charged the right amount
of shipping and tax?
Actinic
Catalog and Actinic Business have sophisticated shipping
and tax calculation systems built into the program. You
can set up shipping zones and classes to ensure that your
customers will only be offered the most appropriate shipping
methods for them. There is also a location based tax calculator
that allows you to configure multiple tax rates and bands.
This ensures that your customers will be charged correctly.
Actinic
Catalog and Actinic Business will allow you to display
tax inclusive prices, tax exclusive prices or both. You
also have the option of choosing a second currency for
displaying prices at your site.
Can
I integrate Actinic Catalog and Actinic Business with
any of my accounts packages?
Using
Actinics Export facility, information about contacts,
products ordered, product details etc can be exported
as a delimited text file and imported into other applications.
Actinic
software uses an Access-style database to store information,
which can be manually edited using Microsoft Access. However,
it is recommended that you do not adjust or integrate
with this file directly as it can cause problems with
your Actinic application.
Why
not just email the orders straight to me?
There
are several reasons why we think this is a bad idea.
Reliability:
you will need access to a mail server in order to receive
orders, and then if the server goes down for any reason,
you will lose all record of the order
Security:
most email travels over the Internet in plain text and
could be read by anyone
Convenience:
Actinics method of downloading orders means that you
are in control of how and when orders are received and
processed.
Which shopping malls
can I add my shop to for increased traffic and promotion?
The following shopping portals will accept sites built
using Actinic software, subject to your compliance with
their additional requirements.
Simply go to these websites and submit your shop
for potential new customers to find:
www.shopnorth.co.uk
www.shoppingarcade.co.uk
www.shopsmart.com
www.british-shopping.com
www.ukshopsearch.com
www.i-stores.co.uk
www.we-have-it.com
www.shopping-village.co.uk
How can I set up customer accounts in Actinic Business?
With Actinic Business you can set up customer
accounts that allow your regular customers to log into
your online catalogue with a username and password. Your
customers will be presented with a personalised online
shopping experience which features their own prices, depending
on what price schedule they belong to, and Actinic Business
will also remember their name and address information.
When setting
up a customer account you can specify a range of address
information, create credit limits for different buyers
and choose whether you want the account administrator
to be informed via email of every purchase made by their
buyers on the site.
How
does Actinic Business handle different pricing structures?
Actinic
Business allows you to set up a range of price schedules
and then choose which customer accounts you wish to belong
to which price schedules. Also, Actinic Business can allow
you to create quantity-based discounts on each product
line, allowing a lower unity price if a customer orders
a higher quantity.
For
further information or any support issues, please call
using our freephone service on 0800 083 2077
Overview Examples FAQs |
