CompleteCart - Thin Air’s eCommerce Solution

The CompleteCart eCommerce system is Web software (SaaS) that is designed to make it easy for small- to medium-sized businesses to create and manage ecommerce storefronts. This package is a complete, integrated system that allows anyone with a web browser to build, edit, and maintain an ecommerce web site.

CompleteCart puts you, the merchant, in control of your Internet storefront. Your storefront is your own; the software behind your storefront that makes it all work, is CompleteCart. The system’s site-building tools allow you to edit the content of your site: add, change and delete products, update your home page and other information pages, and more.

CompleteCart offers a full set of site- and content-management features, including:

Full control over ALL site content. Everything is editable using a web browser.

Control over your site’s “outline”: organization of your products into departments and department groups.

Editable site and page “meta” tags to optimize search engine indexing of your site.

Unlimited “extra” content pages that can contain text and pictures.

Tools to manage a list of links to other web sites.

CompleteCart also offers a full set of administrative features, including:

Complete site statistics tracking and auditing

'Contact Us' form and supporting database

Order processing, including optional real-time credit card transactions

Inventory tracking

Invoice and Packing Slip printing

Sales tax management

Shipping charge management

Coupon generator

Content Management Systems (CMS) like CompleteSite, have revolutionized the building of web sites, and allowed millions of non-programmers to build their own sites. However, e-commerce web sites are far more complex and require an integrated approach to eCommerce.

A typical web site consists of a series of unchanging (“static”)web pages that people simply browse. The only interaction between the user and the web site is the browsing of pages (like reading a book).

An e-commerce web site, on the other hand, must be able to have a “conversation” with the customer. The site must be “smart” enough to know about colors, sizes and styles of products; be able compile items into a “shopping cart”; be able to track inventory; allow searching; be able to collect complete information about a customer’s order, and do all of this reliably and securely.

CompleteCart software manages the technical details of the “conversation” between the web site and customer, and lets you, the merchant, focus on managing what you want to sell, and communicate with your customers through the information on your web site.

Simply put, a customized site can look however you want it to: there are few limitations. However, before deciding to pursue a customized site design, you should be certain that CompleteCart’s standard template is truly insufficient for the look and/or features that you want from your ecommerce storefront.

Customization of a CompleteCart web site involves a thorough consultation and graphic design process. We first meet with you to discuss aesthetic and functional ideas for your site. Then we develop a design direction for your site, in the form of a of site “mockup” which is reviewed and discussed. From this discussion, a “final” site design evolves. Then the custom design is turned into code and integrated with the CompleteCart software.

The cost of creating an original site design and customizing a CompleteCart web site ranges from $2000-$4000.

Here are a couple of site examples:

The bottom of every product page on a CompleteCart site has an “Order On-Line” panel, where the customer can select the quantity and color/size/style (if applicable) of product they want to order, and click a button to add the item to their on-line Shopping Cart.

If the merchant has enabled on-line inventory management, CompleteCart will warn the customer if they are ordering something in a color/size/style combination that is out-of-stock. The Shopping Cart allows the customer to review at all the items in an order, and view the subtotal. Items can be deleted from the order, or the quantities adjusted.

Completing an Order

When your customer is satisfied with the order, they proceed to secure on-line checkout. At this point, the connection between the customer and your web site is encrypted, so it is impossible for anyone to intercept confidential customer and credit card information.

In an easy-to-understand series of screens, the customer’s billing, shipping, and payment information arecollected. CompleteCart software automatically calculates sales tax and shipping costs to create the order’s grand total. Then an order summary / completion screen is displayed to the customer.

After a customer completes an order, they receive a copy of their order summary by email. The merchant also receives an order confirmation by email. These order confirmation emails contain all the order details, but do not contain confidential information, such as credit card numbers. This information remains on the secure CompleteCart server, and can only be accessed through an encrypted Web browser connection.

Now it’s time for the merchant to start processing the order. CompleteCart’s administration tools are designed to help the merchant complete a customer’s order with a minimum of hassle.

Order Processing
Upon receiving an order confirmation, the merchant goes to the Administration web site to manage the customer’s order. Because of the confidential information stored on the server (credit card numbers), this connection is encrypted for security.

All the information about the customer’s order (and other pending orders) is available in the Order Management area of the merchant’s CompleteCart Administration Web Site.

On the Order Management screen, the merchant clicks on a customer’s order number to view a summary of theorder. The merchant checks off all items in the order that are in stock and shippable. Any items that are unchecked will remain on the merchant’s back-order list, and can be invoiced and shipped later on. On this screen, the merchant can also substitute other items for out-of-stock items in the order.

Invoicing
Once the items that will be sent in this shipment are checked, and any substitutions are made, the merchant proceeds to Invoicing.

On the Invoicing screen, the merchant can review the subtotal, sales tax, shipping, and total cost of the selected items in the order. Any adjustments to item prices, shipping, etc. can be made on this screen.

If on-line credit card billing has been enabled through Authorize.net or a similar service, the customer’s credit card is automatically charged after the invoice is completed.

From the Invoicing screen, the merchant can also print a copy of the invoice to enclose with the order, or to mail separately to the customer.

Shipping / Packing Slips
After invoicing, the merchant proceeds to the Shipping / Packing Slip Screen. On this screen, the merchant can enter tracking information for the package(s) they are shipping to the customer, as well as any comments the merchant would like to make to the recipient of the package. If the customer entered a “gift message” for the recipient when checking out, this message is included on the Packing Slip.

This screen can be used to print a packing slip for the merchant. This printout is in a format designed to be folded-over and placed in a clear pouch on the package, to serve as a combination shipping label and packing slip.

After the merchant confirms shipment on this screen, a shipping confirmation email is sent to the customer. At this point, if the shipment contained all the items in the original order, then order processing is complete.

For most types of Internet sales, it is important to be able to charge a customer’s credit card, and ship their merchandise as quickly as possible. However, CompleteCart’s shopping cart also supports payment by check. If a customer chooses this option, they can print the order summary after they complete their order, and mail it in with payment.

All of CompleteCart’s management tools are still available to help you manage the customer’s order after you receive a customer’s payment by check.

The CompleteCart system supports both manual and automatic charging of customer credit cards. Most CompleteCart merchants choose automatic processing, through the use of a payment gateway. Your customer's personal information is not stored, but passed directly to your chosen credit card processor, capturing confirmation and transaction information, and passing funds directly to your specified accounts.

Any time confidential information is exchanged between the customer and a CompleteCart web site, the connection is encrypted using industry-standard 128 bit SSL encryption.

This “security certificate” is built into the CompleteCart shopping cart, so you don’t have to go through the hassle and expense of obtaining a custom SSL Security Certificate for your own domain name, which can take weeks and cost hundreds of dollars.

Any collection of CompleteCart sites can be grouped together into a “virtual mall”. This allows a customer to browse all the stores in the virtual mall, place items from any of these stores into a single shared shopping cart, and check out ONCE for all their merchandise. This is a great feature for Ecommerce entrepreneurs who want to maintain many different storefronts, and cross-sell merchandise between them.

A hands-on training session is part of your site setup process. After your site is up and running, we’ll give you as much additional training and support as you need. We want you to be confident and comfortable selling on the Internet and administering your own ecommerce storefront.

Give us a call to discuss your ideas for selling on the Internet. We’ll give you a complete, interactive demo of how the CompleteCart system works, and answer any further questions you may have.

Thanks for taking the time to consider CompleteCart software for your ecommerce web site. We look forward to serving your Internet software and web design needs. Please call or email if you have any questions.