As the world adapts to life in various states of lockdown due to Covid-19, businesses all over the world have had to adapt. Many that have closed their doors to customers have decided that it’s finally time to move online. Many small businesses were already online with simple websites, but many were missing one key thing: e-commerce. There was no way for their customers to order online – for delivery or for click & collect.
This is mostly because e-commerce is perceived as ‘hard.’ You need a cart system; you need an SSL, you need a payment processor, etc. – most business owners hear those phrases and tune out. Not worth the trouble.
The problem is that e-commerce is very much worth the trouble. Your customers are already used to the idea of ordering anything online, and they’re going to expect it from you too. On a local level, customers are generally loyal, and in this challenging time, they also want to be civically responsible. By giving them a way to order online, you’re scratching that itch.
That’s why Blacknight is releasing a brand new product; our solution to make e-commerce simple: shopBuilder by Blacknight.
shopBuilder makes it painless to set up an e-commerce section on your existing website. It integrates with your current website – whether it’s built on WordPress, HTML, Joomla, Drupal, Wix, etc. – shopBuilder drops right in, takes the look of your website and creates a seamless checkout experience for your valuable customers. You’ll be selling online in minutes once you get everything set up.
When you set up your online store in shopBuilder, you’ll have a dashboard where you can easily add products, see sales, check on orders, export to your shipping software – there’s endless flexibility to make sure you can integrate your new online store with your existing operations. It handles checkout, emails, security, payment processing – everything you need to sell online.
You don’t even need to set up a shipping or fulfilment operation either, if you only want to offer click & collect, you can set that up with shopBuilder as well – no need to post anything. Just let customers place their orders on the site, and then they can come to collect it when it’s ready.
How it works
Once shopBuilder is set up, you’ll get access to a dashboard that you can access from your web browser or on your mobile phone. From there, you can add products, your logo, product pictures, set up shipping, and do everything you need to do to set up your store. You can customise how it looks so that it matches your look and branding. Once your store is set up in shopBuilder, you simply need to integrate it with your website’s platform to have your shop online.
For Example, if your website runs on WordPress, just download the free WordPress plugin and then log in to your shopBuilder account and you’ll be ready to go in minutes. Same with Drupal, Joomla, Wix, baseKit and pretty much any other web platform. If you don’t have a website, we can build one for you with our new We Build It For You service – full details here.
How you can do e-commerce
The biggest component of selling online that you’ll need for shopBuilder to work is a merchant account to take credit card payments. ShopBuilder works with all the major credit card processors, including Paypal and Stripe. More than likely, you already have a merchant credit card account with your bank, so you just need the details from them to set it up with shopBuilder. shopBuilder handles the SSL, PCI Compliance and the security you need for your customers to checkout securely.
Where You Can Sell?
With shopBuilder, you’re not limited to selling on just your own website. It also makes it easy to sell on Facebook, Instagram, Esty, eBay, Google, Amazon and many more platforms. It allows you to sell wherever your customers might be.
ShopBuilder Plans
We’re offering several different options depending on the size of your business.
- The shopBuilder Starter plan allows you to sell up to 100 products, sell on Facebook, Instagram, Etsy, and on mobile. The starter plan costs €9.99 a month or €99 a year.
- The shopBuilder Professional plan allows you to sell up to 2500 products, including everything in the Starter plan but also allows you to sell on Amazon and eBay for €19.99 a month or €199 a year.
- The shopBuilder Unlimited plan includes everything in the Start and Professional plans but allows unlimited products. It costs €49.99 a month or €499 a year.
Irish shopBuilder Example
Featuring hand-crafted goods from County Wexford, Creative Crafts have recently gone online with a shopBuilder website. They’ve pivoted to selling beautiful, high-quality facemasks for Irish customers. They have many different designs available in varying sizes for men, women, teens, and children. They also have a free pattern so you can make one yourself! For an example of shopBuilder in action, check it out here.
Grow Beyond Retail
Not only will shopBuilder get you selling online, but it will also give you the tools you need to market online. It will help you set up ads on Google, Facebook, and other platforms to sell. It will allow you to create discounts and promotions, and then advertise those as well. You can set up simple email marketing to communicate with your customers or integrate it with the big email platforms like Mailchimp and ConstantContact. ShopBuilder will help you all along the way and provide clear instructions on how to do all these things. It doesn’t just get your products online, it becomes your central online marketing hub to help you grow your business.
Interested in selling online? Then head on over to the new shopBuilder page on the Blacknight website to learn more and get in touch with our sales team. You’ll be selling online in no time!