Sample Shopping Websites

The goal of building sample shopping websites is to show people how the programming works. Our samples were never intended to show anyone what design they had to use with their website because any website design is possible.

What is not always possible is changing how the programming works and what it can do.

If a shopping cart program has an affiliate program like our does, then you have the ability to run an affiliate program. If a shopping cart has wholesale capabilities, then you have the ability to sell to wholesalers at different prices.

Now if they programming does not have that ability, you are stuck with what you have or you have to hire programmers to modify the code and create those features.

In some cases, shopping carts can be tens of thousands of lines of code and can't always be modified to do what you need unless they were designed to do that when they were built.

When programs are modified by anyone other than the original programmer mistakes are very common, because they don't fully understand the hundreds of pages of code and what elements are dependent on other elements to function. If just one line of code is modified it could impact hundreds of different functions and render the program useless.

I am not trying to give you a lesson in programing here, but trying to get people to understand modifying programming is complex and involves risk.

While modifying website designs is very simple and easy and involves no risk to the functionality of a website.

So we want people to look at the samples and see how things work and not necessarily how they look.

But that is easier said than done.

The problem we have with almost everyone is that they think they are stuck with one of the designs we show in the samples. But the truth is any website design they have ever seen online is possible to create.

The hardest concept for people to grasp is if they can't see it right in front of their face, they don't understand how it is possible. But every website you see online is possible, in fact someone did build it,because you see it.

The most difficult challenge we face as a website hosting company is making people understand possibility and have vision for their website design..

In real life when designers build homes or cars, they make a few models and sell those same models to everyone. But in the Cyber world, that is not how it is done, every website can be built with unique elements, different graphics and features.

So no 2 websites need be the same, ever!

Can you image what the Internet would be like if every host made you choose one of 5 designs for your website? Why would anyone use it? Every website would be almost exactly the same.

But as you know, the Internet does not look the same. Websites are different and this notion that you can only have what other people have on a host is just not true.

We have lost customers for the most ridiculous reasons such as:

• The back ground of my page is the wrong color, so I have to leave pageBuzz.

• I want my title space to change and have different text, so I have to leave pageBuzz.

• I only have 9 photos on a page and I want 20, so I have to leave pageBuzz.

• My website designer says they can't upload my design, so I have to leave pageBuzz.

• I need a slideshow and you don't have the right images in the clip art gallery, so I have to leave pageBuzz.

Now any of these problems can be corrected in one or two clicks. There is certainly no reason to leave because our clip art gallery does not have the right images when you can upload any image you want from any resource anywhere.

There is certainly no reason webmaster would not be able to install their design unless they are incompetent and just don't know what they are doing and in those cases, we do offer free support so they can be shown what to do.

But people are just so focused on the finished product they have no clue how to get to it and are unwilling to try. So they move from one host to another hoping things are different, hoping that new host has the right design they want and it will solve their problems.

Ultimately, most do come back to pageBuzz.com because:

• we have the right programming

• the best online shopping system

• page building tools

• image management tools

• an ecommerce platform that works best

Once the get all the moves and changes out of their system they call us and ask for help and we give them what they are after.

Now if they had called months ago, all the work, expense and frustration could have been avoided.

Once people realize that the website design is not at all a function of the host and we just host the files, they finally understand the sample websites.

Unfortunaltely for us, the new customers looking at the samples, they either like them or they don't and when they don't they look elsewhere for a sample they do like and host with that company in spite of less resources, no support and a lousy ecommerce platform.

As a people we are driven by visual stimulus, we are motivated by what we see and how it makes us feel. That is why sports cars are painted red and trucks and vans are mostly white. Red makes us feel fast, fun and dangerous while white is a safety color and not threatening.

I wish building sample ecommerce website was just that easy, but it is not.

People want to see stores with the same products they sell.

It is painful to have those discussions because a store is the same store no matter what items you stock on the shelves. But for some reason, people cannot see that, they have to see their items to see if they like it.

In part, the problem comes from the simplicity of creating a website. Anyone can build one, anyone can have one and not everyone is a business minded individual, so they can't envision turning a blank space into their own store. Where as the experienced business owner know they have to use a blank space to get something unique and make money.

Even though we have one of the top ecommerce platforms online and it is the least expensive of all the cart options with our features we still get comments like these:

• I see you host car dealers, I am not a car dealer so I need to use another website host.

• Do you host any websites that sell fishing lures? If not i need to use another host.

• Do you host any other websites that sell Cigar Box Puses? If not I need another website hosting company.

• Do you host any websites that sell jewelry, if not I need to find another host.

Now come on people, just because we don't have a website that sells what you sell does not mean our multi million dollar shopping system can be loaded up with your products.

That is as ridiculous as asking the post office if they ever ship boxes that have the same products as you sell and if not you have to find another way to ship them.

If you can pack it in a box, the post office can ship it.

If you can sell it, you can sell it using the pageBuzz shopping cart.

And any notion that if someone else has not done it first is just crazy. How would anything get done if nobody could be the first one to set up a website selling a new product?

So as we build a handful of ecommerce sample websites to show the functionality of our programming we have to think about what potential customers think about the designs.

It is just not possible for us to build 1000 samples for every market and when we did build over 1000 templates people complained that it was too many to look through.

Seriously! First that ask for diversity then when we give them what they ask for, they say it is just too much work to go through 100 pages of temples.

So now, we try to do everything from a custom level. We try to give each new customer what they want, what they like and what they think they need. We try to build a unique design for each store so they have a great look and feel and the pages match their products.