One of the main stumbling blocks for e-commerce has been the cost of building a transactional site - both in time and in technology requirements. The provision of servers and leased lines, the design, creation and ongoing management, are all issues that have led to in-house brainstorming and time-consuming discussion for many companies when e-commerce should, in fact, be a marketing as opposed to an IT issue.
Cue Shopcreator, a software suite that has been developed to lower the barriers to e-commerce, enabling any business to establish a fully featured e-commerce enabled trading site. Companies or individuals can set up their own Web sites and start online trading within one day of registering. Shopcreator's service also takes care of registration with search engines and security for credit card transactions for its clients.
Shopcreator is the first generation of server-based applications whereby software is rented as opposed to purchased, and is the brainchild of UK-based SDL, which provides e-commerce "plumbing" tools that can be used to create and manage e-commerce Web sites for a variety of industry sectors, from small and medium enterprises through to large corporates.
Established in 1998, the company has consistently aimed to reduce the complexity of e-commerce and produce tools specifically for companies with little or no experience of Internet or programming languages. SDL currently has an installed base of over 450 e-commerce stores.
The Shopcreator software suite is accessed through a Web browser at www.shopcreator.com. This site is continuously updated, with latest revisions and updates available online. Once a trader has registered with Shopcreator, software upgrades are provided free of charge.
Speed and reliability of the servers is provided through a multiple redundant Internet backbone based on Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI). Scalability is provided by balancing the load on the individual servers clusters - publishing and Web site management on one cluster, building on another cluster, and database accesses on a third. Additional performance requirements can be serviced by simply adding one or more servers to the network.
"Traditionally, traders and merchants that have traded online have had to install a lot of costly hardware and software," says Allan Bennet of Shopcreator SA. "Shopcreator has opened up an entirely new e-commerce distribution system. All that a merchant needs to set up and maintain a Web storefront is a Web browser - meaning that almost anyone can trade online."
The Shopcreator software suite includes Shopcreator Store which can manage 200 000 product pages and contains a comprehensive three-level index system, and a full check out and shopping cart system, Shopcreator Stall which is limited to 10 product pages and is both quick and easy to set-up, Shopcreator Display which allows traders to build single page Web sites quickly and easily, and Shopcreator Cart which adds e-commerce functionality to Web sites. Cart also includes a check out and shopping trolley facility and provides an option of online payment clearance in multiple currencies.
SDL is the winner of the 1999 British Computer Society's IT Award, which recognises excellence in UK information technology projects and is based on a combination of factors including innovation, benefits to society and to business, cost savings and user acceptability.
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