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Based on the number of visits we saw from the review of GoDaddy’s hosting service, quite a few of you found my last article interesting. In case you haven’t read it, look for the tags ‘horrible, awful, disastrous, putrid, disgusting, nasty, slow, nightmare’ and you’ll be sure to find it.

We had a client who received major press attention late last week on the Ellen Degeneres show (TheHappyMovie.com). Prior to the show airing, the informational WordPress site had been migrated to a dedicated server with a nice set of specs that an ‘expert’ at GoDaddy had assured the client would be enough to handle significant sustained volumes of traffic. Of course when the time came, we saw the server repeatedly crash with only 200 or so active visitors at a given time (not a lot by web standards). Our team spent the better part of the day trying to resurrect it and monitoring it in case it was down or having trouble again. We’d optimized the machine to death in hopes of avoiding the issue, but it didn’t matter.

As the situation worsened, we realized that GoDaddy support and their hardware weren’t going to be of any use so we started pushing traffic to the client’s web store (features from and hosted by BigCommerce). Using social channels and other avenues we tried to get the word out that the main site was struggling and that it was a better option to visit the store directly, rather than going to GD’s informational areas.

A few great things were highlighted as differences between GoDaddy and BigCommerce.

1. Service, service, service. I had support from the BigCommerce team all the way through. Rather than getting a shoulder shrug (‘We’re not sure what’s going on but it looks like a latency issue’) like we did from GoDaddy, we had people on hand willing to help monitor the site / store performance. I even had contact with tech support and customer service on Saturday directly (not through some silly ticketing system). The difference this made to both the client and our team was enormous. Quick responses, around the clock, and an attitude of ‘you’re our client so we’ll take care of you’ that is absent with so many companies today.

2. Performance. The BigCommerce hosting plan more than beat expectations. If the service alone wasn’t worth the monthly charge (seriously, I’d pay $25 just to spend a little quality time with their tech / support team), I have the benefit of the hosting plan & server performance (not to mention the actual ecommerce software itself). With over 40,000 sustained visits I can’t count the # of times that Go Daddy crashed. BigCommerce? Not once. Zip, zero, zilch. I don’t think I even noticed a slow down when the show was airing in big markets.

All in, BigCommerce was a very bright light in a very stressful and disappointing situation (thanks to GoDaddy). Kudos to the team there. Definitely made me feel great about our continued partnership. If you want to take the time for a free trial, visit BigCommerce today.

Not sure if that title is too overstated or too understated. From where I stand right now, I feel like I should have an auto playing audio track screaming ‘NEVER EVER EVER EVER USE GODADDY FOR ANYTHING’ that yells at everyone who visits our site. In fact, we might just make it a company policy that we don’t accept people on Go Daddy’s hosting or Go Daddy’s domain registry.

Why?

How do I count the ways.

Let’s start with the very basic service of hosting. GoDaddy is cheap, but not that cheap. For shared hosting, dedicated hosting, etc you can easily find other companies that are competitive with their pricing. What baffles me is how they manage to run so many advertisements year round (and in the Super Bowl). At the rate at which they market, you’d assume hosting was 90% profit margins and the actual costs associated with it were minimal. Based on what I’ve seen of most data centers, that’s not the case. There is a huge hardware cost, huge power cost, and a lot of technician time that should be dedicated to operating a big hosting operation.

Of course, if the experience of my client today on a dedicated server recommended by a GoDaddy tech (or sales person) is any example, they obviously are running at a 90% profit margin, skipping the upgrades or investment in their hardware, and aren’t bothering with much actual technical support (personally, I think GoDaddy is actually all sales people and Danica Patrick, with not a single technical mind in attendance). As a result of their server, the site crashed repeatedly during a major promotional event. Based on the server specs, this shouldn’t be happening, so it tells me that this server / hosting was particularly poor. Of course that wasn’t in the sales pitch. Now if this was an extreme scenario, I probably wouldn’t be here, but I’ve seen more than one GoDaddy shared / dedicated / managed server take a dive on a shadow punch. Its extremely frustrating to have my theory proven correct (that they don’t actually spend their money on customer service, tech support, or hardware).

Next up we’ve got basic follow through. We had a customer order an SSL certificate with Go Daddy for their newly launched ecommerce site. What did Go Daddy provide? Rather than a 1 year long cert, the client received a 1 day long certificate. Brilliant Go Daddy! And then they tried arguing with them about the cost of getting the problem corrected.

Beyond that, we see constant issues with shared hosting being behind the curve in terms of software  / hardware performance, or unannounced changes in server configuration that impact site performance.

GoDaddy is close to the worst hosting company ever, in my opinion. Based on the experience with our clients, I wouldn’t put my worst enemy on it.

SaaS (Software as a Service) or Hosted eCommerce Stores:

By far and away, the largest customer segment for ecommerce shopping carts are people that end up purchasing a hosted ecommerce shopping cart. The names associated with ecommerce carts like these are probably as close to ‘household’ as you’ll find, and the companies behind those names spend a lot of money ensuring they’ll be seen more often. Leaders in this category include Volusion, Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento Go (we’re also partners with each of these carts). There are dozens of others, most of which aren’t worth mentioning, although we have been working closely with 3dcart as it seems to be providing a very solid product and has an excellent business plan guiding its growth.

eCommerce stores that are built on hosted platforms are typically managed by individuals, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and the occasional mid-sized business. Whereas other forms of ecommerce software might appeal to a more select demographic, hosted eCommerce stores are designed to appeal to as many people as possible. This is why you’ll commonly see them marketed on social networks, huge affiliate networks, and other very consumer oriented web properties.

Because of this mass market appeal, they’re some of the hardest to evaluate. If you visit any of their feature or pricing pages, you’ll find that in general, the monthly costs associated with each cart are within $5 of each other, the hosting services are good (not great), and the capabilities of the cart are all quite similar. On the surface level, these carts all appear to be very similar, which is why so many businesses try and abandon ecommerce efforts after a short period of time.

This post is designed to help you winnow out the losers and determine what cart is the most viable for you.

Differences that matter.

One of the most challenging parts of picking a hosted ecommerce website is feature overload. Because these companies are selling to a lot of people, they cram in a whole lot of generalized feature descriptions. On each of the major hosted shopping cart sites, you have a feature page that scrolls on forever with lots of stuff that sounds really nice! All of that might make it feel very easy to just pick a cart and go with it, but the key differences are usually the ones not talked about. In our experience the key differences come down to the company’s long term outlook, technology (hardware, not software), ease of use, marketability, feature availability, and customization.

Long Term Outlook- Because hosted platforms are essentially ‘rented’ space, you need to pick a solution that has a positive long term outlook. A company that has few clients, or inadequate funding won’t be able to introduce the features necessary to be competitive in the rapidly evolving web marketplace. They won’t be able to provide adequate customer support, technical support, or upgrades to their hardware (your server). A poor long term outlook means that your site dies with them and you’re left without data or with a failing operation.

Technology- We’re not talking about the actual web property itself. Increasingly important to today’s search engines and consumers is server performance. If their servers are all based overseas, well away from your audience than you will likely see a slower response time. If their servers are older, and built on outdated or under performing hardware than your at risk for significant downtime, spotty operation, or security issues.

Ease of Use- Because most of these platforms are geared towards small business or operations (less than 10 people), the ease with which you can manage the site represents a significant positive or negative. Learning to use something effectively requires time. If its confusing or awkward to use, that means more time is required, and also increases the likelihood of errors.  For small businesses that can’t afford a dedicated team to provide regular updates or changes, the software must be easy to use. Otherwise the shopping cart will show lower profitability than what it otherwise could. For some people, this actually kills the whole idea of running an ecommerce store in the first place.

The good thing with a lot of these ecommerce website solutions is that they provide free trials. Don’t get caught up in simply picking out a template that is attractive while you’re demoing an ecommerce store. Take the time to go through and actually try to manage it. You’ll only pick a template once, but you’ll constantly be updating products, helping customers with orders, analyzing store performance and creating promotions. Spend 99% of your time during the free trial doing things you would do daily.

Marketability- Let’s be honest, despite what the promotional banners say, working with a particular shopping cart does not guarantee overnight sales. Unless you’re a magician (not an illusionist, more of a Gandalf), it takes a lot of work to get customers to your store and to keep them coming. Shopping carts provide tools that improve their marketability and potentially give you a competitive advantage over your enemies. Look for important marketing features that will help you succeed earlier, and with less pain. Every ecommerce store should pay more than lip service to SEO, PPC (pay per click), social media, and various shopping networks. If the shopping cart doesn’t allow custom URL structures, doesn’t allow for easy implementation of important SEO factors like title tags, alt img tags, meta descriptions, etc, than pass. If you don’t have a social shop or some form of sharing tool, than pass. If you can’t export products to eBay, Amazon, Google Shopping, or others, definitely move with caution. Same thing goes for email marketing integration (this doesn’t mean they have their own newsletter feature- it should mean integration with more capable platforms like Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, etc).

Feature Availability- I know, I know, I just said that features aren’t all that. But there is one important thing to be attentive to with SaaS hosted ecommerce shopping carts. Are their features available to all of their customers OR are some features only available with more expensive plans or add on fees? I firmly believe that you should not have to pay more for features that already exist as part of a hosted platform. You’re paying a monthly fee and charging more for specific inclusions feels like usury to me.

Customization- Let’s face it. Hosted shopping carts can’t be everything to all people. They simply aren’t going to have every feature you might want (unless you’re very low on creativity). That means that at some point, you’ll want to customize. Whether its the look and feel, or the features, or the integrations, or the way information is processed, there’s going to be a moment when you’ll have a light bulb go off in your head and you want to do something unique with your ecommerce store. If your hosted cart resembles a jail more than a house, you’ll be disappointed.

Focus on these few things and you’ll find that a lot of carts fall away very quickly. Instead of hundreds of options, you’ll be narrowed down to five or six.

Attached here is our overall summary of the ecommerce shopping carts that we recommend. Please note that we are partnered with each company. Obviously this means that there are some carts we’ve chosen to exclude from mentioning. If you assume this means we’re biased, you’re absolutely right. We don’t want to work with shopping carts that don’t score well enough in the above factors because ultimately recommending those carts comes back to us. With any of these five carts, we’re confident you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

In the same manner, we are willing to test new carts. If you have someone you think that we should take a look at, please let us know. We typically will do a full evaluation of not only the posted sales materials but also through a trial store creation, customization work to the designs, and attempts at editing their functionality for more unique needs. You may find that we’ve already tested a cart and for good reason have decided not to recommend it. Coalition has reviewed dozens of other carts and found them lacking for one reason or another.

For a full write up on each with a side by side comparison, please contact us through the form above or by phone at 888.853.7280. Our teams are jointly based out of Seattle, Washington and Los Angeles, California.

Am I choosing the right ecommerce software?

When we are first working with a client, one of the initial questions we are asked is, “Am I choosing the right shopping cart for my business?” The fear of making the wrong decision is often a big source of stress for all of our potential clients.

With all of the spam / affiliate reviews that are posted all over the web, its almost impossible to get a straightforward, honest answer to this question. As a result a lot of people don’t make the right decision initially. They lose their initial investment of time and energy, and if they hired a designer they also lose valuable capital.

This post is designed to help you make the appropriate ecommerce software selection. Its not all encompassing, and its not a book, so if you have added questions please contact us and our team of developers and marketing professionals can help guide you further.

A Broad Overview of Shopping Carts.

Marketplace.

Its important to have a good understanding of the fundamental differences in ecommerce software before you start talking about specific platforms.

The very base level of the ecommerce world is sites that we refer to as ‘marketplaces’. These ecommerce marketplace providers include some of the most recognizable on the internet- eBay, Amazon, Etsy, and others. They have the lowest ‘barriers’ to entry in that all of your products and information are housed with them, and all of the templating, communication tools, and other features are also provided for you. Of course, these inclusions come at a price. By adding up the fees and other transaction costs, they are able to effectively monetize this service for everyone. Ultimately though, this transaction cost does reduce the profitability of this marketplace model for most businesses.  (Fees can reach costs upwards of 10% of revenue, depending on product type and services used with marketplaces).  Marketplaces can be a good first step when starting up your ecommerce venture. Because Amazon, eBay, and others already have domain authority and a customer base, you can ‘borrow’ off of them for your first few sales while your own site gains traction.

SaaS eCommerce Stores.

The next step up is perhaps the muddiest one. SaaS (software as a service) ecommerce carts are probably the most common online and are designed for people and businesses looking to make their first foray into online sales (or making less of a commitment to ecommerce). In most models, you pay a particular company a monthly or annual fee to use their programming and development to offer an ecommerce shopping cart to your customer. There are a number of large companies that offer these products and some of these carts spend a lot of money on advertising. Because these platforms also frequently use affiliate partnerships, you’ll find that most ‘reviews’ are fairly biased and don’t really provide an in depth analysis of a cart’s benefits (or flaws). Even developer partners can be risky to ask for recommendations because they often only work with one shopping cart and can’t accurately speak to what’s right for you. (Coalition Technologies is a development partner with 9 of the leading ecommerce options available today, but we’ll get to that later). In general, if a site focuses on comparing one shopping cart to another (Volusion vs. A, Volusion vs. B, Volusion vs. C) and features prominent links to sign up through their site, you’re probably looking at an affiliate partner (someone who makes a lot of money to get you pointed towards the “right” shopping cart). If the website designer that you’re talking to only talks about one shopping cart, than they may just have limited experience with other carts (so be careful there too).

Software as a service carts usually require that your site is hosted with them, and typically have some restrictions on the types of features and customizing that you can do. One of the most important things to consider with these carts is their long term viability. Don’t just focus on a shopping cart features or sales pages that are relevant now. Look at their parent companies, look at any financials, recent investments, or general ‘business health’ documents available. You are paying them for use of a service (and for hosting, technical support, feature upgrades, etc). IF THEY DON’T HAVE FINANCIAL SECURITY, YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO RELY ON THEM BEING COMPETITIVE FOR LONG.

These carts are generally built with features and content management systems that will appeal to the masses. They usually are more difficult to create specialized features within, are usually not capable of providing full business integration (accounting, warehousing, fulfillment, internationalization, CRM, etc), and are generally focused on ‘broad’ appeal for feature additions. This means that for most mid to large sized businesses they will quickly force limitations on direction and efficiency. But they also provide advantages in ease of use (again they are built to appeal to you, your Chamber of Commerce buddies, your grandmother, next door neighbor, and the high school dropout down the street).

Common SaaS platforms are Volusion, Shopify, BigCommerce, 3dcart, and Magento Go.

Open Source.

Now things are really getting interesting. When you leave the safety of the marketplace and have outgrown the confines of an SaaS shopping cart, the typical next step is moving to an open source shopping cart. This move is kind of like going from the zoo and into the jungle. Those wild animal noises that made your toddler giggle now seem startlingly more like dinner calls.

We don’t recommend going into an open source shopping cart on a small budget and we don’t recommend doing it without a lot of time dedicated to researching not only the cart, but the partner that will be developing it for you. Never work with an ecommerce developer who has not worked on a specific cart before. This is more true than anywhere else with the open source model of ecommerce software.

Open source shopping carts are fundamentally different than the other types of ecommerce software that we’ve discussed in that they are generally provided free of charge. Most companies behind OS shopping carts are either selling an upgrade later to an enterprise level, or they’re making money through other partnerships or advertising. The free of charge component means that there are no guaranteed updates, fixes, or support teams lingering around for you when you need them. Whatever happens to your store is completely up to you. Once that initial code batch is downloaded and installed, everything is in your hands. In case you hadn’t picked up on it yet, I want you to understand that the responsibility for maintenance, security, and upgrades largely falls to you.

So why bother with open source carts at all?

They’re the closest you can get to an enterprise level cart without paying outrageous licensing fees from SaaS companies or from major software companies. Because you have a lot of control you can take them and make them whatever you want.

I often use this analogy when describing the difference between SaaS and open source. In SaaS, you’re acting as a stylist. The software provided is a living, breathing, functional human being. You get to play dress up and change the hair color, add some color to the cheeks, and put on some trendy outfits. In open source carts, you’re given a box full of organs, cells, bones, and other matter that you get to take and make into a horse, dog, cat, dragon, human, or whatever. Styling something is easy (we all did it with our GI Joes, or Barbies) and creating a new life form is a bit more challenging  (but you can have a dragon)!

The undisputed leader in open source carts is the Magento Community edition. Now owned fully by eBay, Magento has been the long time leader in open source ecommerce (and a general leader in ecommerce software). It has a huge development community, lots of deployment ready plug ins and extensions, and a natural next step (the Magento Enterprise edition) if you grow rapidly. Behind them are a number of other carts like OSCommerce. Typically these carts struggle to survive because they can’t afford to reach a large developer community and find it challenging to get a way to monetize their cart that doesn’t alienate their base.

The biggest issue for most people considering eCommerce with an open source cart is the process of choosing a developer. I can’t tell you how many of our clients hired someone else and later regretted that decision. Eventually they found us, and we were able to help them along. But all in, the cost of making the first misstep limits their opportunity for growth early. Hire only experienced developers of particular open source shopping carts. Never get someone who is going to ‘learn’ as they go. This always (100% of the time) ends in disaster. Most broken shopping carts you see online are sites that were built by incompetent open source developers. More than any other ecommerce type (other than custom), the adage, “You get what you pay for” proves true. Spend $3k on an open source cart and you’re guaranteed to have problems.

Custom and Enterprise.

If you’re hitting seven figures a year with your current ecommerce store or have a successful traditional business, the most likely prescription for an ecommerce solution is custom or enterprise licenses.

These two types of ecommerce carts are harder to define since they can be so many things beyond simple product sales. Custom sites can be built to sell anything to anyone. They can integrate with nearly any other piece of software and can have as much or as little as you want. A good, fully custom ecommerce solution typically costs well into the six figures (conservatively $250,000 is not an unreasonable price to pay). BUT, these carts are the perfect reflection of you online and can be anything you want them to be.

Enterprise carts are the luxury vehicles of ecommerce. Typically the companies behind enterprise carts are the who’s who of software development. IBM, Oracle, Magento, and others, offer enterprise licenses. Much like the initial SaaS carts, enterprise licenses usually address hosting, customer service, support, security, features, and more. The key difference is at the level to which they follow through. Typically an enterprise license means you have a dedicated contact for support or service (not just a ‘live chat’ feature), managed dedicated hosting, security monitoring, as well as extensive add on software solutions for CRM, accounting, data management, inventory fulfillment, and more. A lot of time goes into ensuring that your cart never breaks, even as new features are introduced to the software. Enterprise licenses typically start at $15,000 (not including any development work) and go up from there. Again, its fully reasonable to expect your enterprise development to run upwards of $100,000.

In Conclusion.

That’s a pretty high word count, I know. But the information is valuable and I hope that you appreciate it. If you have follow up questions immediately, feel free to add a comment or give us a call. We’ll be building out a series of these posts that will inform you more on each of the cart types, whether or not a particular one is right for you, and what typical costs associated with work are. If you’d like to read on, visit Part 2 of Choosing an eCommerce Shopping Cart.

As I mentioned in the introduction, Coalition is highly unique as a digital marketing agency. We’re extremely experienced in the ecommerce sphere and have passed certification and testing with what we consider to be the leading ecommerce softwares. We test these shopping carts extensively and are constantly evaluating new comers for worth. If we find something we believe to be appealing, we’ll pursue development certification and will build several test carts to evaluate features and capabilities.

We have a team of just over 20 between our Seattle and Los Angeles offices, and hire selected developers internationally who are willing to work full time under direct supervision with our team in the U.S. We are experts at all things web related- SEO, PPC, social media, email marketing, PR, content production, video, etc. Our team works with small startups and major organizations, brands, and established corporations. From SaaS solutions to custom ecommerce, we’ve successfully completed a large number of projects.

With companies constantly vying to stay above their competition, it’s not hard to see why widespread social media network Pinterest has made such notable leaps and bounds. As social media networks are constantly growing, none quite match the obvious progression that Pinterest has shown in the last year. The invite-only content sharing outlet has quickly developed into the third most popular social networking in the U.S since its launch only 2 years ago. Only Facebook and Twitter hold leads over the company.

From January to February alone, Pinterest has seen a 50 percent gain in traffic.

Pinterest allows small businesses and large corporations alike to market products and services by publishing photos with hashtagged descriptions. Viewers can then “Repin” and “Like” the photo, which launches the photo into a vast audience and, hopefully, a growing chain of repins and likes.

It’s obvious that Pinterest is changing the way companies can interact with customers, as well as affect their industries. Now, efforts from businesses to gain a wider audience go beyond just viewing information on a wall. Companies can actually engage consumers by designing boards and promoting elements that intend to build brand loyalty and drive traffic.

Founded a few short years ago by a small company based out of West Des Moines, Iowa, Pinterest has successfully used its invite only model and sharing oriented development to reach this new threshold. Considering the size of recent social network IPOs you have to believe that Pinterest’s investors are going to be happy they got in when they did. LinkedIn, valued at close to $9 billion dollars after its IPO may serve as a valuable ‘measuring’ stick to determine what Pinterest is worth. Google + probably cost a whole lot more to build and continues to fall behind as other more creative SN site concepts launch.

Coalition Technologies’ most commonly used eCommerce platforms, BigCommerce and Magento, support this new social movement. Along with Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, viewers can share any product to any board via the “Pin It” button.

To see how Coalition Technologies can best use Pinterest and other social networks to contribute to your marketing campaign, contact us now!

Isabis Beauty Partners with Coalition Technologies

Isabis is a Namibian word meaning “something beautiful,” and something beautiful is exactly what Leila Njimoluh seeks to create by promoting worthwhile hair care products and practical information. Leila’s Isabis Beauty website is all about addressing the needs of ethnic women all over the world, though her site is specifically focused on customers in the United States and Europe.

But Isabis Beauty isn’t just about selling products. It’s about building a community where women can discuss ethnic hair care products, hairstyles and techniques in a positive and knowledgeable atmosphere. Creating this community was Leila’s dream, but having a dream is only the first step. Building an established, authoritative web company is a daunting task, and that’s where Coalition Technologies enters the picture.

Leila partnered with Coalition Technologies to bring her dream to fruition, and now Isabis Beauty is serving its mission of bringing people together and selling only the best ethnic hair care products, which promote hair growth and repair. Isabis also sells skincare products for a wide variety of complexions. In addition to shopping, visitors can view educational videos, read informative articles, upload their own videos and engage in productive dialogue with one another.

When she started out, Leila had only a few contacts and a wealth of knowledge about hair care. She now runs Isabis Beauty as a one-woman LLC. The site includes a regularly-updated blog, easy-to-navigate product pages and even a section where customers can share pictures of their own hairstyles with the world.

Whether you want to learn about new haircare lines, view braiding tutorials or receive hair regimen tips from experts, Isabis has you covered. Or maybe you want to try out a specialized conditioner made with garlic, or a hard-to-find hair treatment product enriched with bamboo. As you can see, Isabis Beauty is a hair care site like no other.

Coalition Technologies was responsible for the web design and development, as well as for entering informational content and creating product pages. We worked with Leila every step of the way to create the website of her dreams, one that even rivals some of the Internet’s largest hair care providers.

Initially, we sought to build her site using BigCommerce software, but upon learning of her desire to build a multilingual, multi-currency site, we decided that Magento was the better e-commerce solution. Now customers can view the site in English and French, and make purchases in either U.S. Dollars or Euros, depending on country of origin. We also added an interactive WordPress blog to the site, which makes it possible for Leila to easily update the site with news and videos on a regular basis.

Leila is ecstatic about the results that have come from her partnership with Coalition Technologies. After the launch of her site, she even sent us a card, balloons and fruit bouquet to express her gratitude. Now she continues to live her dream as new customers discover Isabis Beauty every day.

To have Coalition Technologies begin on your latest web project, contact us any time!

Stanton & Co.

Located just around the corner from Coalition Technologies, Stanton & Company is an innovative, full-service marketing and PR agency. Its agents serve clients in boutique sports and lifestyle verticals on an international level, cultivating them to be the best in their field.

Amy K. Stanton founded the company in 2006, after working as marketing director and account manager for many large campaigns, including Axe, Lipton, and NY2012. Her firm currently represents record-breaking alpinists, eight-year-old golf prodigies, accomplished female snowboarders, ESPN reporters, one very promising Chicago star chef, and so many more.

Stanton has formed partnerships with Fortune 500 companies like ABC, Coca-Cola, and Adidas. Stanton & Company is one of those companies that is completely over the moon for their clients. At Stanton & Co, they truly love what they do – and it shows.

Coalition Technologies developed a highly customized site on the WordPress CMS for Stanton. After consulting with S&Co about the site, the process was thoughtfully carried out by our web development experts. We incorporated critical SEO tactics to optimize the site’s marketing capability. Our social media professionals added a Twitter feed to every page on stanton-company.com, which S&Co uses to inform their clients, audience, and followers. Coalition’s custom search tool fits nicely with the clean aesthetic and delivers exact results time and again. After completely building the site, Coalition provided launch prep work, including server setup, software installation, and database migration.

With heavy social media, SEO, and development consulting, Coalition Technologies was able to create a successful, informational site for this LA PR firm.

If you’d like us to create a completely custom site for your business, contact us!

Birkdale Medicinals

Birkdale Medicinals provides naturally enhancing medications to men and women of all ages. Their most prominently sold ingredient is medicinal mushrooms. Products range in application from every day health issues to bone density loss and liver problems. Birkdale even has special medications for that pretty pet; these can be found at www.k9criticalcare.com – also a Coalition Technologies creation.

K9 Critical Care’s website stems off of Birkdale Medicinals. So it shares a visual format. K9 Critical Care also features a custom blog development designed on WordPress.

Coalition has designed a proactive site that makes it easy for people to shop at any time by way of nearly every payment method, as well as research and study everything that BirkMeds.com has to offer. The site was built on a BigCommerce platform because it allows the Birkdale Medicinals staff to easily navigate product details, purchases, and customer reviews.

BirkMeds.com is search engine optimized, so it can receive the most traffic and a significant return on their investment. It’s also conversion optimized, which means that Coalition Technologies makes every effort to turn everyday page viewers into long-term customers.

The site includes favicons that lead directly to their Facebook and Twitter pages; this is done to provide more audience outreach. The landing page features a jQuery slideshow and helpful links that lead to articles on Birkdale Medicinals’ human supplements and research, reviews from previous buyers, and money-saving coupons. Coalition uses colorful, custom styling to implement an attractive logo, landing page, and overall website.

To have Coalition Technologies start on your next project, contact us now!

Mirabella Beauty

With their products being sold across the nation, Mirabella Beauty did not have far to reach in order to create an online presence. Selling beauty products for cheeks, lips, and eyes, as well as producing high-quality, custom-made application tools, they have certainly mastered the art of makeup. Mirabella offers hundreds of products in over 1400 salons.

Having web design, development, search engine optimization and social media consulting carried out by Coalition Technologies was a great decision for this established marketplace leader.

When we were first approached by Mirabella, it was clear to us that they would need a much-needed revamp inside and out to generate a true return on their investment. Coalition began by migrating their Magento site to an improved server. Then, we started to implement much needed fixes and improvements to their designs, including changes to their home page, navigation, slideshows and banners, and more.

We created custom registration forms for wholesale, retail distribution, and salon professionals. Coalition web developers installed multiple plug ins for advanced promotional offerings, supporting retail sales through the site, a store locator, and more. The store has also been set up with multiple payment gateways.

Mirabella is an excellent example of Coalition Technologies’ success in social media consulting and graphic design work. Working in support of their social media manager, Coalition helped to create multiple Facebook contests with database support, ‘Like Us’ landing pages, and more. When we started work with them, their overall fan base and reach was less then 10% of what it is now. We’re happy to have been able to support that growth and offer valuable services whenever needed.

Mirabella was also an early adopter of video, successfully harnessing the power and audience of YouTube to draw attention to new product lines, partnerships, features, and more. Coalition’s supported them with a built in media gallery on their site, easily accessible from their home page. It stylishly allows the customer to view multiple videos in an easy to digest format. Best of all, its easy to update.

To get a brand new look for your website, give us a call.

3dcart Design Partner

For over ten years, Gonzalo Gil, founder of 3dcart, has led a team that has completely simplified creating and maintaining ecommerce sites. Large-scale companies like Blue Diamonds, Bubba Gump, and The New York Times have turned to 3dcart for an easier way to run their online businesses.

With 3dcart, people can build a custom website, market their efforts, and watch those efforts grow.

Many features are  self-explanatory for any user level and totally adaptable to the exact type of products you want to be marketing. For instance, there’s the Picnik Image Editor, which allows you to professionally edit any uploaded image. There’s also a social bookmarking tool, so you can easily direct any product or promotion to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Digg, etc.

By purchasing a plan valued at more than $35, businesses can have free, customizable mCommerce layouts. According to webs.com, 49% of Smartphone owners have made at least one purchase via their phones within the last six months. This means that 3dcart has allowed businesses to access half of all Smartphone users with customized business apps.

3dcart monthly prices range from small to corporate level. 3DX allows you to completely customize any number of features and operational scenarios. So they’re allowing you to not only have your choice of features, but also price. Too good to be true for someone who’s never exactly run their own online business.

We’re not crazy about templates, but we do enjoy developing completely custom designs for our clients, which 3dcart allows. Clients can start from a very basic template and insert HTML and CSS coding as desired.

3dcart offers literally hundreds of options in areas varying from promotion and marketing to hosting and security. There are over one hundred order and shipping processing features, and they make it easy to see how well a particular business is doing practically by being able to evaluate exactly how well each individual product is doing.

If clients are still not catching on to the easy-to-navigate 3dcart.com and step-by-step demo video, 3dcart also offers customer support via phone, web, training videos, tutorials, and forums 24/7.

At Coalition Technologies, we have the best ecommerce developers. They are always striving to maintain a broad range of knowledge in ecommerce platforms and their particular features. What is easiest for businesses that have more or less experience in using an ecommerce platform? Who is helping them to reach their full business potential with the least amount of maintenance from the online merchant? Which platform is going to allow us to produce the best web design for our clients, but still challenge our developers to be learning new techniques and possibilities?

There’s nothing more frustrating than a business owner putting a ton of time and energy into an ecommerce website that’s confusing and difficult to market. We believe that 3dcart, partnered with Coalition Technologies, has what it takes to help create and maintain an effective online presence at an affordable price.