How do I easily create my online store?
ShopZone comes with a Windows application that allows you to completely build and test your website on your local computer before publishing the web pages and databases to your web hosting account. The advantages are many in that you can build your website before actually purchasing a web hosting account, there is no need to wait on internet delays to update web pages, and maintenance can be performed without an internet connection (while traveling) and uploaded later. Most importantly, you aren't locked into any individual web hosting company and can publish virtually anywhere.

Does ShopZone come with the Hosting Account?
ShopZone is a stand alone ecommerce product that is separate from the web hosting account. However, the ShopZone 10-Product sampler comes free when you purchase a qualifying moonSlice web hosting account.

Can I Host at my Current ISP?
We suggest you host with a company like moonSlice, which has already been configured and tested. But any hosting account may be suitable for ShopZone as long as it meets the minimum requirements of FTP access, CGIBIN capabilities, and an SSL (HTTPS) server that can share the same directories as the HTTP server. The server operating system must be either Windows NT/2K, Linux, or FreeBSD.

Is ShopZone fully customizable?
ShopZone is completely customizable as the web pages are all standard HTML. Additionally, the source code for all of the scripts that run a ShopZone website comes with the product allowing programmers to add new features.

What HTML editors work with ShopZone?
All ShopZone pages are pure HTML so FrontPage 98, FrontPage 2000, Dreamweaver and many other professional page editing tools will work with ShopZone. ShopZone comes with a basic WYSIWYG HTML editor that is suitable for a beginning novice that isn't using any sophisticated HTML features. However, we recommend you continue to use whichever tool you are already using to edit HTML pages or invest in FrontPage or Dreamweaver for serious developers.

How do I get my products into ShopZone?
You may enter each product individually into ShopZone using either the windows store building interface or import your products from any ODBC compliant source such as Excel or databases like FoxPro or Access.

Can products or categories be put on sale?
Yes! Individual products and entire categories or products may have sale prices defined. The sales have a starting and end date, fixed or percentage discounts, and quantity discounts for products. If there are any conflicting sales the best discount will always be given. Additionally, a group discount can be defined to offer special discounts to certain registered users.

How do I sell to both customers and wholesale resellers?
ShopZone provides a customer registration and login feature which can be used to register all of your resellers and then add them to a reseller group. The wholesale customers will then get any defined group discounts upon subsequent login and purchases.

What about Inventory Tracking?
ShopZone has optional inventory tracking that may be enabled per product. The inventory tracker will send a reorder email notification when a product drops below the reorder quantity. When inventory tracking is enabled for a product that is out of stock ShopZone won't allow customers to buy any more until you increase the on-hand inventory quantity.

Does ShopZone support other credit card processing options?
Yes, ShopZone supports several other payment processing options. Don't sign up for other online payment processing services without first consulting with your moonSlice Account Representative to make sure we can currently support the payment processor you've chosen.

What about online store administration with ShopZone?
ShopZone provides a wealth of online administration interface that allows you to maintain your store, review and download orders, add new product categories and add new products complete with images and ShopZone will even generate thumbnail images by itself! Additionally, you can create product sales, put entire categories on sales or create special group discounts that are only for registered customers that you add to that group.

What about Purchase Orders and payment by mail?
The ShopZone payment methods are flexible allowing new options to be entered that don't perform credit card validation. A list of options can be specified allowing orders to be placed using purchase orders, send payment by mail, or any other payment method that doesn't require real-time processing.