Need web design company that can handle a retail website (Seattle: fit in, sales)

[ukiyo-e]

I volunteer for a non-profit in Port Townsend that has a gift shop that sells about 3000 items, including specialty books and hardware. They have a store website, but they want to completely redo the site (and move it to a new hosting service) so that the web sales are connected to the Point of Sale system for inventory and informational purposes. For example, right now a customer has no idea when they submit an order if the item is even in stock, which requires an email back to them if it isn't, and results in a frustrated customer.

Does anyone have contact information for such a company in Seattle or thereabouts? I want to be clear that they DO NOT want a graphic arts-oriented web designer who "thinks" they can do the integration with the financial system; they want people (from a professional firm, ideally) who actually have successful experience doing such a job, with examples of functioning websites that can be evaluated.

Thanks in advance for any leads anyone can give me to pass on to the manager!

[hamellr]

A point of data to use in your interviews for new web designers.

Integration of your back office to a website is going to depend on what software is used. If it's standard database format, then it's pretty simple. If it's something like SAP, then there are (expensive,) front ends that will work. If it's something proprietary, then it's probably not going to happen.

[ukiyo-e]

Originally Posted by hamellr

A point of data to use in your interviews for new web designers.

Integration of your back office to a website is going to depend on what software is used. If it's standard database format, then it's pretty simple. If it's something like SAP, then there are (expensive,) front ends that will work. If it's something proprietary, then it's probably not going to happen.

Thanks for that tip. None of us are web design people so the more info like that we're aware of, the better. The inventory and pricing is all managed in-store by Quickbook's Point of Sale software, which is pretty common among small retail businesses, from what I can tell. So hopefully there's someway to integrate it with the web storefront.

I appreciate your input!

[hamellr]

Since you're using Quickbooks, you'll need to purchase web front end software for it. There are several products, but the biggest problem is that Quickbooks isn't the greatest software for what you want to do.

QuickBooks Inventory Management, QuickBooks Customer and Order Management, Synchronize QuickBooks: eCC Features looks to be one of the "better" solutions.

Once you have front end software though, any web developer can put a custom wrap around that to brand it to the rest of your website.

[ukiyo-e]

Originally Posted by hamellr

Since you're using Quickbooks, you'll need to purchase web front end software for it. There are several products, but the biggest problem is that Quickbooks isn't the greatest software for what you want to do.

QuickBooks Inventory Management, QuickBooks Customer and Order Management, Synchronize QuickBooks: eCC Features looks to be one of the "better" solutions.

Once you have front end software though, any web developer can put a custom wrap around that to brand it to the rest of your website.

Thanks for that info! I'll pass it along.

[Marjon11]

I'm no expert but our small company uses Quickbooks for inventory and accounting on the backend, and a shopping cart program called PDG Software on the front end. PDG is known to be one of the shopping cart software solutions that is most closely integrated with Quickbooks.

We don't do exactly what you are asking because we don't have the same inventory issues you have. We don't need to tell the customer that we have something in stock, because if we run out of something we just make more. But I do know that PDG is very well integrated with Quickbooks. They specialize in this integration.

Also, we've used a company called Hens Teeth Network to do custom fields and similar things in the PDG shopping cart. Here is their website.
Hen's Teeth Network - Expert Web Development & Hosting They've done good work for us.

You may need to put together a package like that. Find software that has the functionality you need, and they hire a company to customize it for your needs. The companies I list above have done good work for us. (Not cheap, however)

By the way, I lived in Port Townsend for 5 years. Great place.

Good luck.