Our offerings in the area of e-commerce are dependent on the natue of your intended web-based business, and upon how you want your web site's design to relate to that business.

If your primary aim is to have a web store that provides a great deal of descriptive material (both text and images) about your business and that enables you to sell no more than around 20-25 distinct items, then we can provide a custom design with integrated shopping cart that supports electronic payments. This approach is usually best suited to a small business that is solely web/home based with an easily managed product inventory. Once a site of this type is deployed, management of the web product pages would be performed by Light Weaver on a regular or per-hour maintenance basis. The development cost for this kind of web site is partially dependent on the number of items that will be offered; costs will include a charge of $70 for the first product and $20 - $35 for each additional product. For more information on web design costs, please see our "Web Services Costs" section.

If your objective is to have a web store that is capable of organizing and handling hundreds of products, with the ability to easily offer "specials", coupons, multiple shipping options, shopping statistics, shopper "accounts", etc., then we recommend a system named "Zen Cart™". Zen Cart™ is an ideal solution for the merchant who currently has a "brick-and-mortar" store and who wants to expand that store's sales reach to the Internet community. Once installed and configured, Zen Cart™ is designed in a way that allows the client to manage all aspects of the web store without further reliance on a web design professional. For this type of client, Light Weaver will do any or all of the following:

• perform all Zen Cart™ installation on the hosting service chosen by the client (please see the bottom of this page for the server requirements for Zen Cart™ operation; if you are uncertain as to whether your server meets these requirements, please contact us and we will find out for you)
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• tailor the Zen Cart™ interface to reflect the client's business image (colors and logo, with logo to be provided to Light Weaver by the client in digital form)
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• configure the shipping and payment sections according to the client's specifications and preferences
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• install the first two products in the client's new web store - to serve as examples for additional product installation by the client
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Once these installation and setup activities have been completed, Light Weaver will consult with the client as required (either as part of a comprehensive annual web maintenance agreement or on a per-call hourly charge basis) regarding Zen Cart™ operation.
Your cost for having us install and configure Zen Cart™ on your web server will range from $200 - $600, depending on how many of the above services you would like us to do for you, the complexity of the two product offerings that you want us to install, and upon the number of shipping and payment options that you want us to configure).

Please click HERE or on the "Demo" link (under "E-Commerce" on the right) to see a "fully stocked" example of a Zen Cart™ web store. This example will give you a good idea of the way that Zen Cart™ can organize your web store and of the breadth of product and advertising options that you can employ. Everything that you see in the demonstration store can be configured by you in your web store with no knowledge of web design or programming (the exception being the background colors and the logo).

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Minimum/suggested server requirements for Zen Cart™:

• PHP 4.3.2 or higher (PHP 4.4.x for optimal performance)
• Apache 1.3.x
• MySQL 3.2.x or higher
• Register Globals may be on or off, safe_mode off recommended
• Optional, but HIGHLY recommended: either a shared or dedicated security certificate