It is a service that allows Nigerian brand to get a managed website/online store.
The target market is all them semi-full-time bag/shoes/clothes/bead makers.
I hope to later aggregate the products on all these platforms and put them on a joint marketplace (working on that already).
No site is live yet. However, some are already in demo.
Usually, the sites in demo are visible only to the site administrators but the following links will bypass that.
Please take a look at the sites currently in demo and give your feedback.
Good solution to e-commerce folks, yeah. But is the N1000 per month cost infinite? If it is, it won’t make sense from a cost point of view to pay for a site every month when one can get one designed at a full cost as low as N20,000.
the idea of having my site hosted on another site is somewhat disturbing. It follows that if the host has a problem, it directly affects me. How do i know for sure that the site is strong enough against any form of cyber attack. Personally, i will fell held at ransom.
True @xender. I would feel so too. However, this is meant for people who are not tech savvy enough to even know how to prevent themselves from a cyber attack or would rather leave it in the hands of others.
It may not be suited for people like you. Who may want to write custom code, pick their preferred webhost.
Many of these people don’t even know how to judge a reliable host, a good web developer, protect from payment fraud, e.t.c.
The only way for me to make sure that everyone is safe, is to be in total control.
There are numerous options to customise the site to the look and feel of the particular brand so it dosen’t look generic and copied. but the technical aspect is completely ours. That may be restircting, but it is necessarry before the carelessness of one individual puts eveybody at risk
Poor design: The waste of real estate (spacing between elements), color implementation, the logo (really?). The overall design is lacking. It looks like a site IE 5.0 will have no problem rendering. Please modernize it.
The sign up process is lengthy and confusing: The form asks for a site address, yet your domain name is shown, what’s the connection? I still can’t figure out how to access the site I just created, neither have I received any e-mail with steps to get started.
While logged in, I still have “Get your site” and “Checkout” in the top menu. You’re also missing terms of service and a privacy policy.
These are some companies in the same space competing globally (for UX/design inspiration):
We also have local versions like Yudala, Konga, Kaymu, uAfrica, etc - do you have a competitive advantage? Why should I give you N20,000 with no guarantee that an item will be sold?
Do you currently host your site on servers in your premises? That’s like saying you don’t like the idea of someone else preparing your food, and you’re not a farmer.
It might also be possible that I don’t understand what you’re implying.
Ok. Thank you for taking time out to go as far as signing up. I really appreciate it.
I will improve the overall design of the pages. I realize that it does not look as good as it should.
The reason why it shows that way is that the initial domain giving will be something like http://proudly.com.ng/yoursite. A custom domain can be used if the user chooses.
No site is yet accessible because it has not yet been created. This process has to be done manually and is not yet automated. I will include an auto email to explain this on signup. Thanks for pointing that out.
When logged in at your own site, a lot more options will be available. The auto email should really explain this better.
I believe there is a competitive advantage because as far as I know, the global platforms are mostly too costly for a feature rich site. Plus this offers even more than the feature rich ones.
For konga and kaymu, you cannot create a standalone website with it and run the risk of loosing your customers to people on the same website, you cannot customise to your need, cannot properly continue customer relations after transactions. (It’s konga that takes their mails for their campaigns and not you).
I make it clear to anyone that I invite to try it that while we set up the website, we do not guarantee traffic. Traffic is up to the owner.
What we can do is.
Put sharing buttons on all products,
set up online payments and auto shipping calculation so this isn’t manual.
Pass your emails through reliable SMTP so it does not go to spam.
Allow you sell through your Facebook page
Make the website beautiful, fast and responsive, make sure it’s not hacked e.t.c
In summary we do the technical aspects, you work on the business itself.
Yeah… gotta change the logo… did that in a hurry. I’m not much of a graphic designer.
Speaking of logos, people who signup get a free logo design if they need one. Recently partnered with a graphic designer for this.
I was thinking how a good logo helps a business image and didn’t look at mine. Smh.
Also if they are based in Lagos, can get a free photoshoot of their products. Better pics… more sales
[quote=“StephenAfamO, post:9, topic:7501, full:true”]
The reason why it shows that way is that the initial domain giving will be something like http://proudly.com.ng/yoursite. A custom domain can be used if the user chooses.[/quote]
It’s standard practice to use sub-domains, especially for seo reasons. Each sub-domain will be considred a separate website, with each website having it’s own Google PageRank. Any reason why you’re going the sub-directory route?
[quote=“StephenAfamO, post:9, topic:7501, full:true”]
No site is yet accessible because it has not yet been created. This process has to be done manually and is not yet automated. I will include an auto email to explain this on signup. Thanks for pointing that out.[/quote]
Ah, I see. You could have this run on auto-pilot, that’s what most managed eCommerce vendors do. Imagine receiving 3,000 demo requests daily, how do you manage that? Users should be able to sign up and test without your intervention.
[quote=“StephenAfamO, post:9, topic:7501, full:true”]
I believe there is a competitive advantage because as far as I know, the global platforms are mostly too costly for a feature rich site. Plus this offers even more than the feature rich ones.[/quote]
Some of these sites provide these stores at no cost but instead charge a percentage of successful sales. As regards the features, this is important. Can you mention some unique features you offer that are missing from the services linked in my previous reply?
I expect all users to eventually used domain mapping in which case Google will rank each site separately.
Truthfully I chose subdirectories because it is easier to secure the sites with a single SSL certificate this way.
I am already looking at ways to run this automatically. That’s really necessary to properly handle high volumes.
Funny, none if the three you mentioned are free. The cheapest of them (vousion) has its lowest plan at $15/month I.e $180 a year… more than N20,000
To be clear though, there is also a 10% charge on transactions. I’ll copy and paste the explanation I gave to someone else cause I don’t want to retype
There is a 10% fee on each transaction.
Many people keep feeling that it is a rip off so let me explain why this is necessary.
Vougepay, the chosen payment gateway, collects 2.5% of the transactions. A further 1%+N120 is taken during withdrawals.
That is a total of 3.5% + N120. We push the N120 to the merchant and bear the cost of 3.5% which brings my 10% down to 6.5%
As your site grows in popularity, the cost of keeping it online grows too. Server costs, Maintainance, Security, e.t.c. The only way to make sure that that increase in cost does not become a burden, it is necessary to take a percentage of revenue.
Either that, or we will have to pray that your site remains small and you don’t make sales so that it remains cheap to host your site.
Ask any web developer and he will tell you that N20,000 a year is much too small to build a website. Matter of fact, we will be running massive losses unless sales are being made.
Your website is supposed to help you sell, this way, we will be extra motivated to make sure it is happening. If it is a flat rate, we can just sweet talk you into signing up and then don’t care if your site works well for you or not.
Let me also say that most of the initial signup fee go to the logo designer, photographer, and soon… affiliates.
So it is absolutely necessary to take a percentage of transactions
[quote=“StephenAfamO, post:13, topic:7501, full:true”]
Truthfully I chose subdirectories because it is easier to secure the sites with a single SSL certificate this way.[/quote]
FYI, wildcard SSL certificates exist. Alternatively, given your use of LetsEncrypt, you may be interested in leveraging CertBot to automatically obtain and install certificates.
[quote=“StephenAfamO, post:13, topic:7501, full:true”]
Funny, none if the three you mentioned are free. The cheapest of them (vousion) has its lowest plan at $15/month I.e $180 a year… more than N20,000[/quote]
Sorry, those links were for design inspiration. I don’t have links handy but I’m sure some eCommerce vendors exist that provide similar solutions for free. Do some research. StoreFront is one of them.
Good luck with this, the market may be crowded but you’ll succeed with a decent solution and proper execution!
You mean cheaper, right? That said, you can get wildcard certs for less than $80 so as a business, you have no excuse not to get one. In addition, you probably want need a separate domain to serve your static assets efficiently so there’s no escaping it. Having said that, for an alpha release, what you’ve done is fine.
Ok. Noted. I will try and move it to sub-domains. Though, it’ll probably not be soon
Thank you sooo much!!! I really appreciate it.
It turns out the radar community is actually very helpful. Some threads will have you thinking that the people here are blood sucking demons waiting to pounce on their next prey
I’ve tried to keep quiet about this thread (for a particular reason), but I couldn’t after seeing this. You actually admitted this…[quote=“StephenAfamO, post:13, topic:7501”]
Many people keep feeling that it is a rip off so let me explain why this is necessary.
[/quote]
Now, the reason you have to explain why it’s necessary “every time” is the first sign of something wrong.
I really like what you are doing and I completely understand your vision for this service. That said, from my experience, you cannot charge a merchant 10% of all transaction plus N20,000 annually, and still NOT promote/advertise that merchant’s product and service NO MATTER WHAT.
I know you might have your reasons for doing so (I really do), but It’s not important if the merchants don’t like it. You built this product for Nigerians, not foreigners. It will be a hard sell for 97% of merchants in Nigeria.
What I think you should do (It might be a bit hash)
I think you should rebuild this product from the ground up “again” and make it moreeeeee efficient. It would seem that you are charging this much because of future costs. This should not be the case, because that’s why you are building technology. This is actually one of the secrets of Sharphire services, “efficiency”.
Use a payment system that is not that expensive, sincerely I recommend “Paystack”, you can get as low as 1.4% per transaction if you do over N2,000,000 monthly. Find a way to make it work for this service, I know it will be hard, but find a way. You can only if you want to.
Find a way not to charge N20,000 annually and still be profitable, or better still, introduce a monthly plan if you must, that will make it about N2,000/month. That sounds a lot better. From your responses, you seem to think that you are competing with developers who build ecommerce sites for people, actually you are competing with online store builders. Make your pricing more competitive.
Summary
I’m sure you’ll find some people to pay for this service the way it is presently, but if you really want to scale and take a good market share, you’ll have to be more competitive.
I felt keeping quiet would be unfair to you. I feel better now.
Goodluck & Cheers.
Disclosure: Sharphire is launching a similar product on Monday (25-07-16), but it’s far less feature-rich.
OK. So I considered paystack but I there are certain features of VougePay that means I have to keep using them.
Check out this thread Alternatives to VoguePay's Command API
True
Also true.
It will be easier to scrap the N20,000 signup fee(probably what I should do). All the extra services will have to go though.
Then I would have to find a way to minimise dormant accounts. Any ideas on how to do this?
I don’t want people opening sites and then leaving them to collect dust on my server because it’s free!!!
Any ideas on how to do this?