Wazala – an eCommerce Web Design Strategy
I am always on the lookout for good ecommerce solutions for all budgets. Recently I read some good reviews about this cart: http://www.wazala.com/ and I wanted to mention it because it seems perfect for any of our lower budget web design clients who want to add an inexpensive ecommerce solution to their existing sites. Clients who would normally use the PayPal Website Payments Standard cart with the
“Add to Cart” buttons are perfect candidates. What seems nice about Wazala is that the whole cart functions through an overlay (or lightbox) so the visitor won’t leave the client’s web site unlike PayPal WPS. This increases the trust factor to the site, and allows more control to the designer.
It also has a built-in optimized version for touch devices such as the iPhone and iPod Touch. Another great feature is that it supports the Authorize.net payment gateway too.
So who should consider using Wazala.com? Clients who want to dip their toes into the ecommerce world to test the waters are perfect for this cart because it is a free way to add an online store to your existing blog, Facebook page, or website, without the expense and technical issues of coding.
All you have to do is log into the Wazala online store creator, create your store, and then embed the widget into your existing site. That’s it. There isn’t any other configuration necessary. You can customize almost everything including adding your logo, choosing a background color, adding your company info, customizing your shipping options and methods of payment. Next you can upload your products into the store inventory. This is really only good for stores with a very few products because there is no CSV or Excel file upload. You have to enter every product by hand.
After the store is embedded into your site it works as a popup, and all the buying is done right in the popup. As soon as the transaction is complete, the visitor returns back to your site.
I’d like to begin testing the store on some of our web design clients in Philadelphia area, who are considering adding ecommerce to their blogs, Facebook pages, or websites, but who are not ready to consider the expense coding either an open source cart, or using a hosted cart solution, and who only sell a few items. For these types of clients, the Wazala store seems to be a perfect fit.