Getting your own e-commerce site up and running,and keeping it that way,is not a trivial job.That ’s where specialists like Tenbelowzero Inc. (www.tenbelowzero.com)can help.

 

James Campbell,President &CEO,explains that the Company ’s core product is a content management system (CMS),dubbed Aviniti.This allows people with no particular technical ability to make changes in a Web site,via their own Web browser.Updates conform to established formats and maintain brand identity.

 

Tenbelowzero has been very successful with electronics distributors and manufacturers.Campbell notes that these types of sites are constantly changing,owing to the many products and variants typically needing to be listed.

 

Entries are securely controlled on a "role-permission " basis..Salesmen on the road can make entries remotely,while other parts of the site can be locked down.

There are lots of bells and whistles. For example,the SiteCast module allows content to be automatically propagated to secondary sites.This would be useful,for example,if a company is selling product through several retail outlets,and needs to provide similar content (such as prices,features,etc.)to each.

 

Campbell notes that pages are built to be search-engine-friendly,ensuring that material,once posted,will be found."The big thing is where am I going to rank on Google?" he agrees.Tenbelowzero does search engine optimization as part of its service.

 

Aviniti is scripted in the open-source PHP language,configured on RedHat Linux, and designed to work with the free MySQL database.However,customers that have an investment in commercial database technology such as Oracle can easily use that instead.Sites can be tied into a company ’s existing CRM system.

 

Although the system is essentially standalone,Tenbelowzero tends to work closely with its clients."We do an analysis of the current site," says Campbell. Most companies are too busy trying to sell their product to keep their site really up to date. Tenbelowzero looks for the essential flow of information,and can provide any level of service,up to and including hosting the site on their own servers.

 

Campbell cites the example of a mid-tier distributor,with an IT department of two to three people,trying to maintain a company Web site along with their other duties.

It becomes a nightmare for them," he says.."We remove some of that burden." This frees resources to focus on the company ’s actual business.

 

Tenbelowzero works with companies at all levels,from (companies with annual sales of) $14-million, down to small "mom and pop " shops with $4,000 sites."They (small shops) don ’t need to kill a fly with a sledgehammer," says Campbell.

 

For smaller companies,e-commerce can be based on the PayPal system.Larger companies that already have credit-card processing can tie the site in with their existing banking system.

 

Campbell notes that even large companies with the resources to create their own e-commerce sites may be ill-advised to do it themselves."Anyone who thinks it ’s

going to take less than year(s) to work it out is fooling himself," he says.

 

Campbell predicts that the market will increasingly favour outsourcing. Companies that are in the business of retailing are always going to end up re-inventing the wheel when it comes to Web technology.On the other hand,specialists like Tenbelowzero can develop the core technologies once,and spread that investment across many clients.