For web designers and creative agencies

Online shops have not always been relevant to local retailers, however with FoodCommerce we intend to change that and would like you to be involved.

If a FoodCommerce online shop is appropriate for your client all you need to do is grab one and get on with it; the first 30 days are free, there is no obligation to continue and you can cancel at any time. There is online help to explain most things and email and telephone help is included in our charges. Before then we are more than happy to explain and demonstrate how it all works.

FoodCommerce is similar to supermarket online grocery shopping. Its defining features are the ability to sell food by weight, definable delivery areas and bookable delivery slots. These features have a significant effect on the online shopping service local retailers (not just food retailers) are able to offer. A local online shop is relevant to their customers and one that will make their business better.

What needs to be done?

Each online shop is completely autonomous and managed through the control panel by the retailer. Many retailers, however, need professional help setting up their online business and with ongoing marketing. Very often their local web developer is the right person for the job.

Most retailers will want their online shop styling to their brand and FoodCommerce exposes all the HTML and CSS code in the “themes” section for you to do this. This is also the place where you upload the media files you want to use in your design.

Our standard theme is a responsive one that looks good and works well on mobile phones, tablets and desktop devices. It is based on Bootstrap and a very good place to start creating yours from. To create a new theme just copy an existing one from the drop-down box. You can then modify it to your client’s design.

FoodCommerce is a complete website and therefore you can include as many new pages in your design as you like. There are also some standard pages like “about us”, “terms” and “privacy” that need completing before the shop is launched as well as the all important home page (“/”).

If you want to be more creative our own template language allows you to completely customise the core shopping pages. Bootstrap provides a number of features you can hook into or you could write your own client side script. As far as possible we have made FoodCommerce flexible and accessible with few restrictions.

Product images are an integral part of the website design and often something that is better done professionally to get the required quality and consistency. Note that you don’t need to create different size images as FoodCommerce resizes them on the fly on the server. You just specify the size you want on the page.

The emails that FoodCommerce automatically sends out can also be customised to reflect the clients brand.

Ongoing marketing emails will need to be sent out on a regular basis and for most food retailers this should be at least once a week. The home page should also be changed regularly to keep the website fresh.

If this is of interest to you why not grab a store and take a look.