Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What does the design process involve with Piccante?
After initial contact from customer to Piccante, an obligation-free consultation process commences. The purpose of this is to reach an understanding of what is required from each party in terms of design, content and delivery. A consultation at this early stage is essential for the ultimate success of the design and satisfaction of the customer. Once we understand exactly what you want from your website and what you want it to look like, a 25% non-refundable deposit is required to undertake the draft design process. Once the draft is completed we will again consult to make sure it is everything you wanted (and hoped) it would be. Fine-tuning is carried out and when you are satisfied with the outcome the remaining pages are constructed. Final customer approval is received before the payment balance is required and the website is uploaded to the World Wide Web. Your business is online!
I want to sell my products or services online - what are my options?
There are three broad e-commerce solutions that Piccante can provide you. Each is cost-effective and allows you to sell your products or services online 24 hours a day. We have listed some of the key advantages to each type of site so you can decide which may suit your business best.
E-commerce solution 1
A complete shopping trolley site that allows you to add products at will, group them in categories, maintain customer lists and view orders made online. The site is designed around the CubeCart shopping trolley and utilises PayPal (as standard) so that you don't have to worry about handling your customers secure credit card details.
Advantages:
Easy (and free) for you to update | Automatically create customer mailing lists | Change product information and prices at will | Add extra administrators so your staff can also have access to your site | Orders made securely and automatically | Ideal for sites selling multiple products or services | Customers can purchase products immediately | No upfront or monthly fees required if you use PayPal for accepting payments
E-commerce solution 2
Each unique design is created especially for your business by Piccante. More flexible in layout and design than Solution 1, this site can be perfected to your exact requirements in 'look and feel'. It still utilises the security of PayPal so you can accept credit card payments (without having to handle the secure information yourself) and can also incorporate a shopping trolley.
Advantages:
Absolute control over the 'look and feel' of your site | Better suited to one, or a handful of products | Orders made securely and automatically | PayPal shopping trolley can be included | Customers can purchase products immediately | No upfront or monthly fees required if you use PayPal for accepting payments
E-commerce solution 3
Rather than using a shopping trolley or having your customers purchase instantly online, visitors to your site can place an order by completing an online 'form'. This is emailed to you for checking and processing. Requests for payment are made (via credit card, PayPal account or even cheque if you wish). Again, you won't need to handle secure credit card information, and there are no upfront or expensive merchant fees.
Advantages:
Absolute control over the 'look and feel' of your site | During the entire order process your customers never leave your website | Useful if your products are frequently out of stock, or there are complex variations of your products | No upfront or monthly fees required if you use PayPal for accepting payments
If you have any further questions please contact us, it's completely obligation free.
What do I need to know about the CubeCart type of shopping trolley that Piccante will install for me (e-commerce solution 1)?
Our 'solution 1' e-commerce sites are based upon the CubeCart system - a widely used and trusted shopping trolley. They are tailored to your specifications complete with your corporate or business branding, logos and colours. We also include a handy User Guide that will help you with some of the more common features of these excellent websites. A CubeCart e-commerce solution is a very flexible and versatile type of website. A great advantage is that you or your staff can make changes as often as you like by logging in as an 'administrator'. It is particularly good for large numbers of products and/or with lots of 'product variations' - for example, if you sell T-shirts online you can easily add product options selling red, blue, green and white shirts in S, M, L and XL sizes. New pages can be added, products updated, prices changed, sale items introduced, shipping charges added or changed and promotions advertised. You can even specify multiple languages and currencies. Clients are required to login before purchasing products using CubeCart version 3 so you can easily generate newsletters or emails to them.
There are a few other points that you should be aware of regarding CubeCart sites.
Firstly, the basic functionality and layout is slightly more rigid than a 'traditional' HTML website. This means that we can customise your CubeCart shopping site to give you the 'look and feel' that you want (logos, images, fonts etc) but are limited in its core functionality and in some ways, how it looks.
The second point is that there is no guarantee that we can give that CubeCart will be around forever. Your site should continue to function normally even if CubeCart never makes any further updates as it is installed independently on your web-hosting servers, however, infinite support and updates cannot be assured. We also ask that you read our Terms and Conditions to ensure that you understand our conditions regarding third-party software installations.
Finally, hosting through Chilli Web Hosting or Piccante Web Hosting may be a requirement. This is not for commercial reasons but because not all web hosters can support and install the CubeCart software.
If you have any questions please just ask us if a CubeCart e-commerce solution is right for you.
What do I need to know about the type of Content Management System (CMS) that Piccante will install for me?
A Content Management System (CMS) is a very flexible and versatile type of website. Although it looks a lot like a regular website, the real advantage is that you can make your own changes and keep it up to date by logging in as an 'administrator'. This independence means that you or your staff can update your site as often as you require. New pages can be added, products updated, promotions advertised and latest news items displayed to give your customers and staff perfectly up-to-date information. You can also keep your clients informed through RSS (Really Simple Syndication), create mailing lists and email or print PDF pages from your website. Our CMS sites are based upon the Joomla! system - an award-winning, widely used and proven Content Management System. They are tailored to your specifications complete with your corporate or business branding, logos and colours. We also include a handy User Guide that will help you with some of the more common features of these excellent websites.
You should be aware that Joomla! is free to use under the GNU General Purpose Licence agreement and as clients of Piccante Web Design you will enjoy the same freedoms that we enjoy (the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and charge for improvements to the software). However, you are also obliged to comply with the requirement that you cannot add restrictions to deny other people the central freedoms of this licence (not that you would!)
There are a few other points that you should be aware of regarding a Joomla! CMS.
Firstly, the basic functionality and layout is slightly more rigid than a 'traditional' HTML website. This means that we can customise your Joomla! site to give you the 'look and feel' that you want (logos, images, fonts etc) but are limited in its core functionality and in some ways, how it looks.
The second point is that there is no guarantee that Joomla! will be around forever. Your site should continue to function normally even if Joomla! never made any further updates as it is installed independently on your web-hosting servers - the point is that Joomla! are under no obligation to continue to provide free updates for their software. This is considered unlikely, however, as Joomla's strength lies in its freedom of licence and hence it has hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. We also ask that you read our Terms and Conditions to ensure that you understand our conditions regarding third-party software installations.
Finally, hosting through Chilli Web Hosting or Piccante Web Hosting may be a requirement. This is not for commercial reasons but because not all web hosters can support and install the Joomla! system.
If you have any questions please just ask us if a Joomla! CMS site is right for you. You can click here to view some of our CMS samples.
I want Piccante Web Design to backup my CMS or CubeCart site and database. What do I get for my annual fee?
Owners of Joomla! CMS and CubeCart shopping trolley sites (e-commerce solution 1) are able to request Piccante Web Design to operate a site backup service.
This means that Piccante Web Design will make a monthly backup of the important database that these sites generate so that your important data is not lost in the unlikely event of web-server corruption, malicious attack (hacking) or any other unforseen circumstances. Your important customised files are also stored so that if a re-installation is required, your site will be restored to the state of its last backup. This fee is payable and renewable annually.
I have images or photographs that I want to display on my website. What are my options?
There are several ways that you can show your images or photographs on your website. If your products are for sale, the CubeCart (solution 1) e-commerce sites will have a 'click to enlarge' feature. If you just want to show a photograph in full size or enlarge an image, please browse some of our image viewer samples by clicking here. Extra charges may be incurred for the upload of certain images for some viewers as editing, cropping and thumb-nailing may be required.
How can I pay for Piccante's services?
Our preferred method of payment is via internet bank transfer. An alternative is payment via cheque (by prior arrangement) or using PayPal / credit card. Some additional charges may appl y for credit card or PayPal transactions - please enquire. When the first deposit payment is required you will receive an email with details about how to make the payment.
How is my site hosted through Piccante?
Your website is hosted through our own service - our upstream provider which offers a 99.9% network uptime guarantee. Technical support is available free of charge.
What do I get for my hosting fee?
Hosting fees cover the cost of utilising space on the World Wide Web and includes unlimited email accounts (spam/anti-virus protected). Your minimum site storage limit is 100Mb - ample for most business' requirements, however, some larger organisations with requirements for email storage may need a Plan 2 or Plan 3 hosting package with greater capacity.
Simply send an email with your required changes (including the text content, photographs etc) and we will update your website as soon as possible, normally within one or two working days. Click here to view our update costs. If you have an e-commerce 'Solution 1' type of site (like the 'Bralicious' site above) or a CMS site (click here to see a CMS site) you can do this easily yourself - simply refer to the User Guide that Piccante will give you with your completed website.
In simple terms, a domain name is the identification, or address of a website. For example, www.piccantewebdesign.com is our domain name. Domain names can end with .com, .net, .info, .org, or be suffixed with various countries, i.e. .co.uk, .co.nz etc.
Your domain name should be memorable and reflect the name or nature of your business. This is very important for search engine recognition. For example, if your company is 'Smith's Apparel Ltd' and your main area of business is selling T-shirts you would be better off getting a domain name like smiths-t-shirts.com than smithsapparelltd.com
You must obtain a domain name before your website can be published online.
What is a re-directed domain name?
A redirected domain is a domain name that you have registered and purchased that re-directs automatically to your main website domain. For example, you might purchase smiths-t-shirts.com but because you do most of your business in Hong Kong you might also want to get smiths-t-shirts.com.hk and have this automatically re-direct to the .com domain.
How do I get a domain name?
Finding available domain names can be a challenge, particularly if you want a .com domain or are using common names or words. Plenty of imagination helps! Domain names can be searched for, and purchased from, many online suppliers or registrars. If you wish, we can obtain your domain name for you. Just send us an email with as much detail as possible (domain names you would like to try, and what domain suffix you want - i.e. .com, .co.uk etc). We will get back to you with a price for this service - unfortunately we cannot publish the cost here because domain name prices change depending upon the suffix. If you want to get a domain name yourself, a useful place to start is with Melbourne IT - a worldwide domain-name registration site - click here to visit them - but remember to shop around for the best prices!
How do I get my email on my computer instead of using webmail?
Most people prefer to access their email on their own computer rather than via web-based mail. By using Microsoft's Outlook Express, Mac's Mail or a third-party program like Mozilla's Thunderbird, you don't have to login to your webmail account to receive or send email. Piccante Web Design recommends Mail if you use a MacIntosh, or Mozilla Thunderbird for either MacIntosh or PC - it is free, secure and easy to use. You can download it here.
To view PDF instructions of how to set up your email for any of these programs simply click the relevant icon. You may wish to print the instructions for easy reference as you configure your email software.
Click for setup instructions for Mozilla Thunderbird
Click for setup instructions for Apple's Mail
Click for setup instructions for Microsoft's Outlook
Why should I use an emailable form on my website?
Emailable forms have the following advantages over a simple 'click to email' link:
1. They look professional!
2. They provide instant feedback that an email has successfully been sent (or an error message can be generated if necessary information has been omitted, such as a name, or email address). Additionally, an auto-reply email can be generated with your chosen message to the sender.
3. Web-based email users (such as those with Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! accounts) can contact you from any computer in the world.
4. They reduce spam. Automated web-robots crawl the web looking for simple email links and addresses, and bombard them with junk email.
Don't see your question here?
Please send us an email with your query.
