Ecommerce website designs - www.ktwebdesigns.com

Frequently Asked Questions About PDG Software's
Ecommerce Shopping Cart Software

  1. What does PDG Software offer?
  2. What are the costs of PDG Commerce? Are there monthly fees?
  3. Does PDG Software offer any kind of guarantee?
  4. How does PDG’s ecommerce software compare to a Yahoo! Store? An EBay Store?
  5. Can I implement a PDG Software application while my current site stays live?
  6. Can I use my own domain name with my PDG Software enabled store? Do my customers ever have to leave my site?
  7. How will potential shoppers find my site?
  8. What makes PDG Software’s shopping cart solutions search engine friendly?
  9. What will happen to my site’s search engine listings if I use a PDG Software product?
  10. How am I notified of a new order? Do I receive an automatic e-mail?
  11. Can I accept credit cards without having to use an Internet payment gateway? Can I process transactions offline via my existing credit card terminal?
  12. How much flexibility do I have for calculating shipping costs?
  13. Can I offer wholesale v/s retail pricing?
  14. How does the PDG Commerce shopping cart work with QuickBooks? QuickBooks Point of Sale?
  15. How much design flexibility will I have with a PDG Software storefront?
  16. Can I sell soft goods (electronic goods) using PDG?
  17. Am I able to import an existing database or Excel spreadsheet that contains all of my product information into PDG?
  18. Tech support

1- What does PDG Software offer?
PDG Software offers shopping cart software that makes displaying your products, processing sales, and managing your web orders fast and simple. Put simply, We make it easy for you to take other people’s money. PDG has been providing best of class shopping cart software since 1997. As ecommerce in general has evolved, so have PDG’s applications. PDG has consistently been a trendsetter with offering our merchants new ways to market their products, simplify the transaction process for their customers, and improve the overall success of their online business. Our solutions have been optimized to bring you the best in search engine friendly shopping cart design. With PDG Software, you can sell more, while saving both time and money.

While PDG Software’s solutions have been proven time and time again to be the key to many merchants’ success, it is the level of customer service and technical support that really makes PDG stand out from other ecommerce solution providers. Our goal is to see your store succeed. We are ready, willing, and able to make sure you’re getting the most out of the numerous features within our solutions.

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2- What are the costs of PDG Commerce? Are there monthly fees?
All PDG Software applications are sold with a lifetime license that allows you to use the purchased version for the life of your website. The one-time cost for PDG Commerce Version 5 ranges from $599.00-$1,799.00. The purchase price includes the ability to use all functionality available within the software, including our built-in services and tools (e.g. shipping tools, direct integrations with the numerous payment gateway services supported by PDG, QuickBooks/QuickBooks Point of Sale Synchronizations, etc.). At PDG, we don't believe in the "nickel and dime" philosophy that is practiced by many other ecommerce providers, so any features you see listed will be available regardless of the PDG Commerce package you choose.

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3- Do you offer any kind of guarantee?
Better than any "money back guarantee", we allow evaluating customers to utilize the software for 30-days risk-free. The 30-day evaluation includes installation of the software to your website and our premium tech support service (this does not include any work we do to the cart or website for you other than initial installation of the software). During the 30-day trial, you will work with the fully functional software (no features blocked!), and can therefore keep all of the work performed during the trial once your purchase is made. If for any reason you don't find PDG Software's solutions to be the perfect fit for your business, you owe us nothing. We'll even remove the software from your website for you, no questions asked. We're pretty sure that if you try it, you'll like it.

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4- How does PDG’s ecommerce software compare to a Yahoo! Store? An EBay Store?

Aside from the obvious benefit of you owning the license for your PDG Software product and having the flexibility to host with your own preferred host, there are many other major advantages that PDG offers over Yahoo! Stores or an EBay store. The success of a webstore is often dependant on the merchant's ability to customize the storefront to the specific needs of their business. With PDG, you're not locked in to any specific design. You may customize the look and feel, as well as the operational elements of the store, to match your precise needs. The purchasing customer will remain on your site throughout the transaction, allowing you unequaled flexibility compared to a Yahoo! or EBay store. PDG merchants will also add considerably to their bottom line as PDG does not charge any monthly fees, any percentage of revenues/profits, or any sort of transaction fees. Lastly, the quality of PDG's technical support staff is second to none. Fast, knowledgeable, and courteous support is a phone call away. PDG does not outsource any of our product development or support, so you'll have the opportunity to speak directly with our knowledgeable staff members.

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5- Can I implement a PDG Software application while my current site stays live?
Yes! Whether you have the software installed directly to your existing webserver, or choose to implement the software on a separate development server, you may test and implement the software without any impact on your existing site. Once development is complete, you can easily replace existing pages with your new content that incorporates PDG. If moving from a development server to a production server, we'll provide exact details on how to move the software, making the transition quick and simple. Or, we can do it all for you!

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6- Can I use my own domain name with my PDG Software enabled store? Do my customers ever have to leave my site?
With PDG Software's solutions, the software is licensed directly to your domain name. You may host the software with the compatible host of your choice (no special "PDG enabled" hosting required). The entire transaction takes place on your server and your customers are never directed to PDG's or any other network. Please keep in mind that for us (ktwebdesigns.com) to do work for you we do require that you host with us.

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7- How will potential shoppers find my site?
PDG Software's search engine friendly shopping cart design will make sure that any search engine spiders and bots navigating your site are easily able to crawl all pages of the site, with a clear indication of what each page offers. Additionally, the built-in affiliate tracking ability within PDG's applications will allow you to build a linking strategy that will notify you immediately of where a sale originated, and if desired, to provide a direct commission or other compensation to the referrer. Additionally, our software is directly compatible with a number of 3rd party affiliate services and softwares, allowing you to expand this functionality with real-time stats for referrers, automated payouts, and more.

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8- What makes PDG Software’s shopping cart solutions search engine friendly?
PDG's solutions allow you to control virtually all elements of your pages. Visible content, meta tags, page titles, and more can be customized to include the exact information you desire. This allows the engines to easily determine what each page of your site is about, exactly where each individual product can be found, and in turn provide this information to their users within their search results.

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9- What will happen to my site’s search engine listings if I use a PDG Software product?
A major advantage of PDG's applications is that you do not have to replace your existing pages with pages created by our software. While this option does exist for new merchants who would enjoy the benefits of a dynamic webstore, established merchants with pages already indexed and well positioned within the search engines can simply insert "add to cart", "view cart", and other ecommerce related links directly onto their current pages.

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10- How am I notified of a new order? Do I receive an automatic e-mail?
Upon completion of an order, your PDG application will immediately send an e-mail to you detailing the products ordered, customer contact and address information, selected shipping method, and all other details needed to package and ship their order. The customer receives a similar e-mail, confirming the details of the order. In addition to the e-mail confirmation, PDG's applications also have the ability to create text, comma-delimited, and XML order files on the webserver, which can be used to import your order data into countless third party programs.

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11- Can I accept credit cards without having to use an Internet payment gateway? Can I process transactions offline via my existing credit card terminal?
No, the PDG shopping cart is a PCI compliant shopping cart. therefore you must use a payment processor online.

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12- How much flexibility do I have for calculating shipping costs with PDG Software?
With thousands of merchants utilizing our software, many of whom have been running their PDG enabled stores for over 9 years, we realize that accurate shipping estimates are extremely important in converting ecommerce sales. An inflated or inaccurate shipping estimate can quickly lead to a user abandoning the purchasing process and searching for another provider. As a result, PDG has put a tremendous amount of development time towards providing one of the most flexible and configurable shipping interfaces available within any ecommerce solution.

Merchants may choose to use any combination of tools that include real time rates for UPS and USPS, custom tables that charged based on weight, quantity, or subtotal of products purchased, additional "per item" shipping costs, discounts based on users exceeding a certain threshold or users belonging to a certain customer group, and merchant defined handling fees. For merchants shipping with UPS, the software also includes functionality that allows you to validate the customer's address, create and print shipping labels, and track their purchases in transit directly from the merchant's site.

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13- Can I offer wholesale v/s retail pricing?
Yes. PDG Shopping Cart allows you to offer different price points for your products based on a discount code provided by the purchasing customer. PDG Commerce provides this same ability, as well as the option to tie the alternate price points to the customer's id/password for the store. Additionally, PDG Commerce allows you to define different discount options to different users based on their status. For example, a merchant may want offer a "buy 3 and save 20%" discount to retail customers, without extending this same discount to wholesale customers already receiving preferred pricing. PDG Commerce also allows merchants to discount shipping costs for select groups of users.

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14- How does the PDG Commerce shopping cart work with QuickBooks? QuickBooks Point of Sale?
PDG Commerce provides the top-rated QuickBooks shopping cart/webstore integration offered today. PDG Commerce syncs directly with your QuickBooks or QuickBooks Point of Sale company file to synchronize products, pricing, inventory and other product data within QuickBooks directly with the webstore. In addition, PDG Commerce will automatically replicate all webstore transactions directly into QuickBooks, with the option for the merchant to choose their desired QuickBooks transaction type (e.g. Invoice, Sales Order, Sales Receipt, etc.).

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15- How much design flexibility will I have with a PDG Software storefront?
PDG Software's applications can easily be customized to match the look and feel of any site, and without requiring any modifications to .asp, .php, or other complicated scripting files. PDG uses HTML templates that the merchant can build from scratch, or customize any of those provided by PDG. The HTML files can incorporate the merchant's own HTML, JavaScript, Flash, CSS, and even existing .php or .asp includes (e.g. header.php that creates navigation menu) directly into their PDG generated pages. Merchants interested in incorporating their existing sites look and feel into their PDG application may do so by modifying the provided HTML files, creating their own HTML templates, or inquiring about PDG's "Customize Complete" integration service.

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16- Can I sell softgoods (electronic goods / downloadable files) using PDG?
Yes, PDG's applications provide direct softgoods support that allows merchants to distribute downloadable files such as PDF's, audio/video files, software applications/installers, and more immediately upon completion of the order. The merchant is able to secure these downloads by providing a time limit and a limit on the number of downloads, preventing the download access from being shared with unauthorized users. Merchants needing to provide dynamic licenses, pins, etc. may also use their PDG application to link directly to their own server side scripts to populate this information into the PDG generated "thank you" page and customer e-mails (e.g. "The license/unlock/pin code for your purchase is [XXXX]").

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17- Am I able to import an existing database or Excel spreadsheet that contains all of my product information into PDG?
Yes, you can import an existing list of products directly within the software's web based control panel. You may import comma-delimited (.csv) text files created from virtually any spreadsheet or database application. In addition to the basic product listing, merchants may also import product options, discounts, categories, and more.

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18 - Tech Support

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