The requirement was a plug-in app for Facebook that would provide a shopping cart,m with the following capabilities:

1. Featured products on the front page as well as categorised sections
2. Ability for visitors to share a product with their friends and/or “like” a product
3. Ability to offer an incentive to “like” the shop, or a product, or to share a product … by offering a discount to those who like or share it.
4. Ability for the shop owner to share products or offers with everyone who “likes” the shop; NOT by posting a status update, but by sharing the product with its direct link.
5. No fees to the plug-in for selling
6. Stock control and delivery charges optional
7. A low monthly fee (i.e. below $10) or free app, with the ability to upscale to a higher paid solution with better features.

It takes a huge investment of time to fully investigate the many options in the market. Every product has to be installed, configured, filled with product, tested, and its good and bad points noted. After going through that pain barrier, the only conclusion I can reach is that nothing does everything that is essential, most products do most of what is essential – but all do a different selection. This, in simple language, is not good enough.

One product that appeared ideal had no “share” facility at all, unless a monthly fee of $20 is paid, at which point the previously uncapped monthly revenue figure disappears and sales are limited to $1500 per month. Daft.

Another product offers sharing – but the owner or admin of the shop cannot share, only visitors have that privilege. Daft.

A third product offers sharing and no limitations… but no way of offering discounts or incentives for visitors  to do so. Pointless.

A fourth offers incentives for sharing, allows the owner to share, but every item MUST be stock controlled and have a delivery charge. Useless for selling services or downloads.

Postings to the support teams of these products enquiring about the likelihood of adding in the missing features all met with similar response… “No plans to do that”. It seems that as with other kinds of software solution, these shopping carts designed for Social Networking are being designed by people who have a very narrow view of the market. They offer either this, OR that. When one of them wakes up and offers this AND that,  they will clean up. Until then, every Facebook shop will be a compromise that only allows any trader to achieve maybe 60% of the real potential of the medium.

A work-in-progress, this site will include an eCommerce integration for re-sale of equipment, and a possible cross-integration of the shop with a new Facebook based shopfront, enabling a single shop to serve Facebook and the main website simultaneously.

Since launching the new site, enquiries have come faster than before, and the Facebook link enables news and even testimonials to be quickly present on both the website and Facebook page.

We added a newsfeed and improved the navigation, giving the text areas some transparency to show off the “Bean Counter” imagery to best effect.

The new look uses all the content and imagery of the old site, but presented in a fresh, more up-to-date, and slightly more menacing manner!

There’s also a lot more “white space” in the new design which helps with readability and gives the site a whole new open feeling.

Genesis Telesales came to Future Perfect as a start-up organisation with no web presence or I.T. infrastructure. We provided everything from CRM software databases to Hosting and Web Design. We also provided copy writing services for the website, and went for a radical custom design with a light-hearted approach.

Effectively, we were given only a logo to inspire some sort of design, and our first design presentation was a hit.

Note the clever speech bubble navigation indicators! Everyone loves them.

The brief was to provide an easily updateable site, allowing visitors to compile an enquiry detailing their intended order, to be supplied at a negotiable price. Not easy, but we found a way.

The site has successfully handled thousands of enquiries, and remains very popular with Healthcare professionals.

Gren Tours came to Future Perfect as London’s No.1 Tour Guide according to TripAdvisor.co.uk. The existing website was looking dated and over-worded, so simplification and a more logical navigation of the content was essential.

By utilising CMS, dividing content into categories and sub-categories automatically, we achieved a more accessible site that has been easier for visitors to navigate.

We are currently adding in an eCommerce facility due to customer demand, and we have also created a Facebook page and automatic links for promotional purposes.