MAIN FEATURES
ModShops are sophisticated database-driven content management systems and operate using the same standards that are applied to e-commerce sites of very large national retailers.

In addition to being a comprehensive webshop, capable of processing orders and payments through a wide variety of methods, ModShops are also configured to help retailers process sales information and compile vital marketing analysis and reports.

The technology bases large parts of its functionality on fundamental customer information, and when a specific person logs into the shop, the database will return information, and perform vital calculations, specific to that customer. This, for example, allows the retailer to set prices specific to certain customer groups, meaning that trade clients as well as general consumers can use the same shop - with different, individual-specific pricing applied.

Because content is housed in a database, changes are made to single records. The results are site-wide (So if you change a phone number, you change it in the database once, and it will be correctly displayed wherever it appears on the website.)

This sophisticated degree of automation means that the shop owner can focus on more important parts of the business, like effective marketing, advertising and customer care.

• Physical (shipping) address:
  Your ModShop will use a customer's physical address to automatically calculate shipping charges (if and when these apply). A customer may have up to five different addresses on their account.
  
• Billing address:
  Your customer may use a credit card - in which case the ModShop billing address needs to correspond with the credit card address. Also, customers may want the goods shipped to a different address from their billing address (when they buy gifts, for example, and want these sent directly to the recipient's address). ModShops caters for all these variables.
  
• E-mail address:
  ModShops incorporates a number of important CRM (Customer Relationship Management) features - most of which are dependent on a correct e-mail address. In our demo shop, for example, we've activated an automatic DISCOUNT COUPON to incentivise first purchases to exceed £50 in value. The details of this offer are sent via e-mail. Also, ModShops can send out regular newsletters, "tell-a-friend" messages, product reviews, and "notify me" alerts - all of which rely on a valid e-mail address.
  
• Group Pricing:
  ModShops is one of the few generic e-commerce systems to facilitate Group Pricing. For example: You may want to allow certain customers a general discount of 25% (perhaps they are trade clients). Your ModShop will recognise each customer when they log in and (if configured) will apply a discount rate to their purchases.
  
• Account History and Customer Activity:
  Every transaction is logged and archived. This allows you, the shop owner, to track customer activity, and also allows the customer to see all past orders AND check on the status of current orders (pending, processing, delivered).
  
• Who's Online:
  The shop owner can see who is online at any given point, and see what items (if any) are in those visitors' shopping carts.
  
• Currencies:
  Your ModShop can be configured to display prices in any currency. Our demo shop offers customers a choice of £-sterling, US-$ and EURO. Updating current exchange rates is done daily in the admin console, automatically calling up prevailing rates from Oanda.com and Xe.com . You can be assured that the appropriate price will be displayed, regardless of the currency chosen.
  
• Languages:
  Your ModShop can be configured to offer customers a choice of language - such as French, German, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Japanese... (These options are all subject to quotation and are not part of our standard offer.)
  
• Customer Relationship Management:
  Newsletter subscription is standard with all ModShops and the technology has a built-in newsletter compiler and distribution management system. As is found on most good webshops, ModShops incorporates "tell a friend" and "write a review" features. There is also the possibility to add testimonials and guest-books. Customers can manage their own personal data, and access their archive of past orders - no matter how far back these were placed. ModShops can incorporate a variety of information analysis features to help the retailer make informed decisions about forward sales and marketing.
  
• Many More Features:
  There are many other unique and important features relating to customer analysis and communication that your ModShop can be configured to incorporate, such as surveys, bulletin boards, blogs, technical support, polls, etc.

Product Types, Information, Images and Attributes
ModShops cater for practically any product to be accurately described and purchased. Our demo shops shows a few of these features, such as:-

• Colour, Size and Pricing Attributes:
  If you sell clothing, for example, you can have drop-down boxes specifing colour, size and other attributes. Also, if a "blue" shirt is more expensive than a "red" one, your ModShop will automatically apply the correct price depending on the customer's colour choice.
  
• Additional Images - Enlarging Images:
  There is no limit to the number of images you may associate with a product, but one of these will be assigned as the "main" image. By default, images are initially loaded as thumbnails (small pictures) to save page-loading time, but ALL images can be enlarged by clicking on the thumbnail.
  
• Additional Data - hyperlinks:
  Your product description can link to any internal or extarnal data, including PDF instruction manuals, flash files, video demos, external websites, etc. Also, you can add extra pages of information to the site's info sideboxes (as we have done with this very document, for example)
  
• Volume Discounts:
  The more they buy, the lower the price. ModShops can easily be configured to apply volume discounting.
  
• Free Shipping:
  You may have a handful of products that are free of shipping charges, but that the majority of your products attract shipping charges. Your ModShop allows for free shipping on a product-by-product basis if necessary.
  
• VAT - VAT-free - VAT-exempt:
  Certain products attract lower rates of VAT, or no VAT at all. Your ModShop will automatically apply VAT (when configured) at the appropriate rate. Also, if you sell outside the EU, your customers in non-EU zones are not obliged to pay VAT. Your ModShop will automatically recognise this (based on the billing and shipping address(es) of the customer and calculate their total accordingly.
  
• Downloadable (virtual) products:
  If you sell software, e-books, online music and/or video, your ModShop caters for selling downloadable products.
  
• Pricing by Uploaded Data:
  Your ModShop can price a product depending on uploaded data from a customer. For example, if you sell t-shirts with customised slogans at £1.50 per letter (or word), your ModShop will automatically calculate the total cost of a customer's desired slogan based on the letters (or words) uploaded when they make their purchase.

• Special Offers, Seasonal Sales, Featured Products
  Your ModShop allows for all of the promotional selling techniques you would use in your conventional high-street shop. And they can be configured in any way you choose. Promotional selling techniques can be applied on a product-by-product basis, category basis, entire shop, by date range, price range, attribute range - or any combination thereof!
   

• Cross-selling and Up-selling
  Vital today in any retail activity, encouraging customers to add more to their carts is possible in your ModShop - either through automated incentive processes or through configured cross-selling and up-selling formats. For example, if you sell battery-driven toys, you'd like customers to buy batteries as well. You can configure your ModShop to cross-sell and up-sell in a wide variety of ways.
   

• Gift Vouchers
  Our demo shop is enabled for the sale of Gift Vouchers. Your ModShop could also sell Gift Vouchers if you want it to. There is online help for this feature on the demo shop.