Behind the Scenes of the Wick & Dune Sample Store

A fair question from anyone thinking about an online store is: can I see one? Our answer is Wick & Dune, a made-up candle and bakhoor shop that we built to show exactly what our Basic E-Commerce package delivers. It is live. You can browse it, fill a basket and go through checkout. This post explains what is in it and, just as usefully, what isn't.

Our client work is covered by NDAs, so we can't walk you through it. A store we built ourselves has no such limit. It is clearly labelled as a sample on the home page, the shop and its products are invented, and the prices are made up. That is the point: you can judge the build without anyone's confidentiality getting in the way.

You can visit it at store.vanguardoasis.site.

• Home. A short introduction, the three collections and a few products.
• Shop. Category buttons, sorting and a product grid.
• Product. Gallery, size choice, quantity, description tabs and related products.
• Cart. Quantities, removal, a coupon field and totals with 5% VAT. Orders over AED 200 get free delivery.
• Checkout. Billing details, an emirate list, payment choice and an order summary.
• Order received. The confirmation a customer sees afterwards.
• Contact. A contact form, plus delivery and returns answers.

Cash on delivery and bank transfer are switched on. Both are built into WooCommerce and need no payment gateway. Card payment is shown as a placeholder, greyed out. In a real Basic store, your one included card gateway is connected at go-live, once you have opened the account with the provider. On a demo site, we would rather not invite anyone to type real card details.

• Wish lists, quick view, live search and filter sidebars.
• Live carrier rates and tracking, which need the shipping integration (AED 1,500).
• Card wallets or buy-now-pay-later on top of the first gateway (AED 1,250 for each extra gateway).
• More than 25 products, or an Arabic version (Standard and Premium stores, or the Arabic add-on at AED 2,450).
• Subscriptions, bundles, memberships, several currencies and abandoned-cart emails.

The Basic E-Commerce package is AED 4,450 for up to 25 products. It includes business hosting for the first year, an SSL certificate, basic SEO setup, one email account, training and three months of support. The domain is extra. Here is the same shop as a real business, first as it stands and then with two common extras.

All figures in AED. After the first year, store hosting renews at AED 600 plus the domain.

• Open it on your phone first. That is where most of your customers will be.
• Go all the way through checkout, not just the shop window.
• Find the delivery and returns information. If it takes more than a click or two, customers won't find it either.
• Ask what is missing. A good builder will tell you straight, as we have above.