LaGarde StoreFront

Create a professional e-business site right from your web browser.
› Use a StoreFront Now theme or design your own for a custom look.
› Define your store with unlimited categories and subcategories. Reduce set-up time by importing your product catalogue.
› Give your customers a superior shopping experience with all the features of the big online stores at a fraction of the price. Shopper features include wish lists, e-mail to a friend, gift wrap and recalled customer profiles.
› Automate shipping and tax rate calculations, credit card processing and e-mail order confirmations.
› Streamline the back-end management with advanced reporting tools to manage sales and customer records, sophisticated inventory management and our QuickBooks export tool
› Ensure the security of customer and business data using StoreFront Now's sophisticated support for SSL and credit card encoding

Pros
• easy to use
• good reporting
• supports OANDA currency conversion services.

Cons
• requires Microsoft Frontpage and IIS
• really for Frontpage Developers rather than casual users
• templates/themes maybe slightly restrictive

The Bottom Line - If you develop Web sites using Microsoft Frontapage and need to add E-Commerce functionality, this is an ideal product. StoreFront 5.0 SE, which uses an MS-Access back-end database, costs $279.00. The Professional edition which uses a SQL Server database costs $479.

Product Features

• Easy to use. Integrates with Microsoft Frontpage
• Customer management with login allows access to previous and partly completed orders
• Sale features to cope with sales and special offers.
• Integrated shipping rates from leading US carriers
• Customizable search utility allows users to search the site for products, manufacturers etc.
• Mail utility for sending promotional mail
• Fully automated affiliate partner program

Guide Review

E-Commerce for FrontPage
LaGrade Storefront 5.0 is a shopping cart/storefront package that is designed to be used from within Microsoft FrontPage. It integrates tightly with FrontPage and is accessed by a special FrontPage toolbar that launches the main Storefront functions. Storefront links to a back-end database that can be based on either MS-Access or MS SQL-Server.
Storefront is designed to run on MS Internet Information Server and makes extensive use of ASP, so you'll either have to run your own NT Web server or use a hosting service that offers NT as an option. Storefront is easy to use, especially if you are familiar with FrontPage. Themes and wizards make the construction of a professional looking store quite straightforward, while there are sufficient payment and shipping options to satisfy the requirements of most businesses. Reporting facilities are extensive, as are marketing and CRM functions. This package isn't for the total novice, but if you're used to building Web sites with FrontPage, you'll find Storefront a breeze.