Subtopic: Storefront

In early 2024 Umbraco Commerce (UC) was a relatively new product. It provided features to build a storefront in Umbraco, but we soon discovered that using it was a rough ride. It had glaring bugs, an incomplete feature set, almost no documentation, and was Europe-focused. It was also expensive, especially considering that you have to build your own product browser and cart. Around that time Pentec Health asked us to add a store to the ZOIA Healthcare Umbraco website. Given the state of UC we decided to build our own solution tailored specifically for ZOIA and Umbraco.

Shopping experience

The shopping experience is familiar and clean, offering a product browser with categories, pricing, images, and descriptions. Out of stock items are clearly indicated. Paging is used to allow for bookmarking specific filters. And search is centralized and global to the entire store. Visitors are instantly at home.

Viewing a product is also a familiar experience. Staples like product image, clear pricing, and description are front and center. One click add to cart and quantity choices are featured. And when a product is out of stock, authenticated users have the option to be notified when the product is back in stock.

Managing your cart is simple, and when you're ready to check out, the process is straightforward and focused on speed, using simple steps and minimal options. This is one of the reasons we chose to integrate with Stripe for payments. Their flow perfectly fits with our view of what a checkout should be.

And once the order is placed, customers can view the status and order history right from their profile.

Fulfillment dashboard

The intuitive user experience also extends to the back office. Store configuration options are in one place, including Stripe integration settings, custom shipping methods, page assignments, and contact information. And shopping stages are used to segment orders making them easy to find and process. The stages of an order include: Shopping cart, Payment pending, Paid, Shipped, and Cancelled. Customers are notified of changes in order state so they're always up-to-date.

Offers system

There is also a powerful coupon code system which allows managers to create a myriad of offers for customers, from simple discounts, to buy one get one (BOGO) specials, free item based on category/price/product, and more.

Stock and order management

We also created a dedicated import/export and stock management feature. It allows store managers to export inventory and order data, as well as import current stock levels (replacing stock counts or adding more items) to make updating product availability across the entire store a quick and painless process.

B2B features

ZOIA is also a premiere provider of renal support food products for local governments and organizations, so their store also has rich B2B support, allowing ZOIA to service various types of organization accounts, large and recurring orders, proxy ordering for organization members, invoiced and deferred payments, and more.

Visit the ZOIA Healthcare marketplace to check it out yourself. If you're interested in a storefront for your products (even if you're not using Umbraco), let us know. We can help!

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!

There is a world full of "build your own website" services that allow just about anyone to stand up a new website in a few hours. Even organizations can leverage the simplicity offered by these services to set up an online store, community, and more. Here are a few examples of why people typically choose these services.

• Quick setup and time to market
• Reasonable up-front pricing
• Design templates
• Integrated services, like shopping carts and email
• Managed hosting

Sounds great! But as with everything in life, there are tradeoffs.

• Quick setup and time to market means giving up control over things like your domain name, web app design, email provider, and more
• Reasonable up-front pricing usually means a tiered pricing model with add-on pricing for essential features like a custom domain name, additional bandwidth, and increased storage
• Design templates mean your web app will largely look like a lot of other web apps that use the service, and may not match your vision, and custom designs can require service-specific web development
• Integrated services also means no choice over the provider of the service, which could be missing features you need
• Managed hosting means scaling (growing) is significantly more expensive, network bandwidth caps can apply, and true customer and data ownership are dubious

Regardless, these services can be a great way for individuals and small organizations to bootstrap their web presence, and in many cases, you can happily continue to use the service for years.

But there are also long-term lock-in issues that can be more serious, potentially impeding your growth, for example:

• You may contractually own your data, but extracting it to migrate to another platform is usually not practical or possible at all; they don't want you to leave
• When the service changes (features, pricing, etc.) or if the service is purchased by another entity, you usually have no choice other than rolling with it, for better or worse
• If the service shuts down, you're going to struggle to replace everything they offered to your visitors in a relatively short period of time
• Most successful businesses will outgrow these services anyway, so you could be missing out on long-term savings

Custom websites

If the tradeoffs are too much to swallow, fear not! You can also go with a custom web app tailored specifically to your needs and budget. It can match your vision without compromises and scaling can be managed more easily as your business or traffic grow.

So how do you get started? With a builder service you first have to find one with the price and features you need, and then create an account and dig into their control panel to start configuring your website. Whereas for a custom website the first step is to find a web development partner you can rely on for advice and technical expertise, like Fynydd. Your partner can help gather your ideas, come up with a plan, and build your web app, all within your budget and timeline. They're usually experts in both new web app projects and migrations from other platforms and services. Most importantly, they fill the knowledge gap left by the "build your own website" service.

A web development partner will choose technologies that have a proven security track record. One way we do this is by consulting the CVE database; a publicly funded global resource for tracking common vulnerabilities and exposures. For example, a CVE search quickly reveals that WordPress has historically been a security nightmare.

Your development partner will help you with a design that matches your vision, a hosting service that meets your needs and budget, a security review, a backup plan and disaster recovery strategy, and more. When the time comes to grow your platform, they can help with that too. And throughout the journey you maintain full control over your brand, your website, your data, and your customers.

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!

ZOIA Healthcare is a direct-to-patient provider of specialized nutritional products dedicated to empowering and improving the lives of individuals with inherited metabolic disorders and other rare diseases. They focus on navigating the complexities of healthcare, ensuring patients who require targeted nutrition that cannot be met through a regular diet alone gain access to necessary medical and low protein foods.

Accredited by the Healthcare Quality Association on Accreditation (HQAA), they adhere to stringent standards, helping their patients experience transformative outcomes. Their portfolio is curated to foster advancements in disease management, harnessing the power of nutrition.

ZOIA Pharma partnered with Fynydd to build a new web sales and marketing platform providing patients and organizations with a streamlined shopping experience. Individuals can browse, search, and purchase nutrition products, and even get notified when products are back in stock. And organizations also have the ability to offer a formulary catering specifically to their patients.

Some of the key features of the platform include:

• Based on ASP.NET and Umbraco CMS
• Hosted on Amazon Web Services
• Fynydd's bespoke Umbraco shopping platform supporting consumers and organizations with formularies
• Integrated with Stripe for payments and purchase management
• Responsive framework works great on mobile, tablets, and larger devices

Key technologies

Want to know more?

There's usually more to the story so if you have questions or comments about this post let us know!

Do you need a new software development partner for an upcoming project? We would love to work with you! From websites and mobile apps to cloud services and custom software, we can help!