Turbify (formerly Yahoo!) Web Development Services

The below is a very general list of available features and enhancements that can be added to your Turbify Store. It should be noted for most of them, your site needs to be on custom RTML templates (see 'An Important Note About Turbify Merchant Solutions' below.) If you are looking for something specific that you do not see listed, just contact me!

• Custom "Add to Cart" Button (replaces the standard gray button)
• Enlarge Item Image in a Popup (makes "view larger image" appear in a new window versus folks having to hit their back buttons which is the default)
• Enlarge Item Image in a Layover (makes "view larger image" appear overlayed on the current page versus folks having to hit their back buttons which is the default)
• "New" Graphic (makes a small graphic appear next to your text item title in your sections to highlight new additions)
• Add Quantity Box to Item Page (adds a quantity box next to the "Add to Cart" button, otherwise they must wait to change quantity on the cart page)
• Add a "You Save" percentage feature to Section & Item Pages
• Add a "Out of Stock" message to Item Pages
• Add functionality to sort section pages by Price (or Name)
• Cross Sell Items on Item page (shows other items of interest on actual product page. By default cross sells are shown on the shopping cart page and that functionality is only on Merchant Standard and better packages)
• Related Products on Item page (shows links to all other items in the same section)
• Product Image "ALT" Tags (Adds keyword rich "ALT" tags to all your product images as Turbify does not do so out of the box)
• Custom Text Side Navigation (By default the left navigation will only show one link per top level category. If you require custom programming to show sub-categories or fly-out menus, just contact me)
• Rotating Testimonials
• Rotating Slide Shows
• Custom Variables for META Tags (incorporates custom variables to allow incorporation of page specific Title, META Keywords and META Description tags)
• Categorized Site Map (automatically generates a categorized site map based on your current site hierarchy)
• Custom Checkout pages to match the look/feel of your site
• Mini & Floating Cart Installations
• Customer Registration Installation

Of course, that really depends. As you know Turbify Merchant Solutions prides itself on being the premier "point and click" Web store builder that does not require any knowledge of HTML or associated coding to get your store up and running. As you also know this results in a "cookie-cutter" Web Site that looks like all of the other Turbify Stores out there and learning all the nuances of new platform can be overwhelming when starting a new business.

Some clients only want a few enhancements to their existing site, others want to have a full custom design on custom RTML templates with many of the features referenced in the previous box and others may want to upgrade their sites to custom templates or Merchant Solutions.

My current hourly rate is $65.00 an hour, billed in 10 minute increments as I find a lot of time that things only take 10 minutes to accomplish, versus billing in 1/2 hour increments which would be an injustice to my clients. Minimum cost for a custom one-of-a-kind design ranges from 10 to 14 hours on up. Based on your specifications and budget, the amount of customization required to obtain the look you desire for your site will vary and as every client has different needs, I can not definitively tell you it will cost 'X' amount. I choose to run my business this way as I understand the different budgetary needs of different clients.

Once the new design or enhancements are in place, you can then choose to have me maintain your store at the rate specified above, or you can maintain the contents yourself - the choice is yours. You will have an e-commerce platform you can maintain in your browser, tools to manage, and promote your business and Turbify customer support for merchants 7 days a week. Aside from my design costs, users pay a flat rate and a percentage based fee structure regarding referrals and sales. There is no startup cost, and no minimum time commitment.

Over the years, the 'Yahoo! Store' platform has evolved into the 'Turbify Merchant Solutions' platform. Because of this evolution and depending on when you opened your store, there are several possible configurations of stores that can exist, along with taking into account whether your site is on "built-in" RTML templates or "Custom" RTML templates. That is why I would need to specifically assess your needs — and the configuration of your site — before I can give you a solid quote.

All of the sites listed in my Turbify Store Web Site Designs Portfolio have been built through the Store Editor portion of the Merchant Solutions package using custom RTML templates (imperative for increased functionality and future enhancements) which allows for less up front development costs and is easier in the end for you to maintain — which most clients want to do.

Just as a side note; RTML (Real Time Markup Language) is a proprietary language used by the Turbify Store software. RTML templates exist in the backend of the Store Editor and these templates control how the site is laid out, the functionality of the site, etc. The software parses the RTML templates to generate the actual HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) files that are used when viewing your site.

It should also be noted that Turbify Merchant Solutions is NOT a dynamic platform that allows for different pages to load based on user input or login status, nor does it have the capability of providing/serving dynamic content. It also does not offer wish lists, product sorting, splitting sections on many pages, different pricing displays (i.e. wholesale versus retail), recently viewed products, product image zooms and several other advanced features out of the box. These are all "add-ons" (see box above) to the Turbify platform that can be added as again, Turbify is not "dynamic" just static "HTML".

Turbify offers several options for building your Web site, however, if you are just starting out, you should use the Store Editor method as I do not foresee the average "Mom and Pop" operation as having the development budget that would be required, if indeed, they were to take full advantage of the "Catalog Manager" and "Store Tags" (tags that can placed in all custom HTML sites) or the PHP/MySQL scripting included with the hosting account. Actually, this brings the development costs more in line with other "custom" database driven Web applications, but Turbify was always good for those folks who may not have had 5 figure development budgets and wanted to "do it themselves". I also know the average "Mom and Pop" would not have the Web development knowledge to bring the Catalog Manager/Store Tags platform to it's full fruition, since the PHP capability is not capable of pulling dynamic data out of the Catalog Manager, so if you wanted to use Store Tags, you would need to create each and every page "manually" as an HTML file with all of the design aspects coded, then insert that items Store Tags (or be tied into using Turbify SiteBuilder which has a plug-in for Store Tags) and then FTP all of the files up to the server, the same would go for all section pages. This also adds significantly to the maintenance costs of any subsequent revisions or additions. If after reading that your head is spinning... trust me – stick with the Store Editor portion to build your Web store.