BunkBedKing.com wanted its technology staff to focus on areas other than the checkout process, and found an inexpensive option that made more sense than spending the time and effort to build a shopping cart in-house. The no-fuss system also helps boost conversions.
The bunk bed e-retailer pays $18 a month for its e-commerce site’s shopping cart, which includes inventory and affiliate management systems, among other tools. BunkBedKing.com CEO Denis Boyton says the system is “ridiculously inexpensive for the value you get from the technology.”
“On the front end, the cart fits in with our basic site philosophy of simple design and easy navigation; on the back end, the cart works very effectively to manage orders and handle payments,” Boyton says. “Since we implemented the cart, the conversion rate is up 30%. We’ve done a lot of work in other areas, but a big chunk of that 30% is attributable to the shopping cart.”
The technology vendor that sells the cart technology, E-junkie, does not require BunkBedKing.com or any client to sign a contract, only to pay the monthly fee. Monthly fees for merchants range from $5 to $225, based on the number of products for sale and space required by the seller on E-junkie servers. The company does not charge transaction fees or take a commission on sales.
In July, E-junkie clients generated $5 million in sales, the company reports. Clients can choose credit card, PayPal or Google Checkout payment options. PayPal and Google Checkout handle payment processing for their orders; Authorize.Net, a unit of CyberSource Corp., processes credit card payments.
Clients range from small e-retailers to bloggers and even social networkers, who can integrate the system’s Buy button on their web pages. They administer the shopping cart and related systems through an administration system hosted by E-junkie, which manages the systems on its servers.
While the price for the technology is very low, E-junkie makes money in a simple way: volume, says E-junkie founder Robin Kohli. “We made the initial investment in the technology and infrastructure starting in 2003, and since then we’ve acquired more and more merchants, and now we have more than 6,500.”
BunkBedKing.com opted to outsource its shopping cart in part because it found this inexpensive option and in part because it wanted to enable its employees to focus on other matters.
“The amount of time and effort required to build this in-house far exceeds what it costs for our outsourced cart. It made more sense to buy the technology off the shelf,” Boyton says. “And we wanted to focus on getting our site in front of the eyes of consumers and managing the areas we’re good at. So let the technology company do what they know. For us it was a no-brainer.”
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