eCommerce with Zen Cart!
Support for your Zen Cart Store
You're busy running your business. Why would you want to run your website too?
Hire me as your on-call Zen Cart developer and site support person. As the primary support person for your Zen Cart website, I take care of:
- Installing Zen Cart security patches
- Monitoring your site for downtime, and resolving outages quickly
- Fixing errors that occur because of changes made by your hoster
- Following up on any issues you report
- Upgrades and mod installs on your schedule
- Dealing with reported issues from your security scans (by SecurityMetrics or whatever service you use)
- Handling any accessibility complaints you might receive.
Modern websites embed third party software which can have vulnerabilities exposed on a moment's notice. Here's Google Lighthouse showing a site with old JavaScript and malformed links.
Do you know how to solve these problems? I do. And if I'm part of your team, you don't have to worry about them.
Downtime does happen on shopping carts. Are you prepared? Do you want to be searching for a contractor when your site is down?
I proactively monitor your site using automated tools so that I can quickly detect and respond to store outages.
What are the Causes of Downtime?
The following are common causes of Zen Cart downtime:- Database issues
- Changes made by your hoster
- Software changes made by inexperienced staff
When you use me as your site support contact, I protect you from these kinds of issues. So no more of this:
.. or this:
What are the Benefits of Support?
I monitor your site throughout the month to ensure it stays up. In addition, I give your site a monthly check:- To review and resolve any issues which are creating debug logs.
- To make a backup of your database that I store offsite for your protection.
Being on support has benefits beyond saving you time; it also saves you money, and ensures priority attention.
- Support clients get top priority in my schedule
- Support clients pay for my time in quarter-hour chunks1. When I quote a fixed price project, it reflects my worst case estimate of the time it will take, which is generally at least twice as high as the best case time required.
- Support clients have access to discounted rates: my rate for a block of hours is as low as $95/hr. I used to charge a much higher rate for people who were not on support; now I just turn those jobs down.
- Support clients get priority access to me: speedy attention, even on nights and weekends. No scrambling to find a qualified contractor when your site is down or has a problem, or being turned away because the best contractors are busy.
- My monthly check means your site gets my attention at least once a month so problems will get caught more quickly.
- And most importantly: being on support means your ecommerce channel becomes worry-free for you. I take care of the headaches.
What are the Costs?
My charge for being on support is one half hour per month, which includes your monthly check. Additional time is billed in quarter-hour increments as described above. You give me a retainer, and I work off that.What about one-off projects?
Strictly ad hoc and one-off work is not a service I offer. I only work with clients who are on support, and I only want clients who want a long term partner. If you want a fixed price for a specific project, I'm not a good match for you.How do we work together?
You decide the workflow, based on your unique needs.- We can do project management using a Google spreadsheet, Trello, Asana, or whatever tool you prefer to use. Some examples of Google Docs for Work tracking are shown below.
- We can do communication by telephone, email, SMS, Skype, Google Hangouts, or whatever tool you already use.
- We can work during the day or evenings and weekends, depending on your schedule needs.
How do I know that you are the right contractor for me?
I get it. You're wondering about whether or not I'm the right person to help you. Well don't take my word for it, look at the hundreds of people who say That Software Guy is a Zen Cart expert.If you want more information on my background, please review my About Me page.
No service provider is going to be a good match for every possible client. For example, if you want the lowest possible price, it won't be me - you will need to go offshore. But if you want a reasonable price, with clear communications from a true subject matter expert who is deeply embedded in the Zen Cart project, you should contact me.
What I do for people who want to go on support for their site(s) is I take a payment of $1000 for a block of 10 hours, and then I deduct as you need work.
Google Docs for Work tracking
Many smaller businesses don't use a full project management tool like Asana. For clients like this, I put requests in a Google doc so that we can both easily track the status of changes. They can be as simple or complex as you like. Here are some examples:
The point of this is to make it so that collaboration and prioritization is simple and effective.
Extra Cost Configurations
If you do not have Linux hosting with CPanel, you must buy a 20 hour block in order to sign up for support with me, and I need to assess your hoster before I can agree to take you on. Please contact me first before payment.Let's Get Started!
To start on support, you may please purchase a 10 hour block of time or a 20 hour block of time from my store. I will need your Zen admin, FTP and cPanel credentials. Instructions for sending credentials are below.To send credentials, go to PrivNote.com, and enter the following information:
Zen Cart Admin URL: Zen Cart Admin userid: Zen Cart Admin password: FTP Hostname: FTP Userid: FTP Password: (If SFTP is used, please note port number or any other relevant details) CPanel URL: CPanel Userid: CPanel Password:Then press the "Create Note" button and send me the URL.
Existing Customers Seeking to Renew Support
Thank you for your patronage! You can buy another ten hour package, or get more for less by purchasing a 20 hour package, a $100 savings!
