Q & A

We've tried to assemble the most common questions we are asked about Dragonfly Depot here. If you have questions that aren't answered here (or heck, you just don't want to dig through them all), go ahead and give us a shout using the form over there on the right. We'd love to hear from you!

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Dragonfly Depot different from other ecommerce solutions?

Dragonfly Depot is much more than an ecommerce solution:

  • Dragonfly Depot is the only complete order fulfillment system tied to your own website and with your own identity.
  • Dragonfly Depot is invested in the success of your online store.  When our members are successful, it benefits us all.
  • Dragonfly Depot websites are upgraded automatically with new features and technology improvements – free of charge.
  • Dragonfly Depot is owned and operated by a Specialty Toy Store Retailer who understands and respects your needs.
  • The Dragonfly Depot websites, order fulfillment, and back end were developed by IT experts on a proven, proprietary platform using 2012 technology.

Why should I consider an order fulfillment service?

Building and maintaining your own order fulfillment service takes time and resources, which are often overlooked when deciding to sell online, including:

  • Setting up your own shipping accounts
  • Setting up and maintaining your own PCI-compliant online payment systems
  • Coordinating your in-store inventory with online inventory
  • Entering or transferring your online sales into your POS / financial system
  • Managing your sales tax obligations
  • Setting up a dedicated shipping and packing station
  • Purchasing a label printer and packing supplies
  • Training and staffing packing and shipping operations
  • Maintaining accurate order tracking and processing
  • Providing customer service for online sales

Dragonfly Depot has the infrastructure and expertise in order fulfillment and will allow you to focus on what you do best – run your store.

Will my customers receive the service they deserve?

The Dragonfly Depot white-label order fulfillment service was designed with your customers in mind.  We maintain your store identity by displaying your logo and name on the packing slip and shipping label, and by answering calls as “your store” online.  Your customers will not even know that their order was filled by us.  Dragonfly Depot is your invisible partner doing all of the work to give your customers the service they deserve.  Here are some of our customer service features

  • Phone Support
  • Live Online Chat Support
  • Phone Orders
  • Your Own Toll-Free Phone Number (included!  No additional charges!)
  • Automatic call forwarding to your Brick & Mortar store if customer chooses
  • Email Forwarding

How much will I make selling online?

This varies, of course, depending on a number of factors.  A well-run ecommerce website will be doing very well to net 10% after all of their operating expenses, fixed cost, and inventory cost.  Our commissions average about 10%, depending on the product pricing and margin on the items sold.  With no infrastructure, staffing, or inventory cost, this is very competitive, and in many cases, much more than you would earn if you did all of the work yourself.

Why are other ecommerce solutions so much more expensive, but provide fewer benefits?

Website development costs vary drastically depending on many factors including:  the technology used for the website platform, designer time required to customize the website, programmer time required to customize the website, the prevailing market rate for similar websites, and the cost structure and profit goals of the company.  Dragonfly Depot uses a custom-designed platform that allows us to launch your website efficiently and seamlessly, while providing a modern, high quality website that integrates with search engines and customers expectations.

What website features make online shopping easy for customers?

Our websites are loaded with features to make online shopping easy for your customers.  Here are the main features:

  • Browse and Search Capabilities
  • Product are tagged so they can be filtered by:  Age Groups, Skills, Product Categories, Brand, Categories, Audiences, and more
  • Products can be tagged with your corresponding Print Catalog
  • Real-time Shipping Quotes
  • Saved shopping carts for registered shoppers
  • Guest checkout so registration is not required for purchase
  • Ability to share with Friends feature (email, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger)
  • Wishlists
  • PCI Compliant Payment Processing
  • Automatic order updates by email
  • Automatic shipping confirmation with tracking numbers

Can I customize my website?

Your website can be made your own by adding content that reflects your identity, your personality, and your flair:

    • Add Pages for News, Special Events and Information
    • Upload and Insert Images and Video Files
    • Embedded any modern web service including: Store Calendar, Facebook Feed, Twitter Feed, or Blog
    • Upload your logos, photos & documents
    • Color & Themes to match your image or the season
    • Change your entire website look with a single mouse click

For more information on how to customize your website, go here.

For those who want a fully-customized website, we can do that too.  Contact us for more details.

How do you optimize websites for Search (Search Engine Optimization)

Website design is one of the most important factors in optimizing for search engines.  We could have used an out-of-the box eCommerce system, but found that the 1990′s technology just was not designed to be search engine friendly.  With the ever-changing science of “Search”, we wanted a system that can be updated to use the latest technology.  This is why we custom-designed our platform which includes the following features:

  • Human-readable URLs
  • Page construction that puts the most relevant information at the top of the page
  • Website meta tags that you can easily edit
  • Automatic product feeds to Google Product

In addition to good web design, we also help you set up your Google Local page or manage it for you if you want.  This ensures that your local customers will find your store when they search.

Are your websites secure?

Dragonfly Depot takes security very seriously and we believe it is our responsibility to provide the latest security technology to protect your customers, your website, and your business.  The founder and lead developer at Dragonfly Depot has extensive experience in IT systems involving Human Subjects Research Compliance (HIPPA and Federal Regulations), Banking (Sarbanes-Oxley), and eCommerce systems (PCI Compliance, Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998), all of which require the proper experience, knowledge, and the upmost diligence to protect data and to comply with Federal Security Regulations.  He elaborates, “when I taught at the University of Michigan, I used to tell my students that ‘Security, Useability, Accessability, and Functionality are the foundation to any IT system and website design.’ Cutting corners on any of these is simply not acceptable, and in the case of security, also violates Federal Regulations and puts your business in immediate jeopardy.”

We will outline a few of the steps we have taken to address security here:

  • Your customer credit card information should *NEVER* be accessible to you.  If you receive credit card information by email or through your website administrative pages, you are most likely violating PCI compliance regulations.  The use of secure, SSL-encrypted administrative pages does indeed help to protect you from hackers, but does not make your administrative pages completely hacker-proof. Dragonfly Depot uses a third-party credit card processor Authorize.net. Credit card information is only transmitted once between a customer and our servers, and is only held in memory.  It is never stored to disk, and is purged from memory the moment an authorization is obtained.  They handle the credit card payments and provide us with only the transaction authorization code, credit card type, and last 4 digits of the credit card number.  No other customer credit card information is ever received or stored on any of our servers.  So, even if a malicious hacker did get a hold of our data, there is nothing there for them to use.
  • All website pages are encrypted with 2048-bit SSL Security.
  • Our product, sales, and customer data are all stored at a secure data facility with off-site redundant backups.

How do I change the store hours shown on my website?

You can change your store hours with our easy-to-use web-based control panel. Here is a video to show you how: