BFC Creations

Though I am the owner of BFC eCommerce site and made the decision to get a new website, both Rick (Photographer, Customer Service, Webmaster) and Fred (Design Creator, Warehouse Manager) had lots of ideas and hours of data entry.

I opened BFC-Creations in 2003 with a simple html website thinking it was just going to be a hobby. Within 6 months I was able to close my computer consulting business and work on BFC full time.

I have taken advantage of the X-Cart Development team a LOT! The ability to hire your design team was also a big plus by bringing my vision to life.

Within a year, Rick left his job and has worked full time at BFC since. I, and later my son Fred, created designs for machine embroidery machines and sold them as digital files people could download to their home embroidery machines.

In 2011, I came out with my own brand of Machine Embroidery Thread. I purchased PDG software to handle physical products as BFC Stash.

After a few years, I realized I should do something with BFC Creations because there were no customer accounts (we downloaded all transactions into an Access database and could send someone a history, etc. if they needed it). People also wanted to be able to buy thread and designs on the same online store. It took a LOT of time! But, since I was busy 8 – 10 hours a day 7 days a week, there never seemed to be a good time to look for software and take on the huge task of moving both sites. Then in January of 2016 I decided the time had come and I purchased X-Cart shopping cart to hold both sites.

There is so much I like in my X-Cart eCommerce store!!! I think the best is the customer accounts with history, wish list, and reward points – all the things my customers have asked for. And this has eliminated hours and hours of customer service work. I love the look of the site – it’s fresh and totally different than my two prior sites. It’s easy to navigate and makes it easy to emphasize sales and new products. And of course, I now have everything I sell in one site.

The machine embroidery world has a huge number of embroidery design sites. Most of them are pastel colors and many look very similar. My eCommerce store now really stands out because of the colors, it doesn’t look like a canned site and people can easily find everything. The colors and design really showcase all the brightly colored designs and products. And it has many features you don’t see in many other sites.

When I decided to plunge ahead and find eCommerce software to replace my two websites, my first criteria was it integrated easily with PayPal Pro. I found a list on PayPal of compatible software and started down the list. The second criteria was it could be purchased and housed on my server. I did not want to change the server! This narrowed the list tremendously. My next criteria was it had to be easily modified and preferably would have a team that could do modifications easily and in a streamlined manner. (I have taken advantage of the X-Cart Development team a LOT!) The ability to hire your design team was also a big plus by bringing my vision to life. I then downloaded two demos. After going through both, X-Cart eCommerce solution was way ahead of what I wanted.