Zarifa's Touch of Egypt opened in 2005 offering Egyptian decor, belly dance costume, and belly dance instruction to the small community of Grants Pass, Oregon. Shortly thereafter, CreateSource developed her e-commerce web site and kick-started the web site with a small Google adWords campaign. By January of 2008, Zarifa's Internet sales were supporting 50 to 75 percent of total retail sales. Although her customer base is mostly in the United States, her web site also ships to select countries and has fulfilled orders to Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and Mexico.

CreateSource is responsible for all aspects of web site development, from design to programming. Although the custom-programmed e-commerce system is managed by Zarifa, regular updates include new pages and video for Zarifa's Community Dance, held monthly. CreateSource shoots and prepares video clips of the event for her web site, displayed in a custom developed Flash video player. As Zarifa's acquires new items, CreateSource is responsible for product photography, as well as updating custom graphics and composites for the front page.

CreateSource custom programmed the shopping cart and administrative area with intuitive, easy to use interfaces. At checkout, the shopping cart queries the USPS or UPS API's for an accurate shipping quote in real time. The customer can select from any available shipping service. Checkout is completed by a secure connection to a reliable merchant account via silent post; customers are never redirected to another site during checkout.

Zarifa's custom administrative interface allows her to:

• Easily locate, fulfill, and update current orders
• Robust email notifications on order placement; prepares email notification of shipment with a single button
• Perform inventory control, adjustments, and collect reports
• Communicate with her customers and members of her mailing list via a mail manager interface
• Generate Google Base/Froogle product feeds
• Perform and download regular database backups
• Configure key phrases, titles, and other settings for the shopping cart and ordering process
• Upload unlimited pictures for each product, determine their display order, and maintain product data without developer assistance
• Add unlimited product options for any product, and the options may be required, optional, and can optionally alter the product price.
• Easily locate products, customers, and other elements by drill-down links or simple searches

Video

In April of 2006, CreateSource developed the television commercial seen at the right to promote her anniversary celebration. The video player shown was also developed for zarifas.com.

Zarifa's Touch of Egypt is a ongoing project. You will also find development for her business in the video, logo, and print media sections of this web site. CreateSource regularly adds features and adjustments to her projects as required.