Pay monthly websites

[Hedgehog Toys]

Why is it that there are very limited numbers of ecommerce providers who will allow you to pay for a website package on a monthly basis?
We pay for cars, houses, hosting, credit cards and numerous other things on a monthly basis yet when it comes to an ecommerce site .....most want you to pay a full years payment or one off large fee.

Yes I know there are packages such as osc and cubecart etc which are free but these are just NOT easy to use if you have little html knowledge..... There are numerous systems out there that I would like to have used but this payment system is a stumbling block and i'll bet that many companies have gone elsewere because of it...


Rant over :)

[Carl-CSNM]

Which ecommerce package?

It's probably down to the worth involved each month, and they probably prefer a lump sum of money ;)

Phil - openmind is developing an ecommerce application which I believe will offer a monthly option payment.

[Hedgehog Toys]

Actinic, Smartstore, shopcreator are just a few of the ones I had been interested in.
Will check out openminds homepage :)

[Astaroth]

I guess it is because of the number of e-com companies that fail that they want to ensure they are getting some money out of them.

All the other items other than hosting that you mentioned are subject to credit scoring and therefore the lender is aware that you are good to pay and in it for the long term.

[tugglejazz]

i know 1&1 offer a monthy system for shops ..

hold on.... (googling)

ta da!

http://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/Eshops;jsessionid=72363CEA01B85E4340B9E492901D65FF .TC33b?__frame=_top&__lf=Static

[coxadmin]

1and1 give you a monthly rate but actually take payment six-monthly in my experience.

[tugglejazz]

well i tried! good luck finding something

[Rob Holmes]

We pay for cars, houses, hosting, credit cards and numerous other things on a monthly basis yet when it comes to an ecommerce site .....most want you to pay a full years payment or one off large fee.

Put the cost of the package on your card and transfer the balance to a zero interest card for the first 6 months, then transfer it again after 6 months and there you have it - 12 months interest free ecommerce package.

Rob

[awebapart.com]

ekmpowershop.co.uk provide monthly billing of £19.99+VAT with a setup fee of £49.54+VAT (a total of £289.42+VAT per annum).

easywebstore.co.uk provide monthly billing of £19.99+VAT with a setup fee of £29.99+VAT (a total of £269.87+VAT per annum).

Setup usually means just installation, setting up hosting and the shop system on their webservers, you then have to customise the site yourself to get it looking like the shop you want, and upload your products.

Both companies also provide a list of existing customer sites. Additionally both of these companies provide an online demo of the store admin, so you can get some idea whether their systems are flexible enough for the type of shop and look you require (although this is not a complete try before you buy setup).

I know about these 2 companies because their particular market of providing advanced hosted online shops for non-technical clients is the market my company is entering into with our www.awebapart.com (http://www.awebapart.com) sitebuilder service (our service is different in many ways, including the fact that the online shop section of our sitebuilder is based on our own more professional, friendlier, customisable version of osCommerce).

Rather than providing another big-company face-less automated experience for clients wanting an online shop, we want to provide a more personable service which involves talking with potential clients first (is our service right for them?), discussing other things like branding and selection of a good domain name if necessary, selecting an appropriate design and colour scheme, and setting up and customising a shop as part of a free, try before you buy period. We see this as important pre-sales consultancy necessary for a client making an important decision like this. Clients might not understand issues like web marketing, names, SEO, branding, and design, we feel it is important to give them a helping hand.

Our pricing is £250+VAT per annum including hosting, but we only start charging this after a try-before-you-buy period where you can see your shop actually working, and if you decide to leave after, say, 6 months, we refund you the other 6 months you have paid for (prorata). Since we are a smaller, more personable company we are also flexible on how this is paid. We usually send out an invoice for the year, but we could do it quarterly instead, or we could arrange for a monthly direct debit. If this service is of interest or if you have any further questions, please drop be an email, we currently have a few other clients who are in this try before you buy process.

[Hedgehog Toys]

hi all,

1) I don't have any credit cards. :( so that ones out.
2) EKMpowershop would be fine but they won't accept Visa Electron as a payment card (everyone else seems happy with it !! )
3) Tried Easywebstore when we first set up....not entirely impressed as it is not very customisable.
4) Fair comment regarding the credit scoring issue but you pay up front with this type of thing so I can't see what the risk is to the providers. If you don't renew your subscription each month then site goes off.....

This is why I think the American site providers have so much more too offer. However the downsides are lack of search engine friendliness with the Google UK and non acceptance of UK debit cards as payment , for obvious reasons.

This leaves the UK market lacking in 'complete' solutions.

[Antonia @limeone.com]

Well, from my viewpoint as a non techie who was tasked with searching for a very specific type of cart, I am very pleased with the service of http://awebapart.com so far this week they have come up with a very slick solution to our problem in a very cost effective way.

They made it easy for me to present a solution to our board in a couple of days and were very laid back about it. They did the work so all I had to do was insert a link into my browser and got very good results.

The monthly options you are talking about are fine if you need to spread the payments but with costs of £250 plus VAT including hosting all you need to do is add PayPal isn't it? I suspect that the monthly payment options will work out very much more expensive over the contract that what awebapart are offering.

[awebapart.com]

Thanks Antonia. I'm very glad that you were able to 'impress the board' with the prototype we set up.

[Antonia @limeone.com]

It's a small board but they are not easy to impress :)

[openmind]

hi all,

1) I don't have any credit cards. :( so that ones out.
2) EKMpowershop would be fine but they won't accept Visa Electron as a payment card (everyone else seems happy with it !! )
3) Tried Easywebstore when we first set up....not entirely impressed as it is not very customisable.
4) Fair comment regarding the credit scoring issue but you pay up front with this type of thing so I can't see what the risk is to the providers. If you don't renew your subscription each month then site goes off.....

This is why I think the American site providers have so much more too offer. However the downsides are lack of search engine friendliness with the Google UK and non acceptance of UK debit cards as payment , for obvious reasons.

This leaves the UK market lacking in 'complete' solutions.

True which is the Open Mind Commerce system offers both full and monthly licenses ;)

[.Spiralling.]

There's an ecommerce solution called Shopfitter3 which allows you to pay per transaction or one lump sum at the start. Don't know it will be the kind of solution you're after, but as it's a pay-as-you-go solution, it might help you out.

[cmckay]

Drop me an e-mail or PM - We are launching a package withing the next few weeks which is based around a number of e-commerce platforms.

The option of monthly payment via direct debit is available.