Help with setting up an eCommerce store!

[MonkeyHell]

Hi all,

I'm currently in the process of setting up an eCommerce store selling furniture online, I've got some pretty feature rich design sortware (Serif WebPlus X2) and have been trying to teach myself with that. Now I'm sure that with a little effort and a LOT of time I could do it but I've recently came across wwwDOTekmpowershopDOTcom.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with this kind of thing and if they're any good? It also lists free SEO as a feature, is this really going to make much difference? I was thinking of running a PPC campaign anyway...

Hope someone can help to point me in the right direction.

Cheers,


Adam

[mitchoco]

You might want to try something like zencart.com or oscommerce.com. Both are free to use and come with loads of features.

[skybluejemma]

Take a look at webeasycommerce dot com. Lots of features and easy to use.

All these ecommerce solutions normally come with demos so just try a few and see which works best for you.

[MonkeyHell]

Thanks for your advice, maybe I'm being overly suspicious here but there free ones, why are they free? Just seems too good to be true...is it?!

[Stampy]

Some of the free ones can be the better options, because with open source there's a lot of free help you can get via forums, and it's easier to get modules or themes developed. But obviously you can't expect free help to always come as quickly or precisely as you would wish. I'm using Magento and Prestashop at the moment, both free, but Prestashop is 100 times easier to use than Magento.

In my (limited admittedly) experience you should be able to get everything you need from a free cart. But if you want a lot of the work done for you, then of course a paid option like ekm could be worth it.

Just make sure you investigate them all thoroughly first.

[mke]

There is lots of professional help available with the "free" ones. In turn, the base level developers of the free to download applications are funded, usually by either extensive consultancy work to larger (richer) users of their applications, or from user and well wisher (anonymous) larger users of the software.

It is not at all too good to be true. Join the forums for a couple of Open Source applications and get a feel for how many people are involved in development, testing, documenting and feedback. It is very impressive. Upon analysis, there is little wonder so many OS applications are as good as or better than their proprietary equivalents. Without the restrictions, to boot.

Do searches on Open Source and Linux for your area and you will be surprised by the number of practitioners, academics, developers and freelance supporters close to you.

[quikshop]

Are free online shops really free (http://www.internetretailer.biz/partner/are_free_online_shops_really_free.aspx?qsaid=286)?

Open source software is free to use and some of the packages are excellent, but you can't really establish a professional looking online retail business for no financial outlay.

Even with free to use open source software you still need to pay for hosting. If you want a good level of accessible telephone and email support and extended services such as help finding suppliers, advice on marketing and SEO, that costs as well.

Open source software comes with default settings, if you want your shop to have a unique professionally designed appearance then you will need to pay for a design for your shop (unless of course you are happy with a template that's been used by other shops).

If you are more interested in running your retail business than spending a lot of time customising and tweeking the software that runs your shop, consider a hosted eCommerce solution (http://www.internetretailer.biz) such as our own or perhaps Open Mind eCommerce.

In return for a monthly subscription, all the technical aspects of your shop are taken care of, hosting and upgrades are included and some services also include help and advice on growing your business online.

Research carefully though, you will find that larger hosted services such as EKM have hidden charges for things you might expect to be included in the price.

[MonkeyHell]

Thanks for all your replies, I'm currently in the process of having a play around with all of the options mentioned, and there's quite a few! I'm beginning to think that maybe a paid option would be better, less to worry about as I'm not that technically minded, it's just a case of which one...

[borobabe]

I have just used zen cart for my website and found it quite easy to use, the support forum has answers to most questions and a lot of add ins to make it how you want. Alternatively the paid for options are certainly a lot easier to manage. Good luck.

[PrettyPaws]

We have been with EKM for 2 years and they are fantastic, one of the best in my opinion. I'm not sure about "free seo" though, I've never come across that other than sitemap etc.

[MonkeyHell]

Right, after browsing through all the available options I think I've settled on Moonfruit, any comments as to whether this is the right decision??

Also, as the Moonfruit payment system seems to be Paypal, will they accept use of the non-branded Paypal option?

[Payel Ganguly]

For success in e-commerce traffic, good SEO rank, smart website layout, relevant link building, user friendly navigation are very very important. I think seowebindiaDOTcom is one of the good solution examples of e-commerce.

Thank u