Toggle sidebar

EKM Powershop

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alan Hope Copywriter
  • Start date Start date
Sort by date Sort by votes
A

Alan Hope Copywriter

I am considering moving my website "aluxurygift4you.com" from Easywebstore to EKM Powershop to try and obtain a more professional looking site.

Could I ask any of you who have sites with EKM Powershop for your views about them?

Also are there any implications I should be aware of i.e.from an SEO perspective-I only launched my site on the Internet on 1 September 2007?

Thank You.

Alan Hope
 
Hi, we use ekmpowershop for the same reason, they have alot of professional looking templates you can use to help you get started with a very fresh professional look, you can modify the templates with your own code or later on design the website from the ground up with your own code. I have found it very easy to use and manage with no problems.

The natural SEO built into the system is very good aswell admittedly you still have to do some hard work to make the most of it the basics are in place to help you achieve the results you want.

If you want to have a look at our design/template please feel free.
sparky-uk.com

cheers
Mark
 
Upvote 0
I use ekmPowershop for all three of my sites, all have very different looks/feels and I have been really pleased with the performance of all three. I can't fault their customer service and support either.

As Mark says the basics are there for SEO but you have to work hard at getting the right level of keywords etc and content so it won't do it all for you but gives you the basics on which you can build. 2 of my 3 shops were on Page 1 of Google within 2 weeks of launch. The last shop isn't however I've launched late into an already crowded marketplace and have a sneaking suspicion Google have sandboxed the site which is quite frustrating but out of my hands.

The templates are fairly good - not the wide choice some of the others offer but they are good enough to give you a good basic shop and with some good photography you can get the shops looking really quite individual.

Would I recommend them? Absolutely, every time, but I do stress they only provide the framework it is the content that will sink or swim a site!
 
Upvote 0
openmind said:
Are there particular reasons why you have chosen EKM as your weapon of choice?
Click to expand...

I'd like to ask the same, Ekm are not the only provider of this service and wouldn't be my choice to move to - I take it you may have been swung by Ekm's rather underhand attack on Easywebstores customer base perhaps?? http://www.easywebstore.co.uk/ekmpowershop. If so then I would have to say 1) I would not move to a company who feels the need to use blatant lies to get customers 2) There are better providers out there - several of whom are members of this forum!

If you want your products moving to a service who can offer you a tailored website with a more bespoke feel then why not also take a look at Internet Retailer I have been with them for over 2 years now and have had a superb service, and there are other members of this forum that are also with them as well. The owner is also a member of this forum (user name quikshop).
 
Upvote 0
boho said:
I'd like to ask the same, Ekm are not the only provider of this service and wouldn't be my choice to move to - I take it you may have been swung by Ekm's rather underhand attack on Easywebstores customer base perhaps?? http://www.easywebstore.co.uk/ekmpowershop. If so then I would have to say 1) I would not move to a company who feels the need to use blatant lies to get customers 2) There are better providers out there - several of whom are members of this forum!

If you want your products moving to a service who can offer you a tailored website with a more bespoke feel then why not also take a look at Internet Retailer I have been with them for over 2 years now and have had a superb service, and there are other members of this forum that are also with them as well. The owner is also a member of this forum (user name quikshop).
Click to expand...

Boho

Out of curiosity have you ever used ekm? I just wondered what horrendous experience you have had with them as this isn't the first time I have seen you post in this manner?

I'm only curious because my first hand experience with them has been nothing but positive and couldn't recommend them highly enough.
 
Upvote 0
Boho

Out of curiosity have you ever used ekm? I just wondered what horrendous experience you have had with them as this isn't the first time I have seen you post in this manner?

I'm only curious because my first hand experience with them has been nothing but positive and couldn't recommend them highly enough.
Click to expand...

I have several very close friends who have used them in a couple of differing markets and their experience was not positive at all! I also tested their service and did not continue with it. I have also experienced their telephone calls telling quite blatant lies about their services in order to try to persuade me away from my current host, and am aware of this practice being carried out to other Easywebstore & Internet Retailer customers and when they make claims that I know to be factually incorrect about my own provider (along very similar lines to the statements they have made about Easywebstore in the link I posted) then frankly I'm unlikely to have much positive to say about them. If they were so confident about providing a good service then there would be no need to try to poach other peoples customers in an underhand manner, that would be like me phoning up all of a competitors customers and trying to bribe them to come to me - I wouldn't and I don't need to.

I say as I find, the service I have received from my host goes above an beyond that which I would expect, I have a page 1 ranking site and have experienced no problems whatsoever. This has not been the experience of the friends who went with Ekm.
 
Upvote 0
Its horses for courses with hosted eCommerce solutions. I'm sure Phil at Open Mind eCommerce would agree, EKM offer some features that our own services don't and we both offer other features EKM dont!

There are several other eCommerce service providers in this community, Paul at awebapart for one, with good reputations and regular positive feedback from our own customers.

Perhaps the biggest difference is in how we conduct our business. Over the past few months we've received a number of calls from EKM thinking they were talking to shop owners rather than the provider, trying to convince us to change to EKM and using blatently false statements.

We've not gone as far as Easy Web Store in posting a 'these are the facts' page about their business practices, but it does call into question what their priorities are and where they put their resources in relation to growing their business and customer service.

If you have a good experience with EKM that's great, its about finding the right solution to make a success of your business - I've even met people who tell of good experiences with BT's customer services so anything is possible!
 
Upvote 0
I too would be careful about switching Alan, was there any problem with easywebstores service? Did you find them helpful, have you tried to call them on the phone? I believe they also offer a design service, although it does cost £499 - I believe its pretty good and they make a real effort to clean the markup some of their example customer sites have used this service and they look pretty good.

I know they are a bit smaller than ekm but is this not a good thing sometimes? I have seen a lot of ekm stores that look pretty ghastly - not necessarily their fault (unless they did the designs).
 
Upvote 0
quikshop said:
If you have a good experience with EKM that's great, its about finding the right solution to make a success of your business - I've even met people who tell of good experiences with BT's customer services so anything is possible!
Click to expand...

I actually find that comment really quite offensive, although I am sure that couldn't possibly have been your intention.

I have no affilliation with ekm other than I set up what was supposed to be a temporary site whilst the designers I had been working with completed my bespoke package. I was (and still am) delighted with the results of the "temporary" site - achieving a page 1, rank 1 position on Google within 2 weeks. I was that impressed I set up a second site with them and again within 2 weeks was number one on Google for all my search terms. So I *am* categorically happy with their service.

Of course that may all change in the future, because who knows what will happen but my experience with them over the past 7 months has been incredibly positive on all accounts, especially their customer service.

In fact I *have* had a great experience thus far with EKM as I am sure your users have had with you, I am sure you wouldn't call their integrety into question.
 
Upvote 0
I think some of the smaller ecommerce providers are a little annoyed that ekm can find so much time to ring round all their customers.

I would have thought that a more efficient use of marketing resource would be to find new customers who dont have stores rather than look for switchers (and retain current ones) but what do I know.

Has it occurred to anyone on these groups that maybe ekm are in trouble and cannot grow their subscriber base anymore? Maybe their system and support model doesn't scale as well as they thought. Maybe they are offering too much support at the price point and cant sustain it? What would happen if they went under?
 
Upvote 0
Alan Hope said:
I am considering moving my website "aluxurygift4you.com" from Easywebstore to EKM Powershop to try and obtain a more professional looking site.
Click to expand...

It depends what you mean by "a more professional looking site". It could mean many things: technology, features, conversion, traffic, sales, seo, etc although I'm guessing you mean cosmetics/visuals.

The thing to bear in mind with all DIY ecommerce sitebuilder solutions is that the person ultimately designing the site is you, not a design professional, and the person structuring the shop for SEO is you, not an SEO professional.

Personally, I don't think there is much difference between the 2 solutions, they are both pretty good (and I'm saying that as a competitor in the ecommerce solution market), and if you have a look at sites made with either system you will notice similarities (more so in technology, SEO, features, etc). I also do not think that your site is that bad, and there are still things you can do with your existing site to make it more professional, as I have mentioned in a previous thread (e.g. get a graphic design professional to design the top banner).

Looking at both supplier's websites I must admit that EKM website does look more professional than easywebstore website, but the important thing is what their end client websites look like. If you are thinking you might do better with EKM is that because EKM have been marketing themselves to you and other Easywebstore clients, it might be worth reading what EasyWebstore have to say about this, so at least you get both sides of the story:

www.easywebstore.co.uk/ekmpowershop

Alan Hope said:
Also are there any implications I should be aware of i.e.from an SEO perspective-I only launched my site on the Internet on 1 September 2007?
Click to expand...
Unless you're getting a lot of traffic and doing very well ranking for certain important terms, and the money is flowing in (which I guess it isn't since you are thinking of changing ecommerce suppliers) then there shouldn't be too many issues. The main thing with moving is to make sure there is a 404 error handler on the new site during the transition, so that if people click on old site links in google that aren't on your current site, then at least you have a friendly message waiting for them. Eventually the old links in google will be replaced with the new links of your new site.
 
Upvote 0
In fact I *have* had a great experience thus far with EKM as I am sure your users have had with you, I am sure you wouldn't call their integrety into question.
Click to expand...

Why is it questioning your integrity? The best thing for all services is happy customers, which you obviously are or you wouldn't have stayed with Ekm or given them positive feedback, so it is great that you've had a good experience, it's just not everyone has had that same experience, and so like me there will be people on the flip side of the coin, but I wouldn't question that you've had a great experience, it just doesn't mirror mine thats all. I shouldn't take it personally I don't read the post from quikshop that way and I'm sure no one else would either and no one is suggesting that what you say is not true :)
 
Upvote 0
lajlaj said:
I actually find that comment really quite offensive
Click to expand...

lajlaj, as a happy shop keeper with your solution provider I wish you every success and as a member of this community I will readily offer advice on business issues if you ever need it, but only EKM should have issue with my post.

If we get an enquiry from a new shop keeper wanting a facility we do not provide, we will happily point them in the direction of a competing service, most likely one of the other providers in this community.

EKM are not on that list because of the way they conduct their business, and their recent marketing campaign and questionable tactics is well documented by several solution providers.
 
Upvote 0
emerchant said:
I think some of the smaller ecommerce providers are a little annoyed that ekm can find so much time to ring round all their customers.

I would have thought that a more efficient use of marketing resource would be to find new customers who dont have stores rather than look for switchers (and retain current ones) but what do I know.

Has it occurred to anyone on these groups that maybe ekm are in trouble and cannot grow their subscriber base anymore? Maybe their system and support model doesn't scale as well as they thought. Maybe they are offering too much support at the price point and cant sustain it? What would happen if they went under?
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly, I would have thought their time would have been better spent marketing their product elsewhere! I have 3 shops and have had calls to 2 of them from them so far, all 3 are part of one Ltd company and they clearly haven't figured out NO applies to all of my businesses or taken notice of the please don't call this number again!

The caller claimed that Ekm were the largest ecommerce supplier in the UK and were significantly miffed to have it pointed out that in fact they were not Actinic are, and they actually had to go away and clarify this with someone else in their office and come back and correct their statement to largest hosted supplier. They also tried to insinuate that my provider would not be able to provide the kind of service that Ekm do, despite the fact that they had to admit in the conversation that they actually would do none of the things my service provider does for me for free and would expect contribution towards development costs to achieve those features. Needless to say they were told where to go..the first time by me, the second time by my business partner.

It's a shoddy business practice, good companies grow by way of positive marketing, happy customers and reputation (amongst other things) they do not need to try to grow by stealing/poaching/bribing/undermining whats not theirs.
 
Upvote 0
Are ekm the biggest hosted provider anyway? Some of the larger hosting companies (1&1 for example) offer eshop functionality on the back of a hosting package. Dont get me wrong I wouldn't suggest using this, a company such as ekm or easywebstore that specialises will offer a much higher level of support than that a low cost hosting provider but still I am not sure ekm are all that great (at least the "no 1 in the uk" claim department).
 
Upvote 0
They're probably the largest dedicated/specialised hosted ecommerce provider perhaps...though I'm not sure? Most 'no 1 in the UK' things tend to be fairly spurious claims anyway, and while you might be number 1 in terms of volume of overall customers, you could equally have a huge churn rate of leavers as well.
 
Upvote 0
emerchant said:
Are ekm the biggest hosted provider anyway? Some of the larger hosting companies (1&1 for example) offer eshop functionality on the back of a hosting package.
Click to expand...
Technically 1&1 couldn't really be the biggest UK hosted provider of ecommerce solutions since their sites are hosted in Germany! but I see what you mean, what with other UK suppliers offering hosted managed ecommerce solutions, like 123-reg, mrsite, even ebay shops and bt eshop. Actinic also provide hosting as part of their solution.

It also depends what you mean by biggest? Number of clients? Revenue? Size of client? Number of visitors to client sites? Total turnover of client sites? etc. In some areas, I would say that Venda are the biggest UK hosted managed ecommerce solution provider, judging by their client list.

I reckon EKM are one of the more well-known UK hosted managed ecommerce suppliers for small businesses, but probably not as well known as some of the hosting companies like 1&1 who do spend an awful lot on advertising.
 
Upvote 0
I've been reading this thread with great interest, as I switched to EKM this summer.

I switched to EKM from Store2go because I was on the hunt for a site that would give me more options - more professional templates/better category management/more product options.

EKM has all this and overall I'm very happy with the look of the site - as well as the google ranks - and judging by the increase in value of orders, then my customers like it too :D.

It's not perfect though - I have issue with a few aspects that are missing - apparently they are on the 'wish list' to be dealt with. These things are fairly basic - such as automatically updating customers on their orders, or providing a tracking order facility. My EKM doesn't have either of these facilities, so I have to either despatch and not advise the customer, or spend ages emailing them individually :|.

Also, I wasn't particularly happy that in order to send customers to my website address, I had to switch hosts - so EKM now host my domain for an exorbitant fee of £25.99 per annum.

Apart from that, I'm very happy with them, although I would switch at the end of this year, if I had a better offer.

dawn
 
Upvote 0
All your posts were really interesting: I've been using ekm for a couple of months now but I did get a web designer to do the hard work (feel free to have a look).
My comments: great if you don't require anything too challenging, it's cheap, easy to use and the customer service people are helpful (but heavens help you if have a problem after 6pm)
Problems include: very hard to get it to do anything creative, statistics erratic to say the least (if you plan to follow what's going on live) and unavailable at times.
So I'm still happy I used it as a first time web solution, but when the business grows a little, I will be happier to have my own stand alone site.
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
Company strike off insolvancy woes
Replies
14
Views
6K
Legal, Employment and Insolvency
Lisa Thomas
Lisa Thomas
FullyCreative
Seeking Insights: How Would You Price & Use a Practical Safety Consultancy?
Replies
4
Views
7K
Start Up Space
Banksbroo
Banksbroo
O.Z
How my global business started with a complete collapse
Replies
5
Views
2K
General Business Forum
JEREMY HAWKE
JEREMY HAWKE
ayka
Seeking Advice on Obligations Following Compulsory Dissolution of Non-Trading LTD Company
Replies
1
Views
1K
Legal, Employment and Insolvency
ChrisCallaghan
ChrisCallaghan
Libor Smolik
Seeking Feedback for New Business Directions
Replies
0
Views
967
General Business Forum
Libor Smolik
Libor Smolik

Latest Articles

Top Bottom
Back