Choosing an ecommerce solution

Log in to reply
E

ecoleman

Free Member
Feb 12, 2010
392
71
  • #41
    serpyre said:
    Now now, no need to be rude, business must be slow. See you're running opencart with 6,000 visitors per month on a cheapie Tier 7 host - yes - that would be painful for you to accept them as fact - fair enough.
    Click to expand...

    And what exactly have you deduced from that?
    Let's see what your so called stats reveal about my turnover because according your your stats my turnover is capped at $400/month.

    You see, what I'm trying to say is you don't have to have the most expensive, fastest, organic only visitors to actually make a decent living.
    So stop spouting your garbage stats. Nobody really cares.

    BTW, Your visitors numbers are incorrect and my host is Tier 3
     
    Last edited:
    Upvote 0
    S

    serpyre

  • #42
    That you only know what you know - it's not right - it's not wrong - it's just at the lower end of the spectrum - like a dingy owner trying tell a yacht owner how to sail - then when the yacht owner says it doesn't work that way the dingy owner gets angry because that's all they can afford or all they know. Experience is a powerful thing, just because you don't understand doesn't mean it isn't fact - they believed you would fall off the earth if you sailed to the horizon - until they found out the earth was round.

    They are Tier 3 to you, but to an enterprise consultant they are the lowest, Tier 7, all about perspective again - remember you are competing in a worldwide marketplace of all sizes from niche to the largest enterprises - not just the same size store as yourself. Again, you are not understanding - $400/mth is Technical SEO - organic traffic with zero marketing - whatever you do above that is Business SEO - backlinks, press releases, ppc - the more time you put in the more you can do - but as a small business you have an upper limit of your time hence why most SMEs are 1:1 revenue:effort.

    What is deducted - simple - you have not considered what happens if the information turns out to be true - denial is a powerful ally. Personally we couldn't care less what you think given your responses - but we do feel bad for the business owners who are pulled in to the black hole of the 95% of businesses that fail - they say there is comfort in crowds - even when it is destructive.
     
    Last edited by a moderator:
    Upvote 0
    E

    ecoleman

    Free Member
    Feb 12, 2010
    392
    71
  • #43
    So in summary, you know nothing about my business and your stats are wrong.
    I've never made myself out to be a multi-million pound business and I have no desire to be one, but I have a successful business and make a very good living using simple, cost effective tools.

    To anybody else reading this, there is no reason whatsoever why you can't turnover 7 figures using a simple system like Opencart, Shopify, Prestashop, woocommerce etc.

    Whilst people like serpyre would love you to think you must invest thousands of pounds in their services, this is not the case.
     
    Last edited:
    Upvote 0
    S

    serpyre

  • #45
    We're not a service provider, got out of that earlier this year as SMEs don't understand the concept of growth - the simple case of making more revenue than effort expended. We understand the normal SME approach is your business model and fully appreciate that is what almost all people on this forum will use - however there are growth options outside of the standard SME approach but accessible to SMEs. So we would ask "no reason whatsoever why you can't turnover 7 figures" - then why don't you provide the real details how to do it so people can learn from it - why don't you just say how much revenue you make and how long it took then everyone has a gauge - it helps other people starting out which is what it is all about.

    We already have, the more hosting on the higher Tier provider with better platform the more organic traffic you can generate which creates growth with minimal effort. If people want to post what they want do exactly we will more than happily explain it to them here from simple seo techniques to loading the products to simple methods to make the store look bigger than it is so it exudes trust. The problem is that these forums are littered with service providers and people on the 1:1 revenue:effort model - so you have 95% for financial gain or self-protection reasons trying to put the kybosh on it. It's a shame, but it has been happening for millenia so why stop now.
     
    Upvote 0
    S

    serpyre

  • #47
    Right, so you complain and not prepared to put any information out to help people - http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/listening-to-complainers-is-bad-for-your-brain.html.

    Ok, we'll start. So we were asked by a US company (industrial parts) to rebuild their Magento store as it was split between WordPress & Magento CE - with rankings dropping down. Using the growth techniques we mentioned we helped them rapid implement a site - now most service providers would have quoted 2-3mths primarily to spin out the development process and make chargeable time which would have cost $4-5,000. Doing this they write un-necessary code and hack the site around so it is unstable - the reason why the first site was collapsing and needing rebuilding even though it wasn't very old.

    So using growth techniques we rapid implemented it in 2-3wks and just charged $2,500, they now have an incredibly stable site with very little code with rankings increasing - never need to touch the thing - just process orders. Even has some auto-pricing supplier updates on the products and part number searching. On top of that they were put on a good host and it generates 9,000 visitors per month organically ranking top page Google - they have absolutely no social media or ppc or marketing - kept telling them to but there you go.

    Sure, we could have charged them a few thousand more, but we would have to fiddle around with the site for a couple of months making it unstable - and then it would not be a win:win. So the principle is that for WooCommerce or Shopfy literally get the thing running in days, for Magento CE in weeks. Quotes above that are then in to time justification and you will pay the price a year later by having to do a rebuild - assuming they didn't hinder the site in the first place. Anyway, we're not doing any service provider work since that (moved to the retail side) but happy to point any startups towards growth methods - or they can use the standard SME approach - purely up to them.
     
    Upvote 0
    jamjam11

    jamjam11

    Free Member
    Nov 20, 2013
    73
    3
    China
  • #48
    Linode linux server fully built then install Wordpress then install a paid for e-commerce theme by Woothemes then pay for a sopping cart, I would highly recommend if anyone takes this road to buy Woocart or known as Opencart. I've looked at almost every way possible and while many other ways gives you the same result. An e-commerce site, You'll not have the speed to serve the pages out fast enough to have a customer. Woocart is designed for Wordpress and its really only opencart but wordpress allows you to have caching plugins that are amazing. Once the page is caught with the correct server settings you can have page turns in 0.2ms that also do a precheck to see if the page has changed from it was last served, Very handy if one item runs out of stock.
     
    Upvote 0
    Charlie McBroom

    Charlie McBroom

    Free Member
    Jul 29, 2014
    17
    1
    40
  • #50
    ecoleman said:
    s.

    To anybody else reading this, there is no reason whatsoever why you can't turnover 7 figures using a simple system like Opencart, Shopify, Prestashop, woocommerce etc.
    Click to expand...

    I really like this point, I think these out of the box solutions can be ideal for any ecommerce business of any size.

    It is when you come to bespoke and custom needs, extensions can be expensive but worse case scenario they could potentially hinder your system as the extensions may not have been written by the same developers thus not interacting correctly. (I remember many moons ago I had 2 extensions giving me this issue, something to do with the way the Javascript loads)

    Personally though, I really like Magento, but I have been hearing some really great things about Opencart too.

    But if you are a larger ecommerce site and have a large budget to spend then you may want a totally bespoke system.

    Love to see the responses!

    All the best,

    Charlie McBroom
    Ecommerce Specialist
    Linnworks
     
    Upvote 0
    Cybertill

    Cybertill

    Free Member
    Aug 31, 2012
    5
    1
  • #51
    Really great, informative article. One other thought is that it’s also important to consider whether the business has a bricks and mortar store. They might want to integrate their ecommerce with their stock control or EPoS system as this will enable shoppers to see live stock online and allow them to shop with confidence as well enabling the retailer to offer key services such as click and collect.
     
    Upvote 0
    L

    leshka_uk

    Free Member
    Sep 9, 2014
    12
    1
  • #55
    Here is my 2 pence about underrated open source project - Magento. eBay Inc has spent over 100M+ for a reason (!) and still continuously invests in future development allowing wider community to develop add-ons and plugins (google for magento connect).

    Important decision for you to make now is if you are willing to commit to a particular provider (SaaS) or would like to have a freedom of choice and control your future costs with Magento CE.

    A lot of Magento developers make easy things to look very complicated and charge fortune for 5 minutes job. Google for "understandingE" project to see how in lame terms you can create a good solution without having to spend thousands.. You can get a design done by someone from designcrowd and get your Magento hosted with simpleservers. My friend has made investment of 200 GBP into professional design (3 pages, delivered in html+css) and paid a developer he found on peopleperhour 150 GBP to install it. Amazon & eBay integration came with FREE (sponsored by eBay) M2E Pro plug in..

    There are plenty of places where you can get a decent site on Magento CE done under 500 GBP one off without having to commit to pay monthly provider.
     
    Upvote 0
    B

    branddesignexperts

  • #56
    The CMS that has been used worldwide for ecommerce business is joomla and magento. Though they have some flaws but their easy to access architecture is making them famous among e-commerce business.

    But if you don't have the proper navigation for the user on e-commerce website no CMS will help you in building sales.
     
    Upvote 0
    J

    JonathanSM

    Free Member
    Oct 2, 2014
    4
    1
    46
  • #63
    My preference is Woocommerce on Wordpress. I have used opencart & magento before - but now advise new shops to do woocommerce. Magento is a beast - very difficult to tame unless you pour in consulting fees, opencart is good but I feel Woocommerce has better support (in themes, plugins, modules, online help etc.) than the opencart.
     
    Upvote 0
    S

    singhabhishek251

    Free Member
    Sep 24, 2014
    79
    5
    37
  • #65
    JonathanSM said:
    My preference is Woocommerce on Wordpress. I have used opencart & magento before - but now advise new shops to do woocommerce. Magento is a beast - very difficult to tame unless you pour in consulting fees, opencart is good but I feel Woocommerce has better support (in themes, plugins, modules, online help etc.) than the opencart.
    Click to expand...
    I too prefer WordPress for many kind of websites, but I am afraid because of more hacking coming in for WordPress websites. I have some wordpress websites and they get easily hacked every couple of month and get infected with malicious codes and my hosting provider suspend my account for that. I am really tired of these things and do not know how to cope of with this.
     
    Upvote 0
    R

    rtataw

  • #66
    Faevilangel said:
    We get a lot of questions on the forums asking for the best ecommerce solution, and why members to tend to promote their favourite, I thought I would I would write up a post on the options available to you...

    What are the types of ecommerce solutions

    There are 3 main types of ecommerce solutions available, Hosted, Open source / pre-built and Custom, all offer their own advantages over each other, and below is my run down of these.

    Hosted Solution:

    A hosted solution is where a company run the website for you, you have a part of their website for your needs and they take the hassle away the technical expertise on running an ecommerce store.

    It's primarily aimed at new ecommerce stores, pricing ranges from free to £100 a month, you get a customer support line to speak to someone (this might be an extra add on) and some form of ticketing / forum system where you can get support from the company or other users of the software.

    The biggest players in the market are EKM Powershop, Big Cartel, Shopify, Bigcommerce and Magento Go. All vary in pricing and features.

    The main advantage of this option is the lack of technical expertise needed, you are just left to run the website (adding products etc) while they do all the bits you just don't want to do.

    You're limited to what you can do to your store though, you will be able to change how the store looks but adding new features is normally a big no.

    Pre-built Software

    A Pre-built solution is an off the shelf system which has already been built and you can either buy a license (paid) or use it for free (open source). The paid software normally comes with some form of customer support and the free versions normally have some form of forum for users to help one another.

    This type of solution is primarily aimed at the developer market, allowing website developers to offer a low cost solution to website owners to get an ecommerce store, the choice of which software to use will depend on the developers preferences.

    The software normally needs a understanding of development to do customisations although there are websites which sell themes and plugins for most of the common carts.

    Paid Software options include Cubecart and CS Cart, open source software there is Opencart, Prestashop and Magento

    The main advantage of these options is you get the source code, and you can literally do anything with the site, you want to build new features, go ahead but you will either need to be technical minded or have someone who can do it for you as you will need to install and set yp the site, and do the general maintenance.

    Custom

    This is where you go if you have a totally unique idea that no system will currently do, it might be a new way to do a certain function or to link it to other software you use in the business (fulfilment etc). You're in the land of the big bucks and this is primarily aimed at growing businesses which just need something more than what other systems offer.

    Costings can range from a few thousand into the millions, depending on your idea and who you get to build it.

    Conclusion

    There is no right or wrong answer in which type of system to go for, all have their advantages and disadvantages and every websites needs are unique, no website will ever be the same as another.

    So how do you decide which one to use? Research, look at the options they all offer, work out how much you could afford to spend on the solution and work out which one fits into your website projections (no point getting option #1 if you grow out of it in 3 months etc).

    Finally test your website solution (trial or demo basis) before signing up, testing will tell you if the solution is the right fit for you.
    Click to expand...

    Thank you for sharing. I will research all three options.
     
    Upvote 0
    R

    RanjeetJS

    Free Member
    Oct 8, 2014
    5
    0
    37
  • #67
    There are many options available in the market as per ones requirement, but if its beginner like me, I ll might as well try my hands on something before going big. Tried Avactis Shopping Free Version, its too good to use and even though its a free version , still its fully featured.
     
    Upvote 0
    C

    chirsty269

    Free Member
    Sep 19, 2014
    3
    2
    36
  • #68
    Full Platform
    This robust system is best for the business with dozens of different products they want to sell online. With full platform providers, you can design and host an entire online store, complete with multiple products and categories. From adding items to a shopping cart to tracking inventory, every step of the purchase process is handled through this e-commerce solution. Many of these providers also feature a built-in customer relationship management (CRM) system and blogging platform.


    Online Order Form
    If your business specializes in selling a few niche products or if you are trying to collect money for a specific order, an online order form is a great way to quickly collect the data (and funds!) you need. With an online form, you can customize what information you need to collect from your customer, and most online form companies integrate with the top payment gateways. Once you've created your form, quickly embed the form in your site with custom HTML code. All submitted data is generally stored in your form builder account, and money is collected in your payment gateway account.


    "Bare Bones"
    The most basic type of e-commerce solution, the "bare bones" method allows you embed a payment button into your website, which will direct customers to a third-party payment gateway. This is a great method for businesses that have already developed a storefront on their own website. If you have already built the functionality needed for your online store, like total purchase calculation, this is an inexpensive and effective option for collecting payments.
     
    Upvote 0
    C

    Colourscope

  • #72
    I tend to use WooCommerce which is the default shopping cart integrated with Wordpress and it's so easy to install and use. It's not so easy to design your customised graphical interface and integrate it but once you do a couple of them, you get to learn exactly how to do what and where to edit. My clients love it.
     
    Upvote 0
    B

    Brum26

    Free Member
    May 20, 2014
    47
    5
    42
  • #74
    I use opencart for my sites but I have to admit that of late I am starting to question how SEO friendly it is. For example placing a meta description for the homepage was not straight forward. My sites have not performed all that well over the last 12 months and although I accept that there are many variables that may have contributed to this I do wonder whether opencart may be part of the problem.
     
    Upvote 0
    S

    serpyre

  • #76
    Cannot choose a platform - have to research to the nth degree - sure if you want 'slow' growth and 'perceived' efficiency - otheriwse nonsense. If you want 'high(er)' growth and 'actual' efficiency you just do this #26 - http://www.warriorforum.com/search-...98051-big-websites-pagerank.html#/post9554157. The same with WooCommerce but you limit yourself to 50% efficiency. Go to builtwith and look at the platforms widely used, use any outside of this and in most cases you just reduced your efficiency and increased your workload.

    If a startup wants the context you can look at our posts on Reddit or a summary is here http://serpyrecommerce.wordpress.co...ashion-beauty-verticals-we-dont-want-to-sell/.
     
    Last edited by a moderator:
    Upvote 0
    T

    tylnewcastle

    Free Member
    Oct 29, 2014
    22
    3
    38
  • #77
    It very much depends how far you are gonna take it and what is the traffic estimate you are considering for the website.

    If it's just an startup, then using an open source platform is worth it and if you have a gut feeling that you are gonna make it like Amazon or eBay then it's worth going for custom designed e-Commerce solutions as per your requirements.
     
    Upvote 0
    S

    sortedgifts

    Free Member
    Nov 1, 2014
    8
    1
    36
  • #78
    This is something I researched a lot prior to starting an ecomerce website and Opencart came out on top for me. FOr starters it is free but also it has a rather large support base and a very large number of modules free/paid to add to it. If you are looking to start out - I would seriously consider this as an option.
     
    Upvote 0
    R

    radoslav_brodzinski

    Free Member
    Nov 3, 2014
    1
    1
    47
  • #79
    Hello everybody, i am new here. Could i ask about best way to increase my e-sale? Here is my story:
    My company is placed in Poland, we producing uniqe metal juliet balconies and other railings. I try to find my customers also in U.K., first what comes to my mind was e-bay. So i have some listings on ebay and ebay-shoop as trade mark "Brodzinski_Manufactory" but i cant estabish my sale on rewarding level. Is there any other way to boost my sale or could some on promote my products on U.K. market for the future profit reward? I realy dont know reality of U.K. market and mentality of customers. I lookin for some on who is familiar with u.k. marketing secrets. For now my sale is like 1-2 juliet balcony per week, i would love to increase it by duble or triple.
    If you have some advise for me, go ahead. I dont looking for cheep advertisement so i wont pase any links to my products. If some one i curious what we offer feel free to ask.
    Thank you and frogive me my english.
    Radoslav
     
    • Like
    Reactions: NamsAbsossy
    Upvote 0
    S

    singhabhishek251

    Free Member
    Sep 24, 2014
    79
    5
    37
  • #80
    I would just like to add that before deciding on the ecommerce platform one need to go through in depth analysis of market where they want to focus for the size of traffic, the money that they are willing to invest for the website for the sake of their customers. An ecommerce platform is possible on right from WordPress to high level customized solutions.
     
    Upvote 0
    Log in to reply

    Latest Articles

    Top Bottom
    Community
    Articles
    Menu