Ecommerce options?

[paulyh]

Hi, I currently have an ebay shop which is my main source of income but I am looking to have my own site. I am trying to decide between an all in one option such as shopfiy or going down the hosting/open cart route. I am not too knowledgeable when it comes to web design etc but I can cope with basic technical tasks. I have read through various threads on here regarding the subject and apologise for starting another one asking a question that has been asked a few times.
Not sure if it makes any difference but it is jewellery that I sell.

Just looking for some advice, so that I can make a more informed decision as to which route to take.

Paul

 

[Pish_Pash]

I'm on opencart via a 3rd party hosting...if I had my time over, I'd go with something like bigcommerce, but I've now ponied up too much on extensions to move (I've kond of gottten pregant to opencart for now!)

I'm not exactly backwards when it comes to IT, but frankly it's a pain in the backside getting "this to do that", or such & such fails & extension Developer A blames Developer B, the hosting company blames opencart etc etc....I think a once stop shop that's been well thought through & has everyone voting with their feeet is the way to go.

 

[globby]

Id recommend magento. Like you I have basic technical skills.

Magento has a moderate learning curve any many user help guides are provided by geeks with poor communication skills (like most tech guys) - however you can power through these and often the solution can be found in the back end rather than coding adjustments.

For design i just purchased a theme (ultimo in my case) about £70 if I remember. Get your own hosting and you'll find that magento can be an effective, powerful and cheap ecommerce solution.

No silly monthly fees + transaction costs like shopify or bigcommerce and you will have more e commerce options and tools available.

Just the learning curve which isn't too bad if you power through it. I managed alone and i'm not a tech guy.

 

[Faevilangel]

@paulyh have a read of this thread, it explains what type of ecommerce systems are available and the benefits of each

 

[Giltex-wear]

Id recommend magento. Like you I have basic technical skills.

Magento has a moderate learning curve any many user help guides are provided by geeks with poor communication skills (like most tech guys) - however you can power through these and often the solution can be found in the back end rather than coding adjustments.

For design i just purchased a theme (ultimo in my case) about £70 if I remember. Get your own hosting and you'll find that magento can be an effective, powerful and cheap ecommerce solution.

No silly monthly fees + transaction costs like shopify or bigcommerce and you will have more e commerce options and tools available.

Just the learning curve which isn't too bad if you power through it. I managed alone and i'm not a tech guy.

Hi mate

I was about to purchase ultimo myself as I really love the feel of that theme!

Was just wondering once I pay £70 for the theme do I get the backface of magento everything included and coded?

Kind Regards

 

[globby]

Hi mate

I was about to purchase ultimo myself as I really love the feel of that theme!

Was just wondering once I pay £70 for the theme do I get the backface of magento everything included and coded?

Kind Regards

Hi

Not too sure what you mean by this. When you say backface do you mean Magento backend or the theme specific backend (which is within magento)

I'll explain what I did if it helps

i) got hosting with a software called cpanel (is fairly standard these days)
ii) used an app within cpanel called softaculous to install magento community edition (free)
iii) bought the ultimo app and followed ultimos instructions on how to install it into magento (you need ftp or ssh - ftp is easiest for non techs). Its quite easy to install.
iv) you then have the magento back end and ultimo theme can be adjusted within magento

Basically you need to install magento and then "skin" magento with ultimo theme

Hope this helps? Let me know if you have more q's

 

[amac]

@paulyh have a read of this thread, it explains what type of ecommerce systems are available and the benefits of each

This is a good resource.

I'd suggest going the hosted route if it's your first stand-alone store i.e Shopify, BigCommerce etc. The fees are a pain but everything pretty much works leaving you time to focus on your business. Obviously once you grow you can switch to your own platform - whether that be open source or proprietary.

 

[Paul Norman]

I have no idea from your post about the scale of your operation, however, I would consider getting a professional company in as early as possible to build and support your site in E commerce.

This morning, whilst I was asleep, my web company were busy doing maintenance work on the site resulting from overnight events. Our site traffic is fairly constant through the night (due to the rest of the world) and we had a big product release. Were I maintaining it myself, or even employing a member of staff to do that, I would have arrived at the office to a site down, and, as it turns out, about 100 fewer orders to dispatch.

Of course, you have to go with your budget. But for an Ecommerce business your website is your real estate and you ought to invest as much as you can possibly spend.

 

[paulyh]

Thank you for all the replies. @Paul Norman, I am a small business with a relatively small turnover so I do not have much of a budget for this but I feel I need to have my own site as having all my eggs in one basket with ebay is too much of a risk.
I have been looking at a woocommerce site as they seem to be a good option for small start-ups. Has anyone got any experience of using woocommerce?

 

[Faevilangel]

I do (I build woo sites) so I can speak from both sides of the coin (developer and user).

Woo is great for small sites (# of products), once you start hitting hundreds of products then it becomes a pain to manage. The UI isn't very friendly and if you have a product with lots of options (sizes, colours etc) then you will struggle to add lots of products.

It has a lot of addons to add more features and is really flexible to add custom features but they tend to update the software quite often so you need to keep checking the updates and make sure your addons continue to work).

There are lots of woo compatible themes and developers for custom work which means you won't ever be left in the lurch if you need help.

My personal opinion is to not use woo if you have lots of products / lots of options on products, carts such as opencart and magento are far better with product management, they are also better for managing larger stores and have more flexibility to grow, with Woocommerce once you hit certain thresh holds then the site will start to slow down and takes a lot of management to optimise it.

I would say to skip woo and go straight for a "proper ecommerce system" as it will run better, be easier to manage and will cause less hassle in the future.

 

[tylnewcastle]

Just looking for some advice, so that I can make a more informed decision as to which route to take.

Paul

You cans start with Woocommerce, the backend is very easy to use and manage. For server, you can go for a third party solution. Cloud would be recommended by even VPS will do.

 

[branddesignexperts]

Shopify, Amazon and Ebay are the sites from where you can have good returns. Having an own website will help the business a lot as you can give a multiple ways to the customers to buy your products. Magento is great for e-commerce portals.

 

[paulyh]

Thanks for all the replies, after doing more research I am leaning towards a hosted site. Has anyone had any experience of using Volusion? or are Shopify, bigcommerce the better options?

 

[Bluecube]

HI Paul,

I have PM a message - hope that helps

 

[Shoporama]

Hi Paul,
I've sent you a PM.

 

[zigojacko]

Thanks for all the replies, after doing more research I am leaning towards a hosted site. Has anyone had any experience of using Volusion? or are Shopify, bigcommerce the better options?

Wouldn't recommend a hosted solution at all - you'll face countless limitations. They often take a % per transaction as well (not everyone is happy with this model).

We've had many businesses approach us for eCommerce work after migrating from Volusion (which is awful) and Shopify. Out of the three you specify, BigCommerce is probably the most flexible.

 

[Shoporama]

By limitations, do you mean the numbers of products, photos etc?

I'm not familiar with the hosted options currently on offer. We want to offer a fully hosted service and would be keen to find out more - we want to offer something better than the big companies do but for a small customer base. That way we can respond to what our customers want and keep the prices down.

 

[Cherrie Hub]

I've been in your position few months back, and went with Shopify, after trying few different platforms. I can honestly recommend these guys, amazing features, customer service, they are created for shop owners. You do not need any great deal of HTML knowledge (and you're never left alone if you get stuck), so vote for Shopify!

 

[paulyh]

Wouldn't recommend a hosted solution at all - you'll face countless limitations. They often take a % per transaction as well (not everyone is happy with this model).

We've had many businesses approach us for eCommerce work after migrating from Volusion (which is awful) and Shopify. Out of the three you specify, BigCommerce is probably the most flexible.

Could you please expand on what you mean by limitations?
I'm looking for a solution where I don't have to do maintenance and I can just focus on running my business, which is why I was looking at hosted solutions and the only negative feedback I am getting about hosted solutions is coming from developers/designers where as ecommerce traders seem to speak quite highly of hosted solutions. To say this is confusing me is a slight understatement

 

[paulyh]

I've been in your position few months back, and went with Shopify, after trying few different platforms. I can honestly recommend these guys, amazing features, customer service, they are created for shop owners. You do not need any great deal of HTML knowledge (and you're never left alone if you get stuck), so vote for Shopify!

Thank you for your response, will have another look at shopify.

 

[zigojacko]

Could you please expand on what you mean by limitations?
I'm looking for a solution where I don't have to do maintenance and I can just focus on running my business, which is why I was looking at hosted solutions and the only negative feedback I am getting about hosted solutions is coming from developers/designers where as ecommerce traders seem to speak quite highly of hosted solutions. To say this is confusing me is a slight understatement

There's hundreds of limitations differing between hosted eCommerce platforms. Mostly they centre around the design/theme aspects of the site and plugins/add-ons though. In some case, even features are limited.

It really does depend on every individual case on what platform would suit you best. If you're happy with an off-the-shelf pre-made theme and not much complexity or custom/unique features on your store, then you may find a hosted eCommerce platform works for you.

A while ago, I wrote a blog post reviewing some of the best eCommerce platforms available on the market which you may find useful.

 

[RBS]

Paul, check www.ecwid.com, hosted solution. You will be amazed how easy/flexible it is.

 

[antropy]

I'm not exactly backwards when it comes to IT, but frankly it's a pain in the backside getting "this to do that", or such & such fails & extension Developer A blames Developer B, the hosting company blames opencart etc etc....I think a once stop shop that's been well thought through & has everyone voting with their feeet is the way to go.

And you think a hosted solution would be any better? If it doesn't do what you want it to do then it's going to be far harder to customize it because the extension developers will have technical limits on what they can change.

 

[milow]

I'm using opencart. In the beginning the setup is staight forward and the shop platform is easy to use. The disadvantage is that it's a good thing to have some php/html/css knowledge in order to customize the "look and feel" as you like.
You can check my store at: averoom.bg

Best Regards,
Kiril

 

[antropy]

You can check my store at: averoom.bg

Looks good!