EKM Powershop
- Thread starter Mattlock
- Start date
D
Digital Investments
Hi Matt,
Yes, we use EKM Powershop for the 1st stage of our ecommerce development projects.
The software is OK, but don't expect miracles. It will get you up and running quickly and give you a good base to build from. I would say to spend your time making sure you have good quality images, as these will make or break in terms of quality. The software can be temperamental at times, especially if you're uploading a lot of products, but it usually pulls through. The support team are ok too, but again, don't expect miracles. Oh, and the design services they offer are over priced, you'd get a better deal shopping around for a good designer and get them to do it (if you decide to have a custom skin).
Overall the software should serve your purpose well and most importantly get your operations off the ground. Once the e-business is turning over and has proved itself to you, thats when you will want to start thinking about making a more significant investment and upgrading to a custom platform. At this stage you will have ironed out many of the inevitable issues, you will know your figures and margins better and you will overall be more equiped to get a better ROI. That's if you decide to take it this far of course.
Lemme know if you have any specific questions about EKM from an EKM users perspective
All the best
Adi
Yes, we use EKM Powershop for the 1st stage of our ecommerce development projects.
The software is OK, but don't expect miracles. It will get you up and running quickly and give you a good base to build from. I would say to spend your time making sure you have good quality images, as these will make or break in terms of quality. The software can be temperamental at times, especially if you're uploading a lot of products, but it usually pulls through. The support team are ok too, but again, don't expect miracles. Oh, and the design services they offer are over priced, you'd get a better deal shopping around for a good designer and get them to do it (if you decide to have a custom skin).
Overall the software should serve your purpose well and most importantly get your operations off the ground. Once the e-business is turning over and has proved itself to you, thats when you will want to start thinking about making a more significant investment and upgrading to a custom platform. At this stage you will have ironed out many of the inevitable issues, you will know your figures and margins better and you will overall be more equiped to get a better ROI. That's if you decide to take it this far of course.
Lemme know if you have any specific questions about EKM from an EKM users perspective
All the best
Adi
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We have many customers using ekmPowershop and it is particularly popular with start-ups. They have in-house Technical Support and also an online community so you will find plenty of users to discuss requirements with.
If you are looking for a secure payment processor for your ecommerce site then we are fully integrated with ekmPowershop.
Thanks,
Simon
If you are looking for a secure payment processor for your ecommerce site then we are fully integrated with ekmPowershop.
Thanks,
Simon
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Hi Matt
EKM is also one of our trusted ecommerce integration partners whom a number of our customers work with. They do offer a free trial which may be worth a look.
Siobhan
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S
sofaz
Hi Matt
I use EKM and I would recommend them anytime. Reasonable rates, good back up and plenty of templates that you can tweak. They submit to the search engines and the forum is worth the money alone.
I was and am a bit of a novice but the software is fairly easy to use.
And for £20 per month with no tie ins. Its a no brainer
I use EKM and I would recommend them anytime. Reasonable rates, good back up and plenty of templates that you can tweak. They submit to the search engines and the forum is worth the money alone.
I was and am a bit of a novice but the software is fairly easy to use.
And for £20 per month with no tie ins. Its a no brainer
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I've just left EKM for greener pastures.
They are OK to start off, but EKM are not interested in growing with you as a business.
We campaigned on their forum for over a year for various upgrades and plenty of promises were made, but they never materilaised.
We were given a list of upgrades that they promised would be implemented by the end of the fist quarter of this year, but so far nothing.
It even got to a point where some of us kicked up a bit of a stink on their forum, so they banned a load of us.
People have been asking for payments via direct debit for two years and that has apparently been going ahead for just as long, but they still don't have that facility.
EKM make a lot of noise about how great they are, but they are not interested in you growing as a company.
The problem comes in when you have to go to a great deal of effort to move to a better solution.
If you plan on growing, don't waste your time.
They are OK to start off, but EKM are not interested in growing with you as a business.
We campaigned on their forum for over a year for various upgrades and plenty of promises were made, but they never materilaised.
We were given a list of upgrades that they promised would be implemented by the end of the fist quarter of this year, but so far nothing.
It even got to a point where some of us kicked up a bit of a stink on their forum, so they banned a load of us.
People have been asking for payments via direct debit for two years and that has apparently been going ahead for just as long, but they still don't have that facility.
EKM make a lot of noise about how great they are, but they are not interested in you growing as a company.
The problem comes in when you have to go to a great deal of effort to move to a better solution.
If you plan on growing, don't waste your time.
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Howdy,
I have to agree with both ecoleman & what the others have said, its basic and you'll get a website up and running quickly. But beyond that through growth, you'll become unstuck.
Its curious because I was about to ask ecoleman what they moved too (thinking of OpenCart) and that's exactly what they have done.
£20 a month for flat product with little flexibility but "just works" may suit your requirements, however for a little more for a years worth of hosting and some effort on your part, you could have a website that grows with you and has the flexibility to do that.
I don't know the ins & outs of your business, however even on face value, I'd suggest OpenCart or similar because it "can" grow with your requirements if needed.
Hope that helps
Matt
I have to agree with both ecoleman & what the others have said, its basic and you'll get a website up and running quickly. But beyond that through growth, you'll become unstuck.
Its curious because I was about to ask ecoleman what they moved too (thinking of OpenCart) and that's exactly what they have done.
£20 a month for flat product with little flexibility but "just works" may suit your requirements, however for a little more for a years worth of hosting and some effort on your part, you could have a website that grows with you and has the flexibility to do that.
I don't know the ins & outs of your business, however even on face value, I'd suggest OpenCart or similar because it "can" grow with your requirements if needed.
Hope that helps
Matt
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Sorry what I mean by that is, it's ONLY £20 per month - if you are realistic with your expectations you'll not be disappointed. If you outgrow this solution then you've done very well (as it more than likely means it's served it's purpose and gave you the short term leg up to generate the cashflow to invest in the next level).
To put this into context, it's less money than you probably pay for your sky tv or gym membership!
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Just to clarify EKM is £19.99 + VAT per month so £23.99 with VAT.
Also you need to be very aware that if you are a busy shop and exceed their fair usage policy or go over 45Gb data transfer you will be forced onto their VPS system. That will set you back £179/month with VAT and gives you NO extras bells or whistles.
Now that may not be an issue with most small shops, but it is something that EKM do not make clear and they also have no way of you actually monitoring your own usage. You just have to take their word for it.
The point that I'm making is not that EKM is rubbish, but that a person can spend an awful lot of time and money developing a site, SEO etc, only to find that you have to move on because EKM can't be bothered to improve their platform.
For £20/month you could use opencart which is much more powerful hosted on a Cloud system.
We now use openCart on a VPS and that only costs us £40/month. For the price EKM charge for their VPS I could host on a dedicated server.
Also you need to be very aware that if you are a busy shop and exceed their fair usage policy or go over 45Gb data transfer you will be forced onto their VPS system. That will set you back £179/month with VAT and gives you NO extras bells or whistles.
Now that may not be an issue with most small shops, but it is something that EKM do not make clear and they also have no way of you actually monitoring your own usage. You just have to take their word for it.
The point that I'm making is not that EKM is rubbish, but that a person can spend an awful lot of time and money developing a site, SEO etc, only to find that you have to move on because EKM can't be bothered to improve their platform.
For £20/month you could use opencart which is much more powerful hosted on a Cloud system.
We now use openCart on a VPS and that only costs us £40/month. For the price EKM charge for their VPS I could host on a dedicated server.
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Yeh but if you are using 45GB how do you think they could sustain only charging you £19.99 a month?? 45GB is a hell of a lot of traffic for this type of solution (most small retailers on a £19.99 website will never get that much). At the point you are getting 150,000-200,000+ visitors a month you've clearly outgrown what this solution is primed for - and again, you've done very well to get to that point on such little investment.
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Agreed, that's why I said it would not normally be a problem for a small shop, but if you plan to grow and you have not been made aware of this sudden hike in fees you would be pretty pi$$ed wouldn't you.
Look at EKM's site. Nowhere does it state anything about a usage limit or any sort of tiered pricing. One day they will just phone you up out of the blue and say we are moving you you now owe us £180/month. If you don't like it you can leave.
if you plan on staying small and only going to sell a handful of products the EKM are great.
It's not really an ethical way of conducting business.
We have argued this case with EKM for ages now and told them that we would be prepared to pay more money for a better solution and would be happy to work on a tiered system where your monthly prices increased depending on features, number of products, usage etc, as this is in line with other platforms, but it seems EKM are only interested in scoring the new business (small shops at £20/month) and not interested what happens when you out grow them.
At the end of the day, yes we have the option to leave which is what we did, but we invested 2 years into developing our EKM system only to have to start again.
All I'm saying is that if you plan on growing you may as well look at other platforms from the outset to save yourself a lot of hassle in the future.
If you plan in staying small and only sell a handful of products, then EKM are great.
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Yeh it's not on if they hide these increases. You'd at least expect them in their terms of service etc. I can see both sides, as I know how hard it is to sustain the £19.99 model when you get demanding clients (it's not what it's built for) and they will almost certainly be losing money on people like yourself who use such a large amount of bandwidth. I can understand why they don't divert from their core business to accommodate a minority too. It's harsh, but I can understand why they'd rather cut you free than try to service you once you've become too big for their model.
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Why? We went VPS for speed.
Each Make and Model of laptop is a separate category, with each of those categories being assigned 2-8 products depending on compatibility. At the moment we are managing over 20,000 categories, so speed is very important.
With a VPS we have been able to setup Opcode cache and make tweaks to the SQL database which has vastly improved page load speed.
Can't do that on a shared system
Each Make and Model of laptop is a separate category, with each of those categories being assigned 2-8 products depending on compatibility. At the moment we are managing over 20,000 categories, so speed is very important.
With a VPS we have been able to setup Opcode cache and make tweaks to the SQL database which has vastly improved page load speed.
Can't do that on a shared system
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I think you are missing the point.
1. EKM do not make it clear that these limits exist.
2. There is NO way for you to monitor those limits. You have to take their word for it that you have exceeded them.
3. The price they charge for their VPS is way over the top. In fact £140/month over the top.
4. You get no additional benefit in terms of functionality for the extra £160/month.
Anyway, I'm going to stop now. My posts were never to bash EKM, but just to advise people to look around before jumping into bed with the cheapest. It may be a great solution to start with, but as you grow you will find the basic functionality frustrating.
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