Is anyone using Vista Print e-commerce

[emotion-2003]

Hi
i have my website with vista print.I am going to open new e-commerce website.But i heard that vista print e-commerce is not really so good.

i am checking on google and i found many e-commerce website.Its very complicated and all different offers they have.i did contact with a few e-commerce website designer and they want silly money as £3000 starts

can anyone recommend me e-commerce website?

Thanks

 

[MASSEY]

Vista print websites are terrible.

If i was you i would install something like open cart, it's a free ecommerce platform. You can buy themes, or skins as they call them, or pay someone to edit the site for you. But that will cost you, not 3 grand though.

If i had an option with vista print or nothing i would pick nothing to be honest.

 

[ricky776]

If it's any thing like there printing will be a load of rubbish lol cheap and low quality

Saying that £3000 lol sounds a little high

 

[wayzgoose]

If it's any thing like there printing will be a load of rubbish lol cheap and low quality

Saying that £3000 lol sounds a little high

I've only ever had business cards from them but I would say the quality is excellent.

 

[wayzgoose]

Hi
i have my website with vista print.I am going to open new e-commerce website.But i heard that vista print e-commerce is not really so good.

i am checking on google and i found many e-commerce website.Its very complicated and all different offers they have.i did contact with a few e-commerce website designer and they want silly money as £3000 starts

can anyone recommend me e-commerce website?

Thanks

Have a look at freewebstore.org. Really easy to set up, totally free while you have a play with up to 30 products and very reasonable once you get onto the paid version. Excellent support too!

 

[ricky776]

I've only ever had business cards from them but I would say the quality is excellent.

Maybe it's coz I got the cheap ones of an offer to see what there like

They had there name printed on the back

 

[wayzgoose]

Maybe it's coz I got the cheap ones of an offer to see what there like

They had there name printed on the back

Ah, there you go then. Always need to spend a bit to get decent quality!

 

[Anna_Concia]

check out wix.com!!

 

[Anna_Concia]

also Ive used these guys before and they've been brill. absoluteshoppingcart.co.uk/

 

[finleydesign]

Seriously don't go near Wix! You don't need to spend £3k to get results!

 

[Anna_Concia]

I use wix, haven't had to spend £3k?? Absolute shopping cart built a custom site for me for £750 and works great, their support is also fabulous. Really straight-forward and simple to set up and use.

 

[fisicx]

Anna, wix ecommerce is probably worse than vistaprint.

You have paid £750 for site that will never rank for anything useful and will be as slow as a slow thing and have appalling conversion rates. £750 could get you a really nice site with all the bells and whistles wix can never provide. Sorry to say this but you have just wasted your money.

 

[Anna_Concia]

I paid £750 for the absolute shopping one not wix, it works great, had it for about 6 years and never had any issues, ranks 3rd for my keywords, so all in all very happy with it.

 

[ricky776]

I paid £750 for the absolute shopping one not wix, it works great, had it for about 6 years and never had any issues, ranks 3rd for my keywords, so all in all very happy with it.

Is it easy to use etc

 

[Anna_Concia]

Yep the content management system is really simple to understand and the functionality is great, check em out and give them a call,the lads in the office are lovely.

 

[fisicx]

The only problem being you cannot move the site and are limited to using their application. You don't have access to the huge range of plugins, modules and widget available to the main ecommerce applications.

But if you are happy with their services then that's good.

 

[Anna_Concia]

Are we talking about absolute now? Had the site over 6 years so wouldn't want or need to move it tbh. has everything I need, depends what plugins, widgets and modules you are looking for. Have you used Absolute?

 

[emotion-2003]

Hi all,
I like to say big thank you for your comments and advice.I am thinking about ''Volusion''.
Is anybody had good/bad experiences?

Thanks

 

[GelatoChef]

Seriously don't go near Wix! You don't need to spend £3k to get results!

Agree with this

 

[emotion-2003]

Still couldn't mind up for e-commerce website.I am looking on google there are lots of e-commerce website builder.I could't decide because of reviews all negative. Noone is happy but million of people have e-commerce website

 

[Anna_Concia]

I've used volusion as well and also great but time consuming, they have excellent support and help. There are loads of good providers, it really comes down to what you need and how they can support your business.

 

[14Steve14]

You will hardly find any positive feedback on ecommerce software. What you need from a site will be different to what I need from a site, so you first need to think about what you want, then go find it. People do not do this, then write and bemoan the usually free software they tried and say its rubbish, when it was not suitable for what they wanted.

I use oscommerce which most people would run a way from. I have used it for years, and am slowly developing a new site using the latest and current version. For me, it does what I need it to, the support forum is free and very helpful, and you can add what features you require. If you want to learn and do some of the basic mods yourself, it is free to use. You will need hosting and ssl, but after that its free. Saying that your time is the only other thing that is required. You need to spend time writing product descriptions and product titles, finding images, and uploading them all to the site.

Think about what you want. Check all the ecommerce sites and see if it will do what you want it to. Then load a copy to your site hosts and play. Most of this can be done using one click installs, and then a one click uninstall if not required.

 

[lynxus]

Bigcartel.com is a good ecommerce platform.
Not free but not expensive either.

 

[max99]

I do actually offer my services to set up ecommerce sites, if interested drop me a message

 

[zigojacko]

i did contact with a few e-commerce website designer and they want silly money as £3000 starts

Why is £3000 silly money for a permanent spot in your online marketplace that can deliver you sales for years to come?

Sounds like someone is thinking of a new website as being an expense instead of an investment again...

 

[zigojacko]

In summary:-

• Wix is absolutely awful, avoid at all costs.
• Absolute Shopping Cart is also awful and falls way short of other platforms available on the market in terms of stability, features and optimisation.
• Volusion is also awful for the same reasons as above.

I've got experience with all of those mentioned above as with most ecommerce platforms that exist on the market, there really are very few that actually serve a business particularly well long-term or are workable with and extendible/flexible.

These are all worth considering:-

• Magento
• OpenCart
• Wordpress
• PrestaShop
• BigCommerce
• Shopify

All have their pro's and con's and are different types of provider/software so the best solution ultimately comes down to the individual business.

 

[Davef]

These are all worth considering:-

• Magento
• OpenCart
• Wordpress
• PrestaShop
• BigCommerce
• Shopify

All have their pro's and con's and are different types of provider/software so the best solution ultimately comes down to the individual business.

Also I would suggest adding Bluepark to this list. Despite what 14steve14 says you will find positive feedback out there for this company on Trustpilot. Also their forum is open to all and you can see how happy their users are.

 

[zigojacko]

Also I would suggest adding Bluepark to this list. Despite what 14steve14 says you will find positive feedback out there for this company on Trustpilot. Also their forum is open to all and you can see how happy their users are.

I've not got any experience of using Bluepark (I'm not sure I'd even heard of them actually) so this is a new one on me.

Looking at their demo though, I certainly wouldn't recommend them. The entire site is built using tables. Not good.

 

[Davef]

I've not got any experience of using Bluepark (I'm not sure I'd even heard of them actually) so this is a new one on me.

Looking at their demo though, I certainly wouldn't recommend them. The entire site is built using tables. Not good.

They have been around for a long while now. UK Servers, UK Support and the system is very stable and feature rich. Yes it does use tables but I don't see this being a major issue and I know they have many sites turning over large amounts of money !

On what basis would you not recommend sites who use tables ?

 

[zigojacko]

They have been around for a long while now. UK Servers, UK Support and the system is very stable and feature rich. Yes it does use tables but I don't see this being a major issue and I know they have many sites turning over large amounts of money !

On what basis would you not recommend sites who use tables ?

Tables are for tabular data. Anyone building sites using tables and frames still in today's modern web design is still working like it's 1999. This does have an impact on how a website performs in search engines (as does all markup).

 

[Bluepark]

Tables are for tabular data. Anyone building sites using tables and frames still in today's modern web design is still working like it's 1999. This does have an impact on how a website performs in search engines (as does all markup).

Bluepark has been around since 2004. Building a flexible CMS that can lend itself to virtually any design using entirely DIVs was not an option back then. In fact, until IE7 and IE8 are confined to the history books, there are still certain layouts that cannot be achieved, cross-browser, without using tables (vertical positioning, etc.). I realise some highly technical workarounds exist, but they're not viable for a "build your own site" solution for customers who want to concentrate on selling, rather than becoming web designers.

If you're saying that Google penalises sites that use tables in this way, then I couldn't disagree with you more and would very much like to see the substance behind the statement. It certainly hasn't been an issue for the 2,000+ customers we've had using our software.

If you haven't come across Bluepark before, I'd like to invite you to give our software a try and see how high we've set the quality bar after nearly 10 years of development. It would be nice to see some British ecommerce companies recommended on *UK*BF instead of constantly pushing merchants to the USA - something I fail to understand.

We regularly have customers transfer to us from the platforms you mention, due to poorly performing hosting, unresolved bugs, badly implemented updates and customer support which is only accessible when the USA wakes up.

 

[zigojacko]

Bluepark has been around since 2004. Building a flexible CMS that can lend itself to virtually any design using entirely DIVs was not an option back then. In fact, until IE7 and IE8 are confined to the history books, there are still certain layouts that cannot be achieved, cross-browser, without using tables (vertical positioning, etc.). I realise some highly technical workarounds exist, but they're not viable for a "build your own site" solution for customers who want to concentrate on selling, rather than becoming web designers.

If you're saying that Google penalises sites that use tables in this way, then I couldn't disagree with you more and would very much like to see the substance behind the statement. It certainly hasn't been an issue for the 2,000+ customers we've had using our software.

If you haven't come across Bluepark before, I'd like to invite you to give our software a try and see how high we've set the quality bar after nearly 10 years of development. It would be nice to see some British ecommerce companies recommended on *UK*BF instead of constantly pushing merchants to the USA - something I fail to understand.

We regularly have customers transfer to us from the platforms you mention, due to poorly performing hosting, unresolved bugs, badly implemented updates and customer support which is only accessible when the USA wakes up.

Thanks for your input and invitation to check out your software. This is something I'll definitely do at some point, we make sure we test all ecommerce software so we can accurately comment on it.

I wasn't saying Google will penalise sites using tables, but this is definitely a hindrance because it isn't correct markup of content on a page. Accessibility plays an important role in how the likes of Google deem a web page (not to mention the importance of usability as well), this, collectively, will hinder a page from performing as well, whichever angle you approach it from.

 

[antropy]

I've only ever had business cards from them but I would say the quality is excellent.

Ah but they're not standard business card size are they? Surely if there is a standard business card size, which is used for business card holders, wallets etc. then it makes sense to use it?

You probably don't need to spend £3k to get a good, functional ecommerce website, depending on how much custom design and functionality you need, although some will cost much more and be worth it. It all depends on what you need it to do and how important the design is for your niche.

Here's an idea of the sort of costs involved in ecommerce:
http://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/ecommerce-website-breakdown-of-costs/

 

[wayzgoose]

Ah but they're not standard business card size are they? Surely if there is a standard business card size, which is used for business card holders, wallets etc. then it makes sense to use it?

As an ex-master printer of over 25 years I could still quote the "standard" sizes available for business cards but I must also add that I doubt if there has really been a "standard" size for well over 10 years. The cards I've got from them have always fitted into a business card holder.

 

[RepricerExpress]

Building your site is one piece of the jigsaw and whilst the 'lesser' platforms like WIX can boast big numbers of users, you would have to question how many are selling as a decent business. As far as I am aware (from programming buddies) WIX has little SEO capabilities so you'll have a site that nobody finds, which is pretty pointless. I would check out Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion to start with. They're all pretty well established and have features to help get your site found which is just as important (if not more) as building the site.

 

[Davef]

I would check out Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion to start with. They're all pretty well established and have features to help get your site found which is just as important (if not more) as building the site.

Any decent platform will have the features you need to get found in the search engines. You need to check forums for all of these to see how happy users are. One of these in particular have lots of quality issues with a recent release resulting in user being unable to edit products for the last six days and also problems linking to Google Shopping.

As one user said on their forum

If you've got a car where the body is rusty and full of holes and you want to sell it, the unscrupulous car lot salesman might decide to give it a shiny new paint job. Such an action might temporarily increase its sale value, but once a customer has bought the car they'll soon realise that their money might have been better spent elsewhere.

 

[emotion-2003]

I do actually offer my services to set up ecommerce sites, if interested drop me a message

Hi
What is your service please?
Need a info pls
cheers

 

[max99]

Hi
What is your service please?
Need a info pls
cheers

Hi,

I offer full install/set up of a Magento site including a theme customised of your choice, all SEO of the site ready for it to launch etc . Also offer hosting that is designed for Magento sites too.

Cheers
Max