Next Step - Ecommerce

[Tim4eva]

Had a look and read a few posts but I feel this is a different situation.
I already have a successful website up and running, which I built and host myself along with 20 - 30 other websites, although I wouldn't call myself a web designer, not by any means.

The website in question has over 300 products listed and customers can purchase online, which they do on a regular basis.

My problem is that the site is built using html and payments are taken through Paypal.

Due to more and more tablets and smart phones being used I think its time to up the game a bit and have a responsive site with an ecommerce solution.
Obviously I want adding new products to be as simple as possible, which I think most solutions would be.

I noticed that a few others had suggested knowing exactly what you want from the ecommerce so I have a basic list.

I will need to do all of the work myself so something that is easy to customise would be ideal.
Options for different sizes, colours, prices etc
Login/Register options as well as checkout as a guest.

I am hosting on 1and1 and they have an option to build an ecommerce site but I would need to see the templates that would be available and how much I could change them to suit before I could say if this option would be possible.

Has anyone used the 1and1 ecommerce solution and what do you think of it?
Any suggestions or information on how to go forward with any other solution would also be appreciated.

 

[MattCollins]

Shopify is another solution you might like to have a look at. They're one of the leading SaaS ecommerce solutions (some stats here) and they focus on that. If you want a good range of features and something easy to maintain, they could be a good bet.

I'm not familiar with 1and1's ecommerce offering.

 

[oldoakey]

I would recommend EKM Powershop, been using it a while now and it does all you want at just £25 per month inc hosting.

 

[davidjohnfarmer]

If on a tight budget, there are some pretty good Magento/Opencart templates available online - you can shop around a demo a lot of potential designs prior to choosing a layout.
Then simply 'rework' the template with your own branding and graphics (or pay a designer to do this for you).

 

[Donna77]

A question to Oldoakey - what is your relationship with EKM powershop?? A user? I simply cannot understand why you would recommend them. Dreadful software and service. I speak from 3 years' experience with them.
I use Shopify now and I'm really happy with their product and service. A few things which could be improved of course - and they annoyingly force Paypal upon all merchants as a default at checkout. That isn't a problem for the OP, who uses it anyway. But other merchants have to get it removed or repositioned. However, Shopify continue to ignore merchants on this - their new responsive checkout is being rolled out yet features Paypal prominently at the top of the first page - causing shoppers to bypass essentials such as shipping options and discount code box. Perversely, Shopify are ignoring the numerous protests and complaints in the forum on this.

I don't have any experience with Magento and Opencart so couldn't comment on those.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

@Tim4eva You really need to have a solid consultation here about the potential for loss over the possible gains. Have you considered a second site, so that you retain the cash cow?

There is a potential disaster looming if the move to a content management solution / ecommerce cart isn't handled properly.

 

[antropy]

I will need to do all of the work myself so something that is easy to customise would be ideal.
Options for different sizes, colours, prices etc
Login/Register options as well as checkout as a guest.

I am hosting on 1and1 and they have an option to build an ecommerce site but I would need to see the templates that would be available and how much I could change them to suit before I could say if this option would be possible.

As others have said, look at something like OpenCart.

You can try a demo of it here: http://www.antropy.co.uk/opencart-demo/

You can find some pretty decent themes here: http://themeforest.net/category/ecommerce/opencart

You should be able to install it with 1&1. If 1&1 don't have Softaculous (an easy installer) you'll need to download it from OpenCart.com, upload it to your hosting, create a database and run the installer but it's quite straightforward.

 

[oldoakey]

A question to Oldoakey - what is your relationship with EKM powershop?? A user? I simply cannot understand why you would recommend them. Dreadful software and service. I speak from 3 years' experience with them.

Donna77 I can only speak from my experience with EKM. Been with them a couple of years now and I am more than pleased with their service. You say Shopify is better but then go on to tell of its problems. Truth is their probably is no one provider who gets it right for everyone.

At just £25 per month to run and host my website to me that's very cheap - what do you expect for that amount of money. The Earth I guess.

 

[Jason L]

Hi Tim4eva

In addition to looking for a solution which gives you all the functionality you want, make sure that you also consider how to retain all the traffic you have on your current site, e.g. if you change URL structures make sure you implement 301 redirects to tell Google what the new page URLs are. Otherwise, you will have lots of 404 (page not found) errors and may lose significant traffic and organic rankings. OldWelshGuy referred to this above - you really need to plan this properly. Having said that, don't let it put you off - a responsive/mobile version of the site is the way to go - just make sure you get it right.

 

[Donna77]

In response to OldOakey. Having used both EKM and Shopify in the past few years I can say that Shopify is light years ahead of EKM in every respect. It isn't just a question of preference for me - EKM's shockingly bad technical service damaged 2 businesses I was working with at that time.
I complain about some aspects of Shopify because they're current and frustrating - in that they shouldn't even be happening. But with EKM, I wouldn't use them again if someone put a gun to my head or paid £1million. Never mind paying them £25 p/m to use it...nobody's business needs clunky software with awful support, however cheap.

 

[webstore]

Perhaps the most important consideration when choosing an online shop (which from 21-April-2015 should be mobile friendly for Google mobile SERPs) is whether you want to be locked in with a proprietary online shop such as Shopify or whether you go with an OpenSource online shop such as say Magento or OpenCart that should be portable if you wish to move to another hosting company in future - away from 1and1 say.

In the case of OpenSource in my opinion you should go for a solution such as Magento - where there's loads of online help which you'll inevitably need at some point - plus there's loads of themes and program extensions available for Magento.

You can check out the popularity of various online shop solutions at http://builtwith.com/ecommerce/united-kingdom by viewing pie chart towards bottom of that page.