Nice Online Ecommerce Platform?

[martin001]

Hi all

A colleague of mine wants a new ecommerce site, but we dont want hassles with hosting / installation etc. I used to use CandyPress but we just fancy a nice easy online, set it up, add your logo, add your products etc.

I wondered if any package stood out in particular? He looked at the 123-reg offering but didnt really see any good feed back about it.

Cheers

M

 

[Faevilangel]

Openmind-Commerce is recommended a lot, along with Iwebshop and Tigercommerce

Don't go with 123-reg, 1&1 etc as they are pretty poor examples.

 

[iboxsecurity]

There are plenty of options available all depends really on your budget and tech know how. I agree with above though do stay away from 123-REG, 1and1 and the like.

Magento is a great ecommerce sytem although you will need a decent hosting setup (nothing too expensive) to run it as its quite the system hog at times.

 

[Coppock]

I'd avoid most of the DIY ecommerce sites on hosts - they're great for getting started but can be an expensive mess to upgrade. You'd be better off with Magento, ZenCart, Joomla & Virtuemart, or Drupal with ubercart.

Good luck!
Jen

 

[cleveland]

Really a good E-Commerce platform!

 

[JJ Spencer]

Yes, i am agree with Coppock,easy to do but not the best to do.

 

[Adam_Watson]

You have to lot off option like Magento, ZenCart, ubercart,Joomla & Virtuemart, or Drupal

 

[GreatSEO]

Magento

Dave

 

[bdw]

What about Oscommerce?

 

[martin001]

Yes I was thinking about OSCommerce as there is a lot of community support on their site, and 1000's of cart add-ons etc. I just didnt fancy the initial setup etc.

 

[davidjgoss87]

Shopify (shopify.com) is reportedly excellent, although I've never used it myself. It will certainly remove the hassles of hosting, security, integration and back-end programming, though.

 

[brownie]

My recomendation, for a balance of aesthetics and functionality, would be Prestashop.

Quick to setup, doesn't require anything major on the hosting backend, plenty of modules to customise it's functionality, plenty of themes available or designers to modify the appearance.

http://www.prestashop.com/

 

[edmondscommerce]

Yes I was thinking about OSCommerce as there is a lot of community support on their site, and 1000's of cart add-ons etc. I just didnt fancy the initial setup etc.

osCommerce is a great platform, but to save a load of hassle I recommend using a loaded version such as CRE Loaded or Zen Cart is also good.

However, I have to say that its getting dated so for a new web store I would hesitate to use it.

Prestashop is OK, we have a few clients using it - its easy to work on and simple but these days the best option has to be Magento

 

[timruffles]

I second what Joeseph says: Magento. However, looking at his sig I can see that he is a Magento developer/contractor like me, bias perhaps

Take a look at the back-end and feature sheets - all of them run demo sites. The important thing is finding something that does what you need in a way you understand.

Checkout Wikipedia 'Comparison of shopping cart software' to see which offers the features you need.

 

[brownie]

these days the best option has to be Magento

If so why isn't everyone using it? :|

Having worked extensively with both Magento and Prestashop I would beg to differ and I think it needs clarifying this is only your POV and not shared by everyone.

They both have their strengths and weaknesses.

 

[edmondscommerce]

If so why isn't everyone using it? :|

Having worked extensively with both Magento and Prestashop I would beg to differ and I think it needs clarifying this is only your POV and not shared by everyone.

They both have their strengths and weaknesses.

It goes without saying that its my point of view.

I promote myself mainly as a Magento developer because there is a lot more demand for Magento services.

We are equally happy working on Prestashop, CRE Loaded, Zen Cart, Drupal, Wordpress etc etc etc.

As I said we have clients running all of those systems (and more) and on balance if I were to choose one to base a new business on it would have to be Magento.

I am definitely not alone in making that conclusion - more and more people are moving into Magento either as startups or moving from other systems. I know because we are working with a lot of them!

 

[zigojacko]

LiquidShop developed by Sitemakers is by far the best ecommerce platform I have ever worked with.

24 hour support, constant development and updates, contains every feature you could possible think of and you just pay for the modules you want.

May cost you that little bit extra but you get what you pay for these days. Some of these cheap ecommerce solutions, many of which there are threads about on this forum are absolutely terrible, why people even attempt to use them is beyond me.

 

[FreelanceSoftwareDeveloper]

Have you considered Opencart?

I'm a Zen Cart expert but have recently been trialling Opencart as a more user friendly option for clients looking for a simple/clean solution.

It's also very easy to customise the layout.

 

[zigojacko]

I'm shocked that there are people recommending Zen Cart, it is the most appalling system I have ever come across... Considering they are one of the oldest serving ecommerce providers, I thought they would have moved with the times and been able to offer something much more comprehensive than what they were providing 5 years ago. Evidentely not.

 

[rendy]

I'd nominate trading eye, its actually a pretty excellent platform.

From their site

Tradingeye is a fully-featured web standards compliant Shopping Cart & CMS, built from the ground up with web accessibility and SEO in mind. Tradingeye is the choice of thousands of online retailers who care about accessibility, usability and most importantly - results.

http://www.tradingeye.com/

 

[Rob.W]

In a previous business, I used osCommerce - it's a great product and you can find plenty of people to install / customise it to your exact requirements.

Cheers
Rob

 

[Vision2]

if you want something decent, with worthwhile growth for the future. Magento just kicks everything else out of the water at the moment.

but, if you have no knowledge of setting it up / doing design etc. Then comes the cost of it.

So basically boils down to investment, and whether or not you are willing to step back and think of the bigger picture.

 

[edmondscommerce]

fair point, though we can knock out a Magento site with a custom design for something in the region of £1600 as a reasonable starting point, so we aren't necessarily talking mega bucks

 

[Vision2]

fair point, though we can knock out a Magento site with a custom design for something in the region of £1600 as a reasonable starting point, so we aren't necessarily talking mega bucks

yeah likewise, mine usually range from 1250 - 3k.

problem is, too many people seem to think a few hundred quid is an amazing amount of money for ecommerce, no where near.

both mine and your pricing is incredibly low for what you get.

Some crazy people out there!

 

[smo]

fair point, though we can knock out a Magento site with a custom design for something in the region of £1600 as a reasonable starting point, so we aren't necessarily talking mega bucks

Out of interest, i presume that uses the free "community" edition as the Enterprise edition seems to have a rediculous price of from $11000, and its yearly!!!

 

[Vision2]

Out of interest, i presume that uses the free "community" edition as the Enterprise edition seems to have a rediculous price of from $11000, and its yearly!!!

enterprise you would look to be investing 8k+ at least before its even worthwhile talking about it, in addition to the lisencing fee.

I'd be insanely surprised if anyone here or anywhere else would deploy you a enterprise version for anything even remotely less.

Community edition is fine for 99% of site

 

[Greatime123]

Hi all

A colleague of mine wants a new ecommerce site, but we dont want hassles with hosting / installation etc. I used to use CandyPress but we just fancy a nice easy online, set it up, add your logo, add your products etc.

I wondered if any package stood out in particular? He looked at the 123-reg offering but didnt really see any good feed back about it.

Cheers

M

I wouldnt put all my eggs in one basket - get a good hosting company and get a good e-commerce set up.

Hosting (uk):
NetHosted
DonHost
UnitedHosting

E-Commerce:
Openmind-Commerce
Volusion

 

[edmondscommerce]

Out of interest, i presume that uses the free "community" edition as the Enterprise edition seems to have a rediculous price of from $11000, and its yearly!!!

yes of course.

 

[edmondscommerce]

Community edition is fine for 99% of site

I'd make that 99.9%

As for the budget - I would specify community up to around the £30k mark

 

[Paddymcc]

I'd nominate trading eye, its actually a pretty excellent platform.

From their site

http://www.tradingeye.com/

That tradingeye looks superb. Any companies out there which make bespoke designs to lay over the backend?

 

[ispypie]

Interspire is pretty good. They have had an issue with support in the past and the cost can be more depending on the number of products you want to sell but they now have a hosted version called BigCommerce which may be worth checking out. The other cart I was considering was CS-CART which people seem to like and you seem to get good value for money.

 

[hopeway]

if you want something decent, with worthwhile growth for the future. Magento just kicks everything else out of the water at the moment.

but, if you have no knowledge of setting it up / doing design etc. Then comes the cost of it.

 

[jeniferdesauza]

Oneforty
From the offset, one of the primary goals of Oneforty has been not only to connect users with the best Twitter apps, but to give developers a platform to sell their products to spur innovation in the overall Twitter ecosystem. However, until now, developers who didn’t already have an existing e-commerce solution on their own sites couldn’t sell directly with Oneforty.

 

[neit]

In the last few months I have used both zencart and venda smb.

Zencart was good because we needed to some custimization to the scripts
its not the most intutive for beginner but once you get the hang of it
it is fine. Although hosting, ssl etc.. needs to arranged to used and they
have a very active development community.

Venda small business might be a better option based on your requirements.
Its costs £50 a month includes domain name.
No hassle with hosting installation etc...
Basiclly login choose a template or create your own, upload a logo,
configure your payment at the moment there is only offline or paypal.
start adding your products, configure shipping, publish your site

 

[benjamin_c]

why is the enterprise edition $11k thats an awful lot of money, is there anyone on UKBF who uses it? i have a server with the comunity ED on and i've had a play with the layout and settings and it seems cool, not using it for an actual shop yet though

 

[wwdg]

EKMPowershop is a fantastic platform for online shops and they are spending alot of time on adding new features at the moment. Great value for money and will give you all the tools you need for an online shop. Have run a company using the software myself and it was fine

Really does depend on what features you are looking for really, finding the right platform can be the difference between a successsful online shop and one that isn't

woody

 

[Vision2]

if you want something decent, with worthwhile growth for the future. Magento just kicks everything else out of the water at the moment.

but, if you have no knowledge of setting it up / doing design etc. Then comes the cost of it.

Why would that come as the cost of it? if you want something done, spend your time in your business - let people who now what they are doing do the deployment and design.

if you want to do it yourself, learn how - and learning how isn't without expence, still costs you time and money that you could otherwise spend on acturally running your business.

 

[connx]

I'd avoid most of the DIY ecommerce sites on hosts - they're great for getting started but can be an expensive mess to upgrade. You'd be better off with Magento, ZenCart, Joomla & Virtuemart, or Drupal with ubercart.

Good luck!
Jen

sorry for amateur question but can you use something like tiger commerce initially which seems to have a monthly rolling contract whilst getting a site developed and then just swap the new site over in its place without problems?

 

[Vision2]

sorry for amateur question but can you use something like tiger commerce initially which seems to have a monthly rolling contract whilst getting a site developed and then just swap the new site over in its place without problems?

your just making it harder for yourself, i wouldn't advise that

 

[benjamin_c]

sorry for amateur question but can you use something like tiger commerce initially which seems to have a monthly rolling contract whilst getting a site developed and then just swap the new site over in its place without problems?

Tiger is a pretty decent platform. there's companies with turnover of about £1million using it. so easy to use and the back end is great. in my opinion Tiger is pretty search engine friendly also if you know how to do the meta data