Opencart...sigh, perhaps time to move?

[Pish_Pash]

I'm an online retailer..90% of my turnover comes from the big marketplaces (Ebay, Amazon), with 10% coming from my own website (in about £18kpa turnover for my website) ...I really need to build this up. I've had this website for about 2 years now but I only get about 50-100 visitors to my website per day (it's been at this level for about a year now - quite disappointing)

I'm on opencart at the minute (because it was free when I started out ...& free appeals when you don't know how it's all going to pan out!), but I find myself looking at the featureset & great support from the likes of big-commerce & thinking 'want that', but their fees are niggling me (I'm a subscription-a-phobe!). The problem I have with opencart is that the support is erhm me (& I suck) & that every needs to be paid for as an add-on...quite often there are compatibility issues (also i think their latest shocker...no upgrade path from V1.5.6 to V2.0+ is completely unacceptable).

I had considered Magneto, but the community edition sees a similar support model (me!)

So I'm now seriously thinking about ponying up for a subscription based cart solution...but I need to be convinced that the £500pa-£600pa subscription is going to pay for itself from the increased traffic/conversion that perhaps making the leap will bring? On the face of it bigcommerce has such a vast featureset, it would seem quite likely that it will drive more traffic (for example easy facebook shop integration), or help convert more visitors (for example their abandoned cart feature)

So, has anyone moved from opencart to either BigCommerce & seen a win wrt traffic & or/conversions? (it's an awful amount of work, so I need to be 100% sure)

 

[Faevilangel]

It's a lot of work, you need to be able to do 301 redirects, customers would need to get used to a new platform (there will be differences in how the cart works etc. I rarely see a case for moving from something like oc to BC because you are then tied into the platform etc but lots move from bc to oc.

It might be worth getting the premium membership on here for the website review forum, members can let you know what might be up with your website. If you're only getting 100 sales per day the only way to improve it is to become more visible e.g. higher google placements, more social media activity and paid ads.

With OC the major benefit of it (like other opensource) is anyone can take on the running of the site, they don't need to start again from scratch, it might be worth paying an OC expert to look over the site and come up with ways to improve it visually or feature wise.

 

[Pish_Pash]

Thanks...(just to clarify, I'm getting 50-100 visitors per day...not sales!)

With OC the major benefit of it (like other opensource) is anyone can take on the running of the site, they don't need to start again from scratch, it might be worth paying an OC expert to look over the site and come up with ways to improve it visually or feature wise.

The problem is, that's going to get very expensive, very quickly...& also it's an upfront cost (vs. saying paying bigcommerce an ongoing subscription over a 12 month period)...then there's the fight with extensions affecting one another (incompatibility).... the never ending maintenance & upkeep for a solution like Opencart (& like I say ....what kind of development team release a brand new version V2.0 Opencart, with still no upgrade path for existing 1.5.6 users?!)

 

[Faevilangel]

Thanks...(just to clarify, I'm getting 50-100 visitors per day...not sales!

The problem is, that's going to get very expensive, very quickly...& also it's an upfront cost (vs. saying paying bigcommerce an ongoing subscription over a 12 month period)...then there's the fight with extensions affecting one another (incompatibility).... the never ending maintenance & upkeep for a solution like Opencart (& like I say ....what kind of development team release a brand new version V2.0 Opencart, with still no upgrade path for existing 1.5.6 users?!)

The OC expert may be able to find something wrong which might be limiting your website "reach". IMHO my first port of call would be a website review and then work from that.

Hiring an OC expert can get expensive but depends on what they are being paid to do e.g. a review of your website should only be a few hundred (I would budget 3-4 hours for a full review). If the expert is worth their salt then they should be able to increase spending / sales so their fees would be covered by the increase in sales.

 

[Tech4Homes]

What sites cost £500-600 p.m subscription??? EKM Powershop is £25 a month and I found it really good when I used it, they claim to have some fairly big named stores on it too.

For that money you could probably get an Opencart developer on a retainer to do £5-600 worth of work to the site each month to improve it, add features etc. It may take a bit longer but unless your site needs a complete re-design it could be feasible.

What's your actual problem though? Not enough visitors/sales or functional issues with the website? No point working on the website if your actual goal is to get more traffic, you'd be better to put money into advertising/PPC/conversions (and that could be either website development work or it may be some simple changes or it may be adding more content, answer more questions etc.)

Changing platform won't get you more sales, adding new features as a result of a new platform might. When I changed from EKM to Opencart I actually lost sales and had a lot of work to build it back up.

I was worried about the support of Opencart & Magento but at the end of the day, the support is you ask a company to do what you can't. I have used a local company a few times to add features and make changes because either I couldn't, or I didn't have time. It hasn't cost me a fortune and if anything goes seriously wrong I know they'll help me out. (for a fee!)

Ironically 95% of my sales come from my website and I want to build up the eBay and Amazon!

I know we had a bit of a chat via PM but I only moved to Magento because I wanted to take advantage of some features to help me with eBay and Amazon and back end admin consolidation and whilst I know for my reasons this move will be beneficial, it's been a complete pain in the arse and I'm spending time re-doing things and building new sites when I should/could be advertising and promoting.

It seems a bit backwards to move platform unless you have a specific reason rather than just in the hope it brings more sales. I think as mentioned previously you should get a website review of some kind first and identify any issues affecting conversion and then go from there. Even if you just do a full site review on here it might enlighten some issues.

 

[Pish_Pash]

What sites cost £500-600 p.m subscription??? EKM Powershop is £25 a month and I found it really good when I used it, they claim to have some fairly big named stores on it too.

That was an annual charge (sorry, should have made it clearer) ...for example, bigcommerce Gold plan is $80pcm (£53pcm x 12 = £640pa)

Why move? Well, I'm a little battle weary with Opencart...to get it 'current'/slick you have to pony up for all manner of extensions...I've had issues where enabling one extension, stops another from working....I then act as middleman between the two developers (I'm meant to be running a business, not a development liason service). I've had issues where extensions suck (like dpon't work as they should) & couldn't get a refund (aka theft)

On my own website, coupons have disappeared when 'view cart' is selected (it seems to be a common problem - I googled it http://tinyurl.com/l4jt47z ). I used to be able to embed youtube videos within my opencart product descriptions, but now the videos don't show at all (I'm not completely wet behind the ears, I pasted in the youtube embed code while in html view in the product description....boom, video doesn't show). then there's the fact there's no upgrade path to Opencart version 2.0 (a real shocker...but such is the way opencart works, nobody goes purple with rage, people just take it on the chin)

I ask on the Opencart user forums for help, but unless you're the type that thinks 'Computer Weekly' is essential reading, it just goes over your head...or worse still I ask & then ....tumbleweed & a church bell tolls in the distance (nobody replies)

But you say I won't see any increase in sales (which is the end goal)...I think it will. For a start, abandoned cart ...apparently this feature recovers a chunky percentage of those otherwise lost sales (yes I know there's an extension for Opencart, but like I say I'm all extension-ed out! And with every extra extension I purchase, I get more & more pregnant to Opencart...I actually want to starting divorcing...not having more kids!) ...also, Bigcommerce's easy facebook shop ought to bring in more traffic - no? Having a slicker, more professional GUI/ interface ought to keep casual browsers on my site a little longer (& may help convert)....etc, etc. Ok, ok, so you have to take the following with a pinch of salt, but there are plenty of users speaking of higher traffic & sales since migrating to BC... http://tinyurl.com/nzxu8my )

I guess it boils down to whether you think having a fully supported & fhighly integrated cart product might be preferential to winging it alone (or using expensive 3rd party support for the likes of opencart) ...having wing'ed it alone for 2yrs now, I'm now starting to appreciate the benefits of a cart offering like bigcommerce (or bluepark) - to be a business owner shouldn't mean either having to put 'php for dummies' on your Xmas list or having to contemplate 3rd party developers at hourly rates which frankly make me want to curl up & adopt the foetal position!

 

[Tech4Homes]

I do fully understand you, I did contemplate going back to EKM or BigCommerce or even Shopify because everything should be "easy" but the amount I've spent on my shops is still less than a years worth of subscriptions and I've not really had any problems with my shops.

Only downside to the hosted carts is you're limited by what they offer, if they don't have a feature you need it'll either cost you a fortune or you won't be able to have it. If your needs are simple then it might not be a problem!

 

[evocart]

You may think I'm biased, but I really would never advise going with a cart that you are not able to easily get out of or move your store and / or domain to a new provider, it may seem like a good idea at the time, but if I was you I would stick with OpenCart and find a company that is willing to tlk to you about your needs and requirements. Or possibly offer you a store management plan for a low monthly price.

Whatever you do decide on though, make sure its going to meet your needs and requirements and not going to cost you even more money and trouble down the line.

Best of luck.

 

[Jeff FV]

It might be worth getting the premium membership on here for the website review forum, members can let you know what might be up with your website. If you're only getting 100 sales per day the only way to improve it is to become more visible e.g. higher google placements, more social media activity and paid ads.

^^^ This. It could be the best £40 you spend.

Website reviews can get a bit brutal, but I do think that they can be very useful.

I don't think changing cart would make that much of a difference (although I can see how targeting abandoned carts could be useful.)

I suspect that getting more visitors, and converting more visitors will probably be more beneficial than moving cart.

FWIW, our ecommerce site is built using prestashop,

HTH

J

 

[antropy]

I'm an online retailer..90% of my turnover comes from the big marketplaces (Ebay, Amazon), with 10% coming from my own website (in about £18kpa turnover for my website) ...I really need to build this up. I've had this website for about 2 years now but I only get about 50-100 visitors to my website per day (it's been at this level for about a year now - quite disappointing)

What makes you think that switching to another platform would increase your traffic? We've had OpenCart sites that organically start to get more and more traffic each month. I think it may be more to do with your content (including keywords etc.) and your products than the platform that's used. But why not set up a similar site on another platform in parallel and see if there's a difference?

 

[Pish_Pash]

What makes you think that switching to another platform would increase your traffic?

As I said earlier..

Bigcommerce's easy facebook shop ought to bring in more traffic - no?

but it's not just abut more traffic, but also converting the little traffic I get, where I said this...

For a start, abandoned cart ...apparently this feature recovers a chunky percentage of those otherwise lost sales. Having a slicker, more professional GUI/ interface ought to keep casual browsers on my site a little longer (& may help convert)....etc, etc

.there are plenty of users speaking of higher traffic & sales since migrating to BC here ...http://tinyurl.com/nzxu8my (two pages down)

""Bigcommerce wasn't a hard decision. Our sales and traffic increased 20% when we moved"

"With Bigcommerce, we’ve seen significant growth in revenue, our traffic has increased and we have a repeat customer rate of 50%"

"In two years, we've seen a 150% increase in online sales. We had a big vision, and Bigcommerce supported and grew with us."

ok, maybe a pinch of salt, but are they lying?

I remain puzzled why so many remain almost evangelistic about opencart..... do you think it's worth sticking with a development team that release V2.0 of Opencart software over 3 months ago...and yet there's still there's no way for existing 1.5.x users to upgrade? To steal from the Nationwide building society's advert "brand new customers only" !!!

 

[RogerBa]

there are plenty of users speaking of higher traffic & sales since migrating to BC here

To be fair I wouldn't say the comments about Bigcommerce are "lies" it's just that these are the comments they want you to read and nothing can be taken from them, there will be plenty of people able to say exactly the same about moving to Opencart, Prestashop, Magento or many others. What you really need to know is what problems these customers had previously and why Bigcommerce was so suited to their particular market/company/customers etc.

I remain puzzled why so many remain almost evangelistic about opencart....

I don't think people are being over protective about Opencart, merely pointing out the potential issues of moving to a hosted cart rather than an open source solution.

do you think it's worth sticking with a development team that release V2.0 of Opencart software over 3 months ago...and yet there's still there's no way for existing 1.5.x users to upgrade?

I agree it's potentially a big issue down the line, but there is no reason why you can't stick with 1.5. for some considerable length of time, and at some time in the future change to OC 2, maybe when the site starts to require a major overhaul anyway. There might even be a simple upgrade available by then, I'm sure developers are already working on it, but even if not there will be a need to do the work anyway for commercial reasons.

 

[Faevilangel]

V1.5 and V2 of OC are 2 different systems, V2 was built from the ground up and wasn't an upgrade from V1.5

V1.5 as far as I am aware will still get upgrades to 1.6 etc while V2 will have it's own upgrade paths.

There are quite a few systems which run like this include Android e,g, you upgrade from 4.1 to 4.2 but you can't upgrade 4 to 5

In regards to reviews of BC saying there traffic went up 50% etc, I don't believe them, I have only been building websites for around 15 years and can't think of a way that moving from x platform to y platform will suddenly make them super rich with orders.

There are a few reasons for their reasoning e.g.

1) They promoted their "new" store more so more people new about it
2) They got their site promoted on the bigcommerce showcase which gave them some extra exposure hence the increase in sales
3) Bigcommerce spends a lot of money on seo / adverts, this is somehow rubbing off on their clients sites (all the sites are sub sites of bc anyway e.g. mysite.bigcommerce.com)

We are not being evangelistic about oc but trying to give you our experiences of using OC vs using hosted carts like BC. I wrote a post a while ago here on the differences between the different ecommerce choices.

My personal opinion of hosted carts is that they are great when starting out on a budget but they soon become unusable for a lot of users due to their limited features, the reliance of being supported by one provider and the lack of customisation.

It's your decision on what you decide to do but it's better to be made aware of all the options available to make a decision than looking through rose tinted spectacles at one option.

 

[evocart]

Just to clarify, if you want to move your products, categories and other data from OpenCart 1.5x to OpenCart 2.0 then there is an option available.

If you search on google for cart2cart (i'm not associated with them in any way) then this (for a reasonable charge) allows you to quickly and easily move your products, categories, customers and orders from one cart to the other including from 1.5x to 2.0

So where there is a will there is a way.

 

[adamo]

Please seriously consider Magento - you'll never need to upgrade again. It's great to start using when you're running a small business, because it can easily scale to support 10,000+ products with ease. It's also fairly SEO-friendly out of the box (much more so than other platforms), and with a little time and effort you can make it really SEO-friendly.

 

[Raw Rob]

http://tinyurl.com/nzxu8my (two pages down)

""Bigcommerce wasn't a hard decision. Our sales and traffic increased 20% when we moved"

"With Bigcommerce, we’ve seen significant growth in revenue, our traffic has increased and we have a repeat customer rate of 50%"

"In two years, we've seen a 150% increase in online sales. We had a big vision, and Bigcommerce supported and grew with us."

ok, maybe a pinch of salt, but are they lying?

These quotes are the best that BC picked out of possibly hundreds of people who moved to them. No matter what the platform, some companies are going to do better from a change, if their old site wasn't working for them. It doesn't mean that everyone who switches will get the same improvements.

 

[Pish_Pash]

Thanks for all your comments....I think I'll give Magento community edition a test (at the very least it seems to interface ok with Linnworks ....whereas opencart has caused me no end of problems with Linnworks!)

tech4homes ....what tool did you use to migrate your product database from opencart to Magento?

 

[Tech4Homes]

tech4homes ....what tool did you use to migrate your product database from opencart to Magento?

I exported my products in CSV file then copied and pasted them into the Magento format. I then went through Magento adjusting, editing, improving and adding images. Wasn't a quick and easy job but I needed to do an improvement. Still got some way to go before the site is live. Painstaking but my new niche store has benefited massively as the products are so much more detailed now. Looking forward to getting it live.

If everything is already as you want it then use cart2cart. Fairly cheap and easy.

 

[Pish_Pash]

Thanks.

As it goes my present OC site needs some work...so it's probably a good a time as any to put the effort in....having just installed mageto, it looks a beast....I'm now wavering - perhaps, I'll just start afresh with Opencart 2.0 (but then there's the lack of Linnworks integration for foreign currency transactions...decisions, decisions)

 

[Tech4Homes]

If it's any consolation, I tried Magento about 4 times and gave up before this time. The trick is to do some reading, play with the features you understand and google everything you don't. It's really not that hard when you look into it properly.

That's the problem with Magento, it looks far harder than it actually is.

Also, I rang Linnworks, they pretty much told me to move to Magento before getting Linn............. I did but found M2E pro and saved £80 a month

You still haven't told me what your site is!

 

[Pish_Pash]

If it's any consolation, I tried Magento about 4 times and gave up before this time. The trick is to do some reading, play with the features you understand and google everything you don't. It's really not that hard when you look into it properly.

I'll persevere (I couldn't even get it installed, but thankfully it was available as an installable application from my plesk control desk....so I've now got a chance to dabble with it....a gazillion more options vs. Opencart)

Assuming I'm willing to take the hit on loss of search rankings (on the basis, I've simply not got enough time to try & dot every i & cross every t - besides my present website doesn't get all that much traffic), what's the rough migration steps. Assume site A is my live site & site B is my new magento site, at a very high level would this be it...

1. Create a new domain ...install magento (now done)
2. Set up magento ...site settings, configure email settings, about us, contact etc (ongoing)
3. Migrate product database from site A to site B.
4. Migrate customer details from site A to site B (the jury is out on this one...i.e. whether I'll even bother!0
5. Try and scoop up & tick off all the stuff from site A overto site B ...i.e. to do with search rankings (this is where your thread came in!)

...this is where it gets a bit wooly for me...once site b is ready, how do I get my old domain to be the new site? For example lets say site 'A' is called www.acme.com ...and I've created a new domain to migrate to called www.acemetest.com ...once acmetest.com is configured/ready, what's the procedure to retire the original www.acme.com & rename www.acmetest.com to be www.acme.com & then ensure customers browse to it instead?!

You still haven't told me what your site is!

For reasons completely unrelated to this topic, I'd rather keep my website details private (this is because forum discussions on this website are fully google searchable ...& I don't want my asian supplier to establish what i've been talking about!)

 

[14Steve14]

I used to get upset at this type of post but now I don't. Why ecommerce shop owners don't like spending money is beyond me. If you had a B&M store you would maintain it and keep it nice and updated, but you don't want to do this with your website.

My own website is small, and brings in a part time income, and therefore has no maintenance budget so to speak. This does not mean that I do nothing to it. I spend ages tinkering with the site. I spend ages reading about SEO and I try to put into practice what I have read when I enter new products. I also spend time adjusting the old products so the descriptions and titles are better. Peoples search terms change and so does the google algorithm. On eBay and Amazon you are paying for good search placement on the platforms, and google. On your own website you have to pay for this also, whether it be in time or in getting someone else to do it for you.

What do you do to promote your site. The better the promotion generally more visitors you will get. Hopefully the more visitors you get the more conversion you will get, but the advertising has to targeted to your potential customers. There is no point paying to advertise where your potential customers will not see it. Advertising costs money so be prepared to spend. You can spend time using adwords, facebook, twitter and what ever you choose, but it costs, again it may just be your time, but there is a cost involved. Paying someone to help with SEO will probably benefit you, but ask about what they are doing so you can learn to do some of it yourself.

Converting viewers to buyers is also something that needs to be considered. In a B&M store you display your products in a nice surrounding on a nice display stand. Do the same in your ecommerce store. Customers to your ecommerce store cant do the usual pick it up and get all touchy feely with your products, so make sure you display your products really well. Use good pictures, which may cost money if you want really good ones. Write good descriptions and try to remember your main product keywords.

The more you put into it, the more you will get out. Start treating your online store the way you would a B&M store.

 

[Pish_Pash]

I think you've missed the cut/thrust of my post. I've bought many extensions for Opencart some sucked & some just didn't work - I tried to get a refund...opencart referred me to the developer, the developer didn't want to know. I've ponied up for Adwords & other ppc offerings....so your assumption that I don't want to spend money isn't right...it would be better to say I don't want to waste money.

I said earlier that I really despise subscriptions ...for example - I will always get on my soap box when it comes to 'cloud' solutions vs desktop (always) ....subscriptions gnaw away at the very being of your business & (IMHO) should be avoided at all costs.

The 'website' vs B&M isn't such a good comparison...B&M operations typically have nice chunky margins....quite often, online doesn't, so it should be of no surprise that when operating on slim margins, the business owner will want to eliminate as much cost as possible...& subscriptions are an obvious cost that can be ducked if you're savvy.

It's such an ordeal to move cart software, that you'd better select the right cart in the first place (as I'm now finding out to my cost - in time). if you you sign up to a subscription cart solution...once they start cranking up their prices (& they will!), basically you're screwed! (or faced with the very poor choice of taking their price hike on the chin or having the hassle of migrating with likely impact on your traffic)

So it's all too easy to chime in that this is just about another tight fisted online business owner not wanting to splash the cash...but it runs deeper than that....I want to get the right solution for my business...once I've the right solution, I'm all too happy to splash the cash to increase traffic - but there's an awful lot of snake oil salesmen in the genre.

 

[Pish_Pash]

Magento....wow, even with just a little bit of time spent adding a couple of categories & products - I'm liking it (lots)....I'm in

The features 'out the box' are far more expansive (& useful) vs. a vanilla opencart install. (it's really night & day - to me at least)...also the support seems far greater (more youtube videos, more google hits for queries etc) ..;.that's what has always troubled me gravely about Opencart...when I hit a problem I ask on their forum, then wait like a forlorn young teenage girl staring at the phone waiting for Danny to call. (safety in numbers I guess)

 

[ecoleman]

Just be aware that Magento is a much bigger beast than Opencart, is known to be quite resource hungry and if you think it's expensive to customise Opencart, then you will be in for a shock when you see prices for Magento. Magento is a lot more difficult to customise.

I also fail to see how the extra features than Magento offers out of the box is going to solve your problem of getting more visitors to your site and increasing conversions.

I agree that with any system like Opencart or even Magento you are the support. You either need to be in the position to do it yourself of be happy to pay a decent developer to do it for you. I fail to see how switching to Magento is going to be any different than your current system. Except that Magento will probably cost you more.

I also agree that the opencart forums are not the greatest for support and there are some very dodgy "developers" floggy very badly written extensions. I would suspect you will also find that with Magento.

Just my thoughts.
I turnover well into 6 figures/annum on a free Opencart site.

 

[Raw Rob]

Magento is a lot more difficult to customise.

Really? I've never used OpenCart, but I read about vqMod on this forum and Magento seems to be much easier. Magento Connect Manager makes adding and removing extensions simple, no manually FTPing files to different folders which it seems you have to do on OpenCart.

I turnover well into 6 figures/annum on a free Opencart site.

Doesn't mean much. I turn over the same on a massively out of date ZenCart site! (I am in the process of transitioning to Magento.)

 

[ecoleman]

Really? I've never used OpenCart, but I read about vqMod on this forum and Magento seems to be much easier. Magento Connect Manager makes adding and removing extensions simple, no manually FTPing files to different folders which it seems you have to do on OpenCart.

I said customise, not install extensions.

Doesn't mean much. I turn over the same on a massively out of date ZenCart site! (I am in the process of transitioning to Magento.)

Not sure what you meant by this comment but does push home my point that you don't need an all singing, all dancing feature list to make some good money.

 

[Pish_Pash]

I also fail to see how the extra features than Magento offers out of the box is going to solve your problem of getting more visitors to your site and increasing conversions..

My reasons for moving aren't just traffic ..it's about ease of getting products on the website (out the box, Magento has a powerful import/export function...sure there are mods for OC, but they're a bit of a faff).

Out the box, Magento has a shipping estimator (I had to pay for one on OC, & even then it doesn't seem as slick)

The extension installation is simplicity personified...personally I always feel a litte vulnerable ftp'ing files over other files (aka OC for non vqmod extensions)

re traffic....it seems that the SEO aspect of Magneto is a little bit better thought out (OC ranks low in SEO features...not my opinion, but reviews I've read)...therefore moving to Magento might drive traffic extra organic traffic to my website. But it's not just about traffic, converting those visitors that do visit ought to be higher for a website that allows a slick process from customer 'landing' to getting his dosh.....etc.

But it's mainly the support....since coming to Magento from scratch, I've not been stumped for more than a few minutes (there's a plethora of Magento stuff searchable via Google in comparison to OC) ...whereas Opencart in the main, see my questions going unanswered...OC support blows.

Also a massive BIGGIE for me is the Magento -> Linnworks integration ....basically opencart doesn't integrate particularly well with Linnworks (something to do with the way that Opencart stores it's pricing information for non default currency transactions), the upshot being I have to manually edit every order mtransacted in a non default currency in Linnworks!

Re being more difficult to customize...I've no intention of going that way - basically, as sole importer (with exclusivity) on the products I import....I don't feel the need to make my site 'all themed up'....a customer either needs what I sell or he doesn't ....no amount of window dressing is going to impact my bottom line significantly. And once you start customizing, you're in the domain of a whole lot of pain (witness the multitude of the threads on the OC forum made by those who went off piste), nope, I'm a default theme kinda guy!