Shopify Thoughts ?

[WebBandit]

Hi,
Wants your thoughts on Shopify as a ecommerce system ?

I am starting to think it could be a way to go... Not due to technical knowledge required for other systems (I have no problems there) But the fact I should be working on the business rather than servers, programming, templating etc.....

I like the idea of just having a system that works (Kinda viewing the Shopify team as my technical employees - Hence not minding paying $29 a month, which I would have payed for hosting anyway)

But I don't like the transaction fees or the kinda lock in (I say kinda because I guess you could export and start the shop again on another platform)...

What I am not liking about self hosted solutions at the moment are:

• Magento - So heavy and time consuming (Time better spent on business)
• OpenCart - I don't care what anyone says, Its not SEO friendly and I hate the fact that I have to buy seo plugins to have tidy page urls, custom titles, fix category duplicates and have canonical tags... I really think this all should be part of the core ! - I don't like purchasing plugins that break upon updates - Shame because its otherwise a good system.
• WooCommerce - Plugin costs, not a eCommerce platform have read that Google is not liking WooCommerce pages resulting in lower traffic (See this comment a few times) worrying !
• PrestaShop - Again abit like OpenCart, SEO is still not right (A lot better that OpenCart) but don't like numbers in URL and the fact I need to pay for plugins to correct which should be in core. - Still better that OpenCart carts SEO (Which is a shame - because I want to love it)

Anyway just doing a bit of research and love to hear views on Shopify (or other Hosted solutions, but mainly interested in Shopify)....

I have seen large successful shops running on Shopify so it can be done, So again love to hear your views...

Many Thanks Guys in Advance,
WebBandit

 

[Ninja Commerce]

I totally agree with your reasoning. My first business was an ecommerce site and I built it myself, which I enjoyed thoroughly, but I ended up spending more time tinkering with the site than marketing the business.

Personally, I would tend to use shopify, but it's not a perfect system, so it depends how much patience you have:

If you want to properly customise it you will need to edit the templates - which are basically HTML but with some weird shopify bits. Although the last site I built I could get away with just (majorly) editing the CSS which is easier.

Being a developer you will almost certainly find yourself wanting to do this - but even so, the result is, overall, easier and quicker than it would be using open cart et al.

One big bug for me is that (last I checked) by default the shipping cost is not worked out until the customer has gone most of the way through the checkout process. Shopify claim this is because shipping varies depending on the delivery adress, but you can't even set a default country (Uk for instance).

So unless your shipping is free, your customers can't see the total cost until they click "checkout" and enter their full address.

I think there is a shipping calculator plugin, but it might be an extra cost and it seems like an over-engineer for something that should be there as standard.

Hope that helps!

 

[Faevilangel]

Opencart is free and offers so many options and paying $10 to get the extra functionality you need shouldn't be a reason not to use it imho. Could OC be better? Yes, but it's 2 developers who build it and they won't have unlimited time to build in every feature under the sun, hence why extensions exist so you can add it with little hassle.

The beauty of open source over hosted solutions is that you can do what you want with it, you own your "code" and have no restrictions placed on you.

Even if you had an OC store, you would still need to pay transaction charges for your orders, transaction charges help the businesses who help you get paid, keep their business going.

 

[Wayne-StarActionFigures]

Personally cannot recommend Blue Park enough. Been with them since July and sales are going from strength to strength. Lots of features and very user friendly when processing orders.

Can't post a link yet, but just google blue park.

I tried quite a few different options, but found these by far the best. Customer service is second to none. Try them, you will not be disappointed!

 

[truereddevil]

Another vote here for Bluepark it might be a little more expensive but in my opinion you get what you pay for, I have fully done alot of research on every cart going and ecommerce solution and bluepark stand way above the rest. I have contacted over 30 customers of theres and they said it was the best choice they ever made and thats the choice we have made so i would say go check them out
http://www.bluepark.co.uk/

 

[antropy]

• OpenCart - I don't care what anyone says, Its not SEO friendly and I hate the fact that I have to buy seo plugins to have tidy page urls, custom titles, fix category duplicates and have canonical tags... I really think this all should be part of the core ! - I don't like purchasing plugins that break upon updates - Shame because its otherwise a good system.

What do you think are the biggest SEO problems in OpenCart?

 

[Ecommerce Web Design]

All those shopify ads must be working !! hefty marketing budget there.

Personally I prefer to own the code, data, and hosting stack. Really depends on what you are selling and the business model.

Been testing opencart2 and not got to the SEO yet, but TBH I'd prefer an expert to look at it. Volunteers ?

 

[Alan]

IMHO, if SEO is important to your e-commerce strategy and you are not in a totally unique niche (in which case SEO is pretty irrelevant as you'll rank anyway) then your best best is either Amazon market place or and e-bay shop.

 

[antropy]

Been testing opencart2 and not got to the SEO yet, but TBH I'd prefer an expert to look at it. Volunteers ?

Do you mean you've been testing OpenCart 2.0 or you've been testing OpenCart too?

You mean you'd like an SEO expert to look at it?

 

[deniser]

I think there is a shipping calculator plugin, but it might be an extra cost and it seems like an over-engineer for something that should be there as standard.

Hope that helps!

There is a shipping calculator and it doesn't cost extra; it seems to work fine but the problem with it is that, being American, it requires a postcode which is superfluous for the UK as you can't set shipping costs against the UK postcodes. There is nothing you can use to distinguish UK mainland and islands/highlands for example which would be more useful.