What online shop solution are you using?

[RBS]

There are so many ready online shop solutions to rent for around 20£/month, but which one are you using? Any experience with others you have used before ?

 

[James.Dunford]

I have used two (Sort of!) over the last few years. The first was not a certain amount per month, it was £340 at the time, £360 now i think, and included a custom template and was very SEO friendly and sales were quite good. (A company called Firepages) Now i am using Tiger Commerce for my new store as it was cheaper to test the sales. I have found it great, service is good from them, they made me a banner to go on the top for free, and it is very customisable, and in my opinion better than EKM. (www.floatingaway.co.uk is my site)

 

[los_design]

£20 a month?!

OK, I have used 3 and they all have one thing in common...no monthly fee

1. Actinic Ecommerce Software (initial cost for software)
2. Joomla Virtuemart (Free)
3. Magneto (Free)

And I rate them in that order....

 

[RBS]

£20 a month?!

If you go on google and type "build online shop", you get list of companies who offer ready online shops for around 20£ a month. All you need to do is insert your products, information and you are ready to go. I just dont know if you can add google checkout to these shops, but must not be hard.

Ordering customized shop will cost few thousand.

 

[los_design]

If you go on google and type "build online shop", you get list of companies who offer ready online shops for around 20£ a month. All you need to do is insert your products, information and you are ready to go. I just dont know if you can add google checkout to these shops, but must not be hard.

Ordering customized shop will cost few thousand.

No it doesn't....it can be expensive for a bespoke solution BUT for example, download joomla and use a theme built by professionals (such as here => joomla themes )it would cost you under £40.

You can get a tip top theme for virtually any cart these days for pennies and they are PROFESSIONAL.

Also, these shops you allude to have very strict criteria and their flexibility for SEO and growth capacity can be restrictive. I would only approach one of these solutions as a testing environment only NOT a long term solution.

Feel free to discuss your options with me if you like, I do not design websites but I do develop ecommerce stores and would be able to help you make a decision based on your budget, requirements and in-house skill...oh and I do not hard sell it will just be advice to help you to decide.

You can skype me or visit losdesign and contact me through there.

HTH

Regards
Daren

 

[RBS]

It seems that there is similar to Magento, called Prestashop. And its free

Any feedback on that?

 

[los_design]

It seems that there is similar to Magento, called Prestashop. And its free

Any feedback on that?

Never heard of it.

Magneto is free too BTW.

 

[paretowasright]

Never heard of it.

Magneto is free too BTW.

Comparing Prestashop to Magento is like comparing a Ferrari to a Ford Mondeo!

 

[MH1]

I've just started a prestashop, 2 weeks old and still have a lot to do, but hosting etc cost £25 PA. Very impressed overall, the seo urls work very well, already had orders in the first few days and not even advertised it anywhere as yet. Put a new product on and it seems to appear very high in google almost straight away within a couple of days. Not sure why, but it seems to work better than other carts I've tried briefly in the past.

Have a small problem to overcome regarding intergrating paypal, but once I have sorted that out, hopefully in the next day or so and I can really start working hard on it.

I prefer it to Joomla virtuamart but everyone has their reasons for their choices.

I would recommend starting two stores though, one as your actual site, the other to try and test things out before changing your main site.

 

[RBS]

I have checked both now. Presta ir SO easy to admin, even I can do it Magento seems to be amazingly overpacked with features and heavy, I was getting lost. Looks like I will be heading presta way.

 

[iboxsecurity]

@Rob Magento is very easy to use once you have had a good look around, its a very powerful system. We have a few customers using it now and they are very happy with it....oh and it doesn't have to cost thousands! One of the last Magento stores we did for only around £800 and with a payment plan.

 

[RBS]

One of the last Magento stores we did for only around £800 and with a payment plan.

How come 800£ if its free? What did you do for these 800£ ?

 

[iboxsecurity]

Rob, the system itself is free yes, but the client wanted a complete custom design for the site so the front end was completely redesigned, together with some web site promotion (SEO) and hosting for the year.

But the design was fairly complex and designing a front end from scratch and integrating in Magneto which is essentially just a system or a chassis we built the body to place on top.

 

[RBS]

Rob, the system itself is free yes, but the client wanted a complete custom design for the site so the front end was completely redesigned, together with some web site promotion (SEO) and hosting for the year.

But the design was fairly complex and designing a front end from scratch and integrating in Magneto which is essentially just a system or a chassis we built the body to place on top.

Well, then 800£ is cheap.

 

[iboxsecurity]

In this instance yes - we did it as an offer we had running which ends fairly soon and the client so far is very happy.

 

[regencychess]

We use Zen Cart... which is free... but then I pay an in house web designer who hacks Zen to bits to get the results we want... so many zen sites I see are really awful... but it can be used professionaly when set up and customised correctly...

 

[Optegris]

I just can't decide which one to use, ho hum...

 

[Dmkths]

I would also recommend prestashop, I have no clue when it comes php coding and everything else that comes with it, but I have managed to built a half decent site with it.

Seo is good also, admin is easy to understand and we have doubled our orders since changing to it.

The only down side is that it is still pretty new and still maturing but it will be one of the best I'm sure.

Regards,

Mark.

 

[brownie]

All ecommerce solutions have their own strengths and weaknesses, you can't just say one is better than the other without knowing more about the business and understanding what is being sold.

You need to have a good think about the functionality you require before selecting a solution.

 

[nextec]

I will add another vote for Actinic.

I have used it for several years and love the ease of use as well as the back end features producing invoices and packing lists etc.

Richard

 

[Spock]

OScommerce is another free one, very similar to ZenCart. I'm just about to start having a play with several to determine which system works best for our store.

 

[RBS]

Been playing around Prestashop and Magento today - damn young thing, very buggy But very easy to manage, customize. I can see future for it.
Magento - nice, overpowerful, overpacked, but what I am looking for as for frontend, but damn unreal to get thru it, SO complicated. It will cost me fortune to get somebody to help me adding my products, setting up categories and tweaking a layout/design.

Will keep looking tomorrow for some other free open source solutions.

 

[needaprint]

we have a besoke system for our printing website but on other websites i used zen cart and x-cart but then customised heavily. they are good packages though. zen cart is free and very easy to use - bit messy to customise due to pages and settings in every folder under the sun but for a free package its good and has lots of seo and marketing bolt ons, etc

 

[DaveBunny]

I'm using Opencart, found it very easy to use and manipulate. Its a relativly young cart but very well put together, the only downside is the lack of documentation.

 

[needaprint]

main thing to look out for is an active community on their forums - dont rely on the company to give instant support - active forums are great for people needing help

 

[nickpp]

We use Magento and X-cart (not free), Magento is great if you invest enough time in it. X cart is a lot easier to customise and use.

Most of the oscommerce sites look quite dated that i have looked at.

 

[RBS]

http://www.ecwid.com

 

[Andy777]

My 3 fav. shopping cart solutions:

http://www.3dcart.com/

http://cubecart.com/

http://shopperpress.com/

 

[denby]

My 3 fav. shopping cart solutions:

http://www.3dcart.com/

http://cubecart.com/

http://shopperpress.com/

another vote for Cubecart from me

 

[elisnov]

We use Magneto

 

[KayM]

Very happy with Actinic.

 

[dx3webs]

magento + knowledgeable host + free support = unbeatable

 

[davidjgoss87]

Our ecommerce site is running Kentico CMS with the Ecommerce module added on, plus some custom integration with our EPOS system. Not cheap, but we wanted a fully-featured CMS that we could develop on top of, not just a shopping cart.

We had a project in the early planning stages a while ago for a smaller, more specified ecommerce site. It got cancelled, but even by then I had more or less decided on Shopify (shopify.com). It's hosted, so no scaling issues. Ticked all the boxes from a business point of view, and as a designer/developer I felt good about working with it.

Incidentally, with an ecommerce site I would always go for a paid-for product, because if you are a paying customer there is a support obligation which you would almost certainly not get with a free product. I love free software, but when you're running an online store you need someone to be accountable when you have problems.

Also some people are saying Magento is free. There are different versions, including a free one that comes with less features and no support. Other versions cost thousands of dollars, but I have heard they are worth it.

 

[edmondscommerce]

magento + knowledgeable host + free support = unbeatable

+ great developers = even better

 

[dx3webs]

lol yes, of course.

 

[Raijin44]

There are many online shops but I used only Joomla Virtue mart (Free)