Big cartel or Shopify for beginners?

by bsurb
7 replies
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Good morning. Im here today to get some insight on what you believe is the best platform to use for brand new stores. I have a clothing company and I sell small accessories for my niche and I'm not making great sales just yet. I'm doing straight Instagram promoting by keeping the page up to date so I'm already over 3,100 followers and the sales that I have made are currently from Instagram.

I signed up for Shopify a couple months ago, the $29.99 package. I love it. Easy to use. Looks super clean and you get to use the sales stats in the admin page that I think is awesome. But $30/month and my store is freshly new, I don't want to go in the whole right away. Iv made about 4-6 sales totaling almost $100 in the past month or month and a half. Right off of instagram.

I also set up a Big cartel page and was thinking about using the $9.99 monthly package until I establish customers or promote my page more.

What do you think I should do?? I have a couple T-shirts, hats and stickers as physical product.

Thank you in advance!
#beginners #big #cartel #shopify
  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    $30/month is not a whole lot to invest in a business. That said, there are less expensive hosted platforms out there like 3DCart, which will save you about $10/month vs. Shopify. In the long run, hosted platforms are going to be much more secure and you won't have to deal with all of the upgrade hassles and plugin nightmares that result from upgrades.
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    • Profile picture of the author Splatterfox
      Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

      $30/month is not a whole lot to invest in a business. That said, there are less expensive hosted platforms out there like 3DCart, which will save you about $10/month vs. Shopify. In the long run, hosted platforms are going to be much more secure and you won't have to deal with all of the upgrade hassles and plugin nightmares that result from upgrades.
      I totally agree.

      I mean I don't want to sound offensive or something, but if 30$ a month for a complete shopsoftware is too much, then maybe you should look at something else or get some funds first. From personal experience I can say that an E-Commerce business can involve a lot of unpredicted costs here and there, so if you are already struggling for your monthly Shopify fee, then you might have hard times to go on.

      WooCommerce would be a free solution (just requires WordPress which is also free), but like dave said, its not as professional and "complete" as Shopify. Depending on your needs you will need plugins and some of them cost money as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gambino
    I would just get up and rolling with WooCommerce until you start getting more consistent sales.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    If you're just starting out you don't even need a shopping cart. Slap a Paypal buy button on a sales page.

    Once sales get to a comfortable pace then move up to something better (ex: shopify).
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  • Profile picture of the author bsurb
    I'm not really hurting to spend $30 a month I was just thinking about extra money to save towards new product. But I suppose I can call it even because I charge a client $28 per month to use my hosting for a WordPress blog. So that one site I host pays for it.. I just need to hustle some small product here locally.
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    • Profile picture of the author Splatterfox
      Originally Posted by bsurb View Post

      I'm not really hurting to spend $30 a month I was just thinking about extra money to save towards new product. But I suppose I can call it even because I charge a client $28 per month to use my hosting for a WordPress blog. So that one site I host pays for it.. I just need to hustle some small product here locally.
      Let me say that this money will be worth it. When it comes to hassling around with non-working plugins, non-responsiveness and other issues, you'd wish to be with Shopify where everything is ready to go
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  • Profile picture of the author Nicole W
    Just stay with shopify. If everything works fine you have to go to a good platform anyway, so save your time and don't start from scratch in a cheaper platform just to move back and start again in a better platform.
    Focus your energy on SEO and Social Media marketing.
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