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E-commerce Site for Offline Client - I need help

by digichik
19 replies
I have an offline client who wants to get an e-commerce site in addition to their retail location. I have designed 2 websites for their other business and now they want an e-commerce site. The only experience I have with e-commerce site is using the GoDaddy shopping cart, which was fine for what I was doing at the time. I'm not sure I want to suggest GoDaddy to them.

I need an e-commerce solution which is free or inexpensive, easy to learn, secure, easy to customize, is compatible with Paypal and Authorize.net, tracks inventory, generates labels, generates reports, has various options for shipping, and can handle all of the changes in state sales taxes for internet purchases. They will have about 100 products on the site, so ease of adding products is important.

I will have to learn the e-commerce platform and then teach my client how to use it to add products and generate reports, so it has to be easy to learn and use.

Your help and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
#client #ecommerce #offline #site
  • Profile picture of the author ilikecake
    Hello,

    Loads of OpenSource carts -

    Zencart
    Opencart
    Oscommerce
    Creloaded
    Cubecart
    Magento
    Wordpress !!

    and many more (I use zencart very succesfully, but they have the plus and negatives. Magento is the most advanced but hard to tinker with.

    If its a small venture Id use Wordpress, If its large Id use oscomerce or Zencart.
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    • Profile picture of the author plainwords
      I would recommend Big Commerce. It's quick and easy to set up a store, and has great features and user-friendly checkout. There are some good templates for most industries but it's not too difficult to customize to any design.
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      • Profile picture of the author andreasup
        Originally Posted by plainwords View Post

        I would recommend Big Commerce. It's quick and easy to set up a store, and has great features and user-friendly checkout. There are some good templates for most industries but it's not too difficult to customize to any design.
        I have a friend with a beauty genre site which has been around since the mid-1990s. They first used Miva Merchent (remember that blast from the past?) but it was buggy and they problems.

        Then they paid a lot of money...and I mean a lot..to have have a custom e-store built. It was elaborate but took a lot of time and training.

        As that e-store started to erode they switched slowly to BigCommerce as a back-up store and had great success with it. They also tried Zen Cart but too many problems.

        BigCommerce seems to offer the most with the least amount of headaches. They also seem to be responsible and fairly responsive - although a little slow - according to my friend - with customer care issues.

        BigCommerce - that's what I personally would recommend.

        Good luck to you.
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  • Profile picture of the author swd123
    Hey,

    Wordpress Ecommerce is absolutely brilliant - either use a theme and customise it or if the budget is decent (say you can afford to spend $500) then outsource it for a bespoke product
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    • Profile picture of the author semrocks
      Originally Posted by swd123 View Post

      Hey,

      Wordpress Ecommerce is absolutely brilliant - either use a theme and customise it or if the budget is decent (say you can afford to spend $500) then outsource it for a bespoke product
      Wordpress is definitely one of the easiest to setup, i'm pretty sure it's compatible with all of the major payment gateways too (authorize.net, paypal, etc) Good Luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author ravi13efw
    Why not Zencart on a sub-domain, they are free, easy to set up - they take easy-populate lists and you can simply direct your client to the help manuals that you can download for free, that would be my choice but wordpress ecommerce should be pretty good too.
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  • Profile picture of the author Stranger Danger
    The guys over at Store Coach have developed one of the best shopping carts available - Zulu Cart.

    There is a support forum, tons of users and I believe they even install it for you, if you choose.

    Last I checked, it was about $30/month.

    It only takes a moment of reading through their forum to see how many people are praising it as the best - people that have been in e-commerce for years, that have vast experience with all of the other, popular shopping carts. If you visit their site, you will see that it is more than just a shopping cart - it pretty much does everything.

    No, I am not affiliated with Store Coach and/or Zulu Cart.
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  • Profile picture of the author jspmedia
    I think BigCommerce is Good..

    Personally I like Prestashop
    very well built open source - extra plug-ins and themes are bit expensive but it looks real solid and easy to customize.
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  • Profile picture of the author uyuangwork
    I prefer BigCommerce, because it has more feature complete, but unfortunately this tool is paid monthly, but it is worth the results you will get
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  • Profile picture of the author NickSway
    Magento is the way to go. Though from personal experience I would advise you to stay away from E-Commerce sites from offline clients.
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    • Profile picture of the author digichik
      Originally Posted by NickSway View Post

      Magento is the way to go. Though from personal experience I would advise you to stay away from E-Commerce sites from offline clients.
      I totally agree, but they've already been ripped off by an unscrupulous web designer for thousands, so I really want to help them. However, after this I will probably stay clear of e-commerce, except for my own sites.


      Thank you everyone for your input, I'm spending today researching your suggestions and I hope to be able to make a decision in a day or so.
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  • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
    I think this might be a project you should turn down, or sell them on consultancy. Charge a fee to help them find a competent person to handle the project.

    The CMS of choice here would be Magento. It isn't as difficult as people make it seem, it is by far the most functional and flexible ecommerce platform there is. Without a doubt, magento is 100% the way to go. Can you learn it fast enough to be able to do everything needed to be done? It depends on how advanced you are.. Magento is a beast that 95% of web designers and developers are afraid of learning lol.

    3dcart is an easy one, but nothing in comparison to magento.
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  • Profile picture of the author NickSway
    Definitely go for magento if you're doing E-Commerce. Just know that a majority of web design/devlopers don't even offer E-Commerce because of the hassle. The ones that do charge at least $2k for a basic template and 50 or so products. Then you have to deal with teaching them how to add products, categories, etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author rbecklund
    ecwid is a good, easy to use and free ecommerce software that works with wordpress, joomla, html. And easy for the end user to use after it's all setup. Works with paypal and authorize.net.
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  • Profile picture of the author malachiteIM
    I've been building eCommerce Stores for a long time and I don't think its really too hard to pick up. Of course, I come from a Web Developer background, not Web Designer, so it would depend on your technical skills. Allow sufficient time for for potentially problematic areas such as payment processor integration, shipping, bulk upload of products, and customer training when all is said and done. I use Volusion and Magento nowadays and have worked with ZenCart and BigCommerce. All should meet your needs. Let me know if you need more info.
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  • Profile picture of the author Robert Bridgen
    Try
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  • Profile picture of the author malia
    As both an ecommerce and brick and mortar merchant, I say Magento first, Big Commerce second, Shopify third. However, I agree with iamnameless, hand this off to someone experienced.

    Absolutely do not go with open source (there's nothing wrong w it conceptually). I say that as someone who has had to consult many friends through transitioning from an open source solution a developer set up and didn't really know much about. They were left hanging when it came to things like PCI compliance (bet you don't even know what that means, which is why you should hand it off) or poor back end infrastructure (it's really the backend that maters day to day, any designer can make the front end look good).
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  • Profile picture of the author gauravgaur
    our rate@ $16/hourly. Pls contact me.

    Thanks;
    Gaurav Gaur(Sr. Consultant at Enuke Software)
    Skype: gaurav.enuke
    Mob. +91-9990787696
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  • Profile picture of the author gauravgaur
    Hello,
    I am from Enuke Software Pvt. Ltd. India. We have developed lots of e-commerce site for our clients. You can get your work done from us.

    Thanks;
    Gaurav Gaur(Sr. Consultant at Enuke Software)
    Skype: gaurav.enuke
    Mob. +91-9990787696
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