Payever eCommerce Platform

by pipern
10 replies
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I looked through the search and couldn't find anything about Payever, so I'm sorry if this is unintended duplicate thread.

I run a small to medium sized online store through Shopify that has made $25k to $50k in annual sales over the past few years. I'm based in the U.S and through my store I sell handmade jewelry and other dry goods sourced from Latin America and the Caribbean. My customer base is primarily North American, but slowly I'm gaining traction in Europe as well.

Generally speaking Shopify has been working just fine for me, but I feel the overreliance on 3rd party apps to do anything more than just the basics makes things more disjointed, complex, and costly than it should be. I've been looking around at other eCommerce platforms for something more streamlined with less reliance on 3rd party apps and programs, and I discovered Payever (https://getpayever.com/). The platform definitely looks to fit what I was looking for and with my current sales figures and volume their monthly pricing and transaction fees would be cheaper than Shopify is for me now.

They are newer to the eCommerce scene having started in 2013, but they have over 5,000 merchants who use their platform now so it get me curious. Has anyone been using Payever to run their online store? Thanks ahead of time for sharing any info or experiences you've had. Cheers.
#ecommerce #payever #platform
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    I've never heard of them, their website sure doesn't tell you much and it takes some digging to figure out that they are a German company that stores all of your information on servers in Germany. What I find most suspicious is that they do not tell you what their pricing is, nor do they tell you anything about what it includes (bandwidth, email account, SSL, number of products, if there are different pricing levels, which payment gateways they support (other than their own, of course), which shipping modules work with them, and tons more things you can only really know after you use a platform). I get that some business models cannot offer pricing because it is highly customized but this is not that kind of business and it sure makes it look like they are embarrassed of their prices if they are too ashamed to show them. Then again, you seem to know what they charge and say it is less expensive than Shopify (you must be using a ton of paid apps). I don't know why a company that is less expensive would be so shy about their pricing, though.

    I'm not sure how you concluded from their website that they have anything more to offer than Shopify. There are certainly many other well established eCommerce solutions out there that may give you exactly what you need - BigCommerce or 3DCart, for instance. I'm not sure I would be putting my business in the hands of a company that provided so little information and was used by so relatively few online businesses (I sincerely doubt that there are 5,000 active websites using their shopping cart. Maybe some of their many other apps and plugins including the thing the company was founded on - their payment gateway (which they offer for Shopify, incidentally) - brings them to that total.

    Then again, they may be fantastic. Take it for a spin during the free trial and see if it is everything you ever wanted and more. I'd advise you to do that with the other more established eCommerce software solutions, as well.

    I cannot find anything online, reviewing them, other than by people clearly connected to the company.
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    • Profile picture of the author breedskool
      We have lots of sites creeping in and out the web this days......only the genuine ones would stand the test and scrutiny of the web community.
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    • Profile picture of the author pipern
      Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

      I've never heard of them, their website sure doesn't tell you much and it takes some digging to figure out that they are a German company that stores all of your information on servers in Germany. What I find most suspicious is that they do not tell you what their pricing is, nor do they tell you anything about what it includes (bandwidth, email account, SSL, number of products, if there are different pricing levels, which payment gateways they support (other than their own, of course), which shipping modules work with them, and tons more things you can only really know after you use a platform). I get that some business models cannot offer pricing because it is highly customized but this is not that kind of business and it sure makes it look like they are embarrassed of their prices if they are too ashamed to show them. Then again, you seem to know what they charge and say it is less expensive than Shopify (you must be using a ton of paid apps). I don't know why a company that is less expensive would be so shy about their pricing, though.

      I'm not sure how you concluded from their website that they have anything more to offer than Shopify. There are certainly many other well established eCommerce solutions out there that may give you exactly what you need - BigCommerce or 3DCart, for instance. I'm not sure I would be putting my business in the hands of a company that provided so little information and was used by so relatively few online businesses (I sincerely doubt that there are 5,000 active websites using their shopping cart. Maybe some of their many other apps and plugins including the thing the company was founded on - their payment gateway (which they offer for Shopify, incidentally) - brings them to that total.

      Then again, they may be fantastic. Take it for a spin during the free trial and see if it is everything you ever wanted and more. I'd advise you to do that with the other more established eCommerce software solutions, as well.

      I cannot find anything online, reviewing them, other than by people clearly connected to the company.
      Thanks for the response and the advice.

      Some specific pricing information can be found here https://getpayever.com/shop/pricing/, but yeah there are still questions regarding particular platform features that their website definitely does not give answers to.

      As you pointed out, the lack of reviews and 3rd parties discussing the platform was the biggest red flag to me. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to reach out to the community here.

      I sent them a laundry list of questions, so I'll see how they respond to give them a fair shake before commenting too much further, but I'll for sure be continuing to shop around other more established platforms.
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      • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
        Originally Posted by pipern View Post

        Thanks for the response and the advice.

        Some specific pricing information can be found here https://getpayever.com/shop/pricing/, but yeah there are still questions regarding particular platform features that their website definitely does not give answers to.

        As you pointed out, the lack of reviews and 3rd parties discussing the platform was the biggest red flag to me. That was one of the main reasons I wanted to reach out to the community here.

        I sent them a laundry list of questions, so I'll see how they respond to give them a fair shake before commenting too much further, but I'll for sure be continuing to shop around other more established platforms.
        Thanks for finding the pricing page, I clicked all over the place looking for it and finally gave up.

        What scares me a lot is that their pricing page does not work correctly. All of the tool tips are broken so you cannot see what it is those things really are. That is to say, if they can't get their own website working right, what's mine going to be like?

        The pricing appears very much in line with pretty much every platform out there once you convert Euros to dollars. The plans say that they work with all the apps in the Payever Market and that you have access to that marketplace, but is access to a marketplace any different than buying apps that you need from Shopify? Are you assuming they are all free apps (I mean, Shopify has plenty of free apps in their marketplace but plenty of paid one, too).

        Just lots of unanswered questions. Like I said, though, give it a spin during the free trial period and see for yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nri Marriage Bureau
    Banned
    Nice information, Thanks for sharing
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  • Profile picture of the author Marina Gnatyuk
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    • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
      Originally Posted by Marina Gnatyuk View Post


      Ask them whether their payment gateway is PCI DSS compliant - it's very important. Since you're going to accept credit card payments from your customers, it's essential to ensure transparency and security of every transaction.
      Unfortunately, when you are hosting shopping cart platforms on your own (or rented) servers, it's not as simple as whether the payment gateway is PCI DSS compliant. Your server also needs to be PCI DSS compliant and it has to integrate seamlessly with the payment gateway's compliance. This is where you see so many warnings come up in PCI compliance audits.

      It's often a real nightmare trying to figure out how to get the two to play well with one another so that the automated audits don't give you a failing grade. Then, the second that one or the other has some sort of software/security update, the whole integration between the two nightmare begins again.

      This is why we recommend using a shopping cart that is hosted by that shopping cart (i.e. Shopify, 3DCart, BigCommerce). They are in charge of making sure all that stuff plays well together and for keeping their servers and gateways compliant. You have far better things to do with your time!
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      StoreCoach.com - FREE TRAINING - Learn How to Build Your Own eCommerce Website
      My PROVEN ecommerce process, as seen on: Fox Business News, the NY Times & Flippa
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  • Profile picture of the author bobreedd
    Thank you for information. It was very useful to me. It was interesting to read.
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  • Profile picture of the author pipern
    Just thought I would give an update here. I decided to not pursue switching over to these guys anymore.

    Couple of reasons why....

    1. All of the red flags mentioned above about the lack of reviews and 3rd parties discussing the platform. That was stuck in my mind since the beginning and they simply did not supply enough confidence to overcome this uneasy feeling I had about the silence regarding the platform.

    2. Their store features are actually much more lackluster than I previously had assessed. For example they don't offer GoDaddy domain integrations for store set-up, nor do their store templates even allow for the ability to embed Youtube or Vimeo videos. There were some other pretty basic failings, but I don't feel the need to beat a dead horse here. At the end of the day the small cost savings that I would get from moving to Payever from Shopify would not at all justify the transaction costs of migrating my store and systems. That's not even mentioning the fact that I would likely have a worse looking and performing store in a marketing and brand sense since I do use YouTube often for marketing. At that point the platform was just not an option for me.

    I've since streamlined some internal things and cut out some of the excess 3rd party apps that I was using on Shopify to lower my monthly costs. I'm going to continue sticking with Shopify. If it's not broke, don't fix it.

    If any Payever platform user ends up finding this thread and wants to still chime in feel free, but I won't be pursuing a switch to this platform anymore, at least for the foreseeable future.
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  • Profile picture of the author parrshop
    Good information! Thanks for sharing
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  • Profile picture of the author PaulLanders
    At first glance, the launch of an e-commerce platform may seem like a costly venture. Fortunately, there is a huge amount of CMS for an open source online store that is not only free, but also offers flexible customization options, scalability and community support that can not always be found in enterprise solutions. In my opinion these pltforms are the best:
    1. Magento Community Edition
    2. PrestaShop
    3. OpenCart
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