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Recommend me an ecommerce solution

by JB
18 replies
  • ECOMMERCE
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Hi All,
I'm looking to implement an online shop for a range of physical products and am looking for advice from anyone with experience in this area. I don't mind paying for a setup that works well, ease of use from the Admin side is very important as I'm no programmer.
Any suggestions and/or mini reviews would be great.
Cheers,
Dave
#ecommerce #recommend #solution
  • Profile picture of the author PatrickP
    You mean a shopping cart, a credit card processor or what?
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    • Profile picture of the author JB
      The full package, like 3dcart or something. Storefront, categories with multiple listings, deal of the week/month etc and various payment options (google cart, paypal, credit card etc)
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  • Profile picture of the author PatrickP
    You building the site yourself or having it done?

    If you have experience building sites, I am guessing you do not or you would already be able to answer your own question.

    If someone else is building the site for you let them take care of all that as they are the experts.

    I built my own with houstonpro.com very easy to do. But I had a much nicer looking one built using Magento.
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    • Profile picture of the author JB
      I have no experience beyond Wordpress so I'll either be looking to hiring a Warrior or someone off odesk etc to design and implement the site. So at the end, I need something that is easy to administer. I'll check out Magento. Are there are features I should be looking for or things that I need to be aware of? I'd like to get as much info about the various options before talking to a designer so that I know I make the right decision.
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      • Profile picture of the author tumill
        So far the systems I've tried are:
        Magento
        Shopify
        Pro Stores
        Big Commerce

        I can say that Big Commerce is the only one I will use from now on for many reasons... It's worth checking them out!

        The first and third link in my signature are Big Commerce systems...
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      • Profile picture of the author PatrickP
        Originally Posted by JB View Post

        I have no experience beyond Wordpress so I'll either be looking to hiring a Warrior or someone off odesk etc to design and implement the site. So at the end, I need something that is easy to administer. I'll check out Magento. Are there are features I should be looking for or things that I need to be aware of? I'd like to get as much info about the various options before talking to a designer so that I know I make the right decision.

        I am clueless about those things myself.

        So my solution was to find a similar website with the feature I wanted. Then I went on Vworker and posted a job with a link to the site.

        I got a GREAT site for only $300.
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        • Profile picture of the author JB
          Just checked out Big Commerce, looks very promising indeed. Any negatives I need to be aware of? How steep is the learning curve?
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          • Profile picture of the author tumill
            Originally Posted by JB View Post

            Just checked out Big Commerce, looks very promising indeed. Any negatives I need to be aware of? How steep is the learning curve?
            Learing curve wasn't too bad at all, maybe took be a couple days to be able to sort through things and maybe a couple weeks before I could say I was good at it.
            It's also the cheapest option I've found that gives you everything you need in the price, no adding things on or hidden charges.
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  • Profile picture of the author cenmegasys
    @OP
    Magento, has great feature but when it comes to customising it to your taste, you pay more.
    You can try out ZenCart or Oscommerce.
    Either has great backend features.
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  • Profile picture of the author PatrickP
    I tried Big Commerce and I was not happy with them also to me they were too expensive and took forever to reply to customer support questions. I much prefer houstonpro I have had a website with them for 5 or 6 years. They have credit card support, paypal and the owner himself replies to support problems within a couple of hours even on weekends.

    You could do Weebly.com BUT they only support Paypal checkout
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  • Profile picture of the author Inspired, Inc.
    You know, I found and have used a service called "fullybiz." (Shopping cart system, autoresponder & ad tracker service)

    I've been using it for nearly two years for a self published book and it's a very cheap, all-in-one solution. It has the shopping cart, autoresponder and affiliate program all built in.

    I've contacted their support several times with questions and they've gotten back to me with in 24 hours.

    It was also pretty easy to learn. I hired a programmer off of elance who designed and set up my website and was able to integrate everything for me for under $300 bucks.

    The only downside was with the affiliate program if you have multiple products, as you have to set the commission manually for each one. I only had one book, but I had about 15 different discount coupons and had to go in and set the price for each and then also modify the affiliate commission. It wasn't a big deal, just very time consuming.

    Anyway, good luck in your search!
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  • Profile picture of the author JimmyR
    I'm recently hearing good things about Drupal Commerce. There are plugins for it that integrate with AlertPay, Paypal etc. It's free too, but needs a bit of development work
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  • Profile picture of the author maryland168
    Wordpress is still the best option

    1# easy to administer
    2# a lot of useful plugins FREE or PAID ( shopping cart,affiliate,payment processors etc)
    3# Good for SEO purposes
    4# "Newbie" friendly

    i.e for shooping cart plugins, you can use "YAK for wordpress", It's Free and powerful.
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  • Profile picture of the author frankl
    I like opencart. It's free and looks very professional
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    • Profile picture of the author Robert Mangan
      Hi,

      I can only advise you about Magento as I use it myself for my retail store - you can see it for your self - just click on my name and you''l see my website in my 'Contact Info'.

      Magento is great inasmuch as it comes with everything you need; PayPal, authorize.net integration already done, search engine friendly URLs, fully customizable categories and product pages, autmotica emails sent to customers when the purchase, items ship out etc.

      There are also hundreds of extensions that can be very easily installed to further the functionality of your shopping cart. One which I've had installed was OneStepCheckout - just add a product to the cart on my site and it brings you to the checkout page which allows the customer to enter in all their details on one page.

      I had my site designed by a company in India and was very happy with their work and price. You can PM me, if you like, and I'll give you their details.

      Robert
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan David
    I use Shopsite and love it.
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  • Profile picture of the author AToZ
    Big commerce is great, but expensive if your selling lots of cheap products.
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