Anyone used Create.net to build a web shop?

Anyone used Create.net to build a web shop?

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Discussion

IS200RJR

Original Poster:

796 posts

241 months

Wednesday 23rd July 2014
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I am looking for an easy set up low cost eCommerce website, the product we sell is mostly to the trade but get the odd customer who wants to order online, We have ebay covered but would like to generate a few sales through our own site?

MrSparks

648 posts

119 months

Wednesday 23rd July 2014
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I started my ecommerce business using EKM Powershop (www.ekmpowershop.com) about £20 a month, everything included, it's come a long way since I last used it too with lots of new features.

You don't want to go too cheap with these things, and open source sites can cost a lot more (or can cost a lot less depending what you want really!) if you want an easy, reliable solution that you don't need to worry about too much I'd really recommend EKM.

paul26982

3,850 posts

217 months

Wednesday 23rd July 2014
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i used webeden wanted to give building my own ago. yes im not a pro but it sys what i need too. think its £120 a year with 2 free domains

loafer123

15,404 posts

214 months

Thursday 24th July 2014
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If it is only a limited number of products, ecwid.com is free.

We use it for our retail website www.elephantinmyhandbag.com and it works well.

KFC

3,687 posts

129 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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paul26982 said:
i used webeden wanted to give building my own ago. yes im not a pro but it sys what i need too. think its £120 a year with 2 free domains
I've seen a webeden shop setup and its extremely poor from a variety of technical reasons. I wouldn't consider this as a valid option, there are plenty better ones out there.

It all depends on budget/skills etc but I'd consider hiring someone who knows what they're doing to get you a Woo Commerce site set up.

IS200RJR

Original Poster:

796 posts

241 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Iv now spoken with ekm powershop and they will buid a site in there template for £100 + the vat anyone used this service as it sounds like a good option i can then concentrate on the content.

KFC

3,687 posts

129 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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IS200RJR said:
Iv now spoken with ekm powershop and they will buid a site in there template for £100 + the vat anyone used this service as it sounds like a good option i can then concentrate on the content.
I'm looking at their gallery now and I'm unimpressed. I can't tell if its just bad implementations of it, but it looks like it would really suck from an seo point of view. Page titles the same as the the on page heading etc - they should be varied. I don't know if thats an option. I'd assume not, as why feature sites with glaring errors in them if thats not the case?

They charge £25 a year for a domain name, and £25 to change your username - so it sounds like they're going to really take the piss with any additional things they can whack a fee on. Their domain names are 5 times the price they should be...

I couldn't see any information on who actually owns the setup/content etc. Can you move your site and content to another system when you realise this one is not actually any good? If not, then you end up in a pretty poor position - you have a store not particularly performing well, but it would be an absolute nightmare to do anything about it due to t&c's of the company you started with.

If you're setting up a website as a hobby then these hosted services can be okay.... if you're attempting to run a real business then you really need to be in full control and ownership of everything to do with your website.


jammy_basturd

29,775 posts

211 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Fully agree with everything KFC has said! Especially that last sentence.

Tworesece

1 posts

116 months

Friday 25th July 2014
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Last time I tried to search the Internet to get a complete guide of using HTML in an MFC application. I found that there are many topics concern with HTML Help but none of them have the same purpose with my desired work using .net. Hope this thread will help me solving the issue.

Dejay1788

1,311 posts

128 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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Have you looked at Shopify?

MrSparks

648 posts

119 months

Saturday 26th July 2014
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KFC said:
I'm looking at their gallery now and I'm unimpressed. I can't tell if its just bad implementations of it, but it looks like it would really suck from an seo point of view. Page titles the same as the the on page heading etc - they should be varied. I don't know if thats an option. I'd assume not, as why feature sites with glaring errors in them if thats not the case?

They charge £25 a year for a domain name, and £25 to change your username - so it sounds like they're going to really take the piss with any additional things they can whack a fee on. Their domain names are 5 times the price they should be...

I couldn't see any information on who actually owns the setup/content etc. Can you move your site and content to another system when you realise this one is not actually any good? If not, then you end up in a pretty poor position - you have a store not particularly performing well, but it would be an absolute nightmare to do anything about it due to t&c's of the company you started with.

If you're setting up a website as a hobby then these hosted services can be okay.... if you're attempting to run a real business then you really need to be in full control and ownership of everything to do with your website.
I was with them for a year with two sites

1) you can have your own domain from a regular domain provider for a few pounds a year and still use it with EKM
2) you can export all your products, data, pages etc and then re-import to any other provider or open source software, you can't take the theme though, but if you have a custom theme made then technically you own it but would have to re-work it to whatever platform you move to.
3) yes they do charge a lot for minor things, but theres not really a lot that needs doing that requires their involvement, i never had to pay them for anything.\
4) I didn't find the SEO too bad to be honest, I got good search results fairly quickly, It could probably have been "better" but it certainly wasn't poor.

However, you don't need to pay them £100 for a basic template, they have hundreds of free ones and they won't make you a custom one for £100 so just stick with the free templates for now.

And despite the above "defence" of EKM.. i 100% agree on the full control and ownership, I eventually moved to open source when things started taking off a bit, however I would counter that with saying that EKM is a quick easy and fairly pain free way of getting started... whilst open source sites are "free" the additional modules soon add up and if you need to pay someone to set it all up then it could cost you a lot more than £25 a month.

I'd weigh up the pros and cons, consider using it for a while to test feasibility and get the ball rolling ready to invest in your "own" open source site once you know it's worth the £££ on design, implementation etc.

MentalSarcasm

6,083 posts

210 months

Sunday 27th July 2014
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I've designed mine with Create.net, wanted to go with SquareSpace as I used them in the past (although not the shop feature as it wasn't around) BUT SquareSpace won't let you use Paypal as a payment option and that's much more expensive, so Create.net it is.

I've only had a site for just under a month, but I'm quite happy with them. I can't code to save my life but I like having control over my site so I didn't want to pay someone to build it for me. I managed to find a template I liked and then changed the colours and added widgets from there. I actually spent part of yesterday rearranging the shop part to group by product rather than historical theme and it only took me 15 minutes, would have been less but I had to change some of the products too.

When you sign up you're assigned to a personal manager, if you have any questions they're the ones that get contacted, if they're absent then they'll have another colleague covering their work. I got a response within 24 hours when I had a few questions and that was with my manager on holiday.

They're less customisable than I remember SquareSpace being, but for overall control I'm quite happy with it. Their help pages are very useful as well, almost everything I've needed help with has been on there and as I said above, for everything else I got answered pretty quickly.

Currently my biggest problem is that I don't know how effective my search results are, but the site hasn't been up that long and I'm a bit of a newbie about it. There's a link in my PH profile if you want to be nosy.

They offer a 30 day free trial, frankly it doesn't hurt to play around with the tools and see what's what and then if you decide to go with it you can subscribe, if you give it a miss then it hasn't cost you anything except time.