e-commerce solution

[DSLiverpool]

theboyfold said:

I'm after a bit of a steer with regards to an e-commerce solution I can pull together very quickly (by the end of Feb). Does anybody have any experience in this and would be happy to offer insights as to what they have done and how easy it was to setup?

Hard to look past Shopify at the moment for a start up, its more professional than many "DIY" ones but can be done by any switched on person.

[DSLiverpool]

jammy_basturd said:

Dejay1788 said:

Shopify is incredibly easy to set up and starts off cheaply. You can get a store up and running over a weekend.

But then you're locked in and if you're successful it starts to get expensive.

James can you pull a shopify feed into Magento? I have been told you can but I would value your view. I see Shopify start up and Magento next stage as a perfect solution?

[jammy_basturd]

DSLiverpool said:

jammy_basturd said:

Dejay1788 said:

Shopify is incredibly easy to set up and starts off cheaply. You can get a store up and running over a weekend.

But then you're locked in and if you're successful it starts to get expensive.

James can you pull a shopify feed into Magento? I have been told you can but I would value your view. I see Shopify start up and Magento next stage as a perfect solution?

There's certainly no reason why you couldn't and there are a couple of extensions out there that do it ( this one seems quite comprehensive). I imagine there would be a couple of key differences, but it'll certainly get you up and running. It's not something I've had to do yet though.

Whether Magento is the next step on from Shopify...
One of the big things for me about Shopify is that if it's your core business and you become successful, the key part of your business is never an asset owned by your company. You never own the IP, the code, so any value in your company is only from your profit margin and customer database.

You're also at the mercy of Shopify - in a few years when they own a massive share of the ecommerce market and put up their prices or change their T&Cs...

I think Magento becomes the next step as soon as you want more control over exactly how key parts of the site work (searching, filtering, checkout, etc), or you need those advanced features that Magento has; multi-stores, customer groups, tax rules, etc. However from my experience I would not move to Magento until I absolutely had to, just because it's such a big beast to tame (but brilliant when you need it).

[theboyfold]

jammy_basturd said:

There's certainly no reason why you couldn't and there are a couple of extensions out there that do it ( this one seems quite comprehensive). I imagine there would be a couple of key differences, but it'll certainly get you up and running. It's not something I've had to do yet though.

Whether Magento is the next step on from Shopify...
One of the big things for me about Shopify is that if it's your core business and you become successful, the key part of your business is never an asset owned by your company. You never own the IP, the code, so any value in your company is only from your profit margin and customer database.

You're also at the mercy of Shopify - in a few years when they own a massive share of the ecommerce market and put up their prices or change their T&Cs...

I think Magento becomes the next step as soon as you want more control over exactly how key parts of the site work (searching, filtering, checkout, etc), or you need those advanced features that Magento has; multi-stores, customer groups, tax rules, etc. However from my experience I would not move to Magento until I absolutely had to, just because it's such a big beast to tame (but brilliant when you need it).

This is interesting, we are seeing Shopify or Big Commerce as a stop-gap until the VCs get to a conclusion about a group wide roll-out of Netsuite and the associated solution that they have.

I'm not worried about the IP of the 'site', as that will be removed in 6-10 months, I'm just looking for something quick and we decent enough reporting that it doesn't cause the accounts teams any issues. We tend to work with POs and contracts, rather than credit cards and other forms of more consumer based purchasing.

[Dejay1788]

jammy_basturd said:

Yea, I've just reminded myself of their pricing structure and it's not so bad any more. Last time I looked I'm sure their payment fees were higher which made large stores expensive.

The pricing is flexible depending on your package with them. Their merchant rates are also very acceptable.

[jamoor]

Without a doubt I'd suggest Romancart.

It's extremely easy to integrate into any kind of website, however its not suited to taking hundreds of orders daily.

you can also consider bigcommerce although then we are getting more into a fully fledged e commerce package which by the sounds of it you don't really need?

[theboyfold]

Thanks for the help on this, it turns out that Shopify wasn't able to handle different currencies in the way that I wanted, and Big Commerce can. So I'm putting a test site together as we speak!

to all of you for your help!

[LDN]

theboyfold said:

Thanks for the help on this, it turns out that Shopify wasn't able to handle different currencies in the way that I wanted, and Big Commerce can. So I'm putting a test site together as we speak!

to all of you for your help!

I also went with Bigcommerce after comparing because it allowed great control over URL structures - I was able to match my old sites URL strings.

[Muhammad adnan]

Shopify makes it easy to build and manage your online store.
Launching an online store doesn't have to be rocket science. With the right tools, anyone can sell online — and be successful at it, too. From do-it-yourself (DIY) e-commerce website builders to online marketplaces and merchant services, there is a plethora of e-commerce resources available. These tools make starting an online business easier and more affordable than ever. If you've always wanted to sell online, now is the time. Here are 8 e-commerce solutions to help you get started.

Symphony Commerce;

1 CommerceHub.

2 Ocoos

3 PayStand

4 Vee24

5 Lettuce

6 3dcart

7 Volusion

8 Square Market