Ecommerce Website needed... give me some ideas.
Discussion
Im looking at upgrading my current website to a new one as we are being forced to due to support of the Magento Go platform ceasing in Feb 2015.
I have seen the following come up:
http://www.shopify.com/importers/magento-go?rdid=4...
https://www.bigcommerce.com/magento-migration-part...
Are either any good?
But im now thinking since I have 6 months, what can I do instead to have a better website (original one limited by the go platform so a little clunky) and still have it easy to upgrade by a non techie person (business partner).
How does Magento Community compare to Magento Go in respect of all the reporting aspects, payments system, automated emails, stock control, etc?
If I move elsewhere am I going to have issues integrating the above and the Worldpay gateway that we already have or is that simple?
How about a custom built website by a ecommerce developer with all the features of the one we have?
I cant afford to have the site down as it has paid for itself many times over, however it took me 3 months to get it to that stage and now dont want to lose all the time and effort we had to put in.
In the same time I dont want someone to quote £10k for a site when we have 20 products at the moment.
Any advice on the above from the small business owners out there?
I have seen the following come up:
http://www.shopify.com/importers/magento-go?rdid=4...
https://www.bigcommerce.com/magento-migration-part...
Are either any good?
But im now thinking since I have 6 months, what can I do instead to have a better website (original one limited by the go platform so a little clunky) and still have it easy to upgrade by a non techie person (business partner).
How does Magento Community compare to Magento Go in respect of all the reporting aspects, payments system, automated emails, stock control, etc?
If I move elsewhere am I going to have issues integrating the above and the Worldpay gateway that we already have or is that simple?
How about a custom built website by a ecommerce developer with all the features of the one we have?
I cant afford to have the site down as it has paid for itself many times over, however it took me 3 months to get it to that stage and now dont want to lose all the time and effort we had to put in.
In the same time I dont want someone to quote £10k for a site when we have 20 products at the moment.
Any advice on the above from the small business owners out there?
When you say you want a better website, what functionality are you lacking at the moment? Do Shopify or Bigcommerce have these features?
If one of the other suggested alternatives has the features that are important to you, then it seems like the best option is to migrate to them. It looks like there will be thousands of other sites doing the same thing, so there should be plenty of help and advice available online.
I migrated my ecommerce site from Zen Cart to Magento Community about 18 months ago, and it took a lot of work as Magento CE is a fairly complex system. As your business partner isn't particularly techy, I wouldn't recommend Magento unless you have access to someone more experienced in installing and configuring it.
If one of the other suggested alternatives has the features that are important to you, then it seems like the best option is to migrate to them. It looks like there will be thousands of other sites doing the same thing, so there should be plenty of help and advice available online.
I migrated my ecommerce site from Zen Cart to Magento Community about 18 months ago, and it took a lot of work as Magento CE is a fairly complex system. As your business partner isn't particularly techy, I wouldn't recommend Magento unless you have access to someone more experienced in installing and configuring it.
PM me and I will talk offline...
This goes for anyone else that runs website design companies.
I want to get the ball rolling sooner rather than later and have to pay through the nose to get it rushed out.
I assume when you deploy the site its not encrypted and easily modified? Im a techie, but dont have the time or inclination to do this for the next 6 months myself.
This goes for anyone else that runs website design companies.
I want to get the ball rolling sooner rather than later and have to pay through the nose to get it rushed out.
I assume when you deploy the site its not encrypted and easily modified? Im a techie, but dont have the time or inclination to do this for the next 6 months myself.
Magento CE does everything and more that Go does. But it's not the easiest to set up and manage.
Take a look at Opencart, it can do everything that Magento does but its a lot "lighter" and easier to install use and manage.
Altrezia, are you familiar with Opencart? I have an SSL issue that needs fixing.
Take a look at Opencart, it can do everything that Magento does but its a lot "lighter" and easier to install use and manage.
Altrezia, are you familiar with Opencart? I have an SSL issue that needs fixing.
Magento CE didnt scare me off with the code, I didnt touch it due to the business parnter not being too techie and stayed away for the reason.
However that resulted in a clunky website, which I would like resolve at the same time as sorting out the final bit of automation that I didnt do and giving the payment gateway system a bloody good kick so I dont get anymore 3D secure payment failures.
Also want something that adding pdfs, images, etc... is not a ballache like it is now.
Not tried Open Cart or had a route around to view the competition, hence query now I have 6 months.
However that resulted in a clunky website, which I would like resolve at the same time as sorting out the final bit of automation that I didnt do and giving the payment gateway system a bloody good kick so I dont get anymore 3D secure payment failures.
Also want something that adding pdfs, images, etc... is not a ballache like it is now.
Not tried Open Cart or had a route around to view the competition, hence query now I have 6 months.
I built www.elephantimyhandbag.com using Webplus for the front end and ECWID for the ecommerce.
Have a look around - if you like it, it was easy to do and we have found ECWID to be generally pretty good.
loafer123 said:
I built www.elephantimyhandbag.com using Webplus for the front end and ECWID for the ecommerce.
Your website is currently down: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://www....MrSparks said:
Magento CE does everything and more that Go does. But it's not the easiest to set up and manage.
That's not quite true. Magento Go I believe had a better dashboard, as well as a couple of revised bits of functionality to make certain tasks a bit easier/simpler - whilst there are some things you can do with Magento CE that you definitely can't do with Magento Go (full customisation of themes for a start).Hosted Solutions. Or Not.
Your first decision needs to be whether you want to go with a hosted solution or not. When I say hosted I mean the offerings from companies like Shopify and Bigcommerce.
The main advantage of such a service is piece of mind for non-technical people. You need not worry about any of the technical didgeridoo dars; servers, maintenance, upgrades, backups, load balancing, monkey flanges, etc. These websites make it easy for just about anyone to start a store, pick and customise a theme, or even engage a designer to create your own completely bespoke design. Load up some products, add in your postage and payment options and you're pretty much away.
In my opinion, these solutions are great for people who want to run a small to medium sized small business. People or companies that just have a few dozen products that fit neatly into one structure and workflow.
The downside of such services is customisation and control. Maybe with certain products you need your customer to fill out a form before completely the purchase, or particular delivery methods are only available to a particular customer group or products. Coding completely custom workflows into these sites is either going to be prohibitively difficult, or not possible at all.
Secondly, you'll be at the mercy of the platform. If they decide to stick in a massive price hike, you'll have to swallow it. If they decide they no longer get along with your favourite payment gateway, you'll have to find an alternative. This is the main reason why I state that these services are great for side-businesses, but for anyone looking to grow a venture into a serious business, you HAVE to be in control of your own website.
Magento! Or Not.
What Magento is great for - large enterprises. Magento is a BIG beast. It has a lot of features out of the box and a huge amount of customisation is possible with just a few extensions, some settings tweaks and maybe a bit of custom code. This is why Magento has become so hugely popular over the years, it's seen as the one-size-fits-all platform for ecommerce.
However it is not.
Allow me to get a bit technical for a moment, so allow your eyes to glaze over in 3...2...1... Magento is built on the Zend framework and employs its own variation of the EAV database model. Any developers that truly know this framework and model are expensive. It is very easy for a developer who doesn't know what he's doing to do more damage than good.
Unless you're planning on requiring completely custom workflows, tens of thousands of products, multi-stores with multiple languages using multiple currencies from one back-end, etc leave Magento alone.
So what's left?
There are tonnes of other self-hosted options. Which you go for could well be based on which developer or agency you use as everyone has a favourite they use for most projects. Having used a number of options over the years; Joomla + VirtueMart, OpenCart, PrestaShop I have to say my current favourite for smaller ecommerce stores is Wordpress + Woocommerce.
Wordpress now powers 20% of the internet's websites. It enjoys a huge community meaning that templates and extensions are plentiful. Should you want something a bit more unique then designers and developers are also plentiful (and thus relatively cheap). Even if you want to try and do a lot of things yourself, Wordpress is generally very simple to learn and extensions are well built and easy to use too.
Cost and SEO/Marketing
I've deliberately left out these very important considerations between the various options for a very good reason.
With regards to SEO/Marketing - it's all very much of a muchness. I've not yet come across a platform that is head and shoulders above the other in terms of on-site SEO optimisation. Each one does an OK job of doing the basics and each platform has extensions that do a good job of improving on those basics.
With cost it really is a case of how long is a piece of string. Only you will be able to look at Shopify/Bigcommerce and work which price package you need. Get several quotes from various developers/agencies to compare this against.
Ultimately it will come down to two questions - whether you want to do it yourself, or whether you want to use a developer or agency. If the latter, then the platform is really irrelevant. Pick the right developer/agency and you should be free to just give them your requirements and let them deal with working those requirements into whichever platform they want to use.
If you want to go it alone, start up a free trial with Shopify and Bigcommerce, see which one you prefer.
My apologies for the small essay! I've gone through this answer several times over the past few weeks so thought I'd use this post to flesh out the beginnings of a blog article!
We were a Magento Enterprise customer for a while and would in all honesty never go back. Lots of sites of course are live and thriving on Magneto so I would advise really thinking through your requirements whilst being platform agnostic. Don't make any assumptions about features you assume to be present.
Worth a read of http://blog.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/index.php/magen...
Magento Go and Pro Stores will cease to exist early next year so take any ecom advice with a pinch of salt if they are mentioned as possibilities.
Magento Go and Pro Stores will cease to exist early next year so take any ecom advice with a pinch of salt if they are mentioned as possibilities.
robuk said:
Worth a read of http://blog.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/index.php/magen...
Magento Go and Pro Stores will cease to exist early next year so take any ecom advice with a pinch of salt if they are mentioned as possibilities.
The OP is looking for a solution because Go is being ceased... Well done for the considered opinion though.. Magento Go and Pro Stores will cease to exist early next year so take any ecom advice with a pinch of salt if they are mentioned as possibilities.
jammy_basturd said:
loafer123 said:
I built www.elephantimyhandbag.com using Webplus for the front end and ECWID for the ecommerce.
Your website is currently down: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://www....http://www.elephantinmyhandbag.com/
I've recenly had an ecommerce website built by PHer Akiraprise
You'll find the URL without too many problems ;-)
It's Wordpress-based, with WooCommerce providing the store. Russ was great to work with; took on the high-level client brief and very quickly understood what the brand was about.
He was useful in the 'value-added' arena too, with referrals for merchant accounts, advertising & promotion etc.
Have no problem recommending him.
You'll find the URL without too many problems ;-)
It's Wordpress-based, with WooCommerce providing the store. Russ was great to work with; took on the high-level client brief and very quickly understood what the brand was about.
He was useful in the 'value-added' arena too, with referrals for merchant accounts, advertising & promotion etc.
Have no problem recommending him.
LDN said:
jammy_basturd said:
loafer123 said:
I built www.elephantimyhandbag.com using Webplus for the front end and ECWID for the ecommerce.
Your website is currently down: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://www....http://www.elephantinmyhandbag.com/
I have aeimh.com, which is shorter, but doesn't quite have the same ring to it!
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