E-commerce website needed
Discussion
We do a number of these for clients...
We have used various platforms over the years - but almost entirely now use Shopify as it is very simple to set up (simple = cheap!) has a built in payment gateway which you can get started on and can be expanded with the business as you grow - it is also good at connecting into social media etc. if you wish to sell elsewhere...
What help do you need? WIth something like shopify it is designed to get you going even with no technical expertise - so we work with our clients at lots of levels - for some, we do everything for them from the setting up to the adding products to helping manage the sales - others we act as tech support for them, we do the initial setup and then show them how to use it and get involved only when they run out of ability / time / energy / wine / etc.!
If you want a chat - our website details are in my profile - happy to have a no commitment chat - we do websites for quite a few pistonheads folks...
We have used various platforms over the years - but almost entirely now use Shopify as it is very simple to set up (simple = cheap!) has a built in payment gateway which you can get started on and can be expanded with the business as you grow - it is also good at connecting into social media etc. if you wish to sell elsewhere...
What help do you need? WIth something like shopify it is designed to get you going even with no technical expertise - so we work with our clients at lots of levels - for some, we do everything for them from the setting up to the adding products to helping manage the sales - others we act as tech support for them, we do the initial setup and then show them how to use it and get involved only when they run out of ability / time / energy / wine / etc.!
If you want a chat - our website details are in my profile - happy to have a no commitment chat - we do websites for quite a few pistonheads folks...
i had this qu a few weeks ago - https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
I eventually used www.ecwid.com as I could setup a basic proof of concept with the usual "about us, contact us, products" etc selling 10 items with the "free" setup in a few hours. The free hasnt got the right features (>10 items, discount codes, categories etc) but the 2nd level will do 99% of what we want for £20pm Havent gone live yet mind...
I was quoted £900 setup and £100pa hosting by a local web company for similar.
I eventually used www.ecwid.com as I could setup a basic proof of concept with the usual "about us, contact us, products" etc selling 10 items with the "free" setup in a few hours. The free hasnt got the right features (>10 items, discount codes, categories etc) but the 2nd level will do 99% of what we want for £20pm Havent gone live yet mind...
I was quoted £900 setup and £100pa hosting by a local web company for similar.
We’ve used Ecwid for years for an online business I am involved with.
It isn’t perfect, but has some advantages, like a quick start shop and the ability to easily embed within your own designed website, giving it a less generic feel than any Shopify themes.
That being said, I do occasionally look enviously at the ever expanding list of Shopify apps and integrations!
IceBoy said:
Hi All,
Could anyone recommend someone who could help design and build a very basic e-commerce website for my new business?
IceBoy
Always happy to chat if you’d like to discuss further and get some initial options. We’ve worked with a few PH members in the past on e-com sites (mostly bespoke Shopify Shopify designs and builds). Could anyone recommend someone who could help design and build a very basic e-commerce website for my new business?
IceBoy
You can find our work and info here: https://tristanpalmerstudio.com/
Please do feel free to drop me an email or call via the details on the site, if you want o catch up.
Thanks, T
loafer123 said:
We’ve used Ecwid for years for an online business I am involved with.
It isn’t perfect, but has some advantages, like a quick start shop and the ability to easily embed within your own designed website, giving it a less generic feel than any Shopify themes.
That being said, I do occasionally look enviously at the ever expanding list of Shopify apps and integrations!
When we looked a few years back, the ability to create your own structure of categories and sub-categories seemed much easier in Ecwid than Shopify. We went with the formed and find it extremely good, but in truth I have not since looked elsewhere to see what's on offer and what's changed.It isn’t perfect, but has some advantages, like a quick start shop and the ability to easily embed within your own designed website, giving it a less generic feel than any Shopify themes.
That being said, I do occasionally look enviously at the ever expanding list of Shopify apps and integrations!
vdn said:
Ecwid in a Wordpress site: you'll have almost all you'd ever need for next to nothing.
Shopify / BigCommerce are expensive (I use them also) but prefer Ecwid.
Was my opinion too.Shopify / BigCommerce are expensive (I use them also) but prefer Ecwid.
These guys have solutions: https://www.treblethree.co.uk/websites.html
vdn said:
Ecwid in a Wordpress site: you'll have almost all you'd ever need for next to nothing.
Shopify / BigCommerce are expensive (I use them also) but prefer Ecwid.
the big difference though is that generally shopify / bigcommerce sites just work - the advantage of cloud software… plugins are generally more robust as it is a curated marketplace…Shopify / BigCommerce are expensive (I use them also) but prefer Ecwid.
wordpress and it’s world of plugins allows a lot of opportunity for code issues, frequent wordpress updates with themes and plugins being compatible with different versions can cause considerable issues…
you need far more technical knowledge or support to run a wordpress site smoothly than a site such as shopify… and you either commit time to that or outsource it, neither is free and both approaches can cost more than shopify…
if you are not a techie then a system such as shopify is fully usable, wordpress sites really are not… we have 35+ years experience in coding and wordpress gives us more technical headaches than any other system…
akirk said:
vdn said:
Ecwid in a Wordpress site: you'll have almost all you'd ever need for next to nothing.
Shopify / BigCommerce are expensive (I use them also) but prefer Ecwid.
the big difference though is that generally shopify / bigcommerce sites just work - the advantage of cloud software… plugins are generally more robust as it is a curated marketplace…Shopify / BigCommerce are expensive (I use them also) but prefer Ecwid.
wordpress and it’s world of plugins allows a lot of opportunity for code issues, frequent wordpress updates with themes and plugins being compatible with different versions can cause considerable issues…
you need far more technical knowledge or support to run a wordpress site smoothly than a site such as shopify… and you either commit time to that or outsource it, neither is free and both approaches can cost more than shopify…
if you are not a techie then a system such as shopify is fully usable, wordpress sites really are not… we have 35+ years experience in coding and wordpress gives us more technical headaches than any other system…
Appreciate what your saying though. I use Shopify and BC also - but find them costly, relatively speaking.
DSLiverpool said:
w.parson said:
Is Shopify still the best option currently?
Yep - nothing comes close (hides under the table) I’ll counter with what’s your aspiration? I’ve just see £50k p/a to $120m replatform in recent week - do you need integrations with amazon / eBay / linn etc ?SEO is now under my control and by using well designed and coded Woocommerce sites my frustration is massively reduced.
Shopify is good but like all Site builders limits what you can do with a website. Wordpress I am yet to find functionality I cannot code with clever use of themes and some specific plugins,
Edited by Redarress on Tuesday 8th November 07:03
That is all true and valid, however it seems that you might be an exception in running e-commerce with an understanding of coding…
For the vast majority, they have no coding experience and something like shopify is very good, Wordpress with plugins is rarely a good solution for those people, it has regular issues of compatibility- there is an issue currently with a major plugin where if it is turned on it kills the admin - yes, it will be updated at some point but until then with it on the admin doesn’t work and with it off major features on the websites don’t work - and no current solution…
We host or manage a lot of websites including Wordpress, shopify and our own coded systems - clearly a system we code has theoretically no limitations as to functionality, but are more expensive, of the ‘off the shelf packages’ shopify has proved the best over the years - not perfect, but we can write into the api to add functionality if necessary and because the cloud bits are mainly controlled by one company there is a higher level of success - whereas Wordpress seems far more random in terms of updates killing a site or not and with auto updates on often by the time the issue is discovered it can be hard to fix without a rollback…
That is not to say that shopify is perfect - far from it, over the years some functionality has been removed and there can be similar issues with plugins… but for a SAAS system it is a good starting point for most e-commerce and then when they grow out of it hopefully the business will have the funding to do something more serious…
For the vast majority, they have no coding experience and something like shopify is very good, Wordpress with plugins is rarely a good solution for those people, it has regular issues of compatibility- there is an issue currently with a major plugin where if it is turned on it kills the admin - yes, it will be updated at some point but until then with it on the admin doesn’t work and with it off major features on the websites don’t work - and no current solution…
We host or manage a lot of websites including Wordpress, shopify and our own coded systems - clearly a system we code has theoretically no limitations as to functionality, but are more expensive, of the ‘off the shelf packages’ shopify has proved the best over the years - not perfect, but we can write into the api to add functionality if necessary and because the cloud bits are mainly controlled by one company there is a higher level of success - whereas Wordpress seems far more random in terms of updates killing a site or not and with auto updates on often by the time the issue is discovered it can be hard to fix without a rollback…
That is not to say that shopify is perfect - far from it, over the years some functionality has been removed and there can be similar issues with plugins… but for a SAAS system it is a good starting point for most e-commerce and then when they grow out of it hopefully the business will have the funding to do something more serious…
Maxal said:
Shopify is a really good platform. One of the best things about it is that you can easily make an e-commerce website without any coding skills. And of course, the platform offers all the needed features and options to run a business. Moreover, Shopify is supposed to have the best sales features on the market. And it has tons of in-built tools plus an app store.
Does the ebay listing app work now ? One of main frustrations was that the app was cranky even when we took time to configure it correctly. I understand the app was owned and supported by ebay not Shopify so any issues Shopify washed its responsibility of. Not sure what Shopify can offer above those sales features found in other ecoms websites ?Totally agree though,if you have little knowledge that to create a new site and get it launched it's a good tool. Once you start wanting functionality that is not out the box you ether pay a Shopify specialist with the associated costs to code the features you need or move to a more bespoke product that is coded exactly how I wanted it, which is the path I went down.
Edited by Redarress on Thursday 10th November 09:34
[quote=akirk]
"there is an issue currently with a major plugin where if it is turned on it kills the admin - yes, it will be updated at some point but until then with it on the admin doesn’t work and with it off major features on the websites don’t work - and no current solution…
.......Shopengine ?
"there is an issue currently with a major plugin where if it is turned on it kills the admin - yes, it will be updated at some point but until then with it on the admin doesn’t work and with it off major features on the websites don’t work - and no current solution…
.......Shopengine ?
Just curious, as we may well have to drop an ancient solution soon.....
Does shopify allow you to build a dynamic shop that integrates with a remote mysql database?
Eg allow customers to log in and view past orders and view mysql data on specific pages based on their user iD?
Does shopify allow you to build a dynamic shop that integrates with a remote mysql database?
Eg allow customers to log in and view past orders and view mysql data on specific pages based on their user iD?
Edited by lizardbrain on Sunday 20th November 17:14
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