Best E-commerce site builder?

BloodBath

Hi, I'm starting a small online store and have run into a bit of a roadblock. Which software/company to use for building and maintaining the store?

I've tried a couple of the online store builders like wix and shopify but there is a lot of them out there.

The prices on some of them are crazy as well.

I'd be looking for something that has good easy to use tools and templates for building and maintaining an online store.

Ideally unlimited bandwidth. The site won't be very big so storage space doesn't have to be that high but I don't want the site going down over bandwidth allowances. If the allowance is high enough so that isn't an issue then that's fine.

Handles visa/mastercard payments for my customers with the ability to add paypal payments.

Does not take a % of my sales. I don't mind a small fixed per transaction fee but no %.

Has servers in Europe with high uptime and good pings from Ireland.

Is priced under €30 a month. I might go a little higher.

Good customer support.

Does anybody have any ideas? I had started building the site with WIX but there is a 10gb a month allowance on their E-commerce package but I've heard they have no hosting in Europe. They in fact refuse to reveal their server locations sticking by the line that they have a network of servers all over the world and that pings and page load times will not be an issue. Some of the reviews I've read suggest otherwise though.

I do love the building tools and the price though. It's €20 per month. If my site is going to be slow and I go over my allowance though it's a deal breaker. I think a 10gb allowance would be fine though. There will be lots of pictures on the site but no video. I could surely embed youtube videos if I do add video anyway.

All advice is appreciated.

Peterdalkey

I have 2 ecomm sites up with www.bluepark.co.uk and am totally pleased with the front end, easy of use, support, uploading data and updates, and reporting features etc etc. one low monthly fee and no other charges other than the domain registration/renewals.
One site has over 2000 product lines. We had 3 support queries over the last couple of working days, eAch was answered within an hour! Google their user blogs and see real user feedback. I have no connection other than as a happy customer.

BloodBath

Hey thanks Peter. That looks ideal. I'll give it a try tomorrow.

Did you pay for the SSL Certificate?

bbam

BloodBath wrote: »

Hi, I'm starting a small online store and have run into a bit of a roadblock. Which software/company to use for building and maintaining the store?

I've tried a couple of the online store builders like wix and shopify but there is a lot of them out there.

The prices on some of them are crazy as well.

I'd be looking for something that has good easy to use tools and templates for building and maintaining an online store.

Ideally unlimited bandwidth. The site won't be very big so storage space doesn't have to be that high but I don't want the site going down over bandwidth allowances. If the allowance is high enough so that isn't an issue then that's fine.

Handles visa/mastercard payments for my customers with the ability to add paypal payments.

Does not take a % of my sales. I don't mind a small fixed per transaction fee but no %.

Has servers in Europe with high uptime and good pings from Ireland.

Is priced under €30 a month. I might go a little higher.

Good customer support.

Does anybody have any ideas? I had started building the site with WIX but there is a 10gb a month allowance on their E-commerce package but I've heard they have no hosting in Europe. They in fact refuse to reveal their server locations sticking by the line that they have a network of servers all over the world and that pings and page load times will not be an issue. Some of the reviews I've read suggest otherwise though.

I do love the building tools and the price though. It's €20 per month. If my site is going to be slow and I go over my allowance though it's a deal breaker. I think a 10gb allowance would be fine though. There will be lots of pictures on the site but no video. I could surely embed youtube videos if I do add video anyway.

All advice is appreciated.

http://affordablehoster.com/

Pete is the guy's name, I saw positive reviews on another website I frequent before I went with him.....

Have two sites running through Pete and no problems.. Never had any problems but any questions I've contacted him with have been dealt with promptly and professionally.. one site runing OpenCart which is very easy to get going, setting up payment gate etc was simple.

I don't have ANY other hosting experience to compare it to...

No affiliation, just a customer

Peterdalkey

bbam wrote: »

http://affordablehoster.com/

Pete is the guy's name, I saw positive reviews on another website I frequent before I went with him.....

Have two sites running through Pete and no problems.. Never had any problems but any questions I've contacted him with have been dealt with promptly and professionally.. one site runing OpenCart which is very easy to get going, setting up payment gate etc was simple.

I don't have ANY other hosting experience to compare it to...

No affiliation, just a customer

I find the (c) 2007 at the bottom of his site a bit scary! But it is not a full hosted CMS offering. You can buy this cheaper from Blackknight or 365.

Shad0r

Peterdalkey wrote: »

I find the (c) 2007 at the bottom of his site a bit scary!

Why is the fact that his copyright from 2007 scary?

OP, realistically you are going to get what you pay for and tbh it sounds like you are worried about all the wrong things.

Which software/company to use for building and maintaining the store?

First of all Wix sucks donkey balls. If you are serious about starting an ecommerce store then you need to start thinking that you are starting a business (not a website). You should understand properly the benefits of ecommerce (product level SEO, upsells, cross sells, advanced user behaviour tracking etc etc) over a website with some paypal buttons on it.

If you know about how hosting/websites work or if you have all the time in the world to spend on it, aren't under any pressure on how quickly you need to market then I'd recommend going with a host like Letshost.ie, installing WordPress and WooCommerce and buying a premium WooCommerce/WordPress theme from somewhere like Themeforest or Mojo themes.

I've tried a couple of the online store builders like wix and shopify but there is a lot of them out there.

Shopify would be my recommendation if you don't want to have to get really technical with hosting etc. Shopify will remove that headache for you and allow you to just concentrate on selling which is what your primary ecommerce concern should be anyway.

The prices on some of them are crazy as well.

$79 a month is absolutely buttons for hosting, maintenance and support of an ecommerce store. This is a business not a website you are talking about.

Ideally unlimited bandwidth. The site won't be very big so storage space doesn't have to be that high but I don't want the site going down over bandwidth allowances.

How much bandwidth do you think you are going to need?

Do you have a site at the moment or is this a completely new build?

If this is a completely new build in a new niche where you don't already have a presence or following, your biggest challenge is going to be getting targeted people onto your website. Once you are getting traffic, your new problem will be increasing your conversion rate.

Look, Bandwidth is a complete non issue. If you have enough traffic on your site to be causing you bandwidth issues you will be selling loads, in which case, I can assure you, you will have no problem upgrading to a higher bandwidth allowance.

Handles visa/mastercard payments for my customers with the ability to add paypal payments.

Absolutely any cart in the history of the world will accept paypal payments, which also facilitates VISA/MC

Does not take a % of my sales. I don't mind a small fixed per transaction fee but no %.

Hate to break the bad news but you're going to have to suck this one up and price accordingly. Everyone takes a percentage. Paypal will take a percentage to facilitate your payments. Even the tax man is going to be looking for a percentage in the form of VAT once you are up and running and selling.

Again this is a complete non issue. You just need to price accordingly.

Good customer support.

First thing you've said that is actually something you should seriously consider.

I had started building the site with WIX but there is a 10gb a month allowance on their E-commerce package but I've heard they have no hosting in Europe. They in fact refuse to reveal their server locations sticking by the line that they have a network of servers all over the world and that pings and page load times will not be an issue. Some of the reviews I've read suggest otherwise though.

Don't use Wix and I'm not saying that based on anything to do with pings. What products (roughly) are you going to sell? Is your market Ireland only? If yes, why?

I do love the building tools and the price though. It's €20 per month. If my site is going to be slow and I go over my allowance though it's a deal breaker. I think a 10gb allowance would be fine though. There will be lots of pictures on the site but no video. I could surely embed youtube videos if I do add video anyway.

You get what you pay for. Also, donkey balls. What I would recommend is that you go for a hosted eCommerce platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, where they will look after all the tech headaches and where their primary reason for existence is ecommerce. These platforms will allow you to start small and scale up as you grow.

Your biggest concern though should be who is going to buy your products and how you are going to get them to your website because that's going to be the hardest thing you will do and also the thing that most directly affects your success.

Peterdalkey

Copyright 2007 suggests to that the site has not been updated since and quite an extraordinary error for a compnay in online services, in my opinion. No more than that.

Bluepark starts at about 50% of the monthly price of Shopify.

Shad0r

Peterdalkey wrote: »

Copyright 2007 suggests to that the site has not been updated since and quite an extraordinary error for a compnay in online services, in my opinion. No more than that.

Bluepark starts at about 50% of the monthly price of Shopify.

Fair enough. Don't know anything about Bluepark so I can't speak to the quality there. Also didn't mean to suggest that Shopify was the best player in the market place just that the type of service they offer (i.e. hosted ecomm) was prob the OP's best option.

Peterdalkey

We may well both be right! The OP has given little enough detail on the scale of the eComm shop and what he actually wants to do with it.
That the Shopify payment system for CCs is actually Stripe is a great benefit to a small turnover operator, though the Shopify site does actually do themselves no favours as it reads like they are taking a %age cut from sales for themselves!

For a few years, Until two years ago we ran our main shop on a USA based hosted CMS platform, there was nothing to compare in Europe at the time and money. We needed B2B volume related online pricing, .csv up/downloading etc etc. They offered 1-2 day support Query turnaround by email or a high dollar phone option, when they said 1-2 days... They meant it.. 36hour was the fastest! It is a yank thing!!

You are in the supply side of the equation and I in the user segment, so the OP is getting the best of both worlds, but must do their own homework!

Cheers

Peter

bbam

Peterdalkey wrote: »

I find the (c) 2007 at the bottom of his site a bit scary! But it is not a full hosted CMS offering. You can buy this cheaper from Blackknight or 365.

Thanks for the heads up, I couldn't see anything cheaper when I was looking... So I'll check out those suppliers
And for a total novice the affordablehoster.com set up very straight forward..

I saw comments about slow service and I couldnt say that about Pete, OK i've never needed to phone in a query but everything else was dealt with promptly.. ( i bet I'm just jinxing myself now )

BloodBath

Hi thanks to all for taking the time to reply. I appreciate all of the advice.

First of all Wix sucks donkey balls. If you are serious about starting an ecommerce store then you need to start thinking that you are starting a business (not a website). You should understand properly the benefits of ecommerce (product level SEO, upsells, cross sells, advanced user behaviour tracking etc etc) over a website with some paypal buttons on it.

Well that's what I've discovered and why I came here looking for alternatives. I originally only wanted a site to advertise some things but I decided to turn it into a fully functional store. I very much consider it a business. I may not be up to scratch on the business side of things but I have people who can help with that.

If you know about how hosting/websites work or if you have all the time in the world to spend on it, aren't under any pressure on how quickly you need to market then I'd recommend going with a host like Letshost.ie, installing WordPress and WooCommerce and buying a premium WooCommerce/WordPress theme from somewhere like Themeforest or Mojo themes.

I need to get something up fast, I have customers lined up ready to buy and would prefer to have an all in 1 solution for my building, hosting, site management, store, ssl certification etc rather than having to manage them all seperately. I have wordpress installed.

Shopify would be my recommendation if you don't want to have to get really technical with hosting etc. Shopify will remove that headache for you and allow you to just concentrate on selling which is what your primary ecommerce concern should be anyway.

$79 a month is absolutely buttons for hosting, maintenance and support of an ecommerce store. This is a business not a website you are talking about.
$79 a month is absolutely buttons for hosting, maintenance and support of an ecommerce store. This is a business not a website you are talking about.

It is. There is just so many similar services so I wanted opinions on what would be the best choice/value. Shopify at $79 a month takes a 1% commission of my sales though and since I'm selling high value items I don't want this. Their premium pack that does not take commission costs $179 a month which is too much.

How much bandwidth do you think you are going to need?

I honestly have no idea. The site will have a lot of pictures and I want people to browse the store. I have no idea of how much traffic I will get.

Do you have a site at the moment or is this a completely new build?

No site apart from a little work I did on WIX.

If this is a completely new build in a new niche where you don't already have a presence or following, your biggest challenge is going to be getting targeted people onto your website. Once you are getting traffic, your new problem will be increasing your conversion rate.

I will be offering a custom pc building service with performance, prices and quality that completely smashes all competition so I don't think getting sales will be a problem. I have 11 sales from a simple adverts.ie ad. I understand I will need to market the site but that's a business issue. I need to get up and running first to fill my first orders.

Look, Bandwidth is a complete non issue. If you have enough traffic on your site to be causing you bandwidth issues you will be selling loads, in which case, I can assure you, you will have no problem upgrading to a higher bandwidth allowance.

That's what I thought but I might as well go with a host/service that gives me everything I need at a reasonable price.

Absolutely any cart in the history of the world will accept paypal payments, which also facilitates VISA/MC

Well I'd expect them to. What are the advantages of some of the other carts?

Hate to break the bad news but you're going to have to suck this one up and price accordingly. Everyone takes a percentage. Paypal will take a percentage to facilitate your payments. Even the tax man is going to be looking for a percentage in the form of VAT once you are up and running and selling.

Again this is a complete non issue. You just need to price accordingly.

I am well aware of the paypal and vat charges and expect to reach the 75k turnover threshold in the first year for vat. However the customer will be picking these up and will be well aware they are picking them up. The items I'm selling are high value so a % of my sales is just a no go and there are plenty of services offering sales without taking a percentage. Especially if I'm expected to pay $79 a month with a further potentially $200+ in payments from that commission a month. My overheads are low and I want to keep them low.

Don't use Wix and I'm not saying that based on anything to do with pings. What products (roughly) are you going to sell? Is your market Ireland only? If yes, why?

Custom PC's from low end home to gaming pc's to high powered workstations that smash the specs and build quality of the competition and at a significantly lower price. The market is Ireland only because I can keep costs and delivery times down with Irish only shipping and there is enough business from Irish customers alone to keep me busy and sustained. There is also less/no competition. I can look into expanding into other markets once I'm established in Ireland.

You get what you pay for. Also, donkey balls. What I would recommend is that you go for a hosted eCommerce platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, where they will look after all the tech headaches and where their primary reason for existence is ecommerce. These platforms will allow you to start small and scale up as you grow.

Your biggest concern though should be who is going to buy your products and how you are going to get them to your website because that's going to be the hardest thing you will do and also the thing that most directly affects your success.

Ok I'll take that onboard. I will look into the marketing side when I launch although I have some ideas. I will be running a sale at launch with discounted prices. There is no reason why I can't get the site into the top 3-4 results on google either with a .ie domain. There is virtually no competition. I'm hoping some free/cheap marketing, sales and word of mouth will help the business grow. It's not a big deal if things start slow as long as it grows.

Thanks for taking the time to write all of that. I appreciate it.

I apologise if I didn't give all the info you need. I am new to this and my business acumen wouldn't be the best but I have all the time in the world to learn. I do know the service I can provide is leagues above the competition though. The market is huge and I only need a tiny slice of it.

cmccarra

Magento Commerce is one of the most popular and most powerful open source e-commerce solutions. They offer a e-commerce solution specifically for small businesses - MagentoGo that includes everything you should want out of the box starting at £9.99 a month. I haven't used this service personally but I do know Magento (the open source solution) is very powerful.

There is a free 30 day trial though that should let you know whether it's for you or not. Worth a try.