Building an online store

Taylor913

Hello, I'm looking for an e-commerce platform that's both easy to use and has support for store credit. I've made a cursory assessment of Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion but I wanted to know if I was missing smaller companies that offered better monthly rates for their platforms or if there were any technical issues with one of these that could cancel out any savings I make. Thank you for your time.

paddyrg

Romancart?

patman99

If you wanted to do it yourself, you could try installing 'Joomla' then installing one of the ecommerce frontends.
A large number of the market leaders use customised set-ups based on Joomla as it is so easy to add modules for various payment & shipping systems.

One thing you need to remember is that it is easy to set up an online shop, but very hard to rive customers to it. Be prepared for some serious expenditure for advertising.

sugarwalsh

Hi, I have set up our store via Shopify. I have had no problems at all, but I have no experience of this kind of thing so I found it difficult to set up initially. I am sure anyone with a modicum of computer skills can do it far easier.
I am looking for another place to set up my store though, as I have found that although having a store 'front' is important I haven't made any sales via it. All our sales have come via Facebook and Twitter. It has taken a LOT of marketing so far, both online and face to face and we have a very long way to go.
If you find a suitable alternative, let me know! Mx

martindow

sugarwalsh wrote: »

I am looking for another place to set up my store though, as I have found that although having a store 'front' is important I haven't made any sales via it.

I'm not sure if success is necessarily related to how or where the site is set up. It is easy make a web site but difficult to build up traffic and make sales. If you are selling something competitive it will be very difficult or almost impossible to succeed.

Small web sites which succeed are often in niche areas without too much competition and where the person running it has expertise and the ability to help their customers.

It is not impossible to succeed but you need to be realistic about the challenges. It is not a matter of building a web site and watching the money roll in (unfortunately!).

PasturesNew

martindow wrote: »

I'm not sure if success is necessarily related to how or where the site is set up. It is easy make a web site but difficult to build up traffic and make sales. If you are selling something competitive it will be very difficult or almost impossible to succeed.

Small web sites which succeed are often in niche areas without too much competition and where the person running it has expertise and the ability to help their customers.

It is not impossible to succeed but you need to be realistic about the challenges. It is not a matter of building a web site and watching the money roll in (unfortunately!).

This is spot on. Having the store won't make sales. Your marketing will make sales. You need to work on your marketing plan to drive traffic.

sugarwalsh

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear - I am looking for a different host as I pay a monthly fee for shopify and I would rather pay a one off fee. I don't think for a minute it will bring any further traffic.

My fault for being unclear.

Megan

patman99

sugarwalsh, if you are selling a lot via FB & Twitter are you remembering to enclose a leaflet/invoice with your website on?.

Also, some of the ecommerce sites allow you to have a blog. Blogging about your product range can drive some customers to visit (but don't rely on it).

terra_ferma

sugarwalsh wrote: »

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear - I am looking for a different host as I pay a monthly fee for shopify and I would rather pay a one off fee. I don't think for a minute it will bring any further traffic.

My fault for being unclear.

Megan

Have you looked at EKM, not used it myself but some people I know who use it are very happy with it.
I would say stay well clear of Magento Go (hosted version of Magento).

Have you considered self-hosting? In that case I would recommend Magento or Opencart, depending on the size and complexity of your store. In my experience they are both equally good, I would use OC for a smaller, simple store (in terms of number of SKUs, currencies etc). Magento is an overkill unless you need certain specific features. They are both equally good with lots of add ons that would probably include store credit.
Unless you sell a handful of products I would stay well away from adding a cart to platforms that are not e-commerce specific (e.g. wordpress and joomla), they can work well for a very simple store, but it would be hard to expand and develop, from what I've seen.

HTH

sugarwalsh

Patman99 and terra, thank you for your advice.

Patman, we do include business cards, and once we have leaflets (We were waiting for professional images) we will pop those in too. Our main business is 'hire' and our plan is to also send some leaflets along to the venues in case people ask. Not to be put out on display as that would be a little naff at someones wedding, but for the venue to have in case people are interested. (We hire 6ft high lit letters for weddings, just to put it in context!) I already have a blog too, which publishes on FB and Twitter. It's not exclusively about the business, but it covers things like how we have set up, our progress, ideas, plans, new products in amongst the other things I like to write about. It helps move traffic around the various sites too, so thank you for the reminder.

Terra - I will look into them, thank you. I'm rubbish with anything technical, so the simpler the better, thank you.

OP, I hope you have settled on a suitable site?

Megan