Looking for eCommerce platform

Nikumba · 18 Dec 2019 at 23:11

In the new year looking to setup a webshop as looking at a startup business.

What I am looking for in the platform:

Live stock levels
Loyalty scheme
Easy to apply filters, so by release date, type
Ability to make global price changes for special events
Marketing options
Paypal integration would also look at Google and Amazon payment options as well

I would prefer self hosted, but cloud might be easier from a security standpoint, I have looked at a few but either I am not looking in the right place or can not find quite the right one.

Any suggetions?

Thanks

Kimbie

daz · 19 Dec 2019 at 11:33

Look at Magento, WooCommerce, Prestashop in that order for self-hosted. Magento is very powerful, but also very complicated.

Shopify is probably the best remote hosted one I know of. Costs get expensive (especially for a start up) when you add features.

Cromulent · 20 Dec 2019 at 10:16

I used to use Magento back in the day when it first came out. At the time, I didn't do any programming or web design, and I struggled to find people to work on Magento. Having said that it probably isn't a problem these days.

dim_pwn · 23 Dec 2019 at 08:08

I've used WooCommerce and OpenCart before..... both free, both easy to use. Woo is more widely used.

yup,
not sure
yup
i think so yes
would need to be more specific
all the main platforms have payment extentions, this includes Paypal (and crypto!)

Nikumba · 23 Dec 2019 at 12:01

Thanks guys I will take a look at some of them over the holidays.

Dup · 24 Dec 2019 at 10:19

How many products? You might find something like Magento etc far too complex for a small/smallish shop and

If you're managing less than 100 products, a smaller bespoke effort from a local dev or by yourself using a simple CMS plus some custom code to integrate with PayPal and/or Stripe might be better if you're competent enough. The sorting of filters etc could be done front-end and extra marketing features could be developed over time as and when you need them to reduce initial costs.

Note: As a dev I've never used a cloud platform such a Shopify and avoid WordPress like the plague. OpenCart looks like the simplest suggestion here to get something up and running quickly and should cover most of what you need. My advise is start with the basics and you may find you wants and needs change as you use the site and you may switch platform once or twice.

Nikumba · 24 Dec 2019 at 12:31

@Dup thanks for the advice

Its not for a lot of products to start with, I did look at OpenCart and really liked the demo, however the hosting platform is on php7 and OpenCart needs 5.6.something

So need to look into a different host with that version of PHP on it

Cromulent · 26 Dec 2019 at 23:09

Nikumba said:
@Dup thanks for the advice

Its not for a lot of products to start with, I did look at OpenCart and really liked the demo, however the hosting platform is on php7 and OpenCart needs 5.6.something

So need to look into a different host with that version of PHP on it

Look into Linode or Digital Ocean. Their $5 a month plan should be enough to get you up and running and you can upgrade whenever you need more resources.