easy eCommerce platforms ?

[2013]

Hi all, Im looking for a little advice.

What is a good choice for a easy to use eCommerce platforms for starting a new business.
Ive been considering both Wordpress and opencart.

Background - My mother wants to start a clothing business, she had a small successful business some years ago but she had to close due to health issues, now she wants to do it again, my suggestion was start online first to see how it goes.

What would be the best platform to start with ?

requirements
Simple easy to use, so my mum can input the products and details.
The average person should be able to use it without issues.
Good SEO
Need to be able to grow with us.


Any other advice is welcome.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Wordpress was never built to be a shopping cart but over the years it has become small but the security risks and problems are far greater in plugins been made over the years. If you want a true shopping cart online then use a one built for a shopping cart.

There are absolutely tones of free open source ones available.

Examples.
https://www.opencart.com/
https://www.abantecart.com/
https://www.cubecart.com/
https://www.prestashop.com/

 

[2013]

Wordpress was never built to be a shopping cart but over the years it has become small but the security risks and problems are far greater in plugins been made over the years. If you want a true shopping cart online then use a one built for a shopping cart.

There are absolutely tones of free open source ones available.

Examples.
https://www.opencart.com/
https://www.abantecart.com/
https://www.cubecart.com/
https://www.prestashop.com/

Thanks, I was thinking the same thing, the only reason I kept it as a option was due to the fact I have used it a lot more in recent years and woocommerce does offer what I need but you are correct wordpress does get targeted a lot more and does have a lot of issues.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Thanks, I was thinking the same thing, the only reason I kept it as a option was due to the fact I have used it a lot more in recent years and woocommerce does offer what I need but you are correct wordpress does get targeted a lot more and does have a lot of issues.

A lot of people keep refering wordpress on this forum and to me it's one of the worst platforms out there. I know a lot of them have issues but Wordpress in perticular has been getting attacked a lot more. A native shopping cart would be more secure as it's been built for shopping in mind.

I would never use wordpress even if I was paid too use it.

 

[gord]

Wordpress is the biggest open source CMS. It's going to be targeted the most, but it also has the most scrutiny. Woocommerce is certainly a viable route if they want a more flexible site.

That said, I think all of these self-hosted options are overkill for your needs at the moment. I'd look towards something with more handholding, like Shopify.

 

[Steeps]

I'd recommend going down a handheld route such as Shopify. We tried to go down a self hosted open source route to save on costs and have additional features/customisation but the time to develop and maintain is making it long term more expensive than if we'd tried something more off the shelf. Our competitors use shopify and their setup is a lot more streamlined and simple than our own.

 

[gord]

Squarespace is another hosted platform: https://www.squarespace.com/ecommerce-website

I'd look at some reviews for the top hosted ecommerce solutions and pick the one that best suits your requirements.

 

[2013]

Thanks guys for the helpful options,
I have never used shopify or similar so I just want to get a comparison with something opensource like wordpress or opencart,

The startup is not a issue it the build up after
big issue is SEO and people finding the site

I'd recommend going down a handheld route such as Shopify. We tried to go down a self hosted open source route to save on costs and have additional features/customisation but the time to develop and maintain is making it long term more expensive than if we'd tried something more off the shelf. Our competitors use shopify and their setup is a lot more streamlined and simple than our own.

Which platform are you using?
What issues did you have ?
For the same reason as you I have also gone done self hosted open source route in the past but the mistake I made was listening to the hype and going too big, I went from opencart to using magneto which requires a lot more work and has cost a lot just to maintain over the years and can be very costly over all and was the case for me and because of that i have never switched because i had invested too much, Which is why I was looking at something simpler like wordpress, opencart or prestashop but like mrbell said wordpress is not built for a shopping cart and it does get attacked a lot, so it maybe off the list, I do have a shop site built on WP which worked well for what I needed but I did disable to buying feature because I only wanted to show the products not sell them online., Smaller platforms like opencart and wordpres I'm able to do a lot of the work myself inc building a start up, basic customization getting up and running, the cost of the host is already cover due to other sites, the problem normally comes a bit further on when you need additional features/customisation which are not built in available off the shell for free, I can see what your saying with adding additional features/customisation the time to develop and maintain is making it long term more expensive, which I have noticed with one site and but with the other I was able to do most of what I wanted, So I just wanted to get some information a look at my our options before taking the jump.


You also have the biggest issue which IMO is SEO and people being able to find the site, if shopify can help with this then it would have some benefits.


I have thought about switching over my other site in the past myself but I dont really have a comparison for the two options to see if I would benefit by switching.

 

[Steeps]

Magento

Bingo. I worked for a place back when Magento was still in 1.5/1.6. We converted a very outdated shop over to Magento in a matter of weeks and we were able to customise it and re-skin it in a matter of days. The templates and CSS were really easy to adapt and the site was quick. Changed companies and did the same there, converted to Magento 1.x, multiple skins depending on the brands all on the same backend, even built my own photography site and gallery using Magento 1.x due to how easy it was to customise and update.

Then I moved again and Magento 2 was fresh. Instead of building their site in 1.x I attempted to use 2.x, failed miserably and used a theme. That site is a wreck as it was rushed, difficult to update as template files are everywhere, multiple conflicting CSS files. Everything is a reference to another reference in another file which calls another to reference somewhere else. Slow as hell, resource hungry and a general pain in the backside. I probably jumped on 2.x too early and it's probably a lot better but I'm going to have to start from scratch again. Now it's owned by Adobe I don't expect the bloat to drop at all.

Magento is probably a lot better but I've not tried the latest versions with wysiwyg page editors and product creators. It might be as simple as installing, downloading a decent theme then having a go at the wysiwyg page editors to add a bit of style to the pages, but a good shop still needs good photos and images to attract and keep the customer's attention.

 

[2013]

Bingo. I worked for a place back when Magento was still in 1.5/1.6. We converted a very outdated shop over to Magento in a matter of weeks and we were able to customise it and re-skin it in a matter of days. The templates and CSS were really easy to adapt and the site was quick. Changed companies and did the same there, converted to Magento 1.x, multiple skins depending on the brands all on the same backend, even built my own photography site and gallery using Magento 1.x due to how easy it was to customise and update.

Then I moved again and Magento 2 was fresh. Instead of building their site in 1.x I attempted to use 2.x, failed miserably and used a theme. That site is a wreck as it was rushed, difficult to update as template files are everywhere, multiple conflicting CSS files. Everything is a reference to another reference in another file which calls another to reference somewhere else. Slow as hell, resource hungry and a general pain in the backside. I probably jumped on 2.x too early and it's probably a lot better but I'm going to have to start from scratch again. Now it's owned by Adobe I don't expect the bloat to drop at all.

Magento is probably a lot better but I've not tried the latest versions with wysiwyg page editors and product creators. It might be as simple as installing, downloading a decent theme then having a go at the wysiwyg page editors to add a bit of style to the pages, but a good shop still needs good photos and images to attract and keep the customer's attention.

I was using Magento 1.x a lot a people would suggest iyt at the time, Ive never tried magento 2 because It would be a complete rebuild and the cost would be too high.
I would say in my option magento has never been easy, its always been resource hog, harder to fix issue, a lot more complicated to use and customise it maybe perfect for large sites due to all the features them having the funds to work with it but for normal people I would never use it again which is a mistake that has cost me over the years.

magento 2 was meant to fix lot of issues magento 1.x had like the being bloated, resource hog and complicated, it does look better visually, i've never tried it but to honest with adobe owning it I would assure its even more bloated and complicated. I will need to get some more info on it

 

[Steeps]

Magento 2 was bloated before Adobe bought it. When it's cached it's fine for the frontend but without cacheing it's at least 4x slower at everything than Magento 1.x was. I went back to make a few changes to one of my 1.x sites the other week and couldn't believe how much quicker it ran and updated compared to 2.x

 

[2013]

Magento 2 was bloated before Adobe bought it. When it's cached it's fine for the frontend but without cacheing it's at least 4x slower at everything than Magento 1.x was. I went back to make a few changes to one of my 1.x sites the other week and couldn't believe how much quicker it ran and updated compared to 2.x

I heard things are better but that was only from a few topics online, Ive not really seen many people suggest it lately like they would with magento 1.x

 

[2013]

Does anyone have any experience with

Paid ecommerce services like Shopify, EKM, bigcommerce ?

or resent experience with open source eCommerce.

 

[kindai]

Does anyone have any experience with

Paid ecommerce services like Shopify, EKM, bigcommerce ?

or resent experience with open source eCommerce.

I recently built 5 shops for customers using shopify, they are all over the moon with them and with some basic tweaking they soon rocket up the search engines.

The one guy now makes more money from his side hustle on shopify than his job because hes ranked 1 in google for his product!

 

[2013]

I recently built 5 shops for customers using shopify, they are all over the moon with them and with some basic tweaking they soon rocket up the search engines.

The one guy now makes more money from his side hustle on shopify than his job because hes ranked 1 in google for his product!

Thanks for the reply.

Going with the assumtion your a web designer/developer could you give me a little more information of your experiences,

How did you find it compared to opensource eCommerce?
Whats the difference (I dont want to use the trial to test them) ?
What benefits would something like shopify have over magento or opencart ?
Do you still need to do all the SEO yourself

 

[kindai]

How did you find it compared to opensource eCommerce?

Shopify is built so an idiot can user it, from a management point of view its very simple and works. It does what it does well, the drawbacks are that many mods or addons to your store cost a monthly fee and can ramp up a cheap site quickly.

Whats the difference (I dont want to use the trial to test them) ?

Frankly, you will need the trial them to decide which you get on with.

What benefits would something like shopify have over magento or opencart ?

Simplicity. Magento is a monalith of a product, aimed at enterprise users. Second to none in what it can do, if you are happy to learn it. And the learning curve is STEEP.

Do you still need to do all the SEO yourself

To get the best results yes, but Shopifys inbuilt SEO is very good out the box.