Loading...
Answers
MenuI'm having a hard time choosing ecommerce sofware for my new store.
There are just way too many options. I'm thoroughly confused and have been spending way too much time deciding which software to use. Keep in mind we will only be selling under 10 products in the beginning. I've looked into Shopify but I'm a bit appalled by their fees. Is it worth is to pay those fees?
Answers
No need to re-invent the wheel, especially considering that there are (hundreds of) thousands of people in your exact situation.
Check out a few of these:
http://www.quora.com/Which-ecommerce-platform-should-we-use
There are many more.
The short answer is that it depends. It depends on your tech skills, on whether you're happy with "out of the box" functionality or need anything custom, on what's your budget allocation, etc. etc. but the links above should give you a pretty good idea.
Hope this helps.
Bryan
What's the objective behind adopting the software? I believe you should add this detail to your question. There's a whole lot of applications available in the market, adopting and utilizing any depends upon the problem/challenges you wish to resolve. Or, the process that you want to automate or simplify?
After having worked with various e-commerce startups one thing common is people burning too much money behind something insignificant. Let me know your priorities behind software adoption and I may be of some help.
There is no easy answer to the question of how to choose the right eCommerce platform, but it's a lot easier if you carefully map out your requirements, and long-term goals, and then compare each platform against this.
This can be difficult if you haven't been through the process before. You don't know what you don't know. This is where working with someone who has been can really pay off.
Regarding transaction fees: Payment processors like Stripe or Authorize.net will always charge a fee, but there is a huge problem when the eCommerce platform charges fees on top of this as a penalty for not using THEIR payment services. These fees can easily add up to many thousands of dollars depending on your revenue.
Some questions to ask yourself:
* Are you looking to run this as a side business, or are you determine to grow it?
* Do you have the skill set required to launch and grow the business, or do you need help?
* Do you have any special requirements for taxes, shipping, collecting additional info at checkout, etc?
Those are just some basic questions to get you started.
Interestingly, I was interviewed on a podcast about this exact subject. Check it out here: https://soundcloud.com/conversionsense/how-to-choose-the-right-ecommerce-platform-for-your-business-with-danny-halarewich
If you'd like some help identifying your best options for an eCommerce platform, I'd be happy to do a Clarity call with you.
Best of luck!
- Danny
1. Get something cheap or free to start with like Wordpress and an ecommerce plugin
2. Prove you can sell your stuff and break even or make profit on Google AdWords and Google Shopping (pointless selling stuff if you can't make a profit from it)
3. Once maxed out there test out Bing ads and product ads (USA only at present), and Amazon Sponsored products
4. Reinvest your profits into improving your cart where you can see any deficiencies on what you have, based on what you can afford
Although I don't (yet) discuss carts in it, my Amazon book "The AdWords Bible for eCommerce" may help.
I always tell clients that if they can't afford the basic package by Shopify, you are not ready for eCommerce.
Free carts are great unless your time is valuable.
If you only have 10 products and you simply want to test the waters, you can certainly take a look at building add to cart buttons using Paypal. Another alternative is to use Squarespace.com which is only $20/month.
I've used Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magento community/Enterprise and many others for my own eCommerce business. Start small. You don't need a very expensive cart to sell online. You just need to know your exact needs.
Let me know if that helps or if you have other questions.
Cheers!
Alaa
According to your business requirements, Shopify is a good platform to go ahead. But it is true you have to share a major chunk of your income with Shopify as they charge 2% for every transaction. The best alternatives to Shopify are Bigcommerce and Volusion. Both platforms beat Shopify in additional transaction fees since they charge none.
For information about other alternative solutions, you can read the following post:
https://www.inc.com/bill-carmody/top-seven-ecommerce-platforms-in-2018.html
https://www.jeffbullas.com/top-ecommerce-platforms/
Hi,
we are running on Shopify. At first we were also hesitating due to their fees, but they are worth it. We just transfered few months ago our running store to Shopify. We did expect growth, but the transfer not only significantly increased our sales but dramatically lowered our marketing expenditures.
Related Questions
-
How do the economics behind Rent the Runway and Black Tux work? How would you calculate breakeven turnover and inventory requirements?
Ok, so I'm not an expert in fashion but I know finance. Here is my take: These two would be considered "fast fashion" retailers or better yet, e-tailers. Fast fashion simply means that unlike Coach or American Eagle or Levis, these FF retailers don't have to try to predict fashion 6 months in advance risking a big flop and having to heavily discount items that don't sell. FF retailers simply 'scout' runway shows and buy wholesale from these designer labels. A lot of designers would like this because they are essentially getting a guaranteed sale plus added exposure. Another thing is that these FF retailers don't keep their inventory for months at a time, they do so in cycles of weeks. If a designer sells out, chances are they retailer will continue to come back for more designs from them. They are purchased wholesale, on cash basis account, payable on credit of 30 days or 90 days. The economics as you state it are a bit more complex that what I care to explain here, but essentially if you were to 'replicate & improve' what I would do is scout and offer purchase orders to designers, just like they do. First order completed as 50/50 paid in full/credit term payable 60 days or so (assuming you already have a store ready to move inventory and not waste those 60 days setting up). Aim to sell all inventory before 60 days and pay balance with revenues. Extend credit term to 90 days at increased inventory, aim to sell by 60 days and keep that cycle going. What this will allow you to do is to always have inventory being paid for by customers before they are due for you essentially having the clients pay for your expansion in inventory. The break even is simple, don't sell for less than what your wholesale amount is. Typical increase from wholesale commodity goods is 30%, try that margin. If you have to discount "heavily" at 15% or 25% you still get at least 5% safe marginHV
-
I'm looking to get off the Yahoo platform. Shopify seems to be nice, and BigCommerce just looks like a slightly better Yahoo. Thoughts?
Shopify is best use case for $0 to $1M ish, depending on product line, how many transactions that makes up, and if their are some custom things that are not possible on Shopify that realistically lead to huge gains that would cover more costs of a custom solution with something like magento. I recommend Shopify to everyone starting out. That's what we used at Diamond Candles up until about a $5M run rate. We were/are growing quickly so we hit a point where payoff of customizing checkout flow, add of social sign on, etc. that could not be done because of Shopify, would cover and surpass costs of a more custom option. Best to think about this simplistic example. View the ecom platform market in about 3 buckets. 1. Starting out: $0-$1M ish 2. Wow looks like you have a business: $1M-$20 or 50ish 3. You are/could be publicly traded: $50M+ Take a look at usage #'s for market share size from independent third party analytics tools from Builtwith: http://trends.builtwith.com/shop/Shopify/Market-Share http://trends.builtwith.com/shop http://trends.builtwith.com/shop/hosted-solution Just because something is found on the web more isn't the full picture. Ie. I could make a blogging platform and have a bunch of scripts and bots install it on millions of domains and I would have majority of the market for blogging platforms (ya that would take a while and isn't a realistic scenario but you can get the point). Providers dominating the different categories by companies in those areas actually doing volume and being succsessful? 1. Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion, Magento GO, 2. Magento (varying editions), Yahoo Stores, Symphony Commerce 3. Demand Ware, GSI Commerce, Magento (varying editions) At the end of the day a good illustration goes like this. A truck and a moped are two different things. A truck is not trying to out 'moped' a moped and a moped not trying to out 'truck' a truck. They are both perfectly suited to different applications, situations, needs, and circumstances. The same goes with who you choose to handle your ecom platform. For 2-3 search for internet retailers first 500 and second 500 lists. Pull off all ecommerce companies doing between $10-$50M as an example. Use the builtwith.com chrome toolbar to tell you what platform they are using. Hire someone for $2 an hour via odesk to make a spreadsheet of everything and the make a pretty little pie chart. Now you know what each revenue volume level chooses as 1, 2, 3 preferred platforms. Option 3 as a side note but very important one, is primarily a platform and commerce as a service model with companies like Demand Ware and GSI Commerce leading the market with platform and services including but not limited to customer service for the brand, fulfillment, marketing services, website product photography etc. Their pricing models are based on gross revenue share. ie. SportsAuthority.com does $100M online this year, GSI takes 30% of that to cover everything. (I am not sure who Sports Authority uses, just an example) You can almost pick any traditional brick and mortar retailer and if they have a website where they sell things, they all do, GSI or DW are the people behind the scenes running the call centers, shipping etc. Diamond Candles, my company, who started on Shopify decided to not go with a the market dominating option of Magento for a few reasons. One of which being upfront cost for an agency or on staff magento CTO type. We decided to partner with a newer entrant, Symphony Commerce, which blends the 3rd category model of platform plus service. Rev. cut is significantly smaller than providers in category 3, but still get benefits of volume savings on shipping volume, scalable customer support that can handle rapid growth and occasional spikes without us having to worry about scaling or implementing best practices, and a fully customizable platform as a service so to speak that doesn't require us to have in house tech but where we are essentially renting part time ecommerce engineers from with resumes that list Google, FB, Twitter, Magento, Amazon, etc. So in summary. If you are <$1M in revenue just roll with Shopify. Greater than that but less than $50M ish then I would recommend looking into Symphony. If Symphony is interested in letting you in then you won't have to incur the upfront costs of an agency or implementation and you will have an ongoing partner equally incentivized i your long term success financially which I prefer as opposed to an agency model which economically is incentivized to offer a one time finished product and their revenue is not tied to my financial success. It is the closest thing to an equity partner while returning our full equity.JW
-
What are the profit margins for high end home decor and furniture?
Hone decor / furniture industry is one of the highest profit promising industry today. The profit margins on home decor ranges from 20% - 45% depend on the price of the product. If you're looking to get quickly popular, I suggest you start with the online store and promote it on offline as well. Keep the margins low initially so that you can attract more buyers. As the business grows, reinvest the amount back on the business so that you can stock more varieties. All the very best.KK
-
What's the best platform to build a e-bookstore?
I think a natural choice is large provides like Amazon. However, if you want to sell eBooks on your own and maintain all of the revenue, then WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads would make excellent options. Both software packages are WordPress plugins and they make it very easy to deploy an e-commerce store for digital goods. Both plugins have strong development teams behind them and they have a slew of independent freelancers who can offer assistance if needed. I've used WooCommerce myself for multiple years and we've deployed many WordPress websites that use it. It has hundreds of extensions you can add on to it for maximizing the potential.RG
-
How to turn a niche seasonal business into a all year round business?
Thanks for reaching out. Do you want to meet in person? I am in San Francisco/San Mateo location. Best, SeanSP
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.