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View Full Version : e-commerce platforms: shopify vs Big Cartel vs storenvy



gaseousclay
05-30-2014, 12:02 PM
Do any of you have any experience with the above e-commerce sites? I've read fairly decent reviews for storenvy, which by all accounts is easy to be up and running in no time. I'm curious how these e-commerce sites match up in terms of user friendliness, cost and design? I'm leaning towards storenvy because it seems to be the least expensive of the three. Etsy is out of the question because its site is specifically for handmade goods and i'm apprehensive about using ebay.

Any thoughts or opinions?

krymson
05-30-2014, 04:51 PM
Ebay I've found is not good to sellers. I've built on-line stores using Magento and WordPress. I've found that no matter which way you go, it's always more difficult to design for shopping carts because they all have specific templating systems.

Personally I like WordPress for simpler, smaller ecommerce sites, but if youre looking for something more robust, I like magento. No too hard to design for, it has its hard parts but it's more robust and good for just an e-com site. Wordpress gives you more expandability for blogging, news, articles and its, in my opinion, more user friendly for the business owner.

ryanscott210
08-19-2014, 04:28 AM
All the ones you mention are ridiculously expensive. Wordpress Woo Commerce plug in should be what you are using to start. There is not reason to dump monthly fees into something that has not began to make money yet. Prestashop is good too. Oh, those are all free too, you just need to pay for hosting (7-9.00 a month) + an SSL cert for about 29.99 a year, and they integrate well with paypal for a merchant. Best of luck!

Brian Altenhofel
08-19-2014, 06:52 AM
you just need to pay for hosting (7-9.00 a month) + an SSL cert for about 29.99 a year

Hope no one's really advising that someone does e-commerce that way. It's a pretty negligent way of doing business. It's not a matter of "if" but "when" your site will be compromised on a shared hosting plan. If you can't answer all of the questions on a PCI-DSS SAQ correctly and with documentation, you're kinda screwed. Even using hosted payment pages or direct post, there are still 139 controls that must be met.

Harold Mansfield
08-19-2014, 08:41 AM
I've never used Big Cartel or Storenvy, and have only worked on Shopify sites and wasn't that impressed. You're putting the cart before the horse.
Each ecomm software has strengths and weaknesses. I'd first be interested in what you are selling, and how you are selling it.



Is it a digital or physical product?
Is it variable? ( sizes, colors, and so on)
What's your shipping scheme? Flat rate? Bulk? Are you offering various shipping options?
What other options do you need to offer? Sale pricing and deals? Gift certificates/Gift Cards? Gift wrapping? And so on.
Do you need to show multiple images per product?
How tech savvy are you?


These aren't necessarily the only questions, just an example of what you need to be asking yourself before choosing an ecommerce platform. You can't choose it just based on price if it doesn't do what you need it to, and the way you want it to do it. How tech savvy you are and how much control you want is a big question to answer.

Do you want to own your store and your website, or merely rent it from someone? That's a big issue for most people. Some ecommerce solutions are just store rentals.

Personally I've settled on Woo Commerce for small stores, and Big Commerce for larger, corporate type stores.