Hello. First post here. I own an ecommerce business that currently sells about 700 different items priced $15 to $30 on Amazon and Ebay. My sales last year were about $600,000. I have had my own ecommerce site in the past and it was a huge failure. I would like to launch a new site this year that is a success When my Ebay business first started doing well I signed up with Kyozou to support the back-end for my Ebay sales and to support a future e-com site. Their system would tie in to both so I thought that was a big plus. A lot of money and a terribly designed site later I found out that Kyozou was not for me. I dropped them and they shut down my site. This was a good first step as now I know exactly what I need for a site. I already have customers who love me so I can pull them to the new site and save them and myself money. I’m not interested in advertising, but I do want my products to show up on Google shopping. I really want a simple site with a simple back-end. I have a great design person who put together my Ebay store ready to go. The Kyozou site that cost me $2k for them to design was ugly and clunky, and their cart was not good either. My customers were reluctant to buy on there. I also use stamps.com for all of my shipping on Ebay and Amazon. With their batch program all tracking numbers are posted back to Ebay/Amazon which is super fast and easy. I’m hoping to find a platform that works with stamps.com so I can do all of my shipping at one place. I know Magento does, but Magento seems like it is more than I need. My inventory is all stored in an access file. I have pictures, weights, UPCs, pricing, product descriptions, everything is in there. I can output to any custom format with a little work. I am hoping to find a good platform to quickly post my inventory to. I sell popular household items that sell well on Amazon/Ebay. I think just having my items on my site show up on Google and me marketing to my current customers is all I need to get things moving. I really would like a low maintenance solution that is simple and dependable. I add a design and preferences, add my products, and that’s about it. Also, I only sell with free shipping and I only sell in the USA. So no worries about a good shipping calculator or international rates. Anything I should know before moving forward? Any suggestions on a platform/cart? Is there a platform that Google recognizes better for products? Or, should I plan on directly linking each product to Google? I appreciate any help you can give. Thank you very much.
Well, in my opinion Magento is best as it offers limitless scope, it can be implemented in the online stores i.e. the place where online buying and selling for occurs. After looking at your question what I find out is that you're question is bit broad to be answered here from top to bottom, I would rather like to suggest you a page where you can look at Why Magento ? "rapidsofttechnologies.com/magento-web-development.php"
Hello john dave's suggestion is best on other hand u can also think for wordpress site with shop template will also remain suitable for u if especially u are looking for easy manageable and SEO friendly e-commerce site , if u need more assistance u may pm me
Thanks guys. If all platforms give me what I need, I guess my question is. What is the simplest to maintain? I rarely change my inventory, and I do not have shipping. I'm looking for dependability and ease of use for me and my customer. I'm not super savvy on all of this and I may hire somebody to help set it up. But for maintenance I would like to be able to handle it.
Wordpress with the e commerce plugin. It's easy to work with, easy design, secure. Or you can go with pristoshop or magneto. Magento is my 2nd choice. Also for SEO, it would be the same as any site but you would have to target a lot more keywords. These keywords would include your products, business information or keyterms, etc. Let me know if you need any assistance on the SEO part. I'm up for an adventure.
Thanks for all the help again. I have been digging and looking at what you guys have been saying. I think I am going to try Magento to start. It seems like there is a lot more support now for it than the last time (years ago) that I looked at it. It is also a ecommerce system through and through. Wordpress sounded interesting, but it is originally a content built system that has an add-on. I am not interested in content, and it appears there is a lot more support and use of Magento for ecom. If my business explodes and I want to start doing different more elaborate things with my store, I think Magento will be able to keep up.
Thoughts on payment systems? I have Paypal already and was thinking of having them and google checkout. What do customers most prefer for a payment system in the US? I have no clue
Well, What I can tell you is for your e-commerce portal best would be the use of Magento with the OpenCart Payment system and at the same time it is east to maintain.