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What's the best options and platform for me?

Discussion in 'eCommerce' started by sleepybrown, Jun 26, 2017.

  1. #1
    Hi Everyone,

    I haven't touched real Ecommerence in years. I Stopped Ecommerence back in 2009. I believe wordpress was still kind of young and I don't remember really anything but paypal and square back then. With that being said. I wanted to get back in via an online web store but I'm having difficulties finding a platform to match my needs.

    The first list of needs I was looking at was an unified system for CRM, Orders, Stock, and the (products change monthly... I can see where this would be the most intensive part). I used to have to go to spreadsheets, look at vendor incoming shipments and whats not just to compile an order then either go to paypal or USPS to put together the shipping information. Being able to have shipping tools, order history, customer information, order management, and of course store management as an all in one suite would be amazing.

    I would like to take both online payments and money orders (I have a large money order customer base regardless of the ability for myself to process cards. Does anyone know of any service that can process money orders? Convenience and security would be amazing)

    Whether it's a desktop app, or online interface I would love an easy way to upload new products onto the store Photos, description price category... Something simple

    From the past I knew these used to be custom made platforms and would be a never ending cost because it requires maintenance. I'm not sure if there is any platform that has all of this as a prepackage. I've been looking around and I think it's the money order processing that I cannot find anything on.



    If it helps, most items will be sent from tailors (clothing and accessories) to me in bulk via DHL then usually to each customer. This usually entails a 7-14 Day wait. Right now most of my base are resellers, but I'm starting to have more individual customers within the last year and wanted to tend to them by offering an online store/catalogue. I wanted to ask any recommendations to do most, if not all of what was mentioned Any advisement would be greatly appreciated.
     
    sleepybrown, Jun 26, 2017 IP
  2. outofbandii

    outofbandii Active Member

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    #2
    How many SKUs will you have? If you have a lot (1000+) check out Shopify for a hosted solution, or Magento for self-hosted solution.

    If you have a smaller number of SKUs, particularly if you have less than 50 or 100, then take a serious look at WordPress + WooCommerce.
     
    outofbandii, Jun 29, 2017 IP
  3. caygri

    caygri Active Member

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    #3
    depende how many product you have...
     
    caygri, Jun 30, 2017 IP
  4. cerno

    cerno Well-Known Member

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    #4
    You might find an ecommerce platform that offers most of the features you want but it won't be cheap. I haven't reviewed all the options in a couple of years, but I would figure several hundred dollars per month. The worst issue for me is that you can't customize functionality, the platforms only let you tweak the theming and add simple features. I decided to build all my ecommerce shops in Drupal, it's not the easiest or most popular system (because it isn't easy) but I never have to worry about not being able to have a feature I need for a particular store.
     
    cerno, Jun 30, 2017 IP
  5. dscurlock

    dscurlock Prominent Member

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    #5
    shopify is only good if you have no plans of adding your own features, otherwise, it is a nice and easy
    platform to use, and you do not have to worry about upgrades; cons, everything is out of your control,
    and the biggest con for shopify is that it is app dependent, and the good apps will cost your monthly fees....

    WP + WooComm are two very popular platforms, and I would not worry about how many products you have, if
    people thought 50-100 products would be their limit, then I doubt many would choose to go with them. It is
    not about how many products you have, it is about having the server resources to run them as your site grows....
    pros, more flexible as you can hire someone to add features if need them; cons, constant backups, upgrades,
    fixing plugins that may become incompatible, etc, etc...When you run multiple platforms, then expect something
    to go wrong in the future, however, if you are success, then have someone fix your issues, and move on, not a big deal.
     
    dscurlock, Jun 30, 2017 IP
  6. komrad

    komrad Notable Member

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    #6
    I will use magento for sure. small or big magento is good to go.
     
    komrad, Jul 2, 2017 IP
  7. sleepybrown

    sleepybrown Peon

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    #7
    so far about 200 products are in circulation. Im thinking the wordpress is the way to go
     
    sleepybrown, Jul 2, 2017 IP
  8. sleepybrown

    sleepybrown Peon

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    #8
    Ill take a look into wordpress, and magento. Does anyone have any suggestions for approaching a plan on how to build these types of websites? Should I plan a layout for categories ahead of time or is it more about uploading the products first. I also have to take overhead into consideration as a lot goes into logistics on both sides. Someone purchasing from the market or in some cases the tailor sending to to me and then one it arrives to me sending it out to the customers. That's something else I have to work on :(
     
    sleepybrown, Jul 2, 2017 IP
  9. bradleylawerence

    bradleylawerence Peon

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    #9
    Shopify is the best platform for creating an ecommerce website. Shopify have number of advanced and safe features. So according to my suggestion you must choose shopify.
     
    bradleylawerence, Jul 7, 2017 IP
  10. evelinawilliams007

    evelinawilliams007 Notable Member

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    #10
    I noticed that a lot of ecommerce business owners use Wordpress + WooCommerce which I personally like.
    We chose to use shopify, for it's much more secure and more a bit more friendlier admin panel.
    We do a ton of customization on the design and .css though.
     
    evelinawilliams007, Jul 9, 2017 IP
  11. xslavax

    xslavax Greenhorn

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    #11
    Hello,

    I recommendate you shopify and the best shopify theme.
    Theme presentation:


    Links with theme in the video description.
    Subscribe on the channel and wait new theme soon.

    Thanks
     
    xslavax, Jul 9, 2017 IP
  12. Nigel Lew

    Nigel Lew Notable Member

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    #12
    The easiest and efficient way to go about this is going to be with wp and woo commerce. When you have to bolt crazy things onto it function wise its much cheaper as well.

    In this case woo commerce manages orders, payments and customers so a crm is not inherently required but there loads of crm plugins for this as well.
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-crm/ That for instance may be useful in a sense for non order related matters related to groups. For instance, as you deal with resellers groups can have different pricing etc.

    In terms of getting products in, if you have stuff in a csv file you can use this http://www.wpallimport.com/ you let the csv file live on the server or anywhere really then update the csv file and schedule wp all import to simply run on a schedule. It will add new products and update anything that already existed as well.


    I would have to know a bit more about what you are doing to fully advise you but that is your soundest jumping off point.

    hope that helps,
    Nigel
     
    Nigel Lew, Jul 9, 2017 IP
  13. hardip2057

    hardip2057 Banned

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    #13
    1) My vote goes for Magento2. It has superb functionality, good inventory management system including orders management, seo points of view etc. There are lots of features. It has totally different functionality than Magento.

    2) My second priority is Shopify. If you have fancy clothes, undergarment business then I suggest to go with only Shopify. It has several good themes which attract people a lot.

    3) I also prefer WordPress (Woocommerce) but There is always a risk to get hacked if free plugins have been used. Its 100% user friendly platform.

    If you are looking for secure / safe platform then go with #1, #2 and If you're non-techie guy & require user-friendly platform then go with Woocommerce.

    Best of Luck!!!
     
    hardip2057, Nov 30, 2017 IP
  14. dimitarang

    dimitarang Well-Known Member

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    #14
    I use woocommerce and recommend it to everyone wanting to sell online. I also used shopify for some stores but I think it's pointless because you pay 30$ monthly for something that you can actually do a lot more better on woocommerce for free.
     
    dimitarang, Nov 30, 2017 IP
  15. OnlineWorkIdeas_com

    OnlineWorkIdeas_com Member

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    #15
    Prestashop is also a very good solution and its 100% free (support is mainly available in Prestashop forum which is really good). You will need of course to spend 50-100$ for a professional theme and a one-page checkout module.
    I use Prestashop many years for selling clothes and it's very versatile and fast. I have loaded 1500 products with many images per product and have no limitations.
    You must first create categories and then make a mass import with a CSV file all products, images and attributes (colours, sizes, characteristics) or else upload products one by one and make categories as you go.
     
    OnlineWorkIdeas_com, Jan 13, 2018 IP
  16. evelinawilliams007

    evelinawilliams007 Notable Member

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    #16
    Look around in google you might find more information.
    One thing is for sure, Shopify is dead in 2018.
     
    evelinawilliams007, Jan 15, 2018 IP
  17. Bella Lopez

    Bella Lopez Greenhorn

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    #17
    You can go for WooCommerce or Shopify here. Even Prestashop is a good option.
     
    Bella Lopez, Jan 17, 2018 IP