What eCommerce would you suggest

I am trying to create a new store, and I have noticed that there are a lot of eCommerce shopping carts out there, and I wanted to get your input on which would be the best solution for my store based on these criteria:

• The store will only sell and ship in the US.
• The merchandise consists of secondhand clothing and so every item in stock is unique.
• Since the merchandise is unique, it would be preferred to have items automatically unlisted from the store when they are purchased.
• A guest shopping cart is required.
• Customizable templates would be a plus, because I am not talented enough with coding to create my own template.
• It would be nice to have a newsletter, coupon codes, and a rewards program.
• There isn't much budget for this (about $50/month)

I have tried TomatoCart. It looked great and it was very customizable. However, it was too buggy to trust as a solution.
I am currently trying out Prestashop, and I found that it can do most of what I need, but I am having trouble finding/modifying a template that matches my store.
Anyway, any help/suggestions would be really appreciated.
Thanks

 

Tom, I use Shopify and I use Amazon...you sound like you may be well beyond those two platforms but for someone like me who is primarily a copywriter they work fine. Can I ask what your site is selling? That might help with suggestions.

Lynn

 

The main product line is secondhand clothing

 

So you are probably taking your own images and whatnot. That would make sense. Again, I am not an expert but PrestaShop, BigCommerce or Magento might work. I see that you are already using PrestaShop so you may want to look at the other two. I compared Shopify and Magento and went with Shopify for ease of use. That said, I understand that more experienced people can customize Magento more easily.

I am a big believer in seeing what other successful people are using in whatever area i am looking at, so I'd say that you might want to look at some similar sites that are really successful and see what they are using. Then you at least have a good comparison of features and you can see if you can do better.

Lynn

 

Hello Tom,
I would recommend you to check Viart Shop the shopping cart I'm working with quite a long time for many different sites. It has all features you've noted here and it looks like it is within your current budget.

 

I would spend the time required to wrap your head around Magento. At then end of the day what you need to be messing with is secretary level stuff.

However, its the fastest way to an enterprise level solution that is frankly tits.

I do quite a bit of this and would be happy to show you a few things and give you a quick consult. That is not a pitch for some work. I have multiple brands going live at once this week.

I do however like the demographic you are in so I am happy to point you in the right direction and explain a range of things for free.

hope that helps a bit,

Nigel

 

Magento Ecommerce is good.

 

Hi, AJ Shopping Cart is the best customizable,user and seo friendly shopping cart software with the rich set of features to create your store for physical as well as digital download products.

 

Not by anyone's stretch of the imagination,
Nigel

 

Thanks for all the responses. I like Magento, but unfortunately my current host does not support it. So I will have to try that one in the future. I have been testing out OpenCart and I like what I see. Does anyone know of any major issues with their platform?

 

Its just a tad convoluted really. You have a range of things to consider here. Given the demographic wordpress may be the way to go as well. I really depends on how you need to deal with products, things like rewards points/incentives etc.

Themeforest is a good place to start checking e-commerce themes for wp-ecommerce, woo commerce, or open cart as well.

Nailing the ethos is likely the easiest with wordpress.

Nigel

 

Definitely go with a hosted cart, not a script. Five years ago the trend seemed to be against the hosted solutions, with the majority favoring script-based carts and "code ownership". The problem is technology changes too fast. If you built a killer site in 2007 or 2008, chances are it's not mobile friendly, doesn't integrate with social sites, and isn't touch friendly either. Now you're "stuck" because you've customized it to the point where you can't just buy an upgraded version of the script you started with, if one even exists, and taking advantage of the latest & greatest would basically result in a migration. If you had started with a hosted solution, the back-end would have changed with you.

Look at Volusion or BigCommerce.

 

Both of my stores use Opencart, it's really down to personal preference

 

Opencart I like too, because it does change and evolve decently well, and the hosted carts tend to be so expensive to get started with ($20-30 and up per month).

 

Hi Tom, Take a look at SEOToaster I have had a tinker about with it seems very promising! It is a CMS Ecommerce platform!

 

According to your requirements I think that you need to customized your own E-Commerce Store because may be free e-Commerce platforms are not satisfied your needs.

Now for E-Commerce development many big players are available in online market such as Big Commerce, Volusion, Shopify. I hope they will understand you requirements and successfully satisfy it.

 

Shopify is great! But whatever store you use, create mini stores on ebay and facebook as well. Post some products there and link them to your main website.

 

Try ColorShop, http://wordpress.org/plugins/colorshop/
We add some great features like attributes filtering and multiple address.