e-commerce platforms

U

ubercal

Expert Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2005
Messages
4,296
Reaction score
1,531
Good Day,

My company is looking at launching a new e-commerce website , and would like to know which platform to choose ie shopify , woocommerce ? Throw some options out.We run pastel evolution and would be selling +- 6000 products.

Thanks
 
With those options you can run any e-commerce you feel comfortable with and see how it goes.

shopify has "licensing fees" whereas woocommerce is free, but require that you rent a server, or server space. And you need to pay someone to set it up for you. hosted solutions like shopify isn't customizable, other than the theme - so the features they offer is what you get. Woocommerce, Magento, etc allow you to add a lot of customization and you generally have a choice of payment gateways and couriers to use
 
ubercal said:
Good Day,

My company is looking at launching a new e-commerce website , and would like to know which platform to choose ie shopify , woocommerce ? Throw some options out.We run pastel evolution and would be selling +- 6000 products.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I've spend some time on this, and in my opinion Magento for is best suited for selling 6k products, Shopify is good for drop shipping type business models. Woocommerce and the likes will require a greater amount of effort and time, unless you outsource or employ someone specifically to run the ecommerce side of things, whilst you stay focused on selling and marketing.
 
SilverNodashi said:
With those options you can run any e-commerce you feel comfortable with and see how it goes.

shopify has "licensing fees" whereas woocommerce is free, but require that you rent a server, or server space. And you need to pay someone to set it up for you. hosted solutions like shopify isn't customizable, other than the theme - so the features they offer is what you get. Woocommerce, Magento, etc allow you to add a lot of customization and you generally have a choice of payment gateways and couriers to use
Click to expand...

What licensing fees does Shopify have? It's not very fair to say there isn't a lot of customisation - it's not completely open, but you can customise a tremendous amount. Almost certainly anything worth caring about can be altered.

Cor Cronje said:
I've spend some time on this, and in my opinion Magento for is best suited for selling 6k products, Shopify is good for drop shipping type business models. Woocommerce and the likes will require a greater amount of effort and time, unless you outsource or employ someone specifically to run the ecommerce side of things, whilst you stay focused on selling and marketing.
Click to expand...

Shopify is good for selling anything. The number of integrations is excellent. PayFast fully supports it, among other local options. Regarding couriers, uAfrica has deep integration and supports Dawn Wing, Courier It and Courier Guy on a per order basis with a large number of auto options and increasing discounts for each uAfrica subscription tier. It was also possible until recently to get a 0% transaction fee levied by Shopify, which normally isn't available in territories without Shopify Payments as a payment method. Stores with the discount keep it - it's just new SA ones that no longer qualify.
 
Bryn said:
What licensing fees does Shopify have? It's not very fair to say there isn't a lot of customisation - it's not completely open, but you can customise a tremendous amount. Almost certainly anything worth caring about can be altered.



Shopify is good for selling anything. The number of integrations is excellent. PayFast fully supports it, among other local options. Regarding couriers, uAfrica has deep integration and supports Dawn Wing, Courier It and Courier Guy on a per order basis with a large number of auto options and increasing discounts for each uAfrica subscription tier. It was also possible until recently to get a 0% transaction fee levied by Shopify, which normally isn't available in territories without Shopify Payments as a payment method. Stores with the discount keep it - it's just new SA ones that no longer qualify.
Click to expand...

You work for, or own Shopify?

With "licencing", I meant you need to pay a monthly fee to use the product. Not quite open. There might be "tremendous amounts" of customization, but it's still limited to the platform's feature list.

Sure, it supports PayFast, but what about Paygate or iVeri (for people with a merchant account)? And what about other couriers like Fedex, RAM, MDS Collivery, etc?

Point is, a SAS model might sound great on paper, but does not suit every business' needs. If the OP want something totally different from shopify, and the typical shopify driven shop, he won't have much room for customization.

With a totally owned solution like Magento, OpenCart (not the best, IMO) PrestaShop, WooCommerce, etc, he has a lot more "leg room" to build a totally custom e-commerce shop.
 
SilverNodashi said:
You work for, or own Shopify?

With "licencing", I meant you need to pay a monthly fee to use the product. Not quite open. There might be "tremendous amounts" of customization, but it's still limited to the platform's feature list.

Sure, it supports PayFast, but what about Paygate or iVeri (for people with a merchant account)? And what about other couriers like Fedex, RAM, MDS Collivery, etc?

Point is, a SAS model might sound great on paper, but does not suit every business' needs. If the OP want something totally different from shopify, and the typical shopify driven shop, he won't have much room for customization.

With a totally owned solution like Magento, OpenCart (not the best, IMO) PrestaShop, WooCommerce, etc, he has a lot more "leg room" to build a totally custom e-commerce shop.
Click to expand...

I neither work for nor own (unfortunately) Shopify, although I am assisting a business launch their online store on Shopify. I have been extremely impressed thus far. A monthly fee is hardly a licensing fee - it covers robust and virtually indestructible hosting, very quick and dynamic content delivery, peace of mind as well as the coolest back-end I've yet seen. The POS system is epic, as is multichannel support. The upcoming features are great and easy to use, including 3D product images, augmented reality, AI customer assistant, one-touch Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay etc. It's a great environment for any size business. Nothing stops you developing a custom app on a Shopify Plus plan for bigger businesses.

As for payment gateways SA stores can use: PayFast, PayGate, PayPal Express, BitPay, GoCoin, Coinbase and Payment Express Pxpay. The three couriers I mentioned are all very good and highly regarded - not an issue worth caring about. And again, you can develop whatever you want to add to a Shopify Plus environment.

Shopify is outstanding for even a big business new to online retail that doesn't want to risk a whole internal development department. You need far fewer people, can build almost any site you want, get hosting that will never go down, can integrate with the most popular logistics, POS and ERP in use etc.

Adding complexity and cost for its own sake will absolutely not guarantee a better result, and more often than not work against you. I'm not claiming Shopify is the 'best', but I can't abide by any suggestion that it's a rookie platform. It is a very powerful eCommerce platform and arguably the single nicest one to use. Shopify Plus gets close to 'unlocking' the platform for the developers for bigger businesses, and their Plus customer support will make a plan if you have special requirements. The monthly cost is irrelevant when quality hosting suitable for a popular eCommerce site isn't cheap anyway.
 
Bryn said:
Adding complexity and cost for its own sake will absolutely not guarantee a better result, and more often than not work against you. I'm not claiming Shopify is the 'best', but I can't abide by any suggestion that it's a rookie platform. It is a very powerful eCommerce platform and arguably the single nicest one to use. Shopify Plus gets close to 'unlocking' the platform for the developers for bigger businesses, and their Plus customer support will make a plan if you have special requirements. The monthly cost is irrelevant when quality hosting suitable for a popular eCommerce site isn't cheap anyway.
Click to expand...

You just claimed it to be the best.
 
SilverNodashi said:
You just claimed it to be the best.
Click to expand...

Went back and couldn't find the statement you're referring to. Unless you mean because I said it might be the nicest to use. User experience is far from the defining factor when choosing a platform or deciding which is 'best' (a difficult to define term anyway).
 
SULACO said:
Im also looking at something - at least 2000 products with full shopping cart. What do you guys think of this -

http://www.liquidboxshop.co.za

Perhaps someone with more know-how can point out pros and cons.
Click to expand...

I like the concept, but the quality of their themes and the websites in their showcase are appalling. To me that's a big red flag and reason enough to stay away.
 
Woocommerce is the best.The problem with Shopify is they nickel and dime you for everything. You can't even set shipping zones without upgrading your plan or buying an expensive addon .Stay away from Shopify, its terrible.
 
MenlynElectronics said:
Woocommerce is the best.The problem with Shopify is they nickel and dime you for everything. You can't even set shipping zones without upgrading your plan or buying an expensive addon .Stay away from Shopify, its terrible.
Click to expand...

I've set shipping zones without paying extra. Shipping is one of the easiest aspects in general, thanks to uAfrica.

Transaction fees do suck though. Fortunately many of us have a grandfathered 0% rate. Not sure what else sucks about the platform though. Paying a modest premium for a much more accessible and robust platform seems reasonable enough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X