Best online store builder?

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Zhanel

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Hey All.
Could you please recommend a company to build an online store for my business? Was looking on inet and found - ushop, shopify and shopdirect. But I'm not sure which one to go with. May be some of you already built up a store with them or any other companies and can give a piece of advice. It's totally new to me, so want to make sure by choosing a good one.
Your help will be much, much, much appreciated :)
Thanks!!!!!
 
I see shopify has an app on apple store. Which is a big plus, also by the look of the reviews it's good.
 
Watch this: youtube video

I dont know how computer savvy you are but with this you can create your own website. The difficult part is that paypal does not have the South African Rand as a currency. But we do have local payment providers like PayFast.

Correct me if im wrong but Shopify is a all in one product. I have no experience with that to be honest. Keep us posted please.
 
Jozsef Borbely said:
Watch this: youtube video

I dont know how computer savvy you are but with this you can create your own website. The difficult part is that paypal does not have the South African Rand as a currency. But we do have local payment providers like PayFast.

Correct me if im wrong but Shopify is a all in one product. I have no experience with that to be honest. Keep us posted please.
Click to expand...

Yes Shopify is all in one product. Thanks for the video. Watched it, really helpful. But it's a little too much for me. I'd rather pay one of these ecommerce websites. Thx!
 
I'm so torn in between ushop.co.za and shopify. They seem pretty similar. Really don't know which one to choose. Anyone can help please?
 
Also which domain should I choose? co.za or .com? Which one is better you think?
 
The ones I hear about regularly are Shopify, Prestahop and Volusion. But there are hundreds out there.

You could also go opensource e.g Magento, Woocommerce, opencart etc
 
Zhanel said:
I'm so torn in between ushop.co.za and shopify. They seem pretty similar. Really don't know which one to choose. Anyone can help please?
Click to expand...
ushop seem to resell shopify so rather eliminate the middleman.
 
Zhanel said:
I'm so torn in between ushop.co.za and shopify. They seem pretty similar. Really don't know which one to choose. Anyone can help please?
Click to expand...

I bit late to the game, so I hope my 2 cents is not in vain! :)

UShop does seem to be a Shopify reseller, so if you're looking to go with Shopify go direct. With regards to a domain, I doubt how much tangible difference a ".co.za" and a ".com" have over each other, but if you're targeting an international audience specifically I'd probably go with a ".com" for the more universally-recognisable approach.

Your choice of e-commerce platform will largely be based on your requirements, business size and targeted audience, but if you're more tailored to the South African market, we've recently launched an online store builder and e-commerce system that will let you create and manage your own online store, completely free! It has tons of features, with more on the way, and we've been focusing on trying to eliminate the headaches created by other online store building systems. You can check it out at www.prostore.co.za

I hope this helps, and good luck with your online sales! :)
 
On this note. Has anyone here had any major success with a online store. If so send me a link. I would love to see what it looks like. Some details of how you went about it and who you used would be great.

Im testing out payfast atm, but their intergration into my website is a bit off.
 
I personally would go with ushop as it has a couple of interesting concepts (specific to trading in South Africa) coming up in the near future which Shopify will not give you directly.
 
Would definetly go with ushop. They do resell shopify with added extras. At the moment through ushop you get a free domain and when you upgrade to the basic package you dont have to pay the 2% commission to shopify...
 
Hey Jozsef,

I thought I'd chip in with ushop and their association with Shopify...

uShop is being run by Andy Higgins (Founded BidorBuy, and currently a non-exec director at PayFast) and they've got close ties with the main Shopify crew. The main difference between Shopify and uShop, is that through uShop you get access to selling in ZAR thanks to PayFast. In addition, you get a free .co.za domain (thanks to uShop sister company uWeb).

The main drawbacks with uShop / Shopify is that it integrates with relatively few other SA companies, especially when it comes to shipping. Equally, when using uShop / Shopify you're forced to use PayFast - simply put, there is no other SA payment gateway available through them.

The other big Shopify'ish competitors out there, as already mentioned, are Volusion and BigCommerce. These guys, like Shopify, also lack support for unique SA companies that'll go a long way in managing your store (e.g. PriceCheck, Fastway, SA Post Office, SA Parcel tracking etc.). The aforementioned are obviously cloud-based solutions where they take care of the hosting requirements and you get to focus on setting up and running a shop instead of worrying about the technical details.

When it comes to self-hosted options - there's a 1001 options and counting. The big ones include:
-- Opencart
-- Zencart
-- WooCommerce
-- Magento (Does have a *terrible* cloud solution as well)
-- Virtuamart
-- WPEC
-- Ubercart
-- Jigoshop

All of the above have their own pro's and cons. The big things to look out for when evaluating a system:
-- Product Support
-- Existing commercial themes / templates
-- Plugins / Addons / Apps to extend the shop if needs be (both free and premium-based)
-- Your own computer literacy
-- Your own ecommerce requirements (I've mentioned a few in this thread: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthr...are-to-use?p=11154229&viewfull=1#post11154229)


Of course there's also our own cloud-based system out there are well (available at http://gocommerce.co.za), and without wanting to punt it too much, we're very focused on bringing a South African solution to the table that addresses SA needs and integrates with SA companies. All of our directors are / have been online store operators themselves and have an intimate knowledge the ecommerce requirements out there.

Hope the abovementioned makes sense - lemme know if anything is unclear, I'm happy to help where possible...

Kind Regards,
Riaan - GoCommerce
 
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Thanks for the objective comments, Riaan.

FYI. uShop has been folded into uAfrica.com as we formalised our South African partnership with Shopify (see announcement here).

Besides multi-channel we are also working on bringing more localised logistics solutions for the South African market.
 
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AndyHiggins said:
Thanks for the objective comments, Riaan.

FYI. uShop has been folded into uAfrica.com as we formalised our South African partnership with Shopify (see announcement here).

Besides multi-channel we are also working on bringing more localised logistics solutions for the South African market.
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I'm on your site, but don't see mention of the POS integration that shopify has.
 
POS is available but not yet with local billing (that part will need to be paid in USD with credit card for now). I suggest you sign up for a store on uAfrica.com and you will still be able to add POS. If you have any problems feel free to call our local support number on 012 940 1060 and some one will be able to assist.
 
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