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Calling all web type folks or anyone who has had experience with the above!
I've had a project fall into my lap. A manufacturer (friend of mine) with around 200 products would like a modern looking site, well SEO'd and the ability to sell online. He has the text and the photos and just needs it putting together.
I had a look over the weekend at both options. Wordpress seems to be a lot more malleable with what you can do with the templates. Shopify seems similar, but dare i say, a lot easier to construct.
I dont mind doing some R&D and learning about either....was looking for any thoughts, comments, opinions, must do's, gotchas in the design process.....
Hosting etc is fine as is the cost for running the sites.
Cheers folks!
So are the products available to purchase online? If so, Shopify is a no-brainer. If not and it is just a showcase, then Wordpress has infinitely more flexibility to scale/adapt/change etc and probably has better support via the online community.
Where will the customer be selling? UK only? Across the EU and all the nightmare of VATMOSS that will be involved?
Shopify.
Rachel
Doh, I didn't see the bit about selling online.
Yup - Shopify all the way. There are Plug-ins available for WP but you are better playing safe with a trusted solution given your inexperience I'd say.
If you don't have much development or design experience (I have no idea if you do, so I apologise if so) and your friend wants basic ecommerce functionality on a budget, then Shopify is a good choice for you. It covers most requirements and offers pretty neat themes that will get you a long way towards your goal with little hassle.
I'd stay away from WordPress + Woo Commerce, etc., as it's just not the right platform based upon your OP.
If you require more bespoke options with greater future scope then consider Magento but you will more than likely need a designer and developer to help you with this as it's more complex and the hosting requirements can get costly.
If you have any general commerce questions then feel free to email me through my website (addy in my profile). I'm a designer / developer who works with Magento full-time for many blue chip clients and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you or your friend have. No obligation, of course.
Good luck,
Steve.
The purchases should be predominantly UK based, but there would be no reason they wouldnt attract customers on an international basis. Would this be a problem for Shopify?
There are some really smart themes and i've found a couple of SEO plugins for Shopify....it's looking promising!
No, international trading is fine as long as you configure your store to handle the taxes, shipping, etc., correctly.
remember that the plugins are only a small part of the battle. The rest is up to you/your friend to get the url out there or to pay for advertising. Remember that if all it takes is to as a few plug ins then everyone would be doing itand i've found a couple of SEO plugins for Shopify
remember that the plugins are only a small part of the battle. The rest is up to you/your friend to get the url out there or to pay for advertising. Remember that if all it takes is to as a few plug ins then everyone would be doing it
But of course this must be tempered with the consideration of what is the site selling. An SEO plugin isn't going to help if you are selling something really mainstream (something like holidays I guess), but if you are selling something more unique (say for example, handmade leather A3 document cases) then the competition might not even be there...
Shopify here and it is great for getting a good looking website up and running quickly. International shipments is fine, but it all depends on how you want to deal with VAT. We just charge people the same and then pay VAT for UK and EU customers and not for others. This is what many companies including many large multinationals do.
The big issue with Shopify is integration into a shipping platform. It does not come with any type of competent software for generating shipping labels and customs forms if needed. As its US based most of the shipping integrations are US based and do not work with Royal Mail. All depends on the number of items he is shipping and what he is doing at the moment. This has turned into a real time consuming pain for us but if you are shipping high volumes then there are solutions out there such as Veeqo. Personally I would look at this aspect first as Royal Mail are just in the process of changing the way labels must be printed and it seems many shipping integrations firms were not really aware of this.
Shopify does also lack tons of basic functionality such as the ability to change orders once they have been placed and as we have found out just recently simple things like a voucher code that will discount a product price and shipping. So if a customer has a £20 voucher and the product costs £10 and shipping is £10, Shopify can not handle this and will just discount £10 from the product price. Madness!!!
Personally we are going on the hunt to find a replacement but I don't think it will be easy as most others are either very time consuming to setup or costly to have developed, or you have to host them on your own hardware and then you have all the upgrade and security issue. We had this with Magento when we first started and each time a security patch came out we had to pay someone £200 to implement it. Not good for a small business. A managed solution is much much easier.
Check out Volusion and Bigcommerce
A few things to think about and check out
Shipping labels, is there a click once and print all.
Credit card integration, can you use your current provider (this is a whole story in its own)
Can you link into your accounts software
Great reply Stevie P and Woody - great answers! After an evening of playing with Shopify, i think it's a done deal for a starting point! 🙂
You are welcome. Good luck and get in touch if you need any more advice.