By: Lance McHenry
The world of Ecommerce has developed rapidly over the last 10-years with all major global brands now actively selling their services and products online. In mature Ecommerce markets like the United States, Business Insider states that over 17% of sales will happen online by 2020, and this figure could even go up at the rate it is going.
With the trend steadily moving towards more Ecommerce sales, aspiring entrepreneurs all over the world and have many different Ecommerce platforms to choose from. In India, Flipkart is leading the way. It’s India biggest Ecommerce platform and currently commands around 57% of the market ahead of Amazon. It’s a large market share if you compare it to the North American market, although the US and Canadian markets are obviously a lot more competitive.
Magento is the most popular with 29.1% with other platforms such as ZenCart and Big Commerce following close behind. Canadian Ecommerce platform Shopify accounts for 10.9% of the market. This is mainly due to it being one of the most “hassle-free to set up” for first digital marketing entrepreneurs venturing into Ecommerce, according to a Shopify review by Ecommerce Guide.
But regardless of the major brands hoovering up the majority of consumers with their large-scale digital marketing campaigns, the market in general also has areas of opportunities for budding entrepreneurs to seize on. After all, the global Ecommerce market was predicted to reach $1.9 trillion by the end of last year – it will undoubtedly surpass that mark this year.
Startup Freak has covered many inspirational stories about how entrepreneurs have built their businesses up from the ground. But just because you’re looking at starting your own business from home, doesn’t mean you can’t someday realize your dreams of establishing your own brand among the elite. You’ve probably heard of the story behind Google, starting off in a garage, as well as Steve Jobs and Apple building the early computers from his parents’ house. Well, take those as inspirational stories to start making your dreams a reality.
Why Ecommerce Could Work For You
The best part about an online business is its practicality and flexible nature. A physical office usually means a sizable financial outlay to begin with not to mention office equipment and any legalities that come with renting space. Additionally, it can become a financial burden or even a limitation if you’re pinned to a long-term contract that doesn’t allow you the scope to down size or scale up. Online, the world is your oyster and you can react more fluidly depending on how your business is performing.
The Basic Steps to Get You Started
Carving Out Your Niche
At the beginning of the whole process, let’s assume you already know what you are going to be selling online. The real focus needs to be on how you’re going to sell it, and how you are going to reach your potential target audience. The way you operate needs to be unique, otherwise without the big budgets of the high street brands, you will get lost in the sea of consumer brands.
Set Your Price Points
Arguably one of the main things that will determine if your product sells online is its price. Without stating the obvious; if it is too pricey you may price yourself out of the market. If you’re too cheap then you probably won’t function as a business for long. The best way to find that midpoint is to do market research across your competition.
This way you will gain a good understanding of the market you’re about to enter. In an ideal world you need to have a margin of 30-35% profit so that you have the ability to post healthy revenues as well as give you the opportunity to scale the business over time. This margin will also be determined by what industry you’re operating in, so it’s imperative to do your research.
Finding Your Manufacturers
Not everyone manufactures their own products in-house, even more so if you’re working from home. Therefore, it’s an absolute must to sort out your manufacturers, availability and shipping costs before even building your site. These can make or break your dream before you’ve even started as they all need to be factored into your overall cost per product and will affect your top line.
Finding online manufacturers is a tricky game so you need to be ready to do your research. Sites like IndiaMart, Alibaba, ThomasNet and Bambify are a good place to start. Take your time in making your decision and don’t be afraid to try our different manufacturers in order to find the right one for you.
Let’s Get Technical
Once you understand your market and services/products that will help you grow your business, the next step is building your Ecommerce platform and getting the hosting package that suits you, along with everything else that comes along with your newfangled business venture. Here is a run-down of what you’ll need:
–Choosing an Ecommerce platform – As stated above, one of the best for beginners is Shopify as it has a very easy interface and is extremely user-friendly, is good for scaling up and growing your business. It’s also very cost-effective.
–Domain Name – Make sure it stands out; it’s easy to read and is a great representation of your product/s and brand.
–Logo and Website Skin – Again, this needs to represent your brand to your target market so make sure it’s something you’re proud of and can work with for years to come.
–Hosting – Find an affordable hosting package that will give you a stable platform to sell your products online.
Although rather dated (2014), this article by Brent Gleeson for Forbes still gives readers a great run down of what to consider when dipping their toes into the world of Ecommerce.
Source >> https://startupmindset.com/how-to-launch-your-own-ecommerce-store-from-home/
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Monday, January 15, 2018
How to Start an Online Store and Create an eCommerce Website
By: Andrew Arnold
Ecommerce sales are increasing year after year and is showing no signs of slowing down, with 51% of Americans preferring to shop online. If you’re thinking of starting an online store and creating an ecommerce website then there is no better time to begin.
Clearly more people are purchasing from their home, tablet or mobile device instead of driving to your bricks and mortar store. With this change in purchasing attitudes, can you afford not to be online? Creating an ecommerce website might sound like a daunting task, but it is not as challenging as you may think.
In this article, you’ll:
● Learn what to consider when starting an online store
● Where you can find products to sell
● Which platforms you can use to create an ecommerce website
Choosing your industry and product
To start an online store, you’ll need to choose the right product to sell as this can have a massive impact on whether or not your ecommerce website is successful. But with millions of different products available, how do you know which ones to sell that will ensure yours are purchased?
There are usually a lot of factors to consider when choosing an industry and product. Below are the key points that you should consider:
Price
How much does your product cost? If it is too cheap it will be difficult to reach a positive Return on Investment (ROI). If it is too expensive there is a good chance customers will take more convincing to make a purchase. They probably want to speak with someone over the phone or through live chat prior to purchasing, possibly checking out review sites and your social media sites to be convinced. Customer support requires more resources for you to make a sale, although can be profitable if your product price is right. Ask others and initial purchasers what is the price they are willing to pay for your product.
Profit margin
What is your profit margin for each sale, in other words how much after costs to sell the product will you make? Many products sold online have a margin around 30–35% however this can change drastically depending on the industry. For example, electronics typically have slimmer margins while phone accessories are often marked up a whopping 200% and even more. Before you start an online store, make sure you know your profit margin of each product you wish to list. Often this will require contacting the manufacturer directly or signing up with a distributor.
Local availability
Can consumers purchase your product locally? When a product does not exist in a local store, it is easier to drive sales to your ecommerce website? The consumer is left with little choice but to purchase online through your online store.
Shipping size
How big and heavy is the product? Bigger and heavier products tend to attract higher shipping costs that can dramatically impact sales. Many customers expect to have free shipping. Therefore, it can be difficult to sell a product with a shipping fee. You could combat this by including the cost of shipping into the price tag whilst raising the price and offering “free shipping.” The caveat however, is that increases in price can decrease your sales. A tip would be to offer products that are smaller and hence require lower shipping costs.
Finding manufacturers with great products
Now that you have identified which products you want to sell you will need to figure out who the manufacturers are going to be. There are various methods of finding manufacturers that can save a lot of your time.
Shopping searches
Google Shopping is a powerful search engine that only searches physical products sold online. It lists some additional information on who the re-sellers are (great for sniffing out the competition) but more importantly who their suppliers are. Before you start an online store, simply enter your product into Google Shopping and search which manufacturers show up under the “Brand” section.
*Beware if you are in a location that is not supported by Google Shopping – you’ll be unable to check out the competition!
Directories
Why not search several online directories of suppliers that make it easy to find manufacturers? The two directories below are the most popular ones:
Worldwide Brands has nearly 10,000 wholesalers and more than 10 million products. The cost is $299 one-time fee for lifetime use.
Wholesale Central has approximately 1,500 suppliers and over 700,000 products. Here comes the sweetest part — it is free and for unlimited use.
Once you have compiled a list of manufacturers the next step is to start reaching out in hopes of reselling their products. Start with the manufacturers and distributors who have the least intimidating application and requirements. This is because many manufacturers tend not to deal with newer online stores with a limited sales record. Many larger manufacturers will want to know who you are working with first, so start with smaller suppliers to get larger suppliers on board later.
Create an ecommerce website and start an online store
Now that you have composed what products to sell and which wholesalers to obtain your products, the next step is to get them online. That means you’ll now need to create an ecommerce website and online store.
First, whilst you are waiting for the replies from manufacturers it is best to have a simple “coming soon” page before you begin to add your products. Knowing what products to sell will dictate which ecommerce platform to use or whether you require something special and customised.
Read More >> https://blumint.co/start-online-store-create-ecommerce-website
Ecommerce sales are increasing year after year and is showing no signs of slowing down, with 51% of Americans preferring to shop online. If you’re thinking of starting an online store and creating an ecommerce website then there is no better time to begin.
Clearly more people are purchasing from their home, tablet or mobile device instead of driving to your bricks and mortar store. With this change in purchasing attitudes, can you afford not to be online? Creating an ecommerce website might sound like a daunting task, but it is not as challenging as you may think.
In this article, you’ll:
● Learn what to consider when starting an online store
● Where you can find products to sell
● Which platforms you can use to create an ecommerce website
Choosing your industry and product
To start an online store, you’ll need to choose the right product to sell as this can have a massive impact on whether or not your ecommerce website is successful. But with millions of different products available, how do you know which ones to sell that will ensure yours are purchased?
There are usually a lot of factors to consider when choosing an industry and product. Below are the key points that you should consider:
Price
How much does your product cost? If it is too cheap it will be difficult to reach a positive Return on Investment (ROI). If it is too expensive there is a good chance customers will take more convincing to make a purchase. They probably want to speak with someone over the phone or through live chat prior to purchasing, possibly checking out review sites and your social media sites to be convinced. Customer support requires more resources for you to make a sale, although can be profitable if your product price is right. Ask others and initial purchasers what is the price they are willing to pay for your product.
Profit margin
What is your profit margin for each sale, in other words how much after costs to sell the product will you make? Many products sold online have a margin around 30–35% however this can change drastically depending on the industry. For example, electronics typically have slimmer margins while phone accessories are often marked up a whopping 200% and even more. Before you start an online store, make sure you know your profit margin of each product you wish to list. Often this will require contacting the manufacturer directly or signing up with a distributor.
Local availability
Can consumers purchase your product locally? When a product does not exist in a local store, it is easier to drive sales to your ecommerce website? The consumer is left with little choice but to purchase online through your online store.
Shipping size
How big and heavy is the product? Bigger and heavier products tend to attract higher shipping costs that can dramatically impact sales. Many customers expect to have free shipping. Therefore, it can be difficult to sell a product with a shipping fee. You could combat this by including the cost of shipping into the price tag whilst raising the price and offering “free shipping.” The caveat however, is that increases in price can decrease your sales. A tip would be to offer products that are smaller and hence require lower shipping costs.
Finding manufacturers with great products
Now that you have identified which products you want to sell you will need to figure out who the manufacturers are going to be. There are various methods of finding manufacturers that can save a lot of your time.
Shopping searches
Google Shopping is a powerful search engine that only searches physical products sold online. It lists some additional information on who the re-sellers are (great for sniffing out the competition) but more importantly who their suppliers are. Before you start an online store, simply enter your product into Google Shopping and search which manufacturers show up under the “Brand” section.
*Beware if you are in a location that is not supported by Google Shopping – you’ll be unable to check out the competition!
Directories
Why not search several online directories of suppliers that make it easy to find manufacturers? The two directories below are the most popular ones:
Worldwide Brands has nearly 10,000 wholesalers and more than 10 million products. The cost is $299 one-time fee for lifetime use.
Wholesale Central has approximately 1,500 suppliers and over 700,000 products. Here comes the sweetest part — it is free and for unlimited use.
Once you have compiled a list of manufacturers the next step is to start reaching out in hopes of reselling their products. Start with the manufacturers and distributors who have the least intimidating application and requirements. This is because many manufacturers tend not to deal with newer online stores with a limited sales record. Many larger manufacturers will want to know who you are working with first, so start with smaller suppliers to get larger suppliers on board later.
Create an ecommerce website and start an online store
Now that you have composed what products to sell and which wholesalers to obtain your products, the next step is to get them online. That means you’ll now need to create an ecommerce website and online store.
First, whilst you are waiting for the replies from manufacturers it is best to have a simple “coming soon” page before you begin to add your products. Knowing what products to sell will dictate which ecommerce platform to use or whether you require something special and customised.
Read More >> https://blumint.co/start-online-store-create-ecommerce-website
Ecommerce Survey 2017: The Trials & Tribulations of a Booming Industry [Data]
By: Shanelle Mullin
Earlier this year, we embarked on a mission to improve our ecommerce blog. We sent out a 23-question reader survey to better understand who reads our blog, what they’re struggling with the most, and how we can help.
We received 1,988 responses from some of our most active blog subscribers.
Of course, we’re hard at work putting all of that data to good use, but we thought we’d share some of the highlights with you, the reader.
How old are you?
At the beginning of the survey, we asked some basic demographic questions, like gender and age. 45% of all survey respondents are over the age of 45:
More survey respondents are over the age of 65 than under the age of 25, proving that ecommerce is for anyone, at any age. (Check out Life Lessons from 9 Entrepreneurs Over 50.)
What’s really interesting is that survey respondents under 45 prefer to learn through blog posts while survey respondents over 45 prefer to learn through video. One might easily assume the opposite given the young demographics of Snapchat, Instagram, and other video-heavy platforms.
What industry are you in?
What are the most popular ecommerce industries to sell in? Over 1,500 people told us what industry they’re selling in to help us answer that very question. Fashion and apparel came out on top:
If you’re in the fashion industry, too, you might be interested in some of these resources:
1. 10 Stylish Ecommerce Website Designs from the Fashion World
2. 22 Top-Rated Shopify Apps for Fashion Stores
3. Branding Secrets from 14 Fashion Industry Experts
4. How to Start a Fashion Line: Secrets from a Project Runway Designer
5. The Unlikely Story of the Activist Who Shook up the Fashion World
6. [Free Report] Trends, Opportunities, and Pitfalls Fashion Retailers Can’t Ignore
7. How to Start a Jewellery Making Business: The Ultimate Guide
How would you rate your abilities?
We also wanted to explore our readers’ weaknesses and struggles so that we could craft content to help them through. So, we asked them to rate their abilities on a five-point scale.
Marketing-related abilities are consistently rated the lowest, meaning respondents struggle with them the most.
Respondents have the best handle on coming up with ideas for what to sell, rating that their top ability:
An impressive 26% gave themselves a five-star rating. More on this later, but I’m guessing those folks have read our How to Find a Product to Sell Online guide.
Getting traffic to your store and then converting that traffic into paying customers are the two biggest struggles:
23% of respondents gave themselves a one-star rating for traffic generation and 28% gave themselves a one-star rating for conversion optimization.
Ecommerce logistics like managing inventory and finances are the second biggest strength among survey respondents:
Read More >> https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-reader-survey-2017
Earlier this year, we embarked on a mission to improve our ecommerce blog. We sent out a 23-question reader survey to better understand who reads our blog, what they’re struggling with the most, and how we can help.
We received 1,988 responses from some of our most active blog subscribers.
Of course, we’re hard at work putting all of that data to good use, but we thought we’d share some of the highlights with you, the reader.
How old are you?
At the beginning of the survey, we asked some basic demographic questions, like gender and age. 45% of all survey respondents are over the age of 45:
More survey respondents are over the age of 65 than under the age of 25, proving that ecommerce is for anyone, at any age. (Check out Life Lessons from 9 Entrepreneurs Over 50.)
What’s really interesting is that survey respondents under 45 prefer to learn through blog posts while survey respondents over 45 prefer to learn through video. One might easily assume the opposite given the young demographics of Snapchat, Instagram, and other video-heavy platforms.
What industry are you in?
What are the most popular ecommerce industries to sell in? Over 1,500 people told us what industry they’re selling in to help us answer that very question. Fashion and apparel came out on top:
If you’re in the fashion industry, too, you might be interested in some of these resources:
1. 10 Stylish Ecommerce Website Designs from the Fashion World
2. 22 Top-Rated Shopify Apps for Fashion Stores
3. Branding Secrets from 14 Fashion Industry Experts
4. How to Start a Fashion Line: Secrets from a Project Runway Designer
5. The Unlikely Story of the Activist Who Shook up the Fashion World
6. [Free Report] Trends, Opportunities, and Pitfalls Fashion Retailers Can’t Ignore
7. How to Start a Jewellery Making Business: The Ultimate Guide
How would you rate your abilities?
We also wanted to explore our readers’ weaknesses and struggles so that we could craft content to help them through. So, we asked them to rate their abilities on a five-point scale.
Marketing-related abilities are consistently rated the lowest, meaning respondents struggle with them the most.
Respondents have the best handle on coming up with ideas for what to sell, rating that their top ability:
An impressive 26% gave themselves a five-star rating. More on this later, but I’m guessing those folks have read our How to Find a Product to Sell Online guide.
Getting traffic to your store and then converting that traffic into paying customers are the two biggest struggles:
23% of respondents gave themselves a one-star rating for traffic generation and 28% gave themselves a one-star rating for conversion optimization.
Ecommerce logistics like managing inventory and finances are the second biggest strength among survey respondents:
Read More >> https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-reader-survey-2017
Sunday, January 14, 2018
4 Best Shopify Apps for Ecommerce Startup Success
By: Shane Barker
In 2016, there were 322.17 billion ecommerce sales in the United States alone according to Statista, and 2017 is projected to see 353.68 billion. This suggests that ecommerce continues to be a thriving industry. But just because there’s growth in the industry doesn’t mean ecommerce startups will automatically experience success.
Building a successful ecommerce business is a challenge, especially with so many reputable stores like Amazon and eBay to compete with. To make your job easier, Shopify apps are designed to speed things up.
Some of these tools will enhance customer experience, while others will help establish trust with your target customers. Combined, these tools can help you drive conversions, which is crucial for ecommerce success.
Yotpo
The BigCommerce report also found that trustworthy reviews influence the purchase decision of 68 percent of Americans. In addition to this, 69 percent of shoppers want more reviews available at online stores. But since you’re an ecommerce startup, it’s likely that you don’t have a lot of reviews yet.
Collect more authentic reviews using the Yotpo Reviews app available on Shopify. Using this tool, you can send out timely follow-up mails to your customers after they’ve made a purchase and encourage them to leave a review. You can even offer rewards to shoppers for leaving reviews. This has a good chance of driving more customers to write their review.
Not only this, Yotpo also lets you curate user-generated photos and reviews, which you can then use to design compelling ads. And if you’re marketing on Instagram, this tool will let you create a shop-able gallery that imitates your Instagram feed and enables shoppers to easily make their purchases.
Sweet Tooth Loyalty Reward Points
Who doesn’t love a good offer? BigCommerce reports that discount offers influence the decision to purchase for 71 percent of Americans. So for the success of your ecommerce startup, you should consider the kind of offers and deals you can provide to your customers.
This is crucial especially since you’re still at the stage of getting people to trust your business. An attractive discount could convince first-time shoppers to make their first purchase. And to design and manage your offers, you can use the Sweet Tooth Shopify app for Loyalty Reward Points.
Sweet Tooth lets you reward your customers in more than ten different ways. You can create a reward program to incentivize shoppers for making a purchase, referring a friend, creating an account, following you on social media, and more.
Findify
Simple site navigation influences the purchase decision of 64 percent of Americans, according to the previously-cited BigCommerce report. In fact, 21 percent of Americans find it frustrating to shop at a website that’s unattractive or hard to navigate. This suggests that people want to be able to find what they need without much hassle.
The Findify Search app is just want you need to cater to this need in your customers and enhance their experience shopping with you. The tool implements Artificial Intelligence to deliver accurate and personalized search results for your shoppers based on their behavior. You can also use this tool to make product recommendations that are relevant for your shoppers and will most likely result in a purchase.
Fomo
If you’ve heard of Cialdini’s principles of persuasion, you’d know that factors like social proof and urgency play a huge role in driving conversions. And for your ecommerce startup, you can implement these principles using the Fomo tool.
Fomo lets you display notifications when other customers have bought the product a shopper is currently viewing. This not only acts as social proof but also creates a sense of urgency in the shopper as they might feel compelled to buy the product before stock runs out. You can easily customize the messaging, style, and timing of your notification to ensure best results.
Source: https://tech.co/shopify-apps-ecommerce-startup-2017-06
In 2016, there were 322.17 billion ecommerce sales in the United States alone according to Statista, and 2017 is projected to see 353.68 billion. This suggests that ecommerce continues to be a thriving industry. But just because there’s growth in the industry doesn’t mean ecommerce startups will automatically experience success.
Building a successful ecommerce business is a challenge, especially with so many reputable stores like Amazon and eBay to compete with. To make your job easier, Shopify apps are designed to speed things up.
Some of these tools will enhance customer experience, while others will help establish trust with your target customers. Combined, these tools can help you drive conversions, which is crucial for ecommerce success.
Yotpo
The BigCommerce report also found that trustworthy reviews influence the purchase decision of 68 percent of Americans. In addition to this, 69 percent of shoppers want more reviews available at online stores. But since you’re an ecommerce startup, it’s likely that you don’t have a lot of reviews yet.
Collect more authentic reviews using the Yotpo Reviews app available on Shopify. Using this tool, you can send out timely follow-up mails to your customers after they’ve made a purchase and encourage them to leave a review. You can even offer rewards to shoppers for leaving reviews. This has a good chance of driving more customers to write their review.
Not only this, Yotpo also lets you curate user-generated photos and reviews, which you can then use to design compelling ads. And if you’re marketing on Instagram, this tool will let you create a shop-able gallery that imitates your Instagram feed and enables shoppers to easily make their purchases.
Sweet Tooth Loyalty Reward Points
Who doesn’t love a good offer? BigCommerce reports that discount offers influence the decision to purchase for 71 percent of Americans. So for the success of your ecommerce startup, you should consider the kind of offers and deals you can provide to your customers.
This is crucial especially since you’re still at the stage of getting people to trust your business. An attractive discount could convince first-time shoppers to make their first purchase. And to design and manage your offers, you can use the Sweet Tooth Shopify app for Loyalty Reward Points.
Sweet Tooth lets you reward your customers in more than ten different ways. You can create a reward program to incentivize shoppers for making a purchase, referring a friend, creating an account, following you on social media, and more.
Findify
Simple site navigation influences the purchase decision of 64 percent of Americans, according to the previously-cited BigCommerce report. In fact, 21 percent of Americans find it frustrating to shop at a website that’s unattractive or hard to navigate. This suggests that people want to be able to find what they need without much hassle.
The Findify Search app is just want you need to cater to this need in your customers and enhance their experience shopping with you. The tool implements Artificial Intelligence to deliver accurate and personalized search results for your shoppers based on their behavior. You can also use this tool to make product recommendations that are relevant for your shoppers and will most likely result in a purchase.
Fomo
If you’ve heard of Cialdini’s principles of persuasion, you’d know that factors like social proof and urgency play a huge role in driving conversions. And for your ecommerce startup, you can implement these principles using the Fomo tool.
Fomo lets you display notifications when other customers have bought the product a shopper is currently viewing. This not only acts as social proof but also creates a sense of urgency in the shopper as they might feel compelled to buy the product before stock runs out. You can easily customize the messaging, style, and timing of your notification to ensure best results.
Source: https://tech.co/shopify-apps-ecommerce-startup-2017-06
WordPress.com Business Users: Ecommerce has Arrived!
By: Min Wei
We’re thrilled to announce that, starting today, WordPress.com Business users can connect their sites to their online stores. With three leading ecommerce partners to choose from — Ecwid, Shopify, and ShopLocket (Update: ShopLocket is no longer an ecommerce partner on WordPress.com)– you can showcase, promote, and sell products to your customers directly from your site.
If you’re already a WordPress.com Business user, or are thinking of becoming one, here’s how the ecommerce feature will power your WordPress.com site.
A simple, hassle-free connection
Users with the WordPress.com Business upgrade already enjoy great features like live-chat support, unlimited storage, and free access to all our premium themes. Now, you can turn your site into a sleek online storefront, and let visitors shop from any post or page. The partners we’ve teamed up with — Ecwid, Shopify, and ShopLocket — all provide a smooth and secure ecommerce experience for you and your customers.
Connecting to your store is quick and easy — you initiate the process on your Dashboard, by going to eCommerce Plugins, where you can select the desired service:
After activating the service you’d like to use, you can go to the service’s Settings page to complete any necessary account details — from your Dashboard, go to Settings → Service Name (i.e. Ecwid Store, Shopify, or ShopLocket). In case you don’t already have an online store, you’ll be able to create one from the Settings page. (If you’ve ever used Publicize to connect your site to any social media platform like Facebook or Twitter, this process, which is very similar, will be a breeze).
Turn your site into a tailor-made storefront
Once your WordPress.com Business site is connected to your online store, the possibilities are endless. Each service is slightly different, but you can feature your products by simply embedding a link to your product into the editor, pasting in a shortcode from the services’ dashboard/admin, or, in some cases, just copying over the embed code into the editor. Regardless of the method you choose, we’ll automatically convert each link into a sleek, professional product image.
If you’d like more control over your site’s visuals, you can tweak your products’ appearance even further. You can modify the look and feel of the products on your page by customizing the shortcode, from image size and background color to “Buy” button text. Depending on the ecommerce service you’re using, you can add products to your sidebar with a designated widget, or even have a shopping cart on your page.
All three ecommerce options are now available to all WordPress.com Business users — we hope you give them a try!
Source: https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/wordpress-business-ecommerce/
We’re thrilled to announce that, starting today, WordPress.com Business users can connect their sites to their online stores. With three leading ecommerce partners to choose from — Ecwid, Shopify, and ShopLocket (Update: ShopLocket is no longer an ecommerce partner on WordPress.com)– you can showcase, promote, and sell products to your customers directly from your site.
If you’re already a WordPress.com Business user, or are thinking of becoming one, here’s how the ecommerce feature will power your WordPress.com site.
A simple, hassle-free connection
Users with the WordPress.com Business upgrade already enjoy great features like live-chat support, unlimited storage, and free access to all our premium themes. Now, you can turn your site into a sleek online storefront, and let visitors shop from any post or page. The partners we’ve teamed up with — Ecwid, Shopify, and ShopLocket — all provide a smooth and secure ecommerce experience for you and your customers.
Connecting to your store is quick and easy — you initiate the process on your Dashboard, by going to eCommerce Plugins, where you can select the desired service:
After activating the service you’d like to use, you can go to the service’s Settings page to complete any necessary account details — from your Dashboard, go to Settings → Service Name (i.e. Ecwid Store, Shopify, or ShopLocket). In case you don’t already have an online store, you’ll be able to create one from the Settings page. (If you’ve ever used Publicize to connect your site to any social media platform like Facebook or Twitter, this process, which is very similar, will be a breeze).
Turn your site into a tailor-made storefront
Once your WordPress.com Business site is connected to your online store, the possibilities are endless. Each service is slightly different, but you can feature your products by simply embedding a link to your product into the editor, pasting in a shortcode from the services’ dashboard/admin, or, in some cases, just copying over the embed code into the editor. Regardless of the method you choose, we’ll automatically convert each link into a sleek, professional product image.
If you’d like more control over your site’s visuals, you can tweak your products’ appearance even further. You can modify the look and feel of the products on your page by customizing the shortcode, from image size and background color to “Buy” button text. Depending on the ecommerce service you’re using, you can add products to your sidebar with a designated widget, or even have a shopping cart on your page.
All three ecommerce options are now available to all WordPress.com Business users — we hope you give them a try!
Source: https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/wordpress-business-ecommerce/
Thursday, January 11, 2018
WooCommerce Vs Shopify: Which One is Ahead of the Pack?
By: Amanda Cline
E-commerce is a big business and has been dictating trends incredibly. E-commerce websites have been around for a while now and have really made an unconventional leap when it comes to claiming their fame among their users. It’s easy to become the part of an online retail space. With so many themes, extensions, and platform choices available, one can easily start selling products and services online. But, if you want something robust in less investment then you have two options: Shopify and WooCommerce.
In this article, I am bringing you a comparison between Shopify and WooCommerce. You can consider the comparison to dissect their features and functions. By the end of this post, you’d be able to make their decision on which platform you can invest your resources.
WooCommerce and Shopify: Basis
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is basically a WordPress plugin and has been around for a while now. Installing this plugin one can conveniently turn their website into a fully-featured online store. As an open-source project from WordPress theme firm WooThemes, the plugin is also benefited from bespoke features, intuitive interface, and a simple representational state transfer (REST) application programming interface (API), which provides online merchants better ways to satisfy their shipping and oder fulfillment related needs.
Shopify is an amazing platform that lets you build a dynamic e-commerce website. The platform is designed best and is one of the best cloud-hosted e-commerce solutions available today. Being a hosted solution, Shopify allows you host your online store on their servers and doesn’t provide you an access to its backend code. However, this might not be the problem of many retailers, you still have a lot of options to customize your website as per your needs.
WooCommerce and Shopify: Design
WooCommerce
As far as aesthetics is concerned, WooCommerce comes with a handy collection of themes where you simply need to invest some efforts to select the one which serves you better. Since WooCommerce is a plugin developed by WooThemes, you also need to purchase a theme affiliated with them. However, you also have the freedom to integrate the plugin with any existing theme. You are provided with 5 free themes, and the rest of them are available with one time fee that ranges between $79 to $39 coupled with Adobe Photoshop options. You can also choose to purchase all the themes at $399 to add an edge to your online business.
Shopify
One thing that makes Shopify truly stand out is its wonderful collection of free and paid designs. The platform boasts an outstanding selection of free themes, and you can also pay for them up to $150 to give them a professional touch. The templates please merchants due to their fashionable design, clean aesthetic, and coloring options.
Some functionalities are already built-in to the themes, so consider this aspect carefully while choosing your theme. The developer should be knowledgeable enough to unleash the full potential of platform’s ‘liquid’ language to introduce more changes to make their website unique. WooCommerce is based on PHP which has grown as a standard among PHP developers and other webmasters, thus making this plugin all the more attractive choice.
Read More >> https://www.brainsins.com/en/blog/woocommerce-vs-shopify/3716
E-commerce is a big business and has been dictating trends incredibly. E-commerce websites have been around for a while now and have really made an unconventional leap when it comes to claiming their fame among their users. It’s easy to become the part of an online retail space. With so many themes, extensions, and platform choices available, one can easily start selling products and services online. But, if you want something robust in less investment then you have two options: Shopify and WooCommerce.
In this article, I am bringing you a comparison between Shopify and WooCommerce. You can consider the comparison to dissect their features and functions. By the end of this post, you’d be able to make their decision on which platform you can invest your resources.
WooCommerce and Shopify: Basis
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is basically a WordPress plugin and has been around for a while now. Installing this plugin one can conveniently turn their website into a fully-featured online store. As an open-source project from WordPress theme firm WooThemes, the plugin is also benefited from bespoke features, intuitive interface, and a simple representational state transfer (REST) application programming interface (API), which provides online merchants better ways to satisfy their shipping and oder fulfillment related needs.
Shopify is an amazing platform that lets you build a dynamic e-commerce website. The platform is designed best and is one of the best cloud-hosted e-commerce solutions available today. Being a hosted solution, Shopify allows you host your online store on their servers and doesn’t provide you an access to its backend code. However, this might not be the problem of many retailers, you still have a lot of options to customize your website as per your needs.
WooCommerce and Shopify: Design
WooCommerce
As far as aesthetics is concerned, WooCommerce comes with a handy collection of themes where you simply need to invest some efforts to select the one which serves you better. Since WooCommerce is a plugin developed by WooThemes, you also need to purchase a theme affiliated with them. However, you also have the freedom to integrate the plugin with any existing theme. You are provided with 5 free themes, and the rest of them are available with one time fee that ranges between $79 to $39 coupled with Adobe Photoshop options. You can also choose to purchase all the themes at $399 to add an edge to your online business.
Shopify
One thing that makes Shopify truly stand out is its wonderful collection of free and paid designs. The platform boasts an outstanding selection of free themes, and you can also pay for them up to $150 to give them a professional touch. The templates please merchants due to their fashionable design, clean aesthetic, and coloring options.
Some functionalities are already built-in to the themes, so consider this aspect carefully while choosing your theme. The developer should be knowledgeable enough to unleash the full potential of platform’s ‘liquid’ language to introduce more changes to make their website unique. WooCommerce is based on PHP which has grown as a standard among PHP developers and other webmasters, thus making this plugin all the more attractive choice.
Read More >> https://www.brainsins.com/en/blog/woocommerce-vs-shopify/3716
Magento 2 Vs Shopify – Which One is Suitable for Your Online Store?
By: Kris Brooks
Application that runs an eCommerce store is responsible for the success or failure of an online business. It is therefore essential to carefully select an e-commerce platform for creating, maintaining and managing the online store. Small businesses owners need to be more careful about this fact as they have restricted budget and resources. Shopify and Magento-2 is two most popular e-commerce solutions, and many users have difficulty selecting the suitable platform amidst them. An overview of their differences may simplify the process of selection, as these platforms differ from one another in their basic structure, functionalities, capabilities and payment options.
Compared Popularity
A recent research conducted on the popularity of these two platforms shows that approximately 240,000 online domains have Shopify registration and 160,000 websites have a Magento registration. These numbers attest to the popularity of these open-source e-commerce solutions; however, deep research on this subject reveals more. Small online businesses usually prefer Shopify to Magento-2 due to its user-friendly features. Its marketed features are more attractive to new and inexperienced owners of an online store. Magento-2 with its scalable features is important for the future growth of an online business. However, it is usually the choice of medium or large businesses, as they look forward to future growth with stable commercial foothold.
Compared Capabilities
Shopify welcomes both the experienced and inexperienced users; therefore, it does not include a steep learning curve. It allows users to select different professionally designed themes capable of making a variety of adjustments, and users love this drag-and-drop feature. However, it does not give users a complete control over the designs or functions of online stores. In comparison, Magento-2 comes with many flexible features. It gives users complete freedom over how the online stores interact with current and potential customers. Using Magento-2, the users can alter the functionality and appearance of the online stores in entirety. Users may need a web-developer’s assistance regularly while handling the features of Magento-2 platform; therefore, it requires some basic experience.
Branding and Design Facilities
Uniqueness plays a vital role at the success of an online store, as it helps customers separate one store from another. The design of an online store is an important part of distinctive branding. Both Magento-2 and Shopify brings exclusive and responsive themes for use. These responsive themes are extremely important in today’s market, as these themes can function on different screen sizes. For instance, the proprietary themes from Shopify do not allow users to customize their site but they change the colors and font. This type of limitation may impair the users’ ability to customize the store’s design and limit their choice for a personalized branding. The updated version of Magento-2 has a drag-and-drop visual editing function allowing the coders/non-coders to create uniquely beautiful sites in a jiffy.
Users’ Experience
The ease of experience with Shopify drives non-coders towards this open-source platform. Users can quickly set-up a store after signing up for this platform, which includes some website-building tools to personalize a store’s features with the help of in-house experts. On the other hand, Magento-2 has some ready-made extensions for personalization and these extensions require no expert assistance. This updated version of Magento even resolves the troubling issues of Magento-1 and offers a sublime experience to the users. The admin module of Magento-2 has simpler functions in comparison to Shopify which makes it easier for users to manage payment processors, access advanced reports, market products, sort customers and perform other essential tasks.
Speed Optimization and Performance
Success of all eCommerce stores depends on their performance and speed, as the users hate to wait for long when accessing an online store. They want to browse through the products, make a selection and complete the purchase, quickly. Therefore, it is essential for the stores to load faster to keep the users from moving towards a competitive site. Users need not worry about websites’ and server performance with Shopify, as it is a hosted solution. On the other hand, the Magento-2 has two different options for users. The online stores using Magento Commerce-Cloud service can stay live always; however, the responsibility of hosting remains on the store’s owner with the open-source variant.
SEO Capabilities
Users can easily edit meta-tags and optimize the product/inventory pages in SEO-friendly format using basic sets of SEO options available through Shopify. However, they cannot perform deeper configurations. The open-source platform Magento-2 allow users to change the permalinks for inventory-items or meta-content and make a complete use of canonical tags/ no-follow links/redirects.
Costs Involved
The subscription based model of Shopify makes it possible for users to retain a free-trial before selecting the paid version. It is also possible for users to choose from various paid services depending upon their necessities. The Magento-2 may provide a wider platform; however, it is impossible to learn about the exact expense until the users talk to the partners. There is no fixed-price service at the Magento and everything is personalized as per the users’ necessities.
Depending on your unique business needs, you can opt for either of them to improve and boost your revenues and profits
Source >> https://pixelperfecthtml.com/blog/magento2-vs-shopify-which-one-is-suitable-for-your-online-store/
Application that runs an eCommerce store is responsible for the success or failure of an online business. It is therefore essential to carefully select an e-commerce platform for creating, maintaining and managing the online store. Small businesses owners need to be more careful about this fact as they have restricted budget and resources. Shopify and Magento-2 is two most popular e-commerce solutions, and many users have difficulty selecting the suitable platform amidst them. An overview of their differences may simplify the process of selection, as these platforms differ from one another in their basic structure, functionalities, capabilities and payment options.
Compared Popularity
A recent research conducted on the popularity of these two platforms shows that approximately 240,000 online domains have Shopify registration and 160,000 websites have a Magento registration. These numbers attest to the popularity of these open-source e-commerce solutions; however, deep research on this subject reveals more. Small online businesses usually prefer Shopify to Magento-2 due to its user-friendly features. Its marketed features are more attractive to new and inexperienced owners of an online store. Magento-2 with its scalable features is important for the future growth of an online business. However, it is usually the choice of medium or large businesses, as they look forward to future growth with stable commercial foothold.
Compared Capabilities
Shopify welcomes both the experienced and inexperienced users; therefore, it does not include a steep learning curve. It allows users to select different professionally designed themes capable of making a variety of adjustments, and users love this drag-and-drop feature. However, it does not give users a complete control over the designs or functions of online stores. In comparison, Magento-2 comes with many flexible features. It gives users complete freedom over how the online stores interact with current and potential customers. Using Magento-2, the users can alter the functionality and appearance of the online stores in entirety. Users may need a web-developer’s assistance regularly while handling the features of Magento-2 platform; therefore, it requires some basic experience.
Branding and Design Facilities
Uniqueness plays a vital role at the success of an online store, as it helps customers separate one store from another. The design of an online store is an important part of distinctive branding. Both Magento-2 and Shopify brings exclusive and responsive themes for use. These responsive themes are extremely important in today’s market, as these themes can function on different screen sizes. For instance, the proprietary themes from Shopify do not allow users to customize their site but they change the colors and font. This type of limitation may impair the users’ ability to customize the store’s design and limit their choice for a personalized branding. The updated version of Magento-2 has a drag-and-drop visual editing function allowing the coders/non-coders to create uniquely beautiful sites in a jiffy.
Users’ Experience
The ease of experience with Shopify drives non-coders towards this open-source platform. Users can quickly set-up a store after signing up for this platform, which includes some website-building tools to personalize a store’s features with the help of in-house experts. On the other hand, Magento-2 has some ready-made extensions for personalization and these extensions require no expert assistance. This updated version of Magento even resolves the troubling issues of Magento-1 and offers a sublime experience to the users. The admin module of Magento-2 has simpler functions in comparison to Shopify which makes it easier for users to manage payment processors, access advanced reports, market products, sort customers and perform other essential tasks.
Speed Optimization and Performance
Success of all eCommerce stores depends on their performance and speed, as the users hate to wait for long when accessing an online store. They want to browse through the products, make a selection and complete the purchase, quickly. Therefore, it is essential for the stores to load faster to keep the users from moving towards a competitive site. Users need not worry about websites’ and server performance with Shopify, as it is a hosted solution. On the other hand, the Magento-2 has two different options for users. The online stores using Magento Commerce-Cloud service can stay live always; however, the responsibility of hosting remains on the store’s owner with the open-source variant.
SEO Capabilities
Users can easily edit meta-tags and optimize the product/inventory pages in SEO-friendly format using basic sets of SEO options available through Shopify. However, they cannot perform deeper configurations. The open-source platform Magento-2 allow users to change the permalinks for inventory-items or meta-content and make a complete use of canonical tags/ no-follow links/redirects.
Costs Involved
The subscription based model of Shopify makes it possible for users to retain a free-trial before selecting the paid version. It is also possible for users to choose from various paid services depending upon their necessities. The Magento-2 may provide a wider platform; however, it is impossible to learn about the exact expense until the users talk to the partners. There is no fixed-price service at the Magento and everything is personalized as per the users’ necessities.
Depending on your unique business needs, you can opt for either of them to improve and boost your revenues and profits
Source >> https://pixelperfecthtml.com/blog/magento2-vs-shopify-which-one-is-suitable-for-your-online-store/
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