Ecommerce software question

[biophase]

I need someone with experience on other Ecommerce platforms to chime in on this:

I am looking to open a small new ecommerce store. However I do not want to go through the hassles of getting a new payment processor account.

So I am looking for shopping cart software that:
is hosted by the company, not self hosted
has no transaction fees on their low end package
can integrate with square or stripe for payment
not interested in using only paypal payments
can also integrate with Amazon fulfillment to self fulfill (not a deal breaker)

I do not want to use Bigcommerce or Shopify because of their 1.5% transaction fees on their low end packages.

 

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[Y.B.]

What am I missing?
https://www.shopify.com/pricing

Transaction fees - 0

 

[biophase]

Replying to my own thread here: It looks like bigcommerce just redid their whole pricing structure. I know I just looked at their pricing tiers a few days ago!

They have no transaction fees now, but they go by gross sales? This is scary because I fully expect to do more than $125k, but if you don't know your monthly price before hand, what if they tell you its $300/month? You are stuck with them or you will need to move your store somewhere else.

 

[biophase]

What am I missing?
https://www.shopify.com/pricing

Transaction fees - 0

They are sneaky. Mouse over the little exclamation point next to the word Transaction fees.

 

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[Y.B.]

They are sneaky. Mouse over the little exclamation point next to the word Transaction fees

Shopify payments is powered by stripe, which is what you were looking for.

 

[biophase]

Shopify payments is powered by stripe, which is what you were looking for.

But it's powered by stripe it's still not stripe. There's a big difference.

 

[AndrewNC]

I have no clue if it meets your requirements - https://www.ultracart.com/

 

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[Trivium iz rC]

Hey Bio,

Check out americommerce.

They were recently bought out by capital one which is interesting & im pretty sure they just changed the name to "spark-pay" is weird. But from what i saw they have no transaction fees and are a hosted shopping cart.

I got 1 store on shopify & 1 store on Big Commerce. I've recently just started a joint venture with one of my buddies and I was interested to try there platform. Let me know if you check it out and like it.

trivium

 

[letter9]

I was in similar situation - didn't want to open the merchant account while i don't have enough volume/data - so i went with stripe - makes things much faster to start and than when you see sales and know your volume you can open/negotiate merchant account.

Ecommerce people on reddit said that after you show volume on stripe you can negotiate the rate, some guy claimed that stripe gave him better rate than his merchant provider (he created 'bid war' as he called it)
Also have a look at braintree, as far as i remember they were free on first 50K in sales. Very similar to stripe.

And i would recommend against having ecommerce platform provider and payment processor as 1 party. You can be happy with software and switch the payment processor cause of the rate, or be happy with your rate and switch ecommerce platform cause of bugs or smng. More options. Easier to negotiate if you would see volume.

 

[Jake]

www.squarespace.com

BASIC
Everything you need to get your business off the ground.

• Sell Unlimited Products
• No Transaction Fees
• Squarespace Website with Integrated Galleries and Blogs
• Mobile-Optimized Website and Checkout
• Free Custom Domain
  with annual purchase
• 24/7 Support
• Powerful Commerce Metrics
• Professional Email from Google
• $100 Adwords Credit
• Unlimited Storage, Bandwidth, and Contributors
• Inventory, Orders, Tax, Discounts
• Label Printing via Shipstation
• Integrated Accounting via Xero
• Developer Platform

 

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[hughjasle]

This thread came at a perfect time! Thanks for the great info guys

 

[biophase]

www.squarespace.com

BASIC
Everything you need to get your business off the ground.

• Sell Unlimited Products
• No Transaction Fees
• Squarespace Website with Integrated Galleries and Blogs
• Mobile-Optimized Website and Checkout
• Free Custom Domain
  with annual purchase
• 24/7 Support
• Powerful Commerce Metrics
• Professional Email from Google
• $100 Adwords Credit
• Unlimited Storage, Bandwidth, and Contributors
• Inventory, Orders, Tax, Discounts
• Label Printing via Shipstation <--------------- this is awesome too.
  
• Integrated Accounting via Xero
• Developer Platform

I think we have a winner! BTW, there are only no transaction fees if you use Stripe as your payment processor, else its 2-3%.

 

[biophase]

I think we have a winner! BTW, there are only no transaction fees if you use Stripe as your payment processor, else its 2-3%.

Well that was quick. I signed up for square space. Took me about 30 minutes to figure out the site and another 5 minutes to sign up a new account for Stripe. Store is up and can take money already! But no products are up and am just using a stock template. First impression is that it is very easy to us and it does have alot of decent options that I like.

I'm going to take tonight (Sunday evening) to see if I can get everything up and running by tonight. I want this store ready for black friday.

 

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[biophase]

I'm going to take tonight (Sunday evening) to see if I can get everything up and running by tonight. I want this store ready for black friday.

Ok, running into some issues. I have concerns that I'm going to get this store set up partially and then find out it can't do some of the stuff I want it to do. I may need to trash this and just go with bigcommerce since I know how to manipulate its templates already. I can save alot of time this way.

BTW, they have no phone number for customer care, so that sucks. I just went ahead and cancelled my account. They did refund me my $30.

 

[Jake]

Ok, running into some issues. I have concerns that I'm going to get this store set up partially and then find out it can't do some of the stuff I want it to do. I may need to trash this and just go with bigcommerce since I know how to manipulate its templates already. I can save alot of time this way.

BTW, they have no phone number for customer care, so that sucks. I just went ahead and cancelled my account. We will see if they refund me my $30 for the month.

Curious what you were trying to do.

Mind sharing?

I setup squarespace recently. Still figuring out all it's functionality but it was super easy to setup a pretty website

 

[biophase]

Curious what you were trying to do.

Mind sharing?

I setup squarespace recently. Still figuring out all it's functionality but it was super easy to setup a pretty website

I was trying to open a simple ecommerce store. But it looks like you can't really modify the product page within a template. I did not like the drag and drop interface. I know it is easier to use, getting down to the code level always gives you more options.

For example, how do you modify the product page photo size?
How do you add products to different product pages?

I think I'm going to go with Bigcommerce + Stripe since they removed the transaction fee. I did some calculations and I probably won't go over $125k in sales in the first year.

 

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[maximus20895]

Any reason that you are going with Bigcommerce vs Shopify other than familiarity?

 

[Jake]

How do you add products to different roduct pages?

I haven't needed to do it yet but I believe you can set the link to a folder which will allow drop downs.

As for sizing i've seen a few answers posted but have to run so don't have time to dig at the moment.

 

[biophase]

Any reason that you are going with Bigcommerce vs Shopify other than familiarity?

Yes, bigcommerce does not have the 1.5% transaction fee anymore.

 

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[biophase]

I haven't needed to do it yet but I believe you can set the link to a folder which will allow drop downs.

As for sizing i've seen a few answers posted but have to run so don't have time to dig at the moment.

For me it was just too time consuming. I almost have my bigcommerce store up and ready to go. I'm just so familiar with it that I can make changes very easily.

 

[WriteItDown]

I was trying to open a simple ecommerce store. But it looks like you can't really modify the product page within a template. I did not like the drag and drop interface. I know it is easier to use, getting down to the code level always gives you more options.

For example, how do you modify the product page photo size?
How do you add products to different product pages?

I think I'm going to go with Bigcommerce + Stripe since they removed the transaction fee. I did some calculations and I probably won't go over $125k in sales in the first year.

There's nothing "simple" about it. An ecommerce venture is the type of venture that requires a lot of planning and forethought. To be fair, I wouldn't just do it on a whim by finding some template and filling in the blanks. In order for an ecommerce site to survive in this saturated market is to be unique. First and foremost, you really need to know your target demographic really well, along with your competition, and see where you can offer something that no one else is offering. If you don't do this, it will most likely crash and burn. New ecommerce sites pop up every day and disappear just as quickly. You need to have a very good business plan in place before you make a move. You also need to have brand development strategies and CXM and CRM plans in place before you even launch. A good businessman doesn't cut corners. Think and plan everything through thoroughly. Also, if you are going with a web development site, be sure that you can choose a nTLD (use this tool to check which domains are available:
http://www.1and1.com/whois-domain-lookup), that you can personalize the design as much as possible so that it doesn't seem generic, and make sure it includes a SSL certificate. No ecommerce site can function without an SSL certificate. Ecommerce is more than putting product up online and hoping that people buy it. You need to know how to attract traffic to your page and how to guide them through every stage of the customer journey in order to get them to purchase, and then further know how to reach them to secure return business. So, I guess all of that to say that there's no such thing as a "simple" ecommerce store.

 

[Exuberant]

@WriteItDown great essay but @biophase probably is the last person here that needed that to be directed at lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

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[WriteItDown]

@WriteItDown great essay but @biophase probably is the last person here that needed that to be directed at lol

Why is that?

 

[MarkNNelson]

Why is that?

Well, because of this and this to start. He's kinda' experienced in this particular area.

 

[biophase]

There's nothing "simple" about it. An ecommerce venture is the type of venture that requires a lot of planning and forethought. To be fair, I wouldn't just do it on a whim by finding some template and filling in the blanks. In order for an ecommerce site to survive in this saturated market is to be unique. First and foremost, you really need to know your target demographic really well, along with your competition, and see where you can offer something that no one else is offering. If you don't do this, it will most likely crash and burn. New ecommerce sites pop up every day and disappear just as quickly. You need to have a very good business plan in place before you make a move. You also need to have brand development strategies and CXM and CRM plans in place before you even launch. A good businessman doesn't cut corners. Think and plan everything through thoroughly. Also, if you are going with a web development site, be sure that you can choose a nTLD (use this tool to check which domains are available:
http://www.1and1.com/whois-domain-lookup), that you can personalize the design as much as possible so that it doesn't seem generic, and make sure it includes a SSL certificate. No ecommerce site can function without an SSL certificate. Ecommerce is more than putting product up online and hoping that people buy it. You need to know how to attract traffic to your page and how to guide them through every stage of the customer journey in order to get them to purchase, and then further know how to reach them to secure return business. So, I guess all of that to say that there's no such thing as a "simple" ecommerce store.

Thanks for the info. I think you misunderstood me when I said simple, I meant a store that had 2-6 products. I did not need all the bells and whistles of a full fledged ecommerce store. Nevertheless, I went with Bigcommerce and a standard template and basically stripped most of its functionality off off it so it just takes orders. No reviews, categories, etc...

It's up and running right now. It's using BC's shared SSL and Stripe as the payment processor.

Just curious, what is your experience in ecommerce?

 

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[WriteItDown]

Thanks for the info. I think you misunderstood me when I said simple, I meant a store that had 2-6 products. I did not need all the bells and whistles of a full fledged ecommerce store. Nevertheless, I went with Bigcommerce and a standard template and basically stripped most of its functionality off off it so it just takes orders. No reviews, categories, etc...

It's up and running right now. It's using BC's shared SSL and Stripe as the payment processor.

Just curious, what is your experience in ecommerce?

You're right. I misunderstood what you meant by "simple." My experience with ecommerce (aside from using it as a customer) is purely intellectual and research based I'm afraid. I've studied it a lot, along with marketing and brand development, but I haven't started a venture of my own. Instead, I'm a freelance writer creating content for many different ecommerce clients, as well as web content for various other clients. So, again, I am familiar with the ins and outs through producing promotional content and general optimized web content, but I have never created my own ecommerce store.

 

[Dots]

Hi @biophase , are you still using Bigcommerce to setup ecommerce websites? I dont have experience with hosted shopping carts and I am torn between shopify or bigcommerce. Any recommendations ?

 

[biophase]

Hi @biophase , are you still using Bigcommerce to setup ecommerce websites? I dont have experience with hosted shopping carts and I am torn between shopify or bigcommerce. Any recommendations ?

I switched all my shops over to shopify.

 

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[Scot]

I have a dumb question and feel like I'm missing something, why didn't anyone mention Woocommerce?

I recently started setting it up on my website with the Stripe integration. The fact that no one mentioned it makes me feel like I made a mistake...

 

[Empires]

I have a dumb question and feel like I'm missing something, why didn't anyone mention Woocommerce?

I recently started setting it up on my website with the Stripe integration. The fact that no one mentioned it makes me feel like I made a mistake...

I use Woocommerce with Stripe, never had a problem with it.

Only recommendation is make sure your theme author updates often, I used a theme that took months to get updates for Woocommerce 3.0 and when they finally released it Woocommerce already had 3.1 out and wasn't compatible with the theme again so I've been stuck on Woocommerce 2.6 for months.