BigCommerce Rest In Peace (Alternatives Re: Price Increase)

[Vigilante]

Does anyone know of an ecommerce platform that allows multiple ecommerce stores (multiple URLs) to have the same backend database so that they all share inventory and order management? Doesn't Magento do this?

That. That is what I want.

 

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[BlahBlahBlah]

Newbie question as I am just about to launch my first e-commerce site on the 1st of February. I am building it using Wordpress and WooCommerce, am I missing something by not using one of the sites mentioned on this thread? If yes, should I switch straight away or I can start thinking about it once I have a certain amount of sales coming through?
Thank you for your help!

 

[flybynight]

Does anyone know of an ecommerce platform that allows multiple ecommerce stores (multiple URLs) to have the same backend database so that they all share inventory and order management? Doesn't Magento do this?

Sparkpay, Znode, and Vevocart do this. Not sure on the prices. Overall I think Magento looks the best.

 

[biophase]

That. That is what I want.

Dave,

I just talked to Sparkpay and their software seems to hit all the bells and whistles that I need. They do multi stores with a single backend. I think my cost for 4 stores would be $120/mo and I'd get rid of Stitchlabs. So it would save me a ton of money.

It also integrates with Shipstation. So far, this is my front runner. Going to look at a few more other cards tonight.

 

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[biophase]

Newbie question as I am just about to launch my first e-commerce site on the 1st of February. I am building it using Wordpress and WooCommerce, am I missing something by not using one of the sites mentioned on this thread? If yes, should I switch straight away or I can start thinking about it once I have a certain amount of sales coming through?
Thank you for your help!

IMO, woocommerce and wordpress is not a real online store. The wordpress database is made for posts and pages and you are basically making product pages/posts. I just don't feel that it is as robust, but I've never really tried it. It's not even an option for me to consider.

 

[fhs8]

My current processor is charging me $2.2%. So using Shopify's processor my processor charges go up by $2625. So my net increase in going with Shopify is $2625-$360 = $2265.

Where are you getting 2.2% at? Does that include international cards? Shopify also has 2.4% +30c online rates for the unlimited plan.

Anyways stay away from BC. They used to be very good but after this pricing increase you'd have to be insane to go with them. Their pricing structure is hidden so I can't say what they'd quote anyone but from what I've seen it's roughly $80 a month for every 1000 orders (after 2,000 orders) per year. This amounts to $960 a year for every 1000 orders or 96 cents per order. If your AOV is $50 then 96 cents is like paying a 1.92% transaction fee on top of everything else which is INSANE. You might get a big discount if you're really high volume but why put your company at such risk?

I moved to Woocommerce from BC and everything has been going great. I don't buy the argument that Woocommerce is not really an ecommerce store or that it can't handle a load. Wordpress.org has millions of accounts/users and thousands of attachments and guess what? The website itself runs off of wordpress so that alone tells you that the software can scale. My website is now much faster on Woo than it was on BC. Page load times on Google analytics are almost 1 second less. A $40/mo cloud server can handle 5000 page views a day easy.

Now you do need a little more technical knowledge running Woocommerce but if you do it really pays off. You can customize your website a lot more. If you don't know anything about programming, Ubuntu, SSH, FTP, ETC I would go with a hosted provider such as Shopify. Try to open a woocommerce store on the side and see if it works.

Ohh and also don't say anything bad about BC in their forum or you could risk getting your store banned.

 

[Greyson F]

Maybe I'll take this time to overhaul my entire process.

Progress Thread: "BioPhase's Adventure - Being New at Something Again"

That. That is what I want.

After all of my observations, I feel like there needs to be almost like an open network of E-Commerce Platforms that can be switched and shared around independently. User comes with domain and hosting. Platform provides open access to API's, software and back-end stuff that help run an E-Commerce business.

Think Responsive Web Design. Web Developers used to have to create separate designs for websites based on the device they were using, so they had to pick and choose (like you guys are doing), cut costs and make sacrifices (like you guys are doing) and overall have a grapple between what is easiest, cheapest, and highest performing.

It was a mess. Some websites would look BEAUTIFUL as a website during the blogging boom, and then they tried to integrate into a mobile platform and they couldn't use any of the stuff they had for their original. but...

Then BAM. Responsive Web Design came out, and now it DOESN'T MATTER what device is used; as long as it is coded under that central responsive framework, then all the bits and pieces you choose will work out regardless.

IMO, woocommerce and wordpress is not a real online store.

I just talked to Sparkpay and their software seems to hit all the bells and whistles that I need.

I'm in the same position as him. What would you suggest using for an E-commerce store that isn't so luxury? Single-product stores, etc. Once our FDA Process goes through, my partner and I want to launch off really hard using Amazon and then build onto an E-Commerce platform... But IN ALL HONESTY reading through these forum threads just leave me confused, because no one has anything nice to say about most E-Commerce Hosts.

 

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[biophase]

Where are you getting 2.2% at? Does that include international cards? Shopify also has 2.4% +30c online rates for the unlimited plan.

Anyways stay away from BC. They used to be very good but after this pricing increase you'd have to be insane to go with them. Their pricing structure is hidden so I can't say what they'd quote anyone but from what I've seen it's roughly $80 a month for every 1000 orders (after 2,000 orders) per year. This amounts to $960 a year for every 1000 orders or 96 cents per order. If your AOV is $50 then 96 cents is like paying a 1.92% transaction fee on top of everything else which is INSANE. You might get a big discount if you're really high volume but why put your company at such risk?

I moved to Woocommerce from BC and everything has been going great. I don't buy the argument that Woocommerce is not really an ecommerce store or that it can't handle a load. Wordpress.org has millions of accounts/users and thousands of attachments and guess what? The website itself runs off of wordpress so that alone tells you that the software can scale. My website is now much faster on Woo than it was on BC. Page load times on Google analytics are almost 1 second less. A $40/mo cloud server can handle 5000 page views a day easy.

Now you do need a little more technical knowledge running Woocommerce but if you do it really pays off. You can customize your website a lot more. If you don't know anything about programming, Ubuntu, SSH, FTP, ETC I would go with a hosted provider such as Shopify. Try to open a woocommerce store on the side and see if it works.

Ohh and also don't say anything bad about BC in their forum or you could risk getting your store banned.

2.2% is what my processor charges me. It's actually 2.15% I think. Shopify is 2.9% on their Basic Plan. If I was doing Unlimited I wouldn't have any issue with BC's monthly rate.

BC's pricing structure has changed. It is now purely revenue based.

I just took a look at Woocommerce's showcase. I just don't see a big online store in any of their examples. I haven't seen a store with over 100 products using Woocommerce. But I haven't looked hard either. However when I look at their showcase stores I just see things that I think are wrong. Can you find me a woocommerce store that has a top navigation and one that has a side bar navigation that has a decent number of products. I'll take a look.

 

[Vigilante]

Dave,

I just talked to Sparkpay and their software seems to hit all the bells and whistles that I need. They do multi stores with a single backend. I think my cost for 4 stores would be $120/mo and I'd get rid of Stitchlabs. So it would save me a ton of money.

It also integrates with Shipstation. So far, this is my front runner. Going to look at a few more other cards tonight.

thank you

 

[biophase]

I'm in the same position as him. What would you suggest using for an E-commerce store that isn't so luxury? Single-product stores

A single product store can definitely go with woocommerce. You really don't need/want to pay monthly if you have one product. Your cart is only going to be filled with one item. But you can also go with BC or Shopify too if you wanted to simply pay and have your store up and running within a few hours.

 

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[fhs8]

2.2% is what my processor charges me. It's actually 2.15% I think. Shopify is 2.9% on their Basic Plan. If I was doing Unlimited I wouldn't have any issue with BC's monthly rate.

It's a 2.2% flat rate with absolutely nothing else such as monthly fees? If you take your total processed revenue and divide it by the total amount paid to your processesor does it equal 2.2%?

BC's pricing structure has changed. It is now purely revenue based.

I just took a look at Woocommerce's showcase. I just don't see a big online store in any of their examples. I haven't seen a store with over 100 products using Woocommerce. But I haven't looked hard either. However when I look at their showcase stores I just see things that I think are wrong. Can you find me a woocommerce store that has a top navigation and one that has a side bar navigation that has a decent number of products. I'll take a look.

My own store has 500 products...

wpml.org has millions of visitors a month and it runs Woocommerce.
The official Woocommerce website Woothemes.com runs Woocommerce.

 

[Greyson F]

A single product store can definitely go with woocommerce. You really don't need/want to pay monthly if you have one product. Your cart is only going to be filled with one item. But you can also go with BC or Shopify too if you wanted to simply pay and have your store up and running within a few hours.

Okay, that is what I was thinking. I currently have just a simple Wordpress website shittily made to make a temporary landing-page-like feel.

I hate being a Millennial and knowing little-to-nothing about coding or development. It's really kicking my a$$.

How would you suggest B2B selling? My product would do well as a distributor to supplement stores, health stores, etc. but I'm not exactly sure how sales happen "old-style" I guess.

I'll take a look at WooCommerce and compare it to Shopify, which has been my other option. My ignorance is definitely holding me back.

 

[biophase]

It's a 2.2% flat rate with absolutely nothing else such as monthly fees? If you take your total processed revenue and divide it by the total amount paid to your processesor does it equal 2.2%?

My own store has 500 products...

wpml.org has millions of visitors a month and it runs Woocommerce.
The official Woocommerce website Woothemes.com runs Woocommerce.

I haven't done the math in a while, but when I did in the past it was very low. I do pay $15 monthly fee. I have interchange pass pricing which means that they add .1% to what the credit card company charges. This is one of the lowest rates that you can get. These ecommerce companies are charging you a flat rate of 2.9% so if someone pays with a debit card, they get charged something like .3% and they charge you 2.9% and they keep the 2.6% spread. For me, I get charged .4% for that transaction. The amount I pay per transaction varies depending on the card used. International cards are higher, normal cards are lower and debit cards are almost 0. At 2.9% they are covering themselves so that they make money on each transaction. There's no way a flat rate processing fee is good for you.

You can read about it here: https://www.cardfellow.com/interchange-pass-through-pricing/

I'm not talking about server load on woocommerce. I'm talking about the look and feel and its ability to manage hundred's of products as an ecommerce store. Both of those examples are not showing its products in an efficient form. I'm looking for categories, waterfalls, dropdowns, bread crumbs and things like that.

 

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[Greyson F]

categories, waterfalls, dropdowns, bread crumbs and things like that.

Are their any threads on this forum that talk about these? I'd like to start learning critical things.

 

[fhs8]

I'm not talking about server load on woocommerce. I'm talking about the look and feel and its ability to manage hundred's of products as an ecommerce store. Both of those examples are not showing its products in an efficient form. I'm looking for categories, waterfalls, dropdowns, bread crumbs and things like that.

Their default templates are pretty bad but can be changed a lot with plugins. If you know CSS3, PHP, and html then you can change the look and feel to anything you want. The default theme now has supermenu support. There is a lot of code out there already for implementing custom waterfalls and breadcrumbs which you could copy and paste.

 

[Trivium iz rC]

@Vigilante @biophase Like I said earlier SparkPay (Formerly Americommerce) seems like a good place to be. Just worried about how capital one will deal with this in the long term. Seems weird to me that they called there E-commerce platform "SparkPay" makes it sound like its just a payment processor company.

Let me know how you like it @biophase we just opened a store not too long ago & it seems like a winner so far. Let's hope these banks keep a good long term view on the platform.

 

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[BlakeIC]

I am also in the market for a payment processor/store front

I am liking sparkpay, i love their upsell options too

edit:


*Shopping cart...

 

[Phones]

Does anyone know of an ecommerce platform that allows multiple ecommerce stores (multiple URLs) to have the same backend database so that they all share inventory and order management? Doesn't Magento do this?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

The two main reasons I never ditched magento was:

1.Multi-Stores on the same backend easy as f*ck
2.I hate monthly plans, Shopify has monthly plans, heir add-ons have monthly plans, everything is made to suck your wallet. I'd rather pay 500$ upfront and have something custom coded to my needs than paying 50$/month for a standardized extension. What has made Shopify so attractive is that their extensions are really good and beat anything else available, upsells, rewards, pop-ups, integrations etc.

With magento you can run multiple store fronts with different domains .com/store2/ or even newdomain.fr , running from the same backend.

I'd avoid any small/medium platforms, they can't just compete with the big guys in terms of extension and integrations marketplace

 

[JDawg]

Yes. Yes. Yes.

The two main reasons I never ditched magento was:

1.Multi-Stores on the same backend easy as f*ck
2.I hate monthly plans, Shopify has monthly plans, heir add-ons have monthly plans, everything is made to suck your wallet. I'd rather pay 500$ upfront and have something custom coded to my needs than paying 50$/month for a standardized extension. What has made Shopify so attractive is that their extensions are really good and beat anything else available, upsells, rewards, pop-ups, integrations etc.

With magento you can run multiple store fronts with different domains .com/store2/ or even newdomain.fr , running from the same backend.

I'd avoid any small/medium platforms, they can't just compete with the big guys in terms of extension and integrations marketplace

Sweet! That's good to know about Magento.

 

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[JasonR]

Ewwww unresponsive E-Commerce themes are very unattractive.

Did you even check their templates? They are responsive.

Ah X-Cart...back when I had a job I worked for two companies that ran x-cart. It's was a pain to work with (needed a dev for themes), so I don't know if that's changed, but the software worked very well.

I've worked with Magento, and it's super powerful, but resource hungry and overkill for 90% of people.

 

[biophase]

@Vigilante @biophase Like I said earlier SparkPay (Formerly Americommerce) seems like a good place to be. Just worried about how capital one will deal with this in the long term. Seems weird to me that they called there E-commerce platform "SparkPay" makes it sound like its just a payment processor company.

Let me know how you like it @biophase we just opened a store not too long ago & it seems like a winner so far. Let's hope these banks keep a good long term view on the platform.

So I've started a trial on Sparkpay. It's back end has alot more features than Bigcommerce. It is actually overwhelming the options that you have on this platform.

For example, I have a product that is 40lbs and is 36"x12"x12" which I did not want to ship internationally. On BC I could not limit this product to ship to the USA only. So I'd get these orders to ship to Europe and have to cancel them. On Sparkpay I can limit my product shipping regions.

Another thing I couldn't do on BC was create product bundles. If I had product A, B and C, I could not create a product bundle that automatically subtracted from inventory A, B and C. Sparkpay can do this.

The free themes aren't that good. But I'm going to mess around with the Base template which is basically a blank, black and white one.

I'm actually looking forward to this single database thing.

BTW, their payment processing is an insane 3.7%, so don't go with them on it!

 

[BlakeIC]

So I've started a trial on Sparkpay. It's back end has alot more features than Bigcommerce. It is actually overwhelming the options that you have on this platform.

For example, I have a product that is 40lbs and is 36"x12"x12" which I did not want to ship internationally. On BC I could not limit this product to ship to the USA only. So I'd get these orders to ship to Europe and have to cancel them. On Sparkpay I can limit my product shipping regions.

Another thing I couldn't do on BC was create product bundles. If I had product A, B and C, I could not create a product bundle that automatically subtracted from inventory A, B and C. Sparkpay can do this.

The free themes aren't that good. But I'm going to mess around with the Base template which is basically a blank, black and white one.

I'm actually looking forward to this single database thing.

BTW, their payment processing is an insane 3.7%, so don't go with them on it!

sparkpay is 3.7% or BC?

That's good to hear that sparkpay has the bundle function, another feature I was looking for too

 

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[biophase]

sparkpay is 3.7% or BC?

That's good to hear that sparkpay has the bundle function, another feature I was looking for too

Sparkpay is 3.7%

 

[Phillipbro]

They've changed the way they give out the 20% off Shopify for a lifetime deal.

You now have to sign up to their partners program (www.shopify.com/partners); which is free and easy to sign up to and than use the referral link via your partner account to setup your own stores. You will get 20% back as commission on your partners account.

Please let me know if I explained it properly...

 

[Phillipbro]

Does it work if I already have a monthly sub to shopify?

It only works if your setting up a brand new shop.

Do you know if they would give you 20% off on more than one store?

Yes, I'm using my own referral link via partners account on multiple stores. You are essentially signing up for their affiliate partnership and signing up your stores using your own affiliate link.

 

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[million$$$smile]

Man, I don't know where to start. I am so pissed off with B/C for this price increase. I too am looking elsewhere for my 3 online B/C stores. I have been in the process of integrating Stitchlabs in with our ecommerce sites along with integrating Square as our new POS system for our B&M store so that inventory can all be channeled under one system, i.e. marketplaces, ecommerce and B&M.

This has been a l-o-n=g drawn out process as each sales channel sells different items. It has been a nightmare listing all the different skus into stitch labs from each marketplace, site. I have someone working nearly full time just building this system so that all of it will work seamlessly and now Bigcommerce is going to charge me double.

I've already been looking elsewhere but incorporating a robust inventory system WITH a POS into a all-in-one multiple ecomm platform
has not been easy. Volusion? Possibly. Have a call out to them Monday.

I am impressed with
http://www.goecart.com but their monthly charge is $1000. Even eliminating stichlabs it is still out of the question.

Here is a list of 120 ecommerce platforms for anyone that wants to dig deeper. I hope to eventually find one that works...

http://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/shopping-carts-software-ecommerce-platforms

Good luck all...

 

[biophase]

Man, I don't know where to start. I am so pissed off with B/C for this price increase. I too am looking elsewhere for my 3 online B/C stores. I have been in the process of integrating Stitchlabs in with our ecommerce sites along with integrating Square as our new POS system for our B&M store so that inventory can all be channeled under one system, i.e. marketplaces, ecommerce and B&M.

This has been a l-o-n=g drawn out process as each sales channel sells different items. It has been a nightmare listing all the different skus into stitch labs from each marketplace, site. I have someone working nearly full time just building this system so that all of it will work seamlessly and now Bigcommerce is going to charge me double.

I've already been looking elsewhere but incorporating a robust inventory system WITH a POS into a all-in-one multiple ecomm platform
has not been easy. Volusion? Possibly. Have a call out to them Monday.

I am impressed with
http://www.goecart.com but their monthly charge is $1000. Even eliminating stichlabs it is still out of the question.

Here is a list of 120 ecommerce platforms for anyone that wants to dig deeper. I hope to eventually find one that works...

http://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/shopping-carts-software-ecommerce-platforms

Good luck all...

I just saw on Stitchlab's website that they integrate with Sparkpay. So maybe Sparkpay would work for you. Since you have 3 stores, you may want to have one database in the backend even though you sell different things. This is what I'm moving towards. I may or may not keep Stitch after this. It depends on how critical I think managing Amazon inventory is and if I decide to sell more on Ebay.

 

[Vigilante]

Man, I don't know where to start. I am so pissed off with B/C for this price increase. I too am looking elsewhere for my 3 online B/C stores. I have been in the process of integrating Stitchlabs in with our ecommerce sites along with integrating Square as our new POS system for our B&M store so that inventory can all be channeled under one system, i.e. marketplaces, ecommerce and B&M.

This has been a l-o-n=g drawn out process as each sales channel sells different items. It has been a nightmare listing all the different skus into stitch labs from each marketplace, site. I have someone working nearly full time just building this system so that all of it will work seamlessly and now Bigcommerce is going to charge me double.

I've already been looking elsewhere but incorporating a robust inventory system WITH a POS into a all-in-one multiple ecomm platform
has not been easy. Volusion? Possibly. Have a call out to them Monday.

I am impressed with
http://www.goecart.com but their monthly charge is $1000. Even eliminating stichlabs it is still out of the question.

Here is a list of 120 ecommerce platforms for anyone that wants to dig deeper. I hope to eventually find one that works...

http://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/shopping-carts-software-ecommerce-platforms

Good luck all...

Another example of BigCommerce moving exactly in the wrong direction.

They knew they would lose 20% of their customers that are getting screwed. They factored that if 80% stay and pay double, they will make more money even with less customers.

 

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[Nick314]

There are *dozens* of completely free, open source shopping cart solutions available.

If you simply buy a cheap virtual server plan (you can get a minimal, but adequate server w/static IP address for as low as $4/month) you can then:
- install Linux for free (ubuntu, fedora, centos, debian, whatever)
- install tinydns (aka djbdns) and host your own DNS for as many domain names as you purchase--for no extra $ (you just set your nameserver as your IP address in your registrar account for each domain name you own--no more paying for hosted DNS solutions--only pay to register/renew the names, that's it!)
- install apache/nginx/lighttpd and host a webserver for as many domain names as you purchase--for no extra $
- install mysql/mariadb/mongodb/some database and host as many databases as you want/need--for no extra $
- install a mail server and host as many email accounts as you want for any domains you own--for no extra $
- install wordpress/drupal/django/magento/opencart/saleor/any number of CMS and/or shopping cart solutions as you want/need--for no extra $
- get a free SSL cert from letsencrypt.org and configure your web server for HTTPS on every domain you want--for no extra $

Then get a merchant account, and using their API connect your shopping cart directly to it.
- no extra $ or any more per-transaction fees go to shopify, bigcommerce, or any other middleman that isn't actually adding any value

I pay ~$10/month for my merchant account with CMS which includes all 4 major credit cards and full API support to integrate to any one of several existing shopping cart solutions (plus docs on how to do custom integration for carts not already supported). I actually have a static IP address at my home from my ISP--so I can host my own virtual server also without any extra $. This is something that may already be available to you if you just ask your provider. I pay nothing additional for it. Some may charge extra--obviously if it's more than $4/month it may not be worth it. If your server usage gets too much, it's usually trivial to expand its capabilities for additional monthly $--of course the need to do so would obviously justify the added expense.

Even w/the above options it doesn't preclude combining other services anywhere in the mix--mix and match as you migrate--but you can see where a lot of savings can be had.

The number of domains you can host this way is for all practical purposes unlimited--and the cost is *capped*. Many modern linux distros even have fully GUI admin tools for configuring all of these things. If you aren't comfortable doing it yourself, just find your nearest linux user group or college CS department and offer to pay any student to help you admin it--they will be happy to do it for the experience and a few bucks. You may even get the price down to pizza and soda.

Configuring all these parts can seem like a daunting task. Linux hobbyists welcome the task/challenge, and combined with ego most will not give up until they succeed in delivering a working system for you. Furthermore, most enjoy *teaching* (a form of showing off their knowledge)--you can even advertise your project as asking for mentorship up front. Play to these personality traits and you can get your computing needs met for minimal outlay, as well as bundled training how to do it yourself in the future. Most of the tasks are not difficult--once you see how they are configured it's easy to do yourself from there--and if you do ever get stuck google for answers or call your mentor/admin for more help.

IMO, the only value these hosted service providers are giving is charging a price to delay your own education--paying them to *not* learn how to do it yourself. Why not pay someone to teach you to do it yourself--pay once up front and then never again, rather than pay a recurring fee to remain ignorant (not pejoratively, just factually).

 

[Vigilante]

I was leaning towards Shopify until I had a private discussion with @biophase in which he expressed some dissatisfaction with their templates, and more importantly the back office. However, there are also some advantages with regard to FBA integration.

Can anyone on the Shopify platform comment specifically on the Amazon FBA integration?

see http://insider.asdonline.com/shopify-and-amazon-get-married/

see http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m09/i18/s02

and an interesting article on Stitch Labs + Amazon

http://www.twice.com/thewire/stitch-labs-plus-amazon-gives-retailers-71-percent-sales-boost/58574