ECommerce hosting software options

[wade1mil]

I started programming back in '96 and can work my way through stuff if I need to. Back in the 90's they didn't have templates and plugins (or at least I had never heard of them). When you wanted to change something you typed it in code - all of it. Other than making something highly customized, I don't know why anyone would want to do that anymore. I have been messing around with BigCommerce, Volusion, CS-Cart and one other over the past few days. I'm launching a new website within the next 10 days or so, and have run into a little roadblock. For my launch and first couple of months, I expect a large portion of my sales to be from affiliates.

Volusion offers everything I need. It tracks customers, affiliates, orders, inventory, everything. The problem is their bandwidth is very limited and the cost of going over is ridiculous. According to the articles I've read, just 1 GB over in a month will cost over $1k.

BigCommerce offers everything I need except for an affiliate program. Without this option, the odds of getting the amount of traffic I expect are nil.

CS-Cart geared everything toward upsells and third-party commercialization. I didn't even see an option for changing the template without downloading someone else's template with their logo plastered all over it. Pass.

I don't want to do the WordPress templates with plugins option. I really don't want to program anything and I'd rather pay to have it all in one spot so I can call and talk to someone if I need help.

Does anybody know of a built-in affiliate feature with BigCommerce that I'm missing or an alternative to the Volusion bandwidth pricing? Are there any other options that you are aware of that I could be looking at?

 

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[LightHouse]

Are you going to run your own affiliate program or let a established network do it for you?

 

[JasonR]

I would use Big Commerce and Share-a-Sale personally. Is there any reason that wouldn't work for you?

 

[wade1mil]

I planned on running it myself. If I used a company like CJ or Linkshare to handle it for me, it would be more so for the accounting benefits than the exposure. I've got a network of people interested in becoming an affiliate already, so the biggest drawback I can see from doing it myself is having to cut the checks every month. Volusion created the affiliate account automatically when a user signed up, tracked the leads, their customers, let me set the commissions and view everything in real time. Is there something I'm overlooking?

 

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[wade1mil]

I would use Big Commerce and Share-a-Sale personally. Is there any reason that wouldn't work for you?

I could see using Share-a-Sale or one of the other programs to manage everything after the site to generates enough in sales to justify the cost. I guess that's my only hangup at this point - I'd like to keep the cost as low as possible until the site proves profitable. I think this will definitely work once the business is up and running. Thank you for the tip.

 

[JasonR]

Well...what you could do...although it would be messy is use a custom Google analytics code for each referrer (assuming you are using Google Analytics). This is not hard to do, but can get messy if you get sloppy.

Your tracking URL would looking something like:

http://www.examplesite.com/?utm_sou...&utm_term=jasonr&utm_campaign=manualaffiliate

Tracking URL Explanations:
Tool: URL Builder - Analytics Help

I would then use an excel spreadsheet to keep a list of all referrers, and use the Concatenate command to generate the URLs.

Again, this would all be manual, but it would be free. You'll have to set up e-commerce conversion tracking as well. Then you could cut checks based on percentage of sales on a weekly/monthly etc. basis.

 

[AllenCrawley]

We're building our first ecommerce site but did not go with any ecommerce hosting provider. For various reasons we opted to use Opencart. There are many professional opencart themes available via templatemonster, themeforest and others. Opencart does have an affiliate system built in. It may be another option for you.

 

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[wade1mil]

Well...what you could do...although it would be messy is use a custom Google analytics code for each referrer (assuming you are using Google Analytics). This is not hard to do, but can get messy if you get sloppy.

You're right, that could get very messy

I just read this article that had a pretty good solution: Reduce Volusion Excess Bandwidth Fees

Still looking into it though. Thanks for your input.

 

[wade1mil]

We're building our first ecommerce site but did not go with any ecommerce hosting provider. For various reasons we opted to use Opencart. There are many professional opencart themes available via templatemonster, themeforest and others. Opencart does have an affiliate system built in. It may be another option for you.

Thank you, I will look into it. How long do you expect to spend on getting the store up and running?

Good luck with your first store!

 

[AllenCrawley]

Thank you, I will look into it. How long do you expect to spend on getting the store up and running?

Good luck with your first store!

Thanks. We've been working on for the past week and should be ready to launch in the next couple days. If we didn't have so many products (180) we could have had it up within a a couple days

 

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[JasonR]

Can you clue us in as to what you are selling?

180 products is not a lot for an e-commerce store...I've managed two e-commerce stores, one with 3500 products and one with over 10,000 products. Excel is your friend.

Although...setting up the products from scratch can be difficult. Hopefully, whoever you choose to go with supports import and exporting products via spreadsheet.

 

[JasonR]

You're right, that could get very messy

I just read this article that had a pretty good solution: Reduce Volusion Excess Bandwidth Fees

Still looking into it though. Thanks for your input.

I'd be careful with this method of reducing bandwidth costs. Basically, you are setting up a CDN (content delivery network) on the cheap. I would be concerned about the security of this method versus a traditional CDN, and that your secure pages (checkout, user accounts, etc.) might throw an error when using absolute image linking.

I'm not saying this isn't doable, but I would make sure you test on out the site on multiple browsers. Make sure to check that none of the sites are throwing any security errors once you're on your HTTPS pages. Also, make sure the site speed is good (use a reputable host along with Volusion).

Good luck!

 

[AllenCrawley]

Can you clue us in as to what you are selling?

180 products is not a lot for an e-commerce store...I've managed two e-commerce stores, one with 3500 products and one with over 10,000 products. Excel is your friend.

Although...setting up the products from scratch can be difficult. Hopefully, whoever you choose to go with supports import and exporting products via spreadsheet.

We are in a puppy niche. Yes, we can import a product file but my wife was wanting to hand pick everything and wanted to learn how to do everything manually. She has already said she won't do that anymore, lol. This is our first store so we are learning as we go She'll be adding more as our store matures.

What type of products might you be selling or niche are you in? If you don't want to share I understand.

 

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[JasonR]

I currently run Starwest Botanicals for my employer. I've got excel open, the front end to our website, and the back end. LOL. We are undergoing a complete overhaul to the site on Magento (about a $40k project)...starts this week. The site looks dated, but it's very successful.

The site I've previous working on was Poly Performance . Both Starwest and Poly Performance are running X-Cart.

I am, however, starting a store in a completely separate niche as I'm working my a$$ off to get my own store off the ground and be free of my 9-5 job.

 

[wade1mil]

I'd be careful with this method of reducing bandwidth costs.

If I go this route, I'll be sure to do that. Thank you for the heads up.

 

[LightHouse]

Well you can always get software like idev affiliate. I don't know how you are going to track users all the way through the checkout pages with a google analytics tracking hack system. The issue is installing excess software on most hosted solutions isnt possible, you have to essentially create a sub domain and get separate hosting, and even then you may not be able to make the modifications needed.

The nice thing about using a major network is not only do you have affiliates but then have them as well, plus tried and true systems to track and payout their affiliates.

 

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[wade1mil]

Well you can always get software like idev affiliate. I don't know how you are going to track users all the way through the checkout pages with a google analytics tracking hack system. The issue is installing excess software on most hosted solutions isnt possible, you have to essentially create a sub domain and get separate hosting, and even then you may not be able to make the modifications needed.

The nice thing about using a major network is not only do you have affiliates but then have them as well, plus tried and true systems to track and payout their affiliates.

The Google route would be a nightmare. iDev is the best third-party solution I've seen, but if I'm going to spend $299 on that I might as well shell out another couple hundred dollars to have everything handled for me. Ugh now I'm upselling myself. Thanks for the input.