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Top 4 eCommerce Posts from March
7 Tips for Using Zoom Videoconferencing With Remote Teams – Inc. If you’ve suddenly found yourself spending a lot more time looking at your colleagues through a Zoom video conference as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, you’re not alone. 7 Ways Retailers Can Cut Costs Without Compromising On Quality – Bootstrap Business if you […]
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Self-Made Millionaire Matt Clark Shares How to Build Your Own Ecommerce Company
Pay attention to expenses and double down on what works.
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Merchant of the Month: Discover Books
Each month we like to spotlight our merchants who have found success by running the businesses that they love. Read on to learn about this month's merchant: Bryan Rainville of Discover Books!
What inspired you to start your store?
Discover Books is a big operation—several warehouses; millions of books; thousands of employees and book donation bins around the country; truck drivers moving loads; books being sorted, inspected, shelved, picked, and shipped—there are lots of logistics involved. We already had a website, but it was purely informational. The site described our mission, how to get involved, and resources for literacy partners. We sold the used books that we saved from being discarded to landfills on several platforms like Amazon, AbeBooks, Barnes & Noble, and eBay. Although we employ thousands of people, our IT staff has always been very small—usually less than seven people.
When our leadership wanted to turn our website into an ecommerce site, we needed an affordable solution that we could implement quickly, that handles millions of products, and could be managed by a small number of IT staff. Due to the size of our inventory, automation was a must. The solution we found was Volusion. For the most part, just one software developer was able to stand up the store. We created automated jobs for keeping stock up-to-date, fetching orders, updating prices, and sending tracking numbers. Once these “core” processes were in place, we worked on the finer details and “nice-to-have” features, like implementing the Donation Bin Locator (map), Rewards Program, Marketing (coupons), and Wish List.
Who has been your greatest source of inspiration and encouragement?
Our customers and charity/literacy partners are our main sources of inspiration and encouragement. The feedback we get from our customers is very important and goes a long way for us. They tell us what they want from our site, how we can improve, and what we are doing right. Our charity partners inspire us as well. When we can give a school district thousands of children’s books, and you see the joy on a child’s face as they hold a book about a favorite character, there’s really nothing better than that. To some extent, our competitors inspire us to work harder and smarter too. They had a head start on us as far as an online store goes. But with Volusion’s help, we’re catching up and surpassing them.
What was the biggest thing that surprised you about starting your own business?
For starting the ecommerce website, the biggest surprise was how big of a task it was. There are so many moving parts—luckily, we had a lot of assets to begin with, like logos, branding, mission statements, and experience on various marketplaces. But after the store was up and running, things like SEO, analytics, social media presence, Google Ads, site optimization, and domain/page authority were areas that we didn’t have staff to handle immediately. Fortunately, Volusion has a blog and many resources explaining these concepts—and even some How-Tos and built-in features that saved us a lot of time. We also engaged with some of Volusion’s experts for advice and help.
What advice do you have for other people trying to build their store from scratch?
There’s no way you can be fully prepared to build a store from scratch if you’ve never done it before, but you can read up on aspects of it (using Volusion’s vast library) and research your competition or similar sites. Taking the best of what works from around the web is a good starting place. Familiarizing yourself with how Categories and Products are organized, learning about all the various settings and features included in Volusion, and being flexible to change things will help as your store evolves.
What does the future hold for your store?
We’re constantly making small tweaks to our store’s design and usability. Right now, we’re working on adding “new” condition books to our inventory and to the store. We also plan on using the built-in Affiliate functionality and moving the external (WordPress) blog onto our site. Our overall goal is to increase sales on our Volusion site, moving away from third-party platforms like Amazon and eBay to save on commission fees.
What do you like about Volusion?
Volusion’s support has been crucial for our success. When utilizing features or looking for help, we start by researching on the Volusion Help site. If we can’t find answers there, the Chat Support has always been helpful. Phone Support is good if there’s an emergency (which there are very few). We have also contacted our account manager at times; he was especially helpful in finding the tier of service that best suited our site’s needs.
What’s the Volusion feature you use most?
The Volusion API is the feature we use the most. It took us a while to realize the power of it, but once we started using it, the possibilities were endless. We use it for inventory management, processing sales and tracking numbers, displaying related items, and many more features. It takes some coding skill, but it allows you to have much greater control of the site. The ability to access and edit the “template” html and css code files is something that we use a lot too. We edit those files for style changes (layout, colors, fonts, images, etc).
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Ccinsight shows Covid-19’s impact on ecommerce
A new project, called Covid-19 Commerce Insight, shows the impact coronavirus Covid-19 has on ecommerce in Europe and the rest of the world. Every day, the tool shows new data at a global and regional level in multiple sectors.
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Delivering personalized shopping experience for your shoppers
With million online websites selling tonnes of products, why do you think they will be attracted to try yours?
Better UI?
Better product display?
A plethora of different products?
An amazing product follow-up?
Good return policies?
But is that enough?
People even buy from sites where one or many of these attributes are missing. Then what keeps them buying from that eCommerce store??
The reason is showcasing the right products at the right time as per the shopping affinities of the shoppers, c, which we call Personalization in eCommerce.
As the term in itself talks much, personalization is almost like the Gettysburg Address. It should be for the people, by the people, and of the people. People = Shoppers, in this case. Shoppers in all ways have developed an affinity to the sites that recommend products based on their behavior. We all know the AI works wonders behind the screen but for a shopper who doesn’t care much about the backend is always amazed by ‘How does the site even know what I want’.
To make sure you amaze your customers every single time they log in to your site and make them keep coming back, LISTEN TO THEM.
How is AI beneficial in personalization?
Now, it wouldn’t happen in the old traditional ways to know your million customers by either talking to them one on one or texting them to know them better. So, it is necessary to let the technology do the talking.
With every industry, since AI has taken over almost everything, it is time to know your shoppers an inch more by reading their scattered data.
The data availability is extreme. The end consumers who shop online are numerous in numbers, their shopping affinities and behaviors are being studied, and a large pool of data points are obtained post-analysis. Now, if you assume for once with such an immense market presence by the customers it is hard to segregate their accounts and activities, then that is true.
Enters Machine Learning!
Machine Learning Techniques are here to make a difference in ways where the customer is the hero and users form the biggest human pyramid. Let’s see what you need to do to engage customers!
Their online footprints need a lot of hand-garnering and nit-picking to deliver exactly what they want. This evolution has promised a lot of ‘to the point’ results and tired of endless scrolling that is exactly what companies should do.
Advanced ML techniques adapt a regressive approach to creating a platform where it is all about experience and engagement. In such a case, ML excels at pattern recognition and AI concentrates more on creating recommendation engines.
We surely do this for our eCommerce friends with such regression techniques by applying the Hybrid recommendation system.
What is Hybrid Recommendation System
With a Hybrid recommendation system, you can generate and provide suggestions by combining two or more recommendation strategies.
After applying such techniques all you need is more consistency to maintain those data fragments and form actual data points. Problems like cold-start and data sparsity still exist which are solvable by providing optimized automated solutions. With Machine Learning As A Solution (MLaaS), the market is soon going to make almost $7.6 Billion by the year 2023.
But how do you truly personalize the experience for your shoppers?
Personalization Tips
Tip 1: Personalize your Email Marketing Strategy
Imagine, when you walk out of an online store after looking at the products and instantly you receive a mail with specially tailored discounts for you around those products. It is nothing like the traditional mail marketing where organizations use the same email marketing templates to reuse and reuse until we exhaust the same pattern and gain no insights out of it.
But, what if those same mailers were in fact catered to each and every customer as if they were talking to you?
Tip 2: Provide user-specific Product Recommendations
No one would want to waste their time juggling through a million products when all they want is a blacktop that they had already searched the last time.
Based on the data study, if you feel the shopper has already searched for ‘Black Nike Shoes’, then when they open the site window, recommend them Nike products or black products. Because both attributes specify their affinity to color: black and brand: Nike. This not only hooks the shopper interest but also shortens the path-to-purchase
Tip 3: Personalized Homepages
Well, the maximum traction that you can avail from the shoppers is when you provide their last searched products, suggested products from their past search history, or recommended products based on both their behavior and the site behavior, on the HOMEPAGE: the first thing they see when they land on your site.
Many of our customers have tried and tested this with the Unbxd Personalized Recommendations engine seeing a whopping 20% increase in conversions on the landing page. If you would be interested in testing the same for your eCommerce store, please write to sales@unbxd.com
Tip 4: Divide the traffic
No! We are not talking about the diversion of traffic but the segregation of customers based on their shopping intensity and behavior. Segregate them if they are existing customers or the non-returning ones.
Technically, in ideal situations, you should focus 60% on the ones that keep returning by offering them special coupons for being a loyal customer or provide them other loyalty points to create a trust base.
Focus the other 40% on the ones that may or may not return. Send them personalized emails where you talk to them about their leftover products in the cart or their search history so that they believe that you do care about them. In either way, it is a win-win!
Tip 5: Track the Geolocation
A person in the US wouldn’t want to know the prices of ‘Nike Slippers’ selling in the UK . They would care more about the products that are specific to their region. Tracking the right location and targeting them with specific marketing campaigns and pricing should be a no-brainer.
With these 5 tips, you are going to level up the market for sure in your favor. Shaping the right personalization strategy, importing the right product recommendations, and integrating all the methods in place, you are making it easier for you and your shoppers to make the right choice.
Unbxd deals with providing such amazing personalization experiences by integrating to your eCommerce site and letting your shoppers take a recliner seat while they buy their choicest products from your eCommerce store! To know more, contact us: support@unbxd.com.
The post Delivering personalized shopping experience for your shoppers appeared first on Unbxd.
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Emergency VAT measures announced by European countries
Amazon, recognising that many of their merchants sell internationally, have published a list of emergency VAT measures announced by European countries in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Amazon point out that this is general information and you should consult your professional tax advisors if you have any questions or need further details. You will also need to verify if the emergency VAT measures only apply to domestic businesses in each country or if the emergency VAT measures are also available to overseas businesses to take advantage of
Emergency VAT measures in Europe
Czech Republic
Only drafted limited VAT measures for businesses.
France
No changes to March or future reporting so far.
Germany
Businesses may apply for VAT payment postponement until December 31, 2020.
Italy
Businesses may be able to postpone payment of their VAT due until May 31, 2020, and can also decide to file specific VAT returns and listings later.
Netherlands
Businesses may apply for a three month extension of VAT payment deadline as of March 20, 2020.
Poland
Offering the application for a VAT payment postponement with no interest charges and delayed the extension of SAF-T VAT reporting.
Spain
Businesses may apply for VAT payment postponement until May 31, 2020.
United Kingdom
Businesses are able to postpone the payment of their VAT due between March 20 and June 30, 2020.
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CWU: Temporary relaxation to Royal Mail Universal Service Obligation call
The CWU have released a statement sets out what they believe is the right position for Royal Mail and the Government to immediately adopt in relation to Royal Mail Group and the services it provides. This includes a temporary relaxation to the Royal Mail Universal Service Obligation.
Other measures include suspending unaddressed mail (advertising) and a ton of measure to protect staff including social distancing, working alternate days and ensuring gloves and hand santisers are readily available. They also call for Posties to take on additional social measures such as checking on elderly and delivering food parcels and prescriptions, as well as prioritising government communications and the delivery of Coronavirus test kits.
For the CWU to even suggest that the Royal Mail Universal Service Obligation not be upheld is a shocker in itself – this is one of the things that the CWU have been fighting to preserve alongside the rights of workers and so to suggest it be suspended in the current crisis, although not surprising in itself, shows how seriously they are taking the current situation. A suspension now could pave the way to permanent changes to the Royal Mail Universal Service Obligation in the future and that’s definitely not something the CWU want to see occur.
CWU Royal Mail Emergency Network suggestions
The CWU suggest that Royal Mail immediately introduce an emergency network based on the following principles:-
- If Personal Protective Equipment is not in place for all employees, or in any workplace, then that office should cease its operations until the equipment has been provided to all employees. This includes gloves and hand sanitisers.
- If social distancing measures are not in place, in line with the Government advice (2 metres apart), then the office should be closed until this is rectified. Additional measures in this statement are designed to support the introduction of strict social distancing in every Royal Mail Group workplace.
- The company should cease acting as a commercial operation and instead operate as a vital national service, in line with the Government giving postal workers key worker status.
- All unaddressed advertising mail should be immediately suspended.
- The Government contracts enabling public testing and the delivery of Government information to the public must be prioritised.
- In conjunction with the Government we should look to maximise the opportunity for Royal Mail’s unrivalled infrastructure to be utilised in helping the country deal with the Coronavirus crisis. This could include checking on the elderly and vulnerable to flag up any concerns, collecting and delivering food parcels and likewise with medical prescriptions and equipment.
- As a strictly one-off resolution to the current crisis, Daily deliveries should be reduced to three times a week with only parcels/packets and first class mail being delivered on alternate days.
- Royal Mail should make an immediate public statement on the above mentioned introduction of an emergency network.
- All employees should only be compelled to work alternate days there by cutting in half the amount of people in any operational unit on any one day, this to enable strict social distancing and total equipment cleansing prior to each day.
- Every effort should now be made to secure the testing of RMG employees to identify and respond to high risk in all units.
- Everyone over 65 should only be at work if they are happy to do so and if not should be placed on Special Leave with Full Pay for the duration of the crisis.
- All vulnerable/at risk employees as identified by Public Health England advice should all now be on full pay for absences relating to coronavirus.
- All employees with vulnerable/at risk people at home should be allowed 12wks on full pay.
- Where someone within the work location has been diagnosed with the virus, the workplace should be shut for a deep clean before re-opening for business.
- The use of private cars as a contingency measure should cease.
- Agency workers should only be used in the event that there is a genuine shortfall in the alternative working daily resourcing and the prioritised delivery of 1st & 2nd Class USO Mail and parcels. (all agency must meet strict vetting criteria).
“We believe the above emergency service principles should be introduced immediately. We are available to discuss with you any alternative suggestions that protect our members, help minimise the spread of the virus, whilst maximising Royal Mail as an emergency service to help the country.”
– Dave Ward &Terry Pullinger, CWU
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How To Migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce With Cart2Cart
Here’s a rather interesting fact about the BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration procedure. While the whole process might not be as difficult as you think, it might also not be as simple as it sounds.
Whichever way you look at it, the BigCommerce to WooCommerce data migration process involves many variables and technical considerations, which ultimately influence the overall health of your online business one way or another.
The Complications That Come With BigCommerce To WooCommerce Migration
Now, for starters, there’s the issue of BigCommerce vs WooCommerce. While migrating from BigCommerce to WooCommerce is the main idea here, it’s only natural for a business owner to have this unshakeable feeling that they might actually be making a huge mistake with this move.
Would you be better off if you stuck with BigCommerce and avoided the migration altogether?
You see, BigCommerce is not just some random shopping cart solution. It’s a specialized ecommerce platform that has not only made a name for itself in the digital selling space, but also continues to serve numerous online businesses- ranging from startups and SMEs to large enterprises.
So far, many of these users have praised BigCommerce for its easy to use interface, intuitive website builder, affordable packages, rich array of customizable website templates, dynamic add-ons, and most importantly, the tons of built-in ecommerce tools it comes with.
In short, therefore, BigCommerce seemingly provides everything your business might need. Just enough to keep everything running smoothly for the long haul.
Hence, it’s understandable that you might be having second thoughts about conducting a BigCommerce to WooCommerce data migration. What exactly does your online store stand to gain if you go ahead and migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce?
Ok, before we get to answers, another thing that complicates the whole process is the lack of a one-click migration tool. Yes, that’s right. Turns out you won’t find a tool that’s capable of automatically migrating your entire ecommerce site from BigCommerce to WooCommerce.
So, what does this mean for online store owners and businesses?
Although we haven’t discovered a one-click tool yet, it’s possible to automatically migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce. What’s more, you don’t need any special technical skills. It’s only a matter of following a couple of prompts on a simple user-friendly layout.
Not so fast though. I’m not letting you in on this secret just yet. At least not until we’ve established if migrating your online store from BigCommerce to WooCommerce is worth the effort.
In essence, this ultimate BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration guide compares the two ecommerce platforms, and then it explains how you can automatically migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce using CartCart.
So, without further ado, let’s begin with the first issue- is the BigCommerce to WooCommerce data migration process really necessary?
BigCommerce Drawbacks
BigCommerce is one of the most reliable ecommerce platforms all right, but, as we established in our ultimate BigCommerce Review, it also has its fair share of drawbacks.
Running Costs
If you intend to build, host, and run your ecommerce store on its platform, for instance, you’ll need at least $29.95 a month. All BigCommerce users are charged a monthly rate depending on the types of tools they need, plus their accompanying store sizes.
Well, you could argue that this should be expected for an all-in-one ecommerce platform with features as impressive as BigCommerce. Besides, isn’t $29.95 an amount that a typical online business can afford on a regular basis?
Ok, fair enough. You might have a point there. But, then again, let’s face the facts. The bulk of online stores today start off on a very tight budget. Believe it or not, they cannot afford to spend about $30 every month on hosting alone.
And even if you could, the sad bit about BigCommerce’s $29.95 Standard plan is, it offers limited features while leaving out some of the advanced capabilities like abandoned cart recovery, customer segmentation and filtering, credit card data storage, and custom product filtering.
Now, if you want such extras, upgrading your package to the next level is pretty easy. But then again, you’ll have to pay almost $80 a month.
Then as your business grows, you might have to upgrade yet again and settle for BigCommerce’s Pro plan, which will cost you almost $300 a month.
Ok, I know what you’re probably thinking at this point. That you can possibly avoid the extra costs by rejecting upgrades and operating within the cheap $30 Standard package.
Well, that sounds like a plan. But, it’s not feasible if you’re running a progressively growing business.
Why, you ask?
Well, as it turns out, that the Standard is only available to businesses whose annual revenue is less than $50,000. So, as you expand beyond this level, you’ll have no choice but to upgrade your package.
Then guess what? The running costs don’t end there. Apart from the monthly service subscription costs, you still have to pay for BigCommerce’s themes as well as marketplace apps. The more you customize your ecommerce site, the higher the costs here rise.
Therefore, in a nutshell, there’s simply no way you can possibly escape the charges on BigCommerce, especially if your business is gradually expanding. The running costs are bound to keep increasing.
(You can find out more about the costs from our comprehensive BigCommerce Pricing Guide)
Limited Customization
One of the most outstanding assets on BigCommerce’s toolset is its site builder and theme editor.
If you’ve used it already, then I guess you probably found it to be responsive and flexible. It gives online merchants the power to easily customize their websites without touching a line of code. You get to work on various layout elements as well as tweak multiple appearance settings.
However, the process of customizing your online store doesn’t end there. While the theme editor is all about personalizing your website’s design, BigCommerce offers a host of apps for customizing the platform’s functionalities. It gives you the freedom to introduce extra capabilities by simply embedding and configuring various apps from its app marketplace.
So, what else would you want for customization?
Well, truth is, you need much more than that to customize a growing business. Although a responsive easy-to-use site builder is a neat tool, it can only do so much. Hence, your website is limited to the default customizations that come with the platform.
The BigCommerce App Marketplace, on the other hand, is not any different. While it offers a number of great integrations, they don’t offer the depth or breadth that would support growing businesses for the long haul.
All in all, therefore, you have to seriously consider moving from BigCommerce if you intend to spread your wings further. And of all the possible alternative platforms on the web, WooCommerce is one of the few, if not the only, that perfectly mitigates BigCommerce’s weaknesses without compromising its corresponding strengths.
And what does that mean?
Enter WooCommerce
Unlike BigCommerce, WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce platform that rides on the WordPress platform. And as you probably know already, it comes with a myriad of ecommerce tools and capabilities.
One thing it leaves out, however, is installation charges. Yes, that’s right. WooCommerce won’t cost you even a dime to acquire plus install it.
And that’s not all. It won’t charge you any monthly or yearly usage fees either, since it’s completely free of charge. You just need to pay for a solid WordPress hosting service and you’ll be good to go. (Check out the best WordPress hosting solutions here)
It’s worth noting, however, that you also might find yourself purchasing a couple of website themes and WordPress plugins along the way.
But, don’t get me wrong. Spending your money on such premium extras is optional. There are numerous other free themes and plugins you could adopt instead.
Now, compare that with the hundreds to thousands of dollars BigCommerce charges you every year. Its evident WooCommerce is considerably cheaper for not only small businesses on a budget, but also large well-established enterprises.
That said, another benefit WooCommerce is largely renowned for is unlimited flexibility.
Yes, you read that right. WooCoomerce doesn’t come with any restrictions. Its open-source framework accommodates all types of ecommerce customizations you can think of.
But, there’s just one caveat. You need technical coding skills to rework the underlying code.
That’s why, when you come to think of it, developers usually have a field day here. WooCommerce allows them to extensively configure all the platform components based on their precise needs.
Make no mistake though. WooCommerce doesn’t facilitate developers alone. It happens to also be a paradise for non-coders in its own right.
More specifically, WooCommerce provides a host of user-friendly tools and capabilities that allow you to extensively customize your online store without touching a line of code (read our WooCommerce review for more info).
You could, for instance, come up with an attractive store layout design by combining a WordPress page builder with a relevant ecommerce theme. In fact, there are endless possibilities here since WordPress and WooCommerce come with numerous page builders and thousands of customizable themes.
And that’s not all. You could also hunt for compatible themes from third-party theme marketplaces. WooCommerce is supported by a large community of developers and designers, who continue to drop hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of new theme options by the day.
What’s more, this open-source platform also boasts of an extensive range of pre-built plugins. And while BigCommerce supports only a handful of apps, WooCommerce is compatible with thousands of plugins and extensions. This gives you the benefit of transforming your store whichever way you prefer.
Now, when you cumulatively consider all these factors, WooCommerce proves to be a much better platform for growing businesses.
So, how exactly can you migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce?
Your BigCommerce To WooCommerce Data Migration Options
Based on my experience with these two platforms, I can confirm that there are many approaches you could take to migrate your BigCommerce store to WooCommerce.
But, for the sake of simplicity, they can all be summarized into three BigCommerce to WooCommerce data migration options:
Manual BigCommerce To WooCommerce Migration
By now, I bet you can guess what this method entails since the name itself is self-explanatory.
In essence, you systematically move your online store by getting your hands dirty and diving deep into each platform’s database. This process involves a lot of technical configurations as you transfer every single bit of data from BigCommerce, and subsequently rebuild and deploy your online store on WooCommerce.
Well, the good thing is, such an approach gives you unrestricted control privileges. But then again, it doesn’t sound like fun at all.
Why is that?
First off, it requires a lot of technical expertise. And I’m not talking about general coding. You need to know exactly how to work on both BigCommerce and WooCommerce.
Plus, you have to be extremely patient throughout the process. It’ll probably take you days to transfer the data bit by bit with surgical precision.
Otherwise, rushing through a manual migration process could result in numerous errors that might be detrimental to your online business.
Assisted BigCommerce To WooCommerce Migration
This is just another manual migration procedure. But, instead of conducting it yourself, you hire an expert or a professional agency to handle everything.
Now, the best thing about this is, it saves you the trouble of painstakingly migrating data between the two platforms. So, of course, you won’t need any technical skills or expertise.
The professionals are the ones who'll be responsible for exporting data from BigCommerce, importing everything onto your WooCommerce platform, and then reconstructing the entire website.
However, because of the intricacies involved here, professionals typically charge site owners a tidy sum.
Automated BigCommerce To WooCommerce Migration
Automated BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration is the opposite of the manual data transfer process.
And no, once again, we’re not talking about automatic one-click BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration. Rather, most of the automatic tools on the web require you to configure online stores on both platforms before proceeding.
Ok, not bad. But, do you need any technical skills here?
Well, to tell you the truth, some of these tools are built precisely for web developers. So, the answer is yes. Sadly, you might possibly need some level of technical knowledge and skill to work with them.
Not all of them though. Thankfully, there’s hope when you choose to leverage a tool like Cart2Cart.
You see, unlike most of its competitors, Cart2Cart can be configured without any technical skills. It comes with an intuitive, easy to use migration wizard that should take you only 5 or so quick steps to set up a full automatic BigCommerce to WooCommerce data migration.
That’s one of the principal reasons why, of all the BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration tools I’ve sampled in the past, I settle for Cart2Cart as the best option for this tutorial.
And if you think it’s not good enough, here’s a detailed explanation of why you might want to proceed with Cart2Cart…
Why Use Cart2Cart to Migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce?
Well, for starters, Cart2Cart isn’t just some random tool in a pool of many automated migration options you could use. Not at all.
Instead, Cart2Cart is an extensive well-seasoned automated migration software that goes beyond BigCommerce and WooCommerce. In essence, it facilitates the transfer of store entities like categories, customers, order history, orders, and products across more than 80 shopping carts and ecommerce platforms.
Hence, you can think of it as the mother of all automated ecommerce platform migration processes. Shopify, Magento, OpenCart, 3dcart, PrestaShop, you name it- all the big brands are supported by this small yet powerful solution.
So, in other words, you should be able to move your online store between tens of platforms. Not just BigCommerce and WooCommerce. And in case you’re wondering, even the inverse is possible. You can easily migrate WooCommerce to BigCommerce with Cart2Cart’s automated system. But, we’ll talk about the details later.
In the meantime, let’s focus on the BigCommerce to WooCommerce data migration process. And so far, we’ve established that Cart2Cart packs impressive industry experience and an easy-to-use interface. But is that all?
Nope. And not by a long shot.
You see, another reason why Cart2Cart is increasingly popular is, it comes free of charge. It won’t charge you even a dime to fire it up and set up your BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration.
As a matter of fact, its generosity doesn’t stop there. It goes ahead and carries out a free demo migration of your actual online store from BigCommerce to WooCommerce. The only thing is, this demo process doesn’t transfer all the store entities. It just moves the essentials so you get a feel of what the whole migration process is all about.
Now, I guess that begs the question – what’s the catch when you proceed with a full BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration?
Well, a complete data transfer process, as you’ve probably guessed already, isn't free at all. And neither is it costly. You’ll end up paying a reasonably flexible rate depending on the volume of entities you’d like to migrate. And no, the total cost doesn’t come anywhere close to hiring a professional web development agency.
Then get this. It turns out you won’t lose any sales either. Cart2Cart is built to migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce without any downtime. That means your ecommerce store stays up the whole time, allowing you to sell your stuff and conduct transactions seamlessly.
However, while that leaves Cart2Cart with all the time in the world to transfer stuff, it doesn’t take long. A full migration cycle of a regular online store should be complete in only a matter of hours.
Consider, for instance, a BigCommerce online shop with about 1,000 products along with 500 orders and 500 customer profiles. Cart2Cart estimates that it’ll take less than 3 hours to migrate all that to WooCommerce, and the entire process will cost you $69, give or take.
So, it’s not only cheaper than assisted migration, but also considerably faster and much more accurate.
Meanwhile, despite its precision and impressive track record, Cart2Cart places a team of tech agents on standby round-the-clock to assist you in case of any difficulties. Customer support shifts here run 24/7 because the company seemingly values your time.
Another thing you can bet on is the security of your information. Since data is particularly vulnerable to breaches during transfer, Cart2Cart employs multiple security measures to protect everything against all potential threats.
Your entire BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration procedure, to begin with, is secured within a separate dedicated Hetzner server. Then during the actual migration process, the data is additionally protected with 128-bit SSL encryption, plus HTTPS protocol.
And if you’re worried about the possible internal threats, Cart2Cart assures its users that only its authorized agents have access to the migration credentials. Additionally, when the whole migration is complete, all the records are deleted accordingly.
Therefore, all things considered, Cart2Cart seems like a tool worth trying out for your BigCommerce to WooCommerce store migration. Besides, if you check various user review forums, you’ll notice that Cart2Cart continues to attract good ratings from its past users.
Now, on that note, let’s now go through all the steps of migrating your online store from BigCommerce to WooCommerce with Cart2Cart. Or, in other words, here’s how to automatically migrate BigCommerce to Woocommerce…
BigCommerce to WooCommerce Migration Process With Cart2Cart
Pre-migration Task 1: Backup Your BigCommerce Online Store
While Cart2Cart has a solid track record and combines multiple security measures, there’s still a slim chance that things may not finally pan out as you had planned. So, you need to backup all your BigCommerce online store’s data before beginning the migration procedure.
However, you’re allowed to skip this step if you haven’t made any changes to your site since its most recent automatic BigCommerce system backup. But if you have, you can go ahead and perform an on-demand backup of all your data before proceeding.
Pre-migration Task 2: Create Your WooCommerce Store
Remember you’ll be migrating to WooCommerce?
Well, then you need a WooCommerce target store to move to. That, in short, means you have to create an ideal WooCommerce website before everything.
Now, the first step here is, of course, finding yourself a perfect WooCommerce hosting solution. Luckily for you, we’ve covered The Top 5 WordPress Hosting Services, The Best Managed WordPress Hosting Providers, plus The Best Cheap WordPress Hosting Providers. You can use these detailed guides to identify and compare various well-performing options.
And once you find an ideal one, you’ll have to install the WordPress platform before proceeding with WooCommerce.
When WordPress is up and running, you should go to the WordPress plugin section, search for WooCommerce, install it, and then activate the plugin.
The procedure doesn’t end there though. That’s only the first part. The next one entails setting up the online store itself from the WooCommerce section of your WordPress dashboard. Fortunately, this should be simple and straightforward as WooCommerce and WordPress are both pleasantly easy to use.
But, while you’re at it, don’t be bothered by the plain WooCommerce online store design. Customization at this point is not necessary at all.
As a matter of fact, scratch that- try not to customize anything here. Yes, I mean just that- forget about all the fancy themes you’d like to add for now. The closer your WooCommerce store is to the default style, the better.
And why am I saying so?
Well, the simple reason is, Cart2Cart is built to import and overlay the data onto a blank version of your target store. So, avoid the possible complications that may arise from an excessively personalized store.
In the meantime, users can also take advantage of the Migration Preview service to check how products, customers, orders and other elements from their BigCommerce shop are going to appear on WooCommerce.
Step 1: Create a New Cart2Cart Account
With your WooCommerce store up and running, you can now proceed to the Cart2Cart main site on https://www.shopping-cart-migration.com/ to kickstart the data transfer process. And while the home page is good enough for a beginner, you might want to focus specifically on the BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration page. It provides helpful insights into the whole process.
Take the time to study everything, down to the last detail. All the info here will come in handy during the migration procedure.
You should also consider running your BigCommerce store’s figures through Cart2Cart’s estimator to get an idea of what you mind end up paying, plus the expected migration duration.
Now, when you’re done with the basics, you can go ahead and set up a new Cart2Cart account for free. The system allows you to either register afresh with your personal details, or simply proceed with your Google or Facebook account credentials.
Whichever you choose, the system will automatically direct you to the main Cart2Cart dashboard, from where you should click on “Create Migration” to kickstart the process.
Step 2: Enter Your Source Cart Details and Enter the API Details
The first window in Cart2Cart’s migration wizard requires you to type in your BigCommerce store’s details.
Now, for the details, start by choosing BigCommerce as your specific source cart from the default list of platform options. You should then enter your BigCommerce store’s domain on the Source Cart URL field.
Since BigCommerce is an API-based platform, Cart2Cart will subsequently require you to set an API connection. You can do this by typing in your BigCommerce username on the available field, followed by your BigCommerce store’s API credentials (the API Access Token and the API path).
And for the sake of clarity, you should be able to get these API details from your BigCommerce control panel. Just find your way to the Advanced Settings area, then go to API Accounts, and click on Create API Account.
Once you gain access to the Create API Account area, type in a name for the integration or app corresponding to your account, then copy the BigCommerce API path and paste it to your Cart2Cart migration wizard.
The process doesn’t end there though. That’s only the first part.
Next, you need to proceed to BigCommerce’s OAuth Scopes area. This is where you configure all the API permissions and resources that are critical to your integration. So, just apply Modify on everything and click Save.
BigCommerce will then display a pop-up, from where you should copy your API credentials (Client ID plus Access Token), and paste all the details to the respective fields on your Cart2Cart migration window.
Step 3: Enter Your Target Store Details
Scroll past the source cart section and proceed to the target store area, on which you should repeat the same store detailing procedure.
But, since WooCommerce is the destination platform, pick it as your Target Store, and then type in the corresponding store’s URL on the adjacent field.
Then when it comes to the connection bridge, it’s worth noting that the current version of Cart2Cart saves you the trouble of setting up everything manually. That means you don’t have to download and then paste the bridge file to your WooCommerce store.
Rather, you can rely on the Cart2Cart WooCommerce plugin to handle that for you. Simply install it on your store, provide the required details, and proceed to the next step.
Step 4: Select The Store Entities You’d Like To Move
Choosing entities, to begin with, is all about specifying the particular website components you’d like to migrate from your BigCommerce store to the subsequent WooCommerce store.
And the good thing about Cart2Cart is, it’s flexible enough to accommodate all the essential ecommerce elements, plus their accompanying attributes. You just need to click on the All Entities checkbox and the system will prepare to migrate the following:
- Products: Quantity, stock availability, manage stock, backorder, base image, thumbnail image, additional images, variants (SKU, weight, attributes, quantity, images, price, special price, attributes (name, values) , custom options (drop-down, radio buttons, checkbox, multiple select, date, text field, text area, time, date and time, file), related products, product tags, up-sells, cross-sells, weight, URL, meta title, meta keywords, meta description, price, special price, product name, SKU, short description, full description, status, manufacturer, tax class, and sort order in the category.
- Product Categories: Image, thumbnail image, URL, name, description, status, meta title, meta description, and meta keywords.
- Customers: Customer ID, first name, last name, email, customer group, newsletter, gender, date of birth, passwords, created date, billing address (company, address 1, address 2, country, state, city, zip code, telephone, fax), and shipping address (company, address 1, address 2, country, state, city, zip code, telephone, fax).
- Orders: Customer name, email, billing address (company, address 1, address 2, country, state, city, zip code, telephone, fax ), shipment, order ID, order date, tax price, total price, order comments, order status, order products (name, SKU, option), product price, quantity, subtotal price, and discount price.
- Shipping: Shipping address ( company, address 1, address 2, country, state, city, zip code, telephone and fax.
- Blog Posts: Images, status, post redirects, SEO URL, tags, short description, full description, title.
- Taxes: Tax class (name), tax rates (country, state, percent), and tax rules (tax class, tax rate).
- Manufacturers: Name and image.
- Reviews: Created date, status, rate, user name, product, and comment.
- Coupons: Name, description, status, coupon code, coupon date, customer groups, uses per coupon, uses per customer, type discount, and discount amount.
Step 5: Specify The Additional Migration Options
Apart from the store entities, Cart2Cart gives you additional migration options in case you’d like to customize your BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration further.
You can, for instance, have the system change the product quantity to 100 on your WooCommerce store, or maybe migrate images from product descriptions, categories descriptions and blog posts description.
It’s also possible to automatically strip HTML from categories, product names and descriptions, preserve order IDs on your WooCommerce store, create the 301 redirects to your WooCommerce store after migration, migrate categories and products SEO URLs, skip product thumbnail images migration, plus clear current data on WooCommerce before migration.
What you choose here depends on how you’d want your WooCommerce store to appear and run.
However, here’s the rub- most of the additional options here come at a price. Cart2Cart treats them as some sort of add-ons that you have to purchase if you want to customize your migration process.
So, you might want to go light on them if you’re on a budget. Besides, you’ll ultimately get the chance to customize your new store in detail when the migration is complete.
Step 6: Run a Free Demo Migration
Cart2Cart’s generous free demo migration offer doesn’t target only the prospective signups who might need additional convincing. The company has carefully developed it to help even its bonafide users as they set up an actual BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration.
More specifically, the goal here is to give you a general idea of how the target store will appear once the migration process is complete. Therefore, it’s not advisable to skip the demo migration. After all, it’s completely free of charge and the whole transfer process should take approximately 30 minutes, give or take.
Another thing you’ll notice about the free demo migration is that Cart2Cart limits its entities. No worries though, as the attributes it’ll migrate should be enough for a thorough analysis of expected results.
And when it comes to that, pay very close attention to the essentials- assess the overall store layout, the relationships between the entities and various attributes, as well as the front-end and back-end functionalities, etc.
If everything seems solid and organized, you can confidently proceed to the full migration step.
Step 7: Conduct a Full BigCommerce To WooCommerce Migration
Considering this is the final step, you should expect Cart2Cart to bill you accordingly before executing the actual data migration.
That said, the total cost, as you’ll observe, reflects the cumulative amount of entities as well as the respective additional options you’ve chosen to customize your BigCommerce to WooCommerce migration.
But, if you’re the type that always takes extra precaution, then I’d advise you to additionally consider purchasing Migration Insurance at this stage. It might bump up your costs all right, but it’s certainly worth every penny. In case things go south on your part and you happen to leave out some of the store data, the insurance will give you the chance to remigrate your stuff at a minimal cost. Otherwise, you could alternatively rely on the Recent Data Migration service to transfer any supplementary data that might have been added to the store during the migration process.
Moving on, remember to double-check all your selection before hitting the Start Full Migration button. Go through all your entities, confirm the source and target cart details, and then review the additional options.
If everything seems okay, you can go ahead and initiate the full migration. Cart2Cart will then take it from there and migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce on your behalf. You can even close the window and wait for an email alert once the process is complete. The choice is yours.
Over To You
With your data fully transferred from BigCommerce to your WooCommerce store, you should be able to customize your new website more extensively.
But, before you embark on that, take the time to comprehensively analyze everything on the new WooCommerce store. Cart2Cart’s customer support team will be on standby to assist you accordingly in case of any errors or omissions.
The post How To Migrate BigCommerce to WooCommerce With Cart2Cart appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.
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The 5 Best Ecommerce Platforms in the UK [2020]: Who Should You Choose?
Choosing an ecommerce platform can be very challenging, your website is the central point for all of your prospects and customers making it vital to get right. Your website is likely to be the one constant touchpoint for your user’s journeys and an essential if you’re looking to create your own brand. We’ll try and walk you through some of the best ecommerce platforms available for you to use.
It’s also important to carry out some research before choosing an ecommerce platform, whether you’re a startup, an established business looking to move platforms or a brick & mortar shop looking to build an online presence, your needs will vary and therefore the platform you choose should also cater to your demands and needs as a business.
If you’re still in the process of considering whether you should move online or start an online business, let me share some data with you to try and convince you why it might be the right fit for you.
The number of purchases being made online year on year is consistently growing with an increase from 53% in 2008 to 82% of individuals in the UK making an online purchase in 2019.
Find more statistics at Statista
Furthermore, as a more overall picture of the ecommerce market, growth in ecommerce sales in the UK has been very significant, growing by over £100 billion from 2017 to 2018, the figures are growing and will continue to with the importance of having an online presence in today day and age also becoming more of a demand from consumers.
Find more statistics at Statista
Keep on reading if you would like to see:
What options do you have when building an ecommerce website?
Now more than ever, we have a range of different options to choose from when it comes to building our online shop. This can vary from having something completely custom built by a team of developers or setting up on your own through an ecommerce platform. Whatever option you choose, it’s important to understand the positives of each as well as some of the drawbacks.
Custom builds vs ecommerce platforms
If you envision your future website to be state of the art with custom functionality that may be difficult to achieve from an ecommerce platform and you’re an established business who can afford a custom website build, that may be the option for you, you can get a site exactly the way you want with the functionality you desire, this can give you a big advantage over smaller competitors who may not be able to afford to compete with you in that regard. The drawbacks for this often come with the time and cost this takes, not only to create but to maintain down the line when you need further development.
Often you’ll be looking at teams or agencies to turn your vision into a reality. If you’re with an external agency they have to manage their work balance between your business as well as all of their other clients, and having an in-house development team or individual is very costly. Not to mention having the burden only on one person can also mean a very slow launch. Further complications and costs also occur when it comes to maintaining your website, not only would you have further costs when it comes to hosting your online shop but many of the features that are often included within ecommerce platforms would have to be added manually including everything from security to discount management.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom, having a fully customisable website gives you a level of flexibility you wouldn’t be able to get from an ecommerce platform in terms of getting it the exact way you want, although ecommerce platforms are much easier to manage in most cases, they do have limitations no matter what platform you use.
Having said that whether you decide to go fully custom or choose an ecommerce platform will depend on your requirements, the level of functionality you require and how much devotion you have to bring your vision to life.
What to consider when choosing an ecommerce platform
1. What are you selling?
The first thing that will determine what platform you decide to choose will depend on what you’re trying to sell. It’s important to consider the feature-sets of all the platforms depending on this factor first and foremost. For example, if you’re a wholesale business you may be looking for a platform that enables you to set up trade accounts, or if you’re a freelancer looking to sell some of your digital products you may look at creating more of a portfolio type website which again will be a big factor in the platform you choose.
2. Functionality
Keeping the first point in mind, do you believe the ecommerce platform you are considering can fulfil your requirements from a functional point of view? Do they offer the features you’ll require, the security you will need or even the type of payment gateways they accept, do they align with your business?
3. Design
It’s important to get your website looking the way you want. Competing with such large businesses in the online field means you can no longer have a website that doesn’t look good with people being able to find alternatives as quickly as they can. Having a website that looks more professional could be the difference between you making a sale and not. Having a look at the themes available for you to utilise on the platform, the image editing software available and the customisability of the site is another very important research step to take before making your final decision.
4. Pricing
This again could be crucial depending on where in your business journey you currently are. If you’re a startup you may not have a large budget to spend often meaning you choose the cheapest option to save as much money as possible. Having this mindset however can be a hindrance and you can come to regret the decision you make if you solely base your decisions on this point, ignoring the above factors and just choosing based on price will often lead to you not being able to get what you require out of the platform you choose due to limitations resulting in wasted money and time into the platform, therefore, it’s vital to consider this during the planning stage and setting out what you can afford then considering all the platforms that fit within that bracket and considering which gives you the most value for money.
5. Support
Often when starting a business or just moving over to somewhere new can be very daunting. Having to figure out how to use it and get it to work the way you want can be challenging without the right level of support, this is one factor often overlooked but also a crucial one to get right. Having a good level of support will save you time and money in the long run as well as helping you improve the performance of your online shop and overall business.
The Comparison
1. EKM
EKM is an ecommerce platform that has a core focus on support. EKM enables your ecommerce website to always evolve and get better to ensure you sell more. You are never on your own with EKM, the team is there to help you and you get your very own account manager who will work with you, and even manages the shop for you leaving you to process orders and spend more time doing something you love.
+ Positives
- Support: UK Based support teams and dedicated account managers means you’ll always receive the support you require.
- Evolution Mode: A feature exclusive to the platform meaning your online shop is constantly kept up to date and always in optimum selling condition.
- SEO: As an ecommerce platform EKM has a lot of flexibility in what you can do to optimise your search rankings on any major search engines.
- Order Management: Often credited for it’s easy to use, simple and effortless order processing with access from any device.
– Negatives
- Dropshipping: As far as dropshipping is concerned although EKM does integrate with some dropshipping suppliers, the functionality and automation is currently limited. If you’re looking to drop ship products find out if it’s the right fit for your business.
Design
Currently, all 70 EKM themes are free, fully customisable and constantly evolving to add new features and functionality. All new EKM themes are fully responsive for mobile devices.
EKM also offers a logo builder and image editor to allow you to create your brand the way you want.
If you’re confident in your ability to code you can also use ‘custom mode’ which allows you to fully customise your ecommerce website by editing the HTML & CSS and using EKM’s easy to use tags system.
Reviews
EKM is the highest rated ecommerce platform in the world on Trustpilot with a rating of 4.8/5 with over 1900 reviews at the time of writing this.
Pricing
Pricing for EKM starts at £32.49 /Month – No Contract
Features
2. Shopify
Shopify is one of the largest ecommerce platforms in the world powering over a million businesses online. With an easy to use interface, Shopify makes it easy for you to start selling online quickly. Shopify is a particularly good platform for dropshipping with a well-built integration with Oberlo making it easy to automate certain processes.
+ Positives
- Easy to use: With a simple user interface the Shopify platform is easy to get used to and has a small learning curve.
- Integrations: Being such a large platform they have integrations with a lot of third-party tools and applications making it particularly useful for dropshipping.
- Reporting: Also providing a detailed dashboard means Shopify makes it easy for you to better understand your sales performance.
– Negatives
- Support: Naturally being as large as they are means the level of support individuals receive is no way near the level it should be meaning if you aren’t very technical you may struggle to get the help you need.
- Additional Costs: Shopify often isn’t very clear and transparent when it comes to the costs you may face, apart from the shop rental you’re often forced into making additional purchases for domains, themes as well as certain features and integrations meaning it can become a lot more expensive than initially budgeted for and this is all on top of the high transaction fees they charge.
Design
Shopify currently has 72 themes at the time of writing this all with varied designs to help you find something to suit your site, however, 64 of the 72 themes are paid themes starting at $140 meaning if you’re only looking at the free themes you’ll be left with 8 themes to choose from. On the other hand, Shopify also offers a free logo builder which is open to all, not just Shopify customers as well as a lot of customisability with drag and drop functionality.
Reviews
Shopify doesn’t have much of a focus on their Trustpilot reviews with a 1.8 rating, however, they do have more of a focus on the platform G2 on which they have a rating of 4.3 / 5
Pricing
Pricing for Shopify on its main plans starts from $29 /Month – No Contract
Features
3. BigCommerce
BigCommerce has 2 different sections to its platform, their main focus is for enterprise businesses however they also have an ‘essentials’ section dedicated to other businesses who require more of the basics. BigCommerce pride themselves on having the tools to take your brand further.
+ Positives
- Easy to use: Similar to Shopify, BigCommerce also has a very user-friendly interface meaning it’s easy to navigate and get to what you want quickly.
- WordPress Integration: If you’re accustomed to working within the WordPress environment, BigCommerce offers an integration to enable you to add the backend of the platform onto your WordPress site.
- Marketplace Integration: Bigcommerce also allows you to integrate with marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.
– Negatives
- Limited Mobile Support: BigCommerce doesn’t offer a lot of support for store management through mobile meaning it can be difficult to run the shop on the go.
- Focus on Enterprise: As mentioned above, BigCommerce has more of a focus on trying to grow existing enterprise brands on their ‘enterprise package’.
Design
Similar to Shopify, BigCommerce is very limited to the number of free themes you can utilise, with only 12 themes being free and the rest starting from $150 means you’re limited to what you can do if you’re not looking to pay for a theme, however, if you are accustomed to web development you can customise your online shop through HTML, CSS and Javascript and tweak it to the way you want.
Reviews
When it comes to Trustpilot which is the biggest review platform in the UK, BigCommerce is rated 3.2 / 5 and they do have a 4.2 rating on G2 based on 318 reviews at the time of writing this.
Pricing
BigCommerce pricing on it’s ‘essential’ plans start from $29.95 /Month – No Contract
Features
4. Wix
Although Wix is on this list as they cater for ecommerce websites, Wix is in a much larger sector where they build all types of websites not just specific to ecommerce like the rest on this list. They are very well known for their drag and drop builder which makes customisation of websites very easy.
+ Positives
- Drag and Drop: The drag and drop functionality provided means it’s very easy to customise your website to look the way you want, it’s also very easy to use and the learning curve isn’t very steep.
- Range of Templates: Due to the customisability available on the platform it means you also get a range of templates to choose from and be creative with making it even easier to get the look you desire along with some inspiration.
- Blogging: Wix allows you to add an easy to use custom blog which is fully integrated into your site which means you can create content as an additional method of bringing in traffic to your site.
– Negatives
- Less Focus on Ecommerce: Because they open themselves up to use by every kind of website it means the features available aren’t as refined for ecommerce as they may be on platforms dedicated to ecommerce selling.
- Functionality: Even though the drag and drop feature they have available is a big asset for them if you’re looking to add your own custom functionality within there and you aren’t very tech-savvy you can often find yourself very limited to what you can do from a functionality point of view.
- Customer Support: Once again being as big as they are and catering for so many different types of websites means they can’t provide support for individual needs as much as others may be able to and the expertise of support wouldn’t necessarily lie within ecommerce.
Design
As mentioned above design is one of the strong suits for Wix as they have a range of free templates available for you to use as well as a free image editor, however, you do need to be on a certain level of their plans to get a free logo design.
Reviews
Wix has a rating of 1.5 / 5 on Trustpilot based on over 1500 reviews at the time of writing this.
Pricing
Wix ‘business & ecommerce’ packages start from £13 /month – No Contract
Features
5. WooCommerce
The final platform we will be discussing is WooCommerce, this is used by people who are looking to build an ecommerce website within the WordPress environment. It can be added as a free plugin from within the backend of the WordPress platform.
+ Positives
- WordPress Integration: Due to the popularity of WordPress WooCommerce makes selling straight from the platform very convenient. As it’s also a free plugin to install it means WooCommerce is the biggest ecommerce plugin available on the platform and widely used.
- Online Support: Due to the platform being so commonly used and users having access to the server-side code signifies people can often find workarounds to overcome any difficult functionality they need to be added making almost anything possible at a price.
– Negatives
- Additional Costs: Although the plugin and initial functionality to turn your regular website into an ecommerce website is free, the costs often quickly add up when you factor in all of the additional costs they ask for if you’re looking to go beyond the basics.
- Technical Understanding: In comparison to most of the other platforms mentioned above WooCommerce probably has the steepest learning curve. If you aren’t used to the WordPress environment especially it can be like learning two completely different platforms in one go and this can become very frustrating.
Design
WooCommerce itself as a platform doesn’t offer much customisation when it comes to the ecommerce side of thing, for example customising the checkout sections requires additional plugins, however, once again thanks to it being a plugin on WordPress means that the rest of the site is extremely customisable with thousands of themes to choose from and new themes constantly being added, unlike some of the other platforms WooCommerce doesn’t have image editing or logo building features.
Reviews
WooCommerce doesn’t have much of a presence on any review sites, however, on WordPress.org in the plugins section which is where they feature they are rated 4.6 / 5 based on over 3,500 reviews at the time of writing this.
Pricing
As mentioned above WooCommerce itself is a free plugin, however, as it’s a part of WordPress you would have to pay routine costs of self-hosting there including any additional costs of domain names, SSL certificates etc meaning the costs can add up pretty quickly.
Features
What is the best ecommerce platform?
So how do you make your choice now? I’d suggest looking at your business plan and if you don’t have one yet create a business plan or at least consider the most important factors to you. What are you looking to achieve, what are your business goals, which features do you think would help you achieve your tasks and what platform do you think would give you the most value for money from support to features?
For example, if you’re looking to make a website where you want to focus on content creation, Wix would be a good option for you, If you’re looking to drop ship products, Shopify may be the one for you or if you’re looking for a UK based platform with great support then maybe EKM is the choice for you.
This is where you need to weigh up your needs and requirements and compare them to each platform.
If you’re still not completely comfortable with deciding on which platform to choose from, check out The Ecommerce Success Show Podcast, where we have an episode on who you should be choosing. We go into even more depth on how to make the correct decision and which factors you should be considering.
If you’d like some help choosing the best ecommerce platform for your needs, you can speak to our ecommerce experts on 0333 004 0333 or request a callback here.
The post The 5 Best Ecommerce Platforms in the UK [2020]: Who Should You Choose? appeared first on Ecommerce Blog.
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