What do I need to know when shopping for an ecommerce store?
Before you invest into an ecommerce setup, you need to figure out what your ecom needs are.
If you are not clear about what you need, it can become a very expensive exercise in futility… the trick is starting small and growing as you need to.
If you have only a few products, that will not change often, simple Paypal buttons, or a simple e-commerce system are a good idea… something like this: https://nicaceramica.com/store.html This type of e-commerce, is quick and easy to add to your website (under 1K). Talk to us about options.
If you want a full e-commerce store with additional features, try getting a site like this: https://nationwidecpap.com. Installing, configuring with design and stylesheets, and connecting this software with the payment processor, testing and going live, usually takes 5-6 days of time ($4-5K).
A full custom ecom store, like https://www.jimmychoo.com, is 20K +.
For most people, a standard ecom store with a good design, which is 5-6K, is a good solution.
The most important thing to consider when making your choice of software, is that you need to like the software AS IS, (try out both the front end function, and the back end administration) and that any seemingly small adjustments to the interface, can cost you big in custom programming fees.
If you try out at least 1/2 dozen ecom software packages online, and write down the features you most want your software to have, it will be easy to make the choice of which package is right for you.
Also consider that you can purchase a design (look and feel) from any design company, you’re not necessarily stuck with the company that has the software, to create the design as well. If you choose however to purchase a design from somewhere else, it would be a really good idea to have the company that provides the software, to install the design. Anyone else will have a steep learning curve to install the design, and someone has to pay for their time… (I give you one guess who that would be!) We by policy do not install our designs on other firms’ software packages, because we are aware of this.
Ecommerce stores can be complex and very costly to alter, so choose the one with the features you can’t live without, and then if you do want to order custom programming on top of that, you have less far to go to get to your goal.
