Top 5 Online Shop Solutions
When times are hard, every buck counts- and one of the quickest ways to make a buck is to sell something. In the old days, this usually meant holding yard sales, taking out ads in the classifieds, or selling goods at the local farmer’s market.
Today, of course, thanks to the wonderful world wide web, we’ve got options- and I mean way more than Craigslist. Here are some of my favorite solutions for selling your stuff online- whether it’s a scarf you knitted or a WordPress theme.
Shopify is a fully-hosted solution, meaning that you pay them a monthly fee to set up an online shop for you, and take care of everything from hosting to security. What I like most about Shopify is how good their hosted shops look- their templates are 100% customizable, which is great news for designers like me. And if you’re looking to sell digital, non-tangible goods, it’s a snap with FetchApp, which works in tandem with Shopify.
Big Cartel is by far one of the quickest and easiest online shop solutions. Designed for smaller shops (their tagline is “Finally, a shopping cart for the little guy.”), the shops here are customizable to a certain degree with themes- but they all look great. Big Cartel is free for five items- but sometimes, that’s all you need to sell- and they don’t take a percentage of your sales.
PrestaShop. The two solutions above are great if you want something instant and fully-hosted, but what if you want to host it yourself? PrestaShop has my vote as a great e-Commerce shopping cart that’s also free. It’s open-source, with an active user community and some very nice themes.
WordPress Plug-ins. If you’re looking for a WordPress solution, I’ve had very good results with the WP e-commerce plug-in from Instinct. Its free version is quite powerful. But be sure to check out Shopp, which is newer and very impressive so far. It starts a $55 for a single-site license.
Finally, PayPal’s Shopping Cart hasn’t failed me yet- it might be the least sexy solution here, but if you want a solution with no-hassles and no upfront fees, or you think your buyers would feel most comfortable buying on PayPal, this might just be the best solution for you.
What’s your favorite way of selling stuff online?
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I’ve been using Tribulant’s WordPress “Checkout” plugin which has a rake of options for setting up a shop. It’s available over at http://www.tribulant.com. Antonie is the lead developer and he’s always been responsive on requests for additions and developments.
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my favorite way is shopify
Have to admit . it’s very greate.
and you?
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I have been looking into Magento (http://www.magentocommerce.com/). Anyone used that? How did you like it?
David
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Stay away from Magento. Far far far away. It’s skinning paradigm is terrible.
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The tried and true focus of building a business by a long-term focus on your target market is borne out in the data!