lenny
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hi
how do you build a theme for ecommerce?
special requirements? special instructions?
any tutorial?
for woocommerce? wp-commerce?
or does it work straight from the oven?
thanks
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Steve
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Lenny,
WP e-commerce will pretty much work right out of the box so to speak.
You may need to tweak your css just a bit, but not much.
Steve
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dave
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I use Ecwid.com. It actually works every time and you can set it up on their site and copy and paste the code. No CSS, no drama. If you want to change the color or CSS you can, but you don't need to, and it integrates with every site I've ever made.
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rankontop
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Dave is right, I dont even mess with any other eccomerce for wordpress
Ecwid is a dominate eccomerce for wordpress and simplicity is so basic you canbe up and running in less than 20 munutes.
if you need help, im here its what i do.
I can walk you thru it to if needed.
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speedyp
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Sounds interesting...
I just spent ages setting up eshop which is a free plugin. I used custom post types for the products and it wasn't easy to get them to behave like normal posts and play with all my featured galleries and sliders etc.
Do Ewcid products behave like normal posts, so you can sort and list them like post categories etc???
Thanks
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Nick
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ECWID is a service. They just embed their shopping cart into your web site, like Google maps, youtube videos, etc... The difference is that they don't use iframe, they actually post on your site. Very easy to use, and very easy to use it in any web site.
ECWID is free for up to 100 products. It is very good, but still, it is not a substitute for a serious e-commerce software, ala Opencart, Prestashop, Magento, etc...
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Nick
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I forgot a small detail. With ECWID, not only you don't host the code, but you don't even host YOUR OWN DATA. So all your customers data, credit cart info., etc... are all on their servers. It is a Russian company, you guys decide if it's worth the risk.
And because the code is run on their servers, your WP web site does not slow down, as they usually do with other shopping cart plugins.
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dave
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I've had all kinds of sales on Ecwid's servers. I mean, it's not like Ecwid can take that data and actually charge sales to others' credit cards or that they have access to information PayPal or any other merchant does not already have. And to say it's not real e-commerce when it can handle limitless items and downloads, I don't feel is accurate. I have used Ecwid with several clients and they have not complained at all. The fact that you do not host is better because you don't have that slow-down off your servers as Nick states.
I don't see negatives with Ecwid and am so depressed when I meet all these clients who have had e-shop or zen cart and all these other brain-buster e-commerce programs and then had their "developers" walk off with half set up sites.
You could use Ecwid with a thousand website e-commerce uses before you'd run into any issues it couldn't handle. So that's my informed opinion for whoever's interested. I've seen so many clients with jacked-up sites and screwed up e-commerce with no way to fix it other than to spend 10-15 hours trying to read through code when it could have been done much more easily. Nobody seems to know about Ecwid but I'm fine with it.
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Nick
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dave, you are correct that obviously they will not have access to the paypal info, as the processing is done at paypal's site. But how about your customer info (emails, address, any personal notes you have on them)? How about off line orders, like credit card numbers to be manually processed? All this data are readily accessible to them.
That said I have 3 small customers using ecwid for over 2 years with no security problems.
For bigger sites it will cost you $17/month, the biggest problem is that you can't import product options. So if you sell shoes, you can import up to 20,000 shoes in the catalog, but you have to manually setup their options (color, size, etc...). That can take months.
Ecwid because is a service, you can set one shop, and embed it in thousands of web sites. Ideal for manufacturers to automatically push their products into their dealer's web sites.
Ecwid is easy to use and perfect for small sites, who only use third party processing like paypal, etc..., but extremely dangerous for big serious e-commerce sites?
As such companies come and go, what will happen to all the ecwid shops if the company closes it's doors tomorrow?
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dave
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Well, that's a great question. But I mean you could say the same thing about many of the other hundreds of e-commerce solutions out there. Every dog has fleas. If they go under, I'll switch to something else. Maybe I'll have to deal with all the drama from woocommerce again or find another company. We'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.
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Nick
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"But I mean you could say the same thing about many of the other hundreds of e-commerce solutions out there."
Actually, you could not. None of the others run as a service. ECWID is the only one that I know of that runs as a service. With the others, at least your sites will keep on working until you switch. You won't have that luxury with ecwid.
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speedyp
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Well I've been working hard on creating an ecommerce solution that I can add to any of my artisteer sites. It's based on the free eshop plugin and I've modded some of the templateer page templates to play with "products".
I used a custom post type for product listings. The user simply adds a new product and it loads a special layout which splits the post with image(s) on the left and description text & pricing etc on the right.
I obviously haven't spent any time on the overall styling yet, but that's the easy bit. For me it's exciting that I should soon have a good ecommerce solution I can add to any artisteer themes.
Site owners are also able to customise the background colour / image and add a logo etc etc.
If anyone's interested you can check it out here: http://tiny.cc/5kqkmw
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rankontop
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Ecwid rocks hands down & they are not going anywhere, does anyone trust paypal..wanna go there.
After messing with All the other e commerce in the last 12 years, yes I'm seasoned and that why I'll stand up for ecwid.
Analogy; After you dated crap loads of woman, sometimes you find a diamond in the ruff that meets what you need without all the bs.
or just go fishing again.
with ecwid you can be setup in 10 minutes have your first product up in 12 minutes easy peasy.
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dave
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Quote Nick:
"But I mean you could say the same thing about many of the other hundreds of e-commerce solutions out there."
Actually, you could not. None of the others run as a service. ECWID is the only one that I know of that runs as a service. With the others, at least your sites will keep on working until you switch. You won't have that luxury with ecwid.
Nick, all I can say is that it has worked for several clients just fine, whether it's a service or a stand alone. It didn't matter to the clients and it doesn't matter to me as long as it actually works without all the drama of woocommerce and zen cart and e-shop and all the other ones with huge issues to them. If you don't care for Ecwid, that's fine.
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speedyp
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Quote dave:
.... without all the drama of woocommerce and zen cart and e-shop and all the other ones with huge issues to them. If you don't care for Ecwid, that's fine.
What issues did you have with e-shop?
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Nick
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dave, I do use ecwid for some of my customers. To be fair though, you have to paint the entire picture, when you recommend a product. All the pros and cons no matter what the product is. You have to be fair, and you have to be accurate. Otherwise it becomes a propaganda.
The fact is that for WP ecwid is the best choice, period. I agree with you. It is HOWEVER, not a substitute for a complete e-commerce solution like Opencart, Prestashop, Magento, etc... Not when it comes to features, not even close when it comes for security.
You arrived to certain conclusions about what I said, and obviously you disagree, but you are failing to counter-argue my points, any of them.
BTW, I'm setting up an ecwid shop for a new client today.
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dave
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Nick - Now you're getting off the ground! Now I can see your perspective when you compare everything lined up like that. I totally get what you're saying. Yes, when you stack it up like you did, the differences are very clear. I think for me, it's a time issue and a matter of what the clients want (or can articulate what they want more often than not). I would say 9.9 times out of then, the client does not know what they want, doesn't want to pay more than a few hundred bucks, and so on. So, I give them Ecwid for a handful of products. it's fast, easy to set up and train, and then I'm done with their drama. If they want a powerhouse for a serious e-commerce solution that's more comprehensive, they have alternatives like you said.
But Ecwid works every time, and I just think it helps and is being truthful (from my perspective) to tell people about an easy and effective alternative to these other platforms that take up much more time.
I don't get affiliate kick-back from Ecwid at all (and most affiliate programs are not worth the pennies to hours, anyway), but have tried all the others and like the easy, fast, no drama approach. I don't care if other developers have a preference point or whatever. I just was trying to help out those who are looking for an easy quicker fixer upper.
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Nick
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I appreciate your comments dave. We are on the same page. I also agree with what you say as well.
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Qetzal
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Hi all,
My name is Eugene, I am from the Ecwid team. Thank you all for positive and negative feedback here, much appreciated. I just want to clarify some things and answer your questions, if they appear.
Quote :
I forgot a small detail. With ECWID, not only you don't host the code, but you don't even host YOUR OWN DATA. So all your customers data, credit cart info., etc... are all on their servers. It is a Russian company, you guys decide if it's worth the risk.
Ecwid is a US company registered in California with the development center in Russia. All the information is stored on US servers in the Amazon AWS cloud.
Quote :
dave, you are correct that obviously they will not have access to the paypal info, as the processing is done at paypal's site. But how about your customer info (emails, address, any personal notes you have on them)? How about off line orders, like credit card numbers to be manually processed? All this data are readily accessible to them.
Ecwid doesn't touch or store credit cards at all. All transactions are made on a payment gateway's side.
And as a company that stores such sensitive information like customer info we understand how much this information is important. It is your information - we just store it for you.
Quote :
The fact is that for WP ecwid is the best choice, period. I agree with you. It is HOWEVER, not a substitute for a complete e-commerce solution like Opencart, Prestashop, Magento, etc... Not when it comes to features, not even close when it comes for security.
When you use a self-hosted solution like Opencart, Prestashop, Magento, you have to take care of the app's security. When you use Ecwid, the team of 25 professionals does this for you.
Quote :
As such companies come and go, what will happen to all the ecwid shops if the company closes it's doors tomorrow?
Good questions and quite a common fear for users of the hosted services.
Ecwid isn't the first product of our company. We're in e-commerce business for 10 years already, so we don't go anywhere. For example Ecwid was released 3 years ago and has 600% grows year after year. Well, if a company is published in the most popular US newspaper, it isn't like it is going to close its doors: http://www.ecwid.com/blog/ecwid-featured-in-usa-today.html
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Nick
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Wow, I was quoted so many times by an official member of the ecwid team, a product that I use for my WordPress e-commerce needs.
To the most part, you validated my arguments, but in some case, you left out some vital info, which makes your points more of a propaganda, since it only tells one side of the story.
So let me be more specific:
- "Ecwid doesn't touch or store credit cards at all. All transactions are made on a payment gateway's side.
And as a company that stores such sensitive information like customer info we understand how much this information is important. It is your information - we just store it for you."
The WHOLE truth about this: ECWID not only does not, but cannot touch credit cards, bank account numbers, etc... but ONLY FOR THE TRANSACTIONS THAT ARE HANDLED BY PAYMENT GATEWAYS, LIKE PAYPAL.
BUT, if one of payment methods are "Credit card", which the Payment Processor is configured as "OFFLINE BASIC", then ecwid DOES store the credit card info. (This is the case so the store owner will punch in the credit card number in his machine manually).
Withholding this info. does not tell the entire story.
- "When you use a self-hosted solution like Opencart, Prestashop, Magento, you have to take care of the app's security. When you use Ecwid, the team of 25 professionals does this for you."
I am surprised at how weak your argument is in this case. I can fill pages of extra features that other packages have that ecwid does not, even simple stuff like, importing product options for example, but I am going to just answer how "hard" is to secure, oh, let's say Opencart. After installation, set the read/write the folder permissions, and delete the install folder. That's it. No need for 25 professionals to do it for me.
- "We're in e-commerce business for 10 years already, so we don't go anywhere. For example Ecwid was released 3 years ago and has 600% grows year after year. Well, if a company is published in the most popular US newspaper, it isn't like it is going to close its doors: http://www.ecwid.com/blog/ecwid-featured-in-usa-today.html "
This is my favorite answer. Let's be clear. I am a happy ecwid user since 2010, and I have about 10 live stores with it. I have no evidence, not even any reasons to suspect the ecwid has EVER abused, or misused any my data. That said, the opportunities of any such misuse of my data by them, is and will always be there. Just because they have not done so, so far, it does not mean they won't do it in the future. We all suspect/know what Google, Facebook and the likes do our data, even though they say they don't.
Also, just because you are in the E-commerce business for 10 years, it means nothing in the software business. Software companies come and go, every single second. You are saying it without any proof, financial health documents, bank statements, P&L reports, so you can say anything you want. Remember, Solyndra Tesla, and countless other companies were supposed to be model companies, because the US government not only said so, but also bankrolled them. Just because a newspaper wrote a nice article about ecwid, it does not mean, it will be around forever (which btw, I hope they do). To be honest, since ecwid has also a free service, which is a good but limited one, growing just 600% per year, seems pretty low. To be honest, you should dominate the other WordPRess e-commerce plugins by now, since ecwid, is that much better than those.
That said, it simply cannot compete with a complete e-commerce package like Magento, Opencart etc... it lacks some of the very basic items, like COMPLETE catalog importing, Order editing, mass price changes, etc... among countless others. ECWID, is good enough for your smaller not that serious e-commerce solutions, a delight and easy to use for end users, but weak and not a complete product for professionals.
Just because you say so, and not telling the entire story, it does not make it a fact. That said, I am surprised you did not mention ecwid's strongest advantage over the others. You can build an ecwid store, and deploy it to countless other sites, within minutes, and track affiliate sales. As you update your store, all the countless sites will get updated automatically. An ideal solution for manufacturing companies, to push their products into their dealers web sites.
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Nick
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And since we are setting the record straight about ecwid, they just changed their pricing:
- THE FREE VERSION NOW SUPPORTS ONLY 10 ITEMS, it used to be 100, that is a 90% reduction, so ecwid is now useless unless you pay $15/$35/$99 per month.
$99/month for ecwid Vs Opencart/Magento/Prestashop, etc which are free, and any of them are better than ecwid.
Furthermore, comparing to the other open source products, not only these are ALL much better than ecwid, but are free, which makes ecwid an endangered species - it's dying ! Which brings us back to my original question, what will happen to my data and stores when they close their doors? This will happen sooner than you think... now that they are desperate for money, will they abuse my data? Sell my customers info? Steal the offline credit card numbers? Can they be trustworthy? It's a Russian company after all.
Eugene you can spin this anyway you want, spread your propaganda around thinking you can get away with things but the facts are just that, if you can defend your product now, say so. You did not answer my previous posting either, why are you hiding?
To see their new pricing plans: http://www.ecwid.com/plans-and-pricing.html
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Dave C
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Interesting read. I am trying to add a e-commerce page to my site. I want it to conform to the styles for various interconnected sites I have created. So the first question is do I somehow add a plugin to Artisteer and create a theme. Or do I create a thme and add it to WP then include the plugin for the e-commerce.
I have installed Quick Shop in WP and while I can see theme would change the way the overall site looks, I cannot see how I can organise the product information in the way I want. Is this a restriction of Quck Shop?
I see a number of packages mentioned here I will check these out, but I need to know how to proceed once I have selected a package. Thanks.
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dave
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I don't believe you should have to create a theme to accommodate the eCommerce. Ecwid is simply copy and paste the code and fill in your store. I love Ecwid and use it for every client who wants eCommerce.
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dave
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After re-reading all the comments by myself (and YES, I forgot/didn't mention that this is an "older" post section) I have to say a few quickie things:
I applaud the Ecwid administrative or technical staff getting involved in the discussion. So few people I talk with who claim to be developers locally know what or who Ecwid is. Most clients I've spoken with or met with go with much more complex "solutions" than they needed in the first place and (of course) later have massive issues when they want to update the eCommerce in any way. They end up having to hire multiple developers to update their prices or inventories. Why go through all the drama, cost and time? You don't need a V8 engine to propel a small vehicle - and most clients don't have hundreds of items they want to sell online and don't have a budget to justify an eCommerce useage that's going to take days to set up.
The other point is that it's fine for other developers to have their own preferred eCommerce platform or program and not like ecwid. What gets my braids in a twist (so to speak) is the drama I get from the potential clients/customers' end who complain that they went to a developer who set up an eCommerce platform that now doesn't work, crashes, splits their site into two segments, or destroyed the theme, has been hacked, or takes days to try to get up to speed on. I have yet to meet one client who would not have been a thousand times better off if their "developer" had gone with ecwid and factored in some training into their overall fee structure so the client could make minor changes in the future.
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Bok
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I'm pretty sure that running any online business is highly complicated, and that's why I think it's necessary to find interesting solutions. Personally, I discovered https://live.beter.co , and I can say that for me, it's actually important to keep up with the market conditions to keep the interest of users.
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