Hi everyone,

 

I have a built up a fairly large Ebay apparel store over the last few years with a good flow of traffic coming through the store and a number of repeat customers. I would now like to start trying to pull across some of the customers that i have gained over the years as well as gaining new ones through having a separate online store. I have some exciting ideas for new product ranges so it would be good to launch the site in the not too distant future.

 

I already have one online store (not ebay) for one part of my business and have spent quite a bit on the store. However, for this particular project, i have decided to go against have a tailor made site at this stage and start out with something fairly reasonable to run in terms of cost and that looks good.

 

Now, from my research, I really do not want something like an EKM store as that is really too basic. I have a fairly clear idea of what I would like and what will work for my customers. Companies like Magento, Venda, and advansys offer fantastic solutions for ecommerce stores and multi channel selling so coupled with a strong web designer they really do offer the kind of things that i would like in the future. However, for now I need to find something else much more affordable to begin building my web presence outside Ebay.

 

Visually, it needs to be simple to use and navigate yet slick and creative, and customisable to some extent. I am also photographer so all of my images are high resolution and good quality so the site needs to be able to do them justice. Having said that, the main focus is on driving good quality traffic, optimisation, maximising sales and conversions.

 

Can anyone tell me who the current forerunners are in the shopping cart software and e commerce solution design arena at the moment? I can probably find my own template if necessary but will need a fairly good back end.

 

Thanks

Sam

AJ Shopping Cart Software is the best & most reliable shopping cart with lots of features like Stock & Inventory , Marketing Features , Reporting Features , Currency related features , Newsletter Marketing Features , Order , Billing & Order Tracking, Tax related features , Dashboard features & Shipping.It is the best PHP based & SEO friendly shopping cart software.

Hi Sam, It's nice to see you have done your research into the may available solutions and have a clear plan for the future. Personally I would stick to a cart that allows you to expand, thus choosing something that will later be discarded wouldn't be advisable due to the function and layout changes that would occur for both you, your users and the data (past orders, products etc) involved.

 

My usual suggestion is magneto, which you have touched on, it is one of the better commercial carts for a reason and it does support almost anything you could throw at it and well. The community addition would allow you to get up and running (perhaps modify a generic purchasable theme) with little to no cost (hosting/design).

 

As for your images the use of JavaScript in the design to show large resolution versions (with easy navigation/captions etc) would probably be the best means but ensure the images contain watermarks and their directory is potentially a no follow to ensure Google doesn't index the images (optional).

 

Also granted most of your custom is through eBay, meaning PayPal is a usual sight for your users as a payment method. Thus PCI compliance for onsite credit card processing could be something for the future, but not potentially necessary thus upgrading magneto versions could be put off for some time.

 

Hope that helps.

Edited January 12, 201115 yr by CSN-UK

CSN-UK is spot on. The community edition of Magento is ideal for what you want. Very low entry costs but will grow as you do.

 

It is easy to customise a theme to focus on images as the product if you wish.