How do I sell online?
Getting started selling online often starts with choosing the right platform to meet your needs. How many products do you have? Do you need multiple languages? Will you be running complex offers?
Most e-commerce stores are based on an online shopping system, such as Prestashop, WooCommerce or Magento. Some web companies will develop their own proprietary systems, but my advice would be to steer away from these as you may well be locked in to that company for as long as you want to continue using that system, and changes or updates will only be available from that company. Should they go bust or key staff leave, you could be left high and dry.
The huge advantage of using a popular ‘off the shelf’ system is that there is a library of plug-ins, modules, add-ons, and documentation avavailable that will cut down the cost of ownership. Add to that the community following that packages like Magento & WooCommerce enjoy, you can be sure that any security issues are discovered and dealt with promptly, as long as you apply the patches.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a WordPress plug-in. This means that you can generally bolt it onto an existing WordPress website fairly easily and it will just follow the theme you are using. A few hours with the settings, shipping, stock and figuring out how you want your products to look, and voila, you have a working online shop. Just your products to add. For many people with a hundred or less products, WooCommerce may well be just what you need.
Magento
Magento is a stand alone e-commerce platform. If a box exists, Magento ticks it. It’s owned by ebay, but has a huge following and Magento has a developer programme to enable anyone to write thier own modules. We’ve written our own modules to connect up with epos systems, fulfilment houses and more. It’s very felxible. Unfortunately, with flexibility comes complexity and Magento sure is complex!
With any e-commerce system you invest in, make sure that you get phone support or drop in support. Sometime, pointing at a screen and having a discussion is the quickest and easiest way of getting what you need.
If you need WooCommerce or Magento help, then why not give us a call and ask for a demo of different systems?