Ecommerce Merchandising
Article | March 18, 2024
In 2004, Tobias Lutke, Daniel Weinand, and Scott Luke established an online website to sell snowboards. They tried a bunch of online store builders but were not satisfied with the status quo. So, they decided to build a tool that could operate their website. Soon, they realized that the tool was more powerful than the website's business. And hence, Shopify was born.
Eventually, Shopify became one of the largest eCommerce store builders in the world. By 2009, the company had $100 million in sales and decided to launch its own API as well as an app store. More than a decade later, Shopify is now supporting over 800,000 stores globally and is a $125 billion company.
While the company has shown remarkable growth in its business, it would be ignorant to say the market's needs have been fulfilled by the Shopify platform. Shopify's eCommerce platform works for a lot of businesses, but that does not mean it will work for every business.
Here is why Shopify is Not the Right Fit for Every Business:
Shopify's growth over the years shows that the company has taken several steps to address the market's inherent needs. However, the presence of several other companies and the issues still faced by merchants show some significant gaps in Shopify's offerings:
1. Cost of Setting Up: Each price-point offers a fixed set of features and functionalities. If you want anything over and above that, you will have to buy the subsequent package. For instance – something as conventional as a Gift Card is not available in the $29 per month package; to get it activated, pay as much as $299 per month.
2. Cost of Operations: The additional functionalities and features cost extra in your package. Even basic features like transaction or credit card processing attract an additional fee. To add to that, you have to purchase the app to activate the feature from the Shopify app store. Even though some apps are free, the apps that offer maximum value tend to cost north of $39.99 per month.
3. Limited and Expensive Themes: The entire Shopify store has a total of 73 themes, with the prices going as high as $180 a theme. This means that as a merchant, even after paying the high price, you may end up with an eCommerce platform that hardly stands out from the crowd.
In short, while Shopify was started with great intentions, the cost of using it has started outweighing the probable value it has to offer. This issue gets further highlighted when one starts looking at the Shopify alternatives.
Best Alternatives of Shopify
While Shopify suits the needs of a certain set of merchants, here are the alternatives that can suit the merchants looking for more tailored, affordable, or customizable solutions:
1. Quick eSelling
Quick eSelling is one of the most affordable and easy to deploy ecommerce store builder among the Shopify alternatives. It can be deployed in under 10 minutes for the basic variant. Its free variant has some prolific features like a native Android app, responsive website, and a catalog that can support up to 1000 products.
The free package requires a 5% transaction fee, which gets eliminated the moment you upgrade to a paid plan. All the paid plans have a fixed monthly fee and no setup costs. The list of standard features includes a wide set of functionalities like customizable web-store themes, SMS & Email marketing, comprehensive payment gateway integrations, detailed analytics reports, inventory management systems, social media plugins, discount coupon codes, and even live chat.
The premium package which costs around 50% the price of the $299 Shopify package, comes with a dedicated account manager and enterprise-level integrations.
Ideal for: Merchants who are seeking an affordable, easily usable, and quickly deployable solution.
2. WooCommerce
WooCommerce is popularly considered one of the most preferred alternatives for Shopify. It is quite convenient for website owners as it is a plugin for WordPress.
Unlike other tools in the list, WooCommerce is designed to make WordPress sites work as functional eCommerce platforms. And in that particular aspect, it does a great job.
However, if you are not already using an established WordPress site with high traffic, running WooCommerce can become quite expensive. On average, a website owner has to spend as much as $1000 in setting up a WooCommerce store with a moderate degree of customization.
Even if you are not customizing a lot, running a WooCommerce store can cost you as much as $150 in a month. This would cover your hosting, themes, shipping plugins, security, and SEO. You will pay additional 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.
Ideal for: Someone who has a successful WordPress website and now wants to convert it into an eCommerce store.
3. Yo!Kart:
Yo!Kart is a popular self-hosted multi-vendor platform for building online marketplaces. Unlike Shopify, it is a standalone platform that comes with a lifetime license and rich ecommerce features. The platform is fully customizable and scalable.
Yo!Kart packages start from $999 and every package comes with a 1-year free technical support, free installation, and full source code. There are no monthly or yearly recurring fees.
Considering it is a comprehensive platform, you may need some technical training to understand the system.
Ideal for: Business owners who want to start ecommerce websites like Amazon or ebay where multiple sellers are selling under the same roof.
4. PrestaShop
PrestaShop runs on the basic premise that creating an online eCommerce store should be an affordable exercise for any merchant. That is the reason why it is available for free and comes without any additional monthly fees.
Its features include eCommerce functionalities like CRM & Email Marketing, Inventory Management, Multi-Store Management, and SEO Management. You can get a basic eCommerce store running by paying the registration fee for the domain and the hosting fee dues.
While this may seem like a great alternative, given the fact that it is practically free, there is one major caveat – you cannot deploy or personalize your PrestaShop eCommerce store unless you know how to code. The entire platform has been designed, keeping in mind people who can code at professional levels of proficiency. The cost of hiring a developer who can add features to your store or modify the theme can be very costly.
In addition to this, some basic features like promotions & reviews management, data security, and mobile access are not available on the platform.
Ideal for: The merchants who have access to programming talent and don't mind a basic eCommerce store.
5. Wix
Wix became popular as an online website builder. It also offers interesting eCommerce functionalities. For as low as $35 a year, you can have the Business Basic package that comes with a free year of using the domain, analytics reports, and 20 GB of storage.
If you want greater control of your eCommerce platform but are not a professional programmer and are not interested in hiring one, Wix can be a great alternative. Its most expensive package costs about $80 a year. It comes with features like email marketing, SEO management, inventory management, data security, and promotions management.
The challenge is – most of the charges marketed by Wix are very affordable for the first year in operations. After a year, many of these features, like the domain, will become payable elements. This way as soon as the first year of your operations is over, your cost of running the eCommerce platform will dramatically go up.
Ideal for: Merchants who want to have greater control of their website's design without the need for coding skills and those who want the first year of operations to be largely affordable.
Conclusion:
Shopify can work for you if you are seeking a limited set of features. However, for lesser price-points, the alternatives for Shopify offer great functionalities. Quick eSelling is good for cost-effective and rapidly deployable eCommerce websites that come loaded with native features. WooCommerce is a viable option if you have a WordPress site and want to convert it into an eCommerce store. Yo!Kart specializes in building multi-vendor marketplaces.
PrestaShop can be handy and very budget-friendly if you have access to coding talent. And Wix is good if you want greater control over what your store looks like, without getting into the programming aspects.
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POS Solutions
Article | February 14, 2024
To say these are interesting times for the retail sector would be an understatement. COVID-19 has created a dichotomy the likes of which we've never seen before. On the one hand, a large percentage of retailers have closed up shop temporarily either in response to regulatory mandates, or due to dwindling customer foot-traffic. And on the other hand, a number of retailers remain open for business and under great strain as nearly all remaining retail traffic is funneled to grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores and big-box retailers considered to be essential in the eyes of regulators.
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POS Solutions, POS Retail
Article | January 12, 2024
Not all credit card processing companies are created equal. Direct Processing Network gives your business access to an innovative global gateway processing solution for virtually any kind of card not present business, such as hotels, hospitality, cruising companies, ecommerce travel websites, and tourism agencies.
What does this mean for your business? Our gateway processing solution will help you grow your geographic reach by allowing your business to cross borders with ease.
You may be wondering, what exactly is a payment gateway? Simply put, a payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provided by credit card processing companies that enables card not present businesses to accept payments online. We make it easy for your customers to pay for their excursions, make reservations, or place an order on your ecommerce site.
While most credit card processing companies only have the ability to provide gateway processing in the United States or Canada, Direct Processing Network’s global payment processing solution allows your business expand its global footprint by connecting with consumers worldwide. With the ability to accept 150+ currencies, and over 530 local and alternative payment methods, anyone anywhere could be a potential customer! You’ll be able to convert more sales by offering them the convenience of an easy and customized checkout experience in their local language, where they can pay in their local currency.
Accept credit and debit cards, mobile payments, eWallets, bank transfer, prepaid and cash vouchers. Our innovative payment platform supports global pay-ins and pay-outs in all major currencies, enabling you to split, transfer, hold, and settle funds according to your unique business model.
The best part is that you can manage all global payment options through one simple integration. Streamline payment reconciliation and deep-dive into analytics to obtain higher approvals and revenues. By uniting payment consulting and payment technology, we help you optimize operating costs, increase acceptance rates and extract more revenue out of each transaction.
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Article | April 13, 2020
Most European countries and the United States have been in lockdown since mid-March due to the Covid 19 pandemic, and brick and mortar stores have been closed accordingly. Although online retail continues, it is proving difficult due to falling consumer spending, transport issues and disruptions of the supply chain. A forecast by Indian management consulting company Wazir Advisors, which focuses specifically on the apparel sector, predicts a decline in apparel consumption in 2020 of 45 percent in the EU and 40 percent in the US, which could lead to a reduction by 300 billion US dollars (around 274 billion euros or close to 240 British pounds).
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