OK so I have narrowed it down to these two eCommerce platforms: Shopify and BigCommerce. Both seem very easy to use for someone with limited programming experience such as myself. I do know CSS but maybe there are already some good responsive templates out there that I can use?
Are there any other eCommerce platforms that I should be looking at for the same price range? Most likely going with the $60/month plan to start with and then upgrading to unlimited when the site grows. I need my online store to work with Canadian prices and sales tax. Something that can synchronize to inventory management software and Canadian accounting software would be even better too!
Which eCommerce platform would you recommend for an online Canadian liquor store? Taking orders to sell in the store and having the option to deliver to the customer will both be needed.
Mark from Shopify here. Thanks for considering our platform for you store. Not sure if you’re aware, but Shopify is actually a Canadian startup based out of Ottawa. We integrate with Canada Post and have many Canadian merchants using our platform: http://www.shopify.ca/blog/6278312-28-canadian-online-stores-built-using-shopify
If you have any questions about using of software to build your store, feel free to contact our sales team at sales [at] shopify.com or 1-888-746-7439
$60 a month…why to spend so much when there are so many opensource platforms like open cart or prestashop which you can select the template and start selling
even if you use any developer it will be one time fee of 800-900 to make a shopping cart with as many products as you want to add
If you like above platforms than the story is different
The way that I look at it is Shopify provides hosting, and good hosting at that. I figure the $60/month is almost worth the price alone in hosting, the rest is just incredibly easy and intuitive to use for creating an eCommerce website. They really do all of the hard work for you.
Shopify also provides a referral program, so I can earn a monthly income for every client site that is active. But that’s just icing on the cake - as long as you can afford the $60/month for an eCommerce website (it really isn’t that much… VPS hosting alone is close to that amount) then I would recommend Shopify, and even without the referral program too.
Having a hosting from the software manufacturer is a good idea, but the question for many is whether is will be possible to move/migrate to your own facilities later. From this perspective, S+S (software plus service) model may be preferrable to SaaS since you will have access to the source code and not feel tied to the software provider as the only option. So I’d advice to look at that direction too.
For Niche store with either limited or no categories, Shopify is fantastic. I would suggest Big Commerce if you have lot of products and sub products.
I think Big Commerce is more powerful than shopify even easier than shopify. Also Big Commerce includes the best SEO configuration. The ability to set up options, option sets and rules is much more powerful. Additionally, Big Commerce has a wide array of built-in marketing tools that will help you not only build your website, but your brand as well.