Layman needs help with choosing host/cart/solution/gateway/etc. :)

[shbrook]

Can someone much more knowledgable on this subject please help me with the following?

I am in the process of redeveloping my site - basically starting from scratch.

I have a small business and will probalby only have about 100 products or less at a time. I want my site to be very user-friendly and clean looking. It is a fashion jewelry site, so it needs to be modern, pretty, and high-end - not too flashy - very minimal. The look is very important.

I have been reading article after article after article on different ecommerce solutions, hosts, gateways, etc... and to be honest, I am completely overwhelmed!

I have a very small budget to do the development, and I clearly want to choose the best solution to save me money in the long-term while still having strong functionality.

I was originally planning on using Magento, but have read too many bad reviews on it, and it sounds too complicated for my needs.

I then read that a hosted solution would be the best option b/c you don't have to have three different sources for your solution, hosting, and gateway. This sounds ideal to me, but the only one i see like this, other than MagentoGo, is Shopify, which is cute and seems to have great templates, but I don't want to give them commission when I'm already paying them a monthly fee.

Lemonstand has amazing reviews, and I am very interested in this, but I am confused with all the "module" and "plug-in" talk - this is a totally new language for me, and I just don't know what it all means and what it will entail in the long-run. It sounds like I will have to keep buying things to upgrade it? And it doesn't yet have gift certificate options, which are very important to me (at least voucher codes). Is this feature something a developer can create on the platform for me until it exists out of the box? The License fee for Lemonstand is $300 - why would it be better for me to buy this one than use a free one like cs-cart?

Also, Lemonstand is developing a hosted version but it won't be out for a while - will it be easy for me to convert my regular lemonstand cart to a hosted version later on if i choose this one?

I will not be developing this myself as I am only slightly tech savvy, but I will be doing the future updates - adding new product and categories, etc... so i need it to be easy for me to make changes to.

Here are the things that are most important for me and my site:

- Easy to update myself
- gift certificate options
- Low-cost when combining hosting, cart, gateway, whatever else i need...
- good customer service
- ability to either edit designs of templates or create own
- mobile sales ability
- easy to incorporate with a mail capture program
- quickbooks integration.
- Facebook sales capability

solutions/hosts I am curious about:

- Lemonstand
- Wordpress
- Bigcommerce
- Shopify
- CS Cart
- Opencart
- Prestashop
- any others you recommend

Thank you so much for any advice you can offer!
Would love to be put out of my agony and have a decision made already!

[orangegirl]

Hello, shbrook!

I do not recommend you a hosted solution with a monthly fee. It means that you cannot be sure in your store keeping if something goes bad with the company or its servers. Also, paying the monthly fee seems to be too costly. If you plan to have your e-commerce business for several years, you will definitely pay more comparing to one-time payment solutions.

It is not so hard to choose a hosting for a standalone application, usually, the shopping cart companies recommend the compatible hosting solutions and offer the installation service.

I would recommend you to use CS-Cart, not the free version, but the one for usd 295. It has almost all options you mentioned included. Also, as far as I know, they have an offer of 1-year free hosting of one of their partners.

[shbrook]

Thank you, Orangegirl.

And if i want to make changes with this cart in the future, am I going to have to hire a developer each time? or once the original developer designs something, will it be easy for me to add pages/categories/items/etc...?

Also, I know that someone will have something bad to say about each option, however, on the first review I opened regarding CS-cart, so many people are commenting on how slow it is and how poor customer service is.

Do you not have problems with this?

Thanks.

[orangegirl]

CS-Cart is highly customizable software and you can make any changes, integrations or modifications yourself if it is necessary.
Design architecture of CS-Cart is based on Smarty template engine that, along with completely CSS-based template layout, makes it very simple to change the look-and-feel of the storefront. Concerning the adding products, pages etc., it can be done via the admin panel which seems to be user-friendly.

As far as know, there were some problem with CS-Cart speed in the past, with some of the old versions, but now it works fast.

Concerning the support, they are located in Russia and provide only the support via e-mail, but all the requests are answered in 1 business day or faster.

[hotdesigner09]

Why don't you just try using turnkey websites? It's an all-in-one deal if you wanted to make it a lot easier.

[hotdesigner09]

Hi shbrook,

Have you resolved your problem? Maybe you can check out some eCommerce and Turnkey Website providers here:

http://www.webhostingsearch.com/web-tools.php

See these categories:
Turnkey Websites and Web Solutions and/or
E-commerce Software and Shopping Carts

[Shift4SMS]

I'm just wondering where you found these bad reviews? I find mostly good reviews except for the fact they are now owned by eBay. My limited experience with it is that it is very flexible and configurable right out of the box so I'm confused.

[hotdesigner09]

I'm also curious as to where to see those bad reviews. Can you possibly share this to us?