Which ecommerce platform do you use? EKM, Shopify etc.

[Justin]

Interested to speak to anyone using Shopify, EKM etc. as their main website platform.

We currently use Shopify for one of our sites and have become very frustrated at a lack of features. Even when I look to use paid apps I can't find what I need and neither can Support!

So in my frustration I started looking at alternatives and immediately came across EKM. They called me and ran through a thorough introduction to the platform. It appeared very user friendly and left me wondering why I'm still with the ageing Spotify. Adding new products etc. is so much easier. we hit a couple of snags. EKM don't charge for apps as 'everything' is already included. Sounds good, basic plan is the same monthly cost as Shopify. However.....you don't get the stats info on the basic plan, you need the next plan up which is more than double the price. Maybe not a bad idea, dedicated Account Manager for 6 months, unlimited products, possibly worth pursuing.

So then we get to the main reason I want out of Shopify. We have an ever growing variation list of products, in our case phone cases. As the manufacturers bring out new phones (most bloody weeks) we need to add to our drop down variant list. Sounds easy? Sure for 1 product but for several hundred products? EKM also have no solution other than export products and add variant...re-upload, messy and time consuming unless I can get an automated macro for this.

We've used the 'Get Vela' app in the past which allows bulk editing on Shopify and Etsy. Brilliant...or should be. Unfortunately it has a number of bugs and despite major update promises 6 months ago it's still riddled!

Yes, I'm fully aware of free platforms as we still use OpenCart for another of our sites but one thing Shopify has proved is that the support alone is worth paying every month for, SEO and so on, so I don't really want to explore that here.

EKM really does look the bees knees so we may migrate anyway but does anyone already use them? Are there other possible alternatives? i see 'Big Commerce' but little info without signing up.

[webtrekker]

I use Ecwid - https://www.ecwid.com

The beauty is that it can be embedded in any site you own (even a single, basic html page) and can also be embedded in social media, blogs etc.

[GoonerGary]

Instead of editing 500 listings to add the latest phone mode, couldn't you set up each phone model into a new shop category? So duplicate a listing, and then copy and paste Samsung 11 into the product title? Sounds like a quicker method. Then you could delete a whole shop category once Samsung 6 becomes out of date instead of re-editing 500 listings. I'm still on Wordpress/ Woo-Commerce, it's free and the sales come in daily.

[pisquee]

We're on Wordpress/Woo - plenty of support online as its so well used, pretty much any problem you run into, someone's been there before and posted it online in a blog, on youtube or a forum.
We then use Divi from Elegant Themes for the actual page design, which works brilliantly, and their support is fantastic - they have a Black Friday sale this weekend too, and do Wordpress/WooCommerce I think.
Although wordpress is free, you do need to pay for hosting, and all the plugins to make the site good, although Divi does eliminate a lot of plugins you'd otherwise have to use multiples of to get a good design.