Choosing an Ebiz Platform is so Frustrating
April 4th, 2008 by KenricNow that I know what I want, it’s so frustrating to choose the shopping cart software that fits my businesses perfectly. I am hoping to get a fully hosted solution this time. This means that I don’t really handle any of the software coding.
In a perfect world, I would just purchase the solution and pay them a monthly fee to keep everything up and running. Then I would choose a free template provided or get one custom made. Attach my payment gateway to the backend to accept credit cards and my store is up and running.
However, I’m having trouble finding the “perfect” solution. I was pretty set on going with Volusion. They are a bit pricey but they have a few things that I really really want.
The first one is 1-page checkout. My current OSC solution has 4 pages. I really want the customer to click on checkout and the next click should be place order. All the shipping, billing, payment information should be on 1 page. Volusion is the only one that has this out of the box.
I definitely don’t want to make the customer create an account just to place an order. Again, this goes with the one page checkout thing.
The next thing is that I want the checkout process to stay on my URL. If my store is ABCSTUFF.com and I click on the check out button, I don’t want to see the URL at the top change to https://us-dc2-order.store.yahoo.net or https://order.cartx.com/123. I don’t know if any of you have noticed this at all, but many sites do that.
My problem with Volusion is the bandwidth requirements. I’d like to get their cheapest solution and pay $40/mo but you are allowed 1GB of transfer per month. To combat this, I was planning on hosting the store’s photos on a different host.
I don’t like Yahoo store because of their checkout interface. I surfed around all night through many many ecommerce solutions and none were perfect. Volusion came the closest but they were also the most expensive.
Getting my store setup at Volusion would cost $100 setup, $80 SSL, $40/mo. Then I have the payment gateway which is $125 setup & $20/mo. I know that this isn’t that much money, but with a hosted solution you do lose some control of your code. I’m more worried about upkeep costs and bandwidth costs over 1GB. I would have $305 setup and $60/mo expense.
So it brings me back to my current OSC solution. This would cost me $0 setup, $50 SSL, $3/mo. plus the payment gateway of $125 setup & $20/mo. $125 setup and $23/mo. But I would have complete control of my store and no bandwidth issues. The downside is that I’ll be spending hours and hours getting the store up and running.
So which way do I go?
After writing this, I think I’m going to give Volusion a try. I know it costs more but its a risk I’m willing to take. If I don’t like it, I’ll cancel and come back to OSC. If I do like it, then I can build my future ebizes on it. I think this is one of those comfort zone things. I’m comfortable with OSC (but not 100% happy with it) and Volusion is new territory.
Now the only thing I need to figure out is a new business and domain name. That should take another week!
Posted in Ebiz3 | 
Stumble it!
You may want to checkout corecommerce.com. They have a one-page-checkout and you don’t need to have a customer create an account to place an order. Good luck finding the right solution.
By Nicole Ryan on Apr 4, 2008
I am currently using volusion and i had all the same frustrations you had with trying to find the perfect company. I wanted one page checkout, your own domain name, decent looking free templates and support for my authorize.net account.
I heard about corecommerce on the radio and I’m currently switching my stuff over to them. They seem to be one of the new up and coming ecommerce service provider. They addressed all my concerns and more.
By Matthew Eric on Apr 4, 2008
You know I did check out CoreCommerce last night as I went through a ton of possible solutions.
They had good pricing and included SSL. However they also have the 1GB data limit on there entry level plan. Their 2nd level plan looks decent.
I was going to write something about their site because their demo site did not work last night. Therefore, I couldn’t test the checkout page and back end. When I went to checkout I got a database error. This was not a good sign. I just tried it again today and its working now.
By Kenric on Apr 4, 2008
Americommerce has one page checkout also. They looked decent too.
By Kenric on Apr 4, 2008
I’ve used Volusion for myself and many of my clients, and have never had a complaint about it. I do find that their 1-step checkout really helps keep shopping cart abandonment down to a minimum.
Good luck!
By Terra Andersen on Apr 4, 2008
I got to use CoreCommerce during beta and I loved it. I’ve been using digiSHOP (which is like a distributed version of CoreCommerce) for a couple of years now. I had very few problems with the cart in the past 2 years, but dealing with my host has always been a huge headache. That’s why I started to look for a hosted solution. I checked out a bunch of different carts like Volusion and Yahoo, but decided to settle with CoreCommerce because I’ve never had any problems with digiSHOP, so I know these guys are solid. Plus I don’t have to fight with my host anymore because they now take care of that too.
By Nikita on Apr 7, 2008
I find this discussion interesting. I currently use Volusion and for the most part like it. However, there have been times that I need help with HTML, because I want the site to do something in addition to what is “standard”. The other issue is that I want to change to a different template, but I can’t seem to get my logo resized right. I am not getting any help from Volusion’s design dept. What has been your experiences?
By Ann S. on May 6, 2008
Hi Ann, from my experience to change the logo size you would just need to change it to the proper size using a photoshop type program or even MSpaint and then reupload the new logo.
I don’t think Volusion’s department is going to help you with that type of change unless you are paying them for the design.
A better bet would be to find a volusion forum and post your questions there.
By Kenric on May 6, 2008
BTW Ann, your store is using the same template that my new store is using so I may be able to help you with design questions.
By Kenric on May 6, 2008