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Which e-commerce platform would meet my requirements?

By Sarsij Nayanam on 42 Comments / 2609 views

Hi folks,

I am looking out for help in finalizing a e-commerce platform for my store, and need your help. 

Before I post the question, here are my constraints…

a. I don’t have the financial freedom to spend big money of a self-managed platform.

b. I don’t have a team which can be dedicated to technology needs, and I don’t think I will have this liberty for almost a year. So I want solutions which are hassle free and needs least human monitoring from our end.

c. For next 1 year or so, we want to absolutely concentrate on the core business (which is related to retailing), rather than spending time on writing technical specifications and technical product documents. [We will certainly do this once we have the liberty to hire a team dedicated to it.]

And now, my requirements……I would highly appreciate if you guys can refer some reliable people to take up this challenge (in case there is no readily available solution in the market).

I am looking for a SaaS based e-commerce platform which covers ALL the following features/services:

#1. Product Classes – My store sells products which can be termed as – ‘Primary’ and ‘Related’. When a person wants to purchase a Primary product, he gets an option to choose from a list of Related products. A person may choose one or more than one Related products, but can not buy a Related product alone. A Related products is ALWAYS bundled with the Primary product.
 
#2. Dynamic Product Bundling – A Primary Product page would display all the Related products, and the customer may choose One or More Related products. 

#3. Customer Reward Program – Our store thrives on repeat purchase, and we reward our customers for the same. A customer accumulates credits based on the amount he purchased, and that keeps accumulating. We offer dynamic recommendation to customers on the possible Rewards he would get if he meets a specific credit target.

#4. Wishlist – We empower the customer to choose items from a Wishlist (which is a list of products a customer can not purchase, but earn with his credit points). 

#5. Real-Time Recommendations – If a customer is falling short of a few Reward Points, the system alerts him about his Wishlist items he can get if he makes more purchase.

#6. Smart Shopping Cart – Shopping Cart needs to be a place to alert the user about several dynamic messages –

a. If the purchase price threshold has not been attained, shipping charges would be included.

b. If the user is lacking short of a few reward points after this purchase, what is he going to miss as a reward gift (from his Wishlist),

c. If the user provides some of the details how could his Reward points get increased and by how much. etc. 

#7. Multiple Logistics Partner Integration – I work with 5 logistics partners, and I need to integrate all in this platform.

#8. Blog/CMS Integration

#9. Multiple Payment Gateway Integration

I hope to hear from you folks……and please do refer me some of the reliable guys who are cost effective and understand the pain-points of startups.

Regards

Sarsij Nayanam

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42 Comments

  1. Hi Sarsij,

    Try:

    https://www.buildabazaar.com/

    https://www.zepo.in/

    or

    https://martjack.com/

    Reasons for not getting into your own hosted store are:-

    a. You don’t have a technical team for atleast 1 year. Payment gateway integration etc. is not a straight job (Experts may do it easily but you will require to pay well and secondly lot of approvals are required for getting registered with a payment gateway). Also, server outages etc. will also have to be handled.

    b. You want to concentrate on your core business. So, don’t even think of hosting your own store as of now. If you have good traction, later on you can hire some good guy and setup a store.

    I don’t know if the options mentioned by me above will take care of all your requirements, but they will do all the standard stuff correctly. I guess that’s what you require now. Once you have good numbers, you could choose your own hosting, platform and then develop any additional features that you may require.

    All the best!!!

  2. Hey! Thanks for your response. I will speak to guys in Martjack, Zepo, and BuildAbazar…..and I completely buy the reasons you mentioned for not going self-hosted. Thanks! 🙂

  3. Hi Sarsij,

    I would not recommend you to go ahead with zepo.in since they don’t have many of the features that you need(P.S: I am an user of zepo.in) They are in initial phase and have basic product right now, however the support team is good. It is very easy to build a basic store and they are also planning to come up with lot of new features.

    The benefit of zepo.in over other platforms is that is very cheap compared to all other e-commerce platforms which are available out there.

    Build a Bazaar and Martjack are nice options when it comes to features, however I doubt they have all the features that you need.

    http://www.zuvino.com this is the address for my website, you can see it to see the design and feature capabilities of Zepo(I have tried to use many of their features). Let me know if you want to know more about Zepo.

    Thanks

    Manish

  4. Hi Sarsij,

    Most of the budding ecommerce entrepreneurs are facing more or less same pain points as you mentioned here and you are absolutely right about the initial investment part! That is where http://www.netmystore.com fits in! 

    http://www.NetMyStore.com, is a SaaS based ecommerce platform and it is priced at only Rs 499.00 per month with unlimited Products, Categories, Custom Pages, Payment Gateways, Shipping Solutions , Google Analytics and lot more.

    Any new feature which you looking for,(other than the out of the box ones) we can build and provide it to you within a short period.

    There is also an option of Custom Theme development, to get your preferred look & feel and branding.

    For more details, do visit – http://www.netmystore.com 

    You can also catch us on Facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/netmystore

    Get in touch! We ll be happy to assist you! 🙂

  5. Hey! Thanks for your response. I appreciate the honest feedback you provided one of the options I might have considered for evaluation. Thanks!

  6. Will sure spend some time with what you recommended. Thanks 🙂

  7. Hi Sarasji, 
    Please revert back on govind@noesisconsultancy.com with your budget that you can spend maximum

    https://noesis.co/

    Visit https://flipique.com/
    developed by us using Joomla + Virtuemart.

    https://erdwobb.com/
    developed by us Using OpenCart.

  8. Sure! I will contact you. Thanks!

  9. Hey Sarsij

    I had fairly similar concerns and requirements when I launched my e-commerce store – http://www.nonasties.in

    I ended up using Shopify as it’s a great platform for small businesses, even though it’s not an India focussed solution. It has it’s limitations but I’ve managed to do quite a lot with it.  You can customise the look & feel completely, it has an App Store to add several of the features you want, is very SEO friendly, has logistics partner integration options, has a blog/CRM/CMS built-in, etc.  The biggest limitation is Payment Gateway – you can only use DirecPay for INR.

    Besides that suggestion, I think you’re going to get caught between wanting a basic e-commerce solution AND having very specific & unusual requirements (like the Customer Reward program integration with the smart shopping cart – I don’t think any solution out there will offer that).  You will most likely need a custom-built solution for these features.

    I’m happy to discuss details with you one-on-one if you like – give me a call (9833550160).

    Cheers,

    Apurva

  10. Thanks Apurva. I will speak to you once I start evaluating Shopify and other e-commerce concerns. I well accept your point – I will get caught between wanting a basic solution and having a very unusual requirement. I am also trying to find a work-around, but lets see how things turn out to be when I start speaking to platform guys……

  11. Also check out woocommerce + wordpress.  Payment gateway you will need to hack it I think.

  12. For starters, checkout this Video on WordPress. It is a beginners guide on how to create a website.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq39O_Rb-pY

    There are many Videos like these.

  13. You welcome! 🙂

  14. Sarsij,

            Jai Gurudev.. I run an eCommerce start-up and have had exposure with several platforms both on SaaS based as well as open source (self managed ) ones. I have done a detailed comparison of Indian players in this space and would be happy to share it separately if that can help you choose. Apart from running an eCommerce portal have been working on services to help develop portals for few select clients.. core expertise is on Drupal ( have used both Ubercart as well as Drupal Commerce ) and Magento.

    For your requirement I would suggest you look at Shopify and Magento Go as they are very stable from the release and are seasoned enough to provide you with the best possible features. I personally have liked both and depending on the need, have gone in for Shopify and Magento Go for 2 different portals.

    You may not get everything in one short, would recommend you to have a thorough analysis, phased approach and release to ensure the choice you make meets the business requirements on a long terms as well as short term basis..

  15. Dear Mahesh,

    Jai Gurudev

    I appreciate your suggestions. I would love to read the comparison you have created for the platforms. (will it be possible for you to share that at sarsij.nayanam@gmail.com).

    And after reading all the comments from awesome people on this thread, I am getting to feel the reality of the ecommerce platforms, and guess I will have to go for some massive customization. Lets see!

    Thanks!

  16. Hi,

    I answered your question on Quora, there you didn’t mention that you didn’t want Magento. 😛

    The next best solution is to use Prestashop (http://www.prestashop.com), but you’ll have to host it yourself. It would be minimum work once you set it up. Let me know if I can help.

    Also, major payment gateways offer out of the box integration kits which you can install in a few clicks. You can also get a payment gateway approved in a month without much hassle.

    Let me know if I can help. Thanks.

  17. Hi Yuvraj, 

    Thanks for answering my question once again 🙂 

    Can I get your contact details?

  18. sure..

    email me at wadhwani.yuvraj@gmail.com or yuvraj@dressmyphone.in

  19. Hello Sarsij,

    The solution to all your queries in using Magento / Prestashop  as a ecommerce platform. You will never find any difficulty using these platforms.

    We have developed multiple websites using these two platforms. I f you want to get help you can reach us at  +91-9560443322

    Our company name is Hyphen Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

    You can explore more at http://www.hyphentechnologies.in

    Thanks –

    Brijesh Kumar

  20. Thanks Brijesh. Will reach out to you guys and get a feel of the possible solutions.

  21. Sarsij – do post about your final decision about what you bought and why. It will help others – I had an experience of setting up Magento on a hosted site for a friend and it turned out to be a good experience for him, though his requirements were less ambitious 🙂 

    So would love to hear what kind of platform suited you with your requirements 

  22. Has anybody tried https://www.bigfootretail.com/. Gautham was very helpful and knowlegdable, when I was bouncing off an idea with them.

  23. it depends on what budget u have, the idea, the product list etc.

    if budget is low, not a new idea and products belong to highly compettive segment ie IT, electronics, apparels etc, most firms are doomed. would make sense to sell on ebay, tradus, snapdeal etc. amazon and flipkart also desp looking for more n more sellers. (dislaimer: We sell on ebay, and have agreed to sell on flipkart n amazon, having refused rest all, having registered, we find amazon sustaining and flipkart conditions too constraining)

    If budget is medium, idea is old, but sourcing is strong, options open up incl selling on other sites like ebay or opening ur own site 

    SaaS issues: if ur budget is small, u will have anxiety kicks month on month when u see that ur expenses of manpower, office costs and SaaS charges not equalling even ur sales figures forget the net!. more likely to fold up if budget is low and will power is low.

    my personal advice, go for independent one, we chose opencart. spent about a lakh ( ok we had money), u can always chose to keep expenses down which we did not since we were flush with xtra cash from other businesses. we took services of a coimbotore based firm called probeseven. we kept on fighting till the final product came out and now we are good friends!!

    doing good sales and already on the way to be cash positive on operational level. for more mail us at dtektrading@gmail.com or indiacod@gmail.com

    regds 

    sanchita (http://www.indiacod.com)

  24. Thanks a lot for your detailed response. I will once again look into the product’s contribution margin and how much can I stretch my IT spending. Thanks 🙂

  25. Hello Manas, If you dont mind can u please share what was the cost for building the web site from Zepo.

    For complete hosting of website. If not a actual price please give a rough amount for setup of website.

  26. Hi Sanchita,

    Which hosting platform your are using for Opencart?

    Vinay

  27. go4hosting.com, taken a VPS service there. though i must admit the improvement in site speed is not spectacular. i really wished to see our site http://www.indiacod.com open in less than a second, but it remains a dream, report shows 96% site open faster!!!

  28. Try using a RUM tool to see if it is an issue with your code or the VPS.  https://www.pingdom.com/rum/  If VPS migrate asap.  Speed is an SEO Ranking factor. Don’t know if you read my internet marketing post where I mentioned how Amazon increased revenue by 1% for every 100ms improvement in speed.

    And replace that carousel! With something more useful.  Like maybe a selection filter dropdown.

  29. Hey Sandeep,

    Before I begin, a full and honest disclosure, I am part of Team Zepo. Now to your question. 

    The cost of setting up an online store on Zepo can be divided into 2 parts:

    1. Cost towards Zepo – This is what you pay Zepo to take care of the complete maintenance, continuous up-gradation & hosting of your online portal.

    2: Cost towards PayU or any other payment gateway – This is what you pay to the payment gateway provider for  assigning a payment gateway to you and processing your online payments. We at Zepo give a PayU payment gateway for free, which means that the AMC and Setup Fee is waived off. So you only pay the 3% TDR. 

    Further more, if you wish to break the amount further down to monthly costs:

    1. Fixed Costs – 3% TDR to Payment Gateway
    (PayU charges a small fee for every transaction on the payment gateway)

    2. Variable Costs – 1500 INR/month
    But, if you go for annual subscription, we give you an additional 20% discount. 
    So it comes down to 1200 INR/month (Rs.300 off)
    i.e. INR 14400 towards Zepo, for a year (Pricing plans @ Zepo)

    Summarizing, your cost of setting up an online store for a year,

    1. INR 14400 towards Zepo

    2. 3% on every transaction to the payment gateway provider

    3. No AMC to PayU

    If you have any doubts or would like to ask us anything, just reach out to me. I hope this settles some of your concerns regarding opening an online store. 

  30. dint get a word of your last sentence :). did try pingdom, but i guess even the trial is a paid up service 

  31. very well explained! compared to this, just look at what we are paying!

    around 2.5K pm for VPS hosting on go4hosting. we found this one the cheapest VPS service and went for it and are not really v happy with it

    700 pm to EBS for monthly charges in addition to a nominal amc charges 

    3%+ as transaction charges

    surely zepo sounds gr8, but for someone like us who are already on a tailormade opencart platform, what are the options really

    our needs? fastest possible site speed

  32. RUM is an acronym for Real User Monitoring and tries to mimic the way the page will load in an actual user’s browser.  It will spit out a report showing code optimization suggestions.  This is not a sprint but a marathon… start with the highest viewed pages first and then slowly work your way down.  Try https://torbit.com/ they have a free option.  

    If the code is good then the speed bottleneck is your VPS and you’ll need to find a better one.  Speed is a critical element in SEO ranking and is also strongly correlated to revenue increase.  See the bit in my article where I talked about how speed had a direct impact on Amazon’s revenue.

    The carousel (rotating slides) on your front page is not doing anything for your conversion.  Just gobbling up real estate without adding any value.  Re think every element in your UI and see how it fits into the overall goal of pushing people deeper into the site or into the checkout  process.

  33. Assess cost of remaining on opencart/current vps vs migrating to something else.  Sometimes you need to write off the investment as a bad move.  BUT do everything you can to try and fix it first.  

  34. In the mad quest for conversion, we often forget to look beyond a click or conversion. We rely too much on direct response metrics to do the work for us. In my opinion, Carousels are a tremendous way to generate on Brand awareness. It may not be the real estate that drives the most clicks on your site, or help with SEO as much as u would like it to, but it is the prime area that can be used to generate Awareness of your brand like no other. Its like TV advertising, you don’t see the results immediately, but you get a lot of eyeballs that eventually convert or spread the word for you. 

    In my opinion, I would not replace the Carousal.

    There are lots of good examples. Checkout the Gucci site-

    https://www.gucci.com/us/home?gclid=CN37vIPosLcCFY3m7AodSg8APw

  35. Aha! The brandist speaks! 🙂

    Branding only works with huge volumes of eyeballs.  For a SME or startup it is fairly useless.  And a carousel on the home page is “evil”.  🙂

    With millions of sites and ecom shops popping up everyday the only way to grab and retain attention is to have a very unique value prop that cuts you out of the herd.  And that value prop can rarely be communicated by carousel.  The value prop in time can become the underpinning of the brand story which then gets communicated through banners and what have yous.  

    Focusing on direct response esp at the SME level is a matter of survival and optimal use of resources.  The numbers are hard, measurable, and improvable.  

    Brand impact can only be measured over a looooong period of time and even then it is more a mumbo-jumbo mess of causation and correlation slugging it out trying to justify each other in a delicate dance of excessive politeness.  Like the pretty hostess at the award ceremony.  🙂

    The Gucci site looks like it was designed by committee to please the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person in the Organization),  doubt anyone is focusing on conversion.  Strike that.  It is not designed for conversion.  Most probably they suffer from ego bloat due to their brand.  As long as Gucci remains a highly wanted accessory to embellish our persona it can get away with it.  

    Here’s a good use of banners and brand.  Note that there is no carousel there.  And Land’s End is one of the top converting ecom sites on the planet.  Something like 40%.

  36. Landsend was a good example – one question to the experts here.

    Even though this discussion is about shopping carts, when it got deviated to hosting and SEO, I thought, I’d rather deviate further away from ecommerce as well 🙂 So the question is: 

    If what you are building isn’t an ecommerce site, then does a carousel make sense? What other visual elements would you recommend on home pages of sites meant to sell services or software or just some wares (not in ecommerce style – i.e. no categories etc; just 1 product / service)

    Also, if you have time, please also list down what are the good places to get a structured “course” on basic SEO. 

  37. No the carousel never makes sense unless you can demonstrate that is contributing to some goal and prove that it is an integral part of that conversion funnel.  

    Carousels may make some sense in a branding site and usually in a B2C situation where all you want is for the visitor to interact with the brand.  But even that when you think about it wont drive engagement.  

    Thats hard to say. Depends on what your marketing goals are.  

    You have to start higher up the ladder.  Think about your customer persona.  Identify the most common elements and choose the ones that have the highest urgency and convert them into some kind of tasty widget.  

    There is no magic set of visual elements that a front page must have.  

    If its a single product service and you have a big ass benefit then dump everything else and focus on that benefit.  But even that is difficult to nail down.  Goes back to your customer persona.  Think about the persona.  What do they want.  What is the most cruicial thing they need and how does your product/service close that gap or fill that gap?  That’s whats needs to be presented on the home page.  The visual elements you use to present that can then be anything.  This will typically dictated by your demographic – you cant do text if you are selling to fashionistas.  

    SEO course? Best damn SEO course on the planet.  seobraintrust.com.  But its not a SEO course but a marketing training program packaged as an SEO course.  🙂 

    SEO, the link building, article marketing type is dead.  The ones of those type you see still runnin around are zombies on life support.  🙂  You really need a robust “client attraction” program that is google friendly.  

  38. Hi Sanchita,

    It’s funny but I am facing this speed problem at the first stage of ecommerce platform trial itself.

    Please do post your findings here, whenever your speed problem is resolved.

    We are evaluating various options for our ecommerce platform and currently trying out Magento Community on a shared hosted platform and adding first few products (as Admin) itself is taking so much time that I am wondering whether Magento is actually the best way to go.

    Of course, site loading (for end user) is another problem which I would need to tackle going forward.

  39. Aneja, I think your point is better illustrated in this article https://blog.kissmetrics.com/4-ab-testing-mistakes/; Mistake #1 – trying to convert at the top of the funnel, and Mistake #2 – sacrificing UX for conversion.  

  40. HI 

    Did you check Our Platform http://www.smartstore.in we have almost all the mentioned features

  41. Hi i think we can help you with almost all the required features in the platform.

    please check http://www.smartstore.in

    or you can call me at 9811550615

  42. Thanks Tanya,
    A very clear picture you have provided. i will look into all the possibilities and get back to you.

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