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Zepo /Buildabazaar/ Kartrocket or Woocommerce/Magento/opencart

By Anand Marar on 21 Comments / 4007 views

Hi Rodinhooders,

I am having an ecommerce store built on buildabazaar platform since the past 1.5 yrs. I am looking to upgrade as BAB is very redundant, has a boring frontend and most importantly is not mobile responsive ( which is drastically hitting my business).

Every marketing effort whether thru social media /email is predominantly accessed by the target customer by mobile and when he/she is redirected to the website it is a total disaster on the mobile browser.

Mine is still a startup so cost implications are a major concern. Cannot fathom shelling out more than 30-40k per annum for the whole website service. At the same time I would want a neat interface, backend & with proper security in place.

What would the experts suggest? Self hosted like woo commerce / magento /etc or standard ready to use services like zepo/kartrocket etc.

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21 Comments

  1. Hi Anand,

    I would suggest you go with, magento/woo commerce /opencart, because shifting from buildabazaar to zepo/kartrocket will actually  not solve your problem. Your problem currently is , you are not able to customise the UI according to your needs, this will continue to exist in any ready to use solution.

    And , doing an ecommerce on magento etc. will cost one time development fees (somewhere around 35k to 75k, depending on your requirements). you will have to only pay web-hosting charges from subsequent year.

    – Amar Saurabh
    Sugoi Labs
    sugoilabs.com

  2. Hi Amar,

    Thanks for the prompt reply. Over the past 1.5-2 yrs, I have encountered numerous instances where I needed to make small changes to ui-ux or core functions. Now I am have elementary knowledge of doing this, but I can;t say I am an expert. The biggest fear I have in going to Magento/woocommerce/opencart is that I have to either employ and inhouse design cum development person or shell out a bomb everytime I wish to do some changes.

    Now I haven’t worked on any of the three mentioned here ( Magento/woo/open). How easy/tough is it for a non IT guy to do it? I heard in other forums that woocommerce doesn’t require any coding skills to implement. Is it true?

    Second question is other than web hosting, I might also have to take up SSL, PCI -DSS etc..Approx how much would it add up to?

    Appreciate your time. 🙂

    Anand

  3. Anand,

    As I said, going for magento/woo-commerce based development would not cost you a bomb. will cost one time development fees (somewhere around 35k to 75k, depending on your requirements).
    SSL will not cost more than 3-5k per annum.

    Instead of hiring a development team, partner with a company/development agency and let them take care of everything. If you think, you will need regular maintenance/feature upgrades. Pay them a nominal monthly amount for the maintenance. This helps you focus on the business side more.

    Woo-commerce does not need any coding skills as such, but it will need some expertise to actually build a customer facing portal.

  4. try shopify

    as you can customize ui as required with shopify .

    let me know if you face any problem .

    tc cheers

    karan

  5. Hi Karan,

    What I have read about Shopify is 

    1. Their packages are costlier than zepo/kartrocket/bab etc.

    2. They charge a bomb for add ons

    Correct me if I am wrong. 🙂

    Anand

  6. yes right they charge high .

    they do not charge bomb for addons as you pay for the addons to the addons providers who have to keep charges reasonable to survive competition .

    if the proces of shopify is within your budget you should go for it for the value add , peace of mind .

    tc cheers

    karan

  7. Hi Anand,

    Since you have already worked with BAB, you know how hassle free such platforms are. I work as marketing manager for one of the company talked about here, i.e Kartrocket. I see the pain point you have is mobile optimized website which are the inbuild features of all Kartrocket themes.

    Another major reason for which I can recommend Kartrocket is their automated shipping tool. You can deliver your eCommerce orders using multiple shipping partners (Fedex, Bluedart, FirstFlight, Aramex, Quantium etc). Multiple shipping partners will help you optimize your shipping bills. 

    Magento/Woo commerce/ Opencart are also good and reliable platforms but they are a little heavy on pockets for small businesses. While DIY or Ready to sell platforms like Kartrocket will offer you bundled services like Store Design, Payment Gateway, Shipping, CRM, Marketing (to some extend) at a very reasonable rate of few thousands per month.

    In case you have any doubts, feel free to ask me.

  8. Hi Ankita,

    Point me to some stores who have been running for more than 6 months on kartrocket. Social media  has got some very bad reviews about you. Would like to hear from the horse’s mouth.

    Anand

  9. Hi Anand,
    You can try https://www.retaxis.com
    The stores you get are mobile friendly, seamlessly integrated with Delhivery and works with almost every payment gateway in india. 
    Thanks
    Manish Gupta

  10. Hi Manish,

    Thanks for the reply. Please give me live stores on this platform. I want to hear reviews from users. I have got enough information from Marketers. I wish to hear the actual experience from users.

    Anand

  11. Hi Anand,

    If you are looking for an upgrade to your store without burning a hole in your pocket, I would suggest you to look at eCommerce platforms. If your budget is 30-40k as you mentioned, you can get a very good looking eCommerce site loaded with all the features that you need.

    I am a part of Team Zepo and we are eCom junkies who love to help people setup and manage their online stores. You stated that your main concern is a mobile and tablet responsive website. With Zepo, you do not need to worry about that problem at all. With great mobile and tablet responsive themes, your audience is going to love the mobile experience that your site offers.

    In addition to the mobile responsive themes, Zepo offers a dedicated mobile website as well. Rather than just resizing your online store for a mobile device, a dedicated mobile website offers a better experience to the end user. Check out one example at m.aidalane.com. Also, if you are looking for a mobile app for your users, even that is possible through Zepo. You can get an app developed for Android and iOS platforms.

    In addition to a superior mobile experience for your customers, Zepo offers a lot more for your store. With automated shipping at the cheapest rates, you can use FedEx and Gati to ship across India and the world. You can also integrate your existing payment gateway for free to your Zepo store, meaning your hassles are reduced even more.

    You can check out how much all this will cost you here. The best thing here is that there are no hidden charges at all. Give us a call at 09223583358 if you need to know more or just drop in a reply here! We’d be glad to help you out. 🙂

  13. Hi Anand,

    I dont know too much about the others, but I do know magento, so I will tell you based on my experience with Magento. BTW i run my own e-commerce portal http://www.funsexyyou.com, and we have been on Magento since 2012.

    Pros –
    1. They have a free version called “Community Edition” – so 0 investment
    2. Since its extremely popular, there are a LOT of developers, essentially a large global community, who provide themes, plugins, extensions, support etc.
    3. Open source – I would guess some of the other ones you mentioned are also open source, but so is this.
    4. Can handle as many products, no limits. Sell 10, 20, 100, 1000, 10000 products, you need not move away from Magento.
    5. You mentioned you have mobile issues – Lots of themes on Magento are Responsive, so you never have to worry about your website breaking (although you need to take care of images and all), but the theme will support all screen resolutions. (tablets, phones, laptops)

    Cons – 
    1. Developers – In Mumbai, hard to come by. You can find lots of them online, plus I know a couple offline as well, who I can connect you with. But local may be hard to come by.
    2. Hosting – Your hosting cost will go up. You will need a dedicated server if you have lots of traffic. We couldn’t use Big Rock as they told us they wont support Magento unless we use a VPN, so we used hostgator. Our traffic works on shared server, you will need to test yours.
    3. Cost – Your overall cost for managing a magento platform may be high, since your developers (freelance) will charge by the hour, your hosting cost goes up, and you will not be able to move up from Community to Enterprise or beyond as your costs would be 15,000 – 50,000 USD per year.

    Personally, I like Magento, and I am able to run my small scale startup on it, without having to overspend. But you know your budget, so do your research accordingly before you decide which platform to go with.

    And if you want any information from my end on magento tools/developers etc, I am more than happy to help. You can drop me an email at rohhan@fsyonline.com and we can discuss from there.

  14. Hi Anand,

    You can get in touch with us. We specialize in Custom eCommerce Solutions which is fairly far batter then any other eCommerce platform available in market. You can look at building flipkart using our platform.

    Take a look at our website https://www.72interactive.in 

    Also take a look at some of our projects:

    https://www.printawallpaper.com
    https://www.theboxerstore.co.in
    https://ccds.checkbeta.com
    https://www.kapoorlampshade.com
    https://www.michelleryandesigns.com/

    https://www.emkor.com
    https://www.rohanmotors.in/
    https://international.sonalika.com

    You can speak to me at 9811122212

    Regards,
    Amit

  15. one alternative is SpreeCommerce – an opensource (https://github.com/spree/spree) Ruby on Rails platform that is one of the fastest growing ecommerce frameworks out there (https://spreecommerce.com/showcases).

    Spreecommerce does not have the software costs (e.g. Community, Enterprise, etc.) that magento has – the only additional cost you will have is cost of development.

    Spree Hub which is a full fledged logistics and delivery management platform is the only thing that is priced extra – but by the time you need this, I would say you are already big.

  16. Hi Rohhan,

    Can you put me in touch with developers who we can work with to develop an ecommerce website.

    Thanks,

    Gunjan

  17. Hi Amar,
    Can you recommend any company/dev agency that will help us get our ecommerce website done. Also what are the options for hosting the website. Will these agencies have dedicated servers?

    Thanks,

    Gunjan

  18. hey Gunjan, we can help you out. We are already have our own e-commerce website so we can use our resources to build yours. email me your contact details – mailnike at gmail dot com

  19. Hi Nikhil,
    That’s great. Are you a website development company or an ecommerce company?

    I’m asking this cos you said you can use your resources to build our website.

    Can you share the link to your website?

    Thanks,
    Gunjan

  20. Hey, good question. We don’t operate e-commerce we only maintain the website (like outsourcing your entire tech team). Just email me your contact details and we will discuss further & I will share the link also. 

  21. Hello,

    There are lots of pre-build online platform providers that enable you to kick start your digital journey. One small signup and you own an online store.

    Few pre-build platforms for consideration
    1) https://www.shopify.com/
    2) https://shopnix.in/create-ecommerce-store-online/
    3) https://www.bigcommerce.com/
    4) https://www.volusion.com/

    All these platforms will give you what ever is required to sell online. More over, Platforms like Shopnix, comes with a dedicated support team who will help and guide you to setup the online store.

    When comes to pricing

    Shopify:-

    Basic Shopify:- $ 25/ month
    Shopify:- $ 79/ month
    Advanced Shopify:- $ 299/ month

    Shopnix:-

    Basic:- INR 1000/ month
    Standard:- INR 2000/ month
    Pro:- INR 5000/ month
    Premium:- INR 10,000/ month

    Volusion:-
    Min:- $15/mon
    Plus:- $35/mon
    Pro:- $75/mon
    Premium:- $135/mon

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