Which E-commerce Web Site Builder is the best?
What to look for in a good E-Commerce web site builder?
There are three basic categories of E-Commerce web site builders for you to choose between:
1) Open Source Software
2) Purchased Software
3) Hosted Software
Open Source Software
Open Source Software is essentially free code that you can use but can not sell.
The licensing rules vary but some require that you resubmit any changes you make to the code, back into the code base for use by others. Open source software must be installed on a server and hosted, in order for you to access and use it. Open source software varies in quality, as does all software. Some of these code bases are thoughtfully designed and expertly built, but others are not. Because you have no financial relationship with the owners / builders of open source software, there is generally little or no support and limited maintenance of the code base.
Maintaining a code base for your own use is a serious undertaking. Not to be taken lightly. It will be time consuming and potentially expensive.
Hosting a code base for your own use is not a simple matter either. Each code base will require that particular supporting software be installed before the open source software can work on your server. This software will need to be periodically updated with security fixes. When this software is updated, the open source code will need to be updated to work with the new versions of the supporting software, or it may cease to work. If the builders of the open source code have not made such updates, you will have to pay for someone to make them for you.
You will also have to make sure that your server is secure and pci compliant, or you may loose the right to take credit cards on your site.
Updates made to the open source code by the original publisher, may be in conflict with changes that you have made. If this occurs you will need to hire a programmer to resolve the conflicts in the code, so that you can incorporate functional and security updates.
Purchased Software
Purchased software is installable software for your server. Developed and published by a third party, it has the advantage of being maintained by that group or individual. (although this maintenance may vary in quality and consistency as well as frequency).
Like open source code, purchased software will need to be hosted on your own server.
Hosting a code base for your own use is not a simple matter:
Any software installed on your server will require some specific supporting software in order to run on your server. This software will need to be updated regularly in order for security holes to be fixed, and in order for updates of your purchased software to continue working.
If the builders of the software have not made such updates, you will have no recourse other than to wait until they do, or to change your E-Commerce platform.
Purchased software can be expensive, and technical support although generally available can be an additional expense.
The code base is not made available to purchasers of the software, and is not accessible, (being hidden within a compressed and encrypted set of files). It can not be customized for your specific needs.
Hosted Software
Hosted web site builders, as the name suggests are hosted for you. You do not need to host the software yourself, or worry about maintaining the code base or supporting software installations.
Hosted software or ‘SaaS’, (software as a service), is generally less expensive than purchased software. The fee structure will vary from one service provider to the next. Some charge per transaction, some charge per month, some charge for setup, some charge by which sets of functionality you use, and some charge by the number of products that you have in your store.
(Yet others may use one or more of these in combination).
Hosted or SaaS E-Commerce web site builders are of two basic types:
Those with the flexibility and edit-ability of a full content management solution (necessary to run a robust commercial site), and those that are more template based, with less flexibility.
Although SaaS software does not provide you with access to the code, good ones will give you the ability to configure your site in a myriad of different ways, reducing the need for programmatic changes and so reducing the associated programming costs.
They will allow you to add pages and functionality, from within the web interface (not just add products). The good ones will also allow you to edit other elements necessary for search engine optimization, to work with social networking and third party marketing tools. This kind of functionality is rare, if it exists at all among either the open source or purchased E-commerce web site builders.
The one drawback of hosted software in general is that if the company stops maintaining it, it generally means that the service will go away entirely. When this happens to open source or purchased software you can still use the software until it becomes too old or insecure. When this happens to SaaS software, the service generally goes away altogether.
The silver lining is that the good SaaS services give you a way to export your database content, in a format that can be transferred into another platform with relative ease. (not so with purchased or open source software).
To choose the best E-Commerce web site builder for you, you will need to answer some basic questions for yourself:
Q. Do you want to be responsible for code maintenance or programming modifications?
A. If no then you will need to select a ‘hosted’ E-commerce platform.
If yes, then you will need to select an ‘open source’ E-commerce solution.
Q. Do you want to be responsible for maintaining a hosting environment?
A. If no then you will need to select a ‘hosted’ E-commerce platform.
If yes, then you will need to select an ‘open source’ or ‘purchased’ E-commerce solution.
Q. Is it important for you to have complete control of your code?
A. If yes then your only choice is to use ‘Open Source’ software.
Q. Do you have more than 5 products?
A. You will no doubt want to choose a solution that offers ‘shopping cart’ functionality.
Rather than just a pay pal button or similar, which only permits the purchase of a single product at a time.
Q. Does your site need to include editable text, blog(s), forum(s), video or other ‘non store’ content?
A. If you want to engage in web marketing, to drive traffic to your site, you will need to include a lot of good content on your site. Probably in the form of blogs and articles, forums and video.
To do so successfully you will need to be able to easily add and edit such content at will, without the assistance of a third party. When selecting an e-commerce solution you will need to pick one with substantial Content Management tools (CRM).
Q. Does your site sell a physical product?
A. If you want to sell a physical product, you will need to account for product shipping costs.
You can do this either by adding shipping costs into the price of the product, or by choosing an E-commerce tool that includes Fed ex or UPS shipping rate quotes. You may also want to check to make sure that the tool includes provisions for handling fees, and sales tax.
Q. Does your site sell a virtual or down loadable product?
A. If you sell a virtual or down loadable product you will need an E-commerce solution that can handle the type of charge you wish to use (subscription, pay per use, point systems etc) and it will need to follow the payment processing page with a ‘download / or content access page’.
Furthermore it should have a ‘purchase history’ feature that allows purchasers to access content that they have purchased earlier.
Q. Do you plan on being personally involved in search engine optimization?
A. If yes, you will need a solution that allows you to edit page urls, meta tags, page descriptions and page titles of both your static pages and dynamically created store / product pages.
You would also be advised to choose a platform that allows you to add third party tracking scripts yourself (to google analytics for example), and to add and edit robot.txt files.
Ideally the platform should also give you tools for managing your use of keywords in your meta tags etc.
Q. Do you plan to use Froogle, Amazon, Shopzilla or other third party comparative shopping engines to market your products?
A. If yes then you will need an E-Commerce platform that allows you to schedule regular automatic exports of your product data to the ftp site of your marketing partner.
Q. Do you plan to use social networking to market your site?
A. If yes then you will need an E-Commerce platform that allows you to share site content with Facebook, Twitter etc.
The full range of potential elements / features of an E-commerce software solution.
Use this list to work out what functionality you will need, and then find out which of the solutions you are considering has that functionality.
INTERFACE
Can you use the software interface to create and manage multiple sites?
Is the software inteface easy to use?
Does it allow you to edit content and add pages and functional modules yourself?
TEMPLATES
Can user create their own layout / site design and use it in the editing interface?
Create user create their own blueprint site for re use when creating subsequent sites?
Does the publisher provide a range of ready to use sites (with pages and functionality)?
How many templates site designs does the publisher offer for you to choose from?
Does the editing interface permit you to edit css & fonts
Does the editing interface permit you to eddit HTML
Does the solution offer multiple menu styles for you to choose from?
AVAILABLE INSERTS / MODULES
Edit text in RTF editor
Insert Images
Edit the image (crop, resize etc)
Image can be a link to an external url
Image can be a link to an internal page
Image can be a link to an audio file
Image can be a link to pdf
Image can be a link to another image
Image can have a roll over
Image can have a text roll over
Image can link to small text window
Image can have alt text
Insert Video - embedded media player
Convert and optimize video
Create a Gallery
Create a Catalog / Directory
insert scripts eg widgets and rss
Text links to external urls
Text Link to pdf
Slideshow
Flash
Voting/ Ranking
Online Database
Advanced Search for searching the catalog
Advanced Data Navigation eg filters and text searches
Custom Questionnaire / survey
Multiple choice questionnaire - auto grading
Contact forms
Custom forms
Calendar
Blog
Blog summary of posts (show links to recent posts from multiple blogs).
Blog filter (show only blog posts on a particular subject)
Forum / message board
Forum polls
Account Registration / Login
Store / E-commerce
Blog free text search
Site Free text search
OTHER SITE FUNCTIONALITY
Password protection for a site
Password protection for a page
Password protect individual items
Create linked sites
Create sites that can create sites
Shared content between multiple sites
Add / Edit your own site ‘fav ico’ - the little symbol that shows in the browser tab.
E-COMMERCE
Supports digital products (downloadable)
Virtual products (services, memberships or online materials)
Coupons / Gift Certificates
Zoom feature
Customer can view order / purchase history / download history
Real Time Order Tracking
Automated Email Confirmations
Product attributes
Catalog Advanced Search Navigation
PAYMENT OPTIONS
pay by - points / credits / bucks
pay by - micro payments
pay by - credit card
pay by - e check
pay by - pay pal
Merchant needs a merchant account
Real time credit card processing
Accept payment in any currency
Customizable Checkout / Shipping Pages
WEB MARKETING TOOLS / ANALYTICS
Affiliate setup
Affiliate tracking
Number of Sales Reports
Customizable Reports
Number of traffic reports
Number of product category reports
Promotional Mail / Newsletter
On-Sale / Discount pricing
Cross Sell by product
Cross Sell by category
Cross Sell by search
Report on customer text search
social media integration
Blog post push to social networking
Blog push posts to feed readers
Blog RSS
Tell a friend
Edit meta tags, meta descriptions and page titles for each page
Export data to third party (eg comparrison shopping site like froogle or amazon)
SEO
search engine readable urls
search engine readable urls in dynamic pages
Customizable title & meta tags
Search engine readable dynamic content pages
BACK OFFICE
Upload database / Data import
Google base export
Export to ftp scheduler
Download database
FTP access
Customizable reports
CRM - customer relationship / correspondence tracking
Bulk upload for images
Customer Address Book
Order Management / manual entry
Integrated real time currency conversion
Vendor Address Book
SSL - secure encrypted transactions
Inventory control
Power edit
Maximum number of products
Maximum number of categories
Catalog Manager
Backorder management
Partial Shipment manager
Accounting Integration
SHIPPING & TAX
Number of tax zones supported
Integrated real time rate quotes for Shipping fed ex
Integrated real time rate quotes for Shipping UPS
Handling charges
Manual entry custom shipping options by weight & zone
To see how WebDeva stacks up against the Competiont with regard to Web Site Builder functionality in general, and e-commerce web site building in particular, please see our feature matrix. This is a living document, constantly being updated and can be found here:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0Au6D7fvreilydGlRQ1ZLUkdiUkRTYnRqLUdYRm1PVnc&hl=en&output=html
Both the feature matrix and this analysis may at times become 'out of date'. Please feel free to Contact Us if you are the product manager of a product and would like to provide additional information for us to add or update either or both of these documents.
