Intro 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

Have you ever Wondered if you are using the ideal ecommerce platform for sale on the internet? Can you sometimes stumble upon a new service that’s more practical and cheaper than what you’re using now? Starting a small business is all about keeping your costs low, and locating an ecommerce platform that will help you with that is half the battle. Unfortunately, when you run a small company site it often becomes tricky when you want to bring on a brand new ecommerce platform or perhaps just alter your site at all. Read our Ecwid review to discover more about this solution. 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!

Many options Intentionally make a closed system, which is tedious to move away from once you begin. But with a platform named Ecwid, you no longer have to be concerned about it. Actually, the entire goal of the business, which started in 2009, is to quickly and quickly create an internet store system in your present websites.

You do not have To create a completely different site. Just apply Ecwid on any stage, CMS or social networking (in five minutes) and you are all set.

This increased my Attention, because I know the struggles that come along with attempting to migrate websites, particularly in regards to ecommerce. So, I needed to gather a comprehensive review of the Ecwid system to find out whether it is worth the time.

How Many Men and Women Use Ecwid?

It’s quite Impressive what Ecwid has achieved since 2009, with over 1 million merchants getting signed up. What is even more cool is that the Ecwid merchants span over 175 distinct countries, showing that this isn’t just a platform for people in the united states or Europe. Even companies in developing nations have a chance to find an internet store heading, and you don’t have to squander your previous site if you have one.

The usership Continues to grow, particularly considering Ecwid is now PCI DSS Level 1 certified. If you are not sure what this is, it’s pretty much the gold standard for safety in the ecommerce world. You can rest easy knowing you and your customers’ information is safe and protected.

Along with The total merchant count, over 20,000 active users are using the Ecwid Shopping Cart for WordPress. The difference between that 20,000 and also the 1 million is the fact you don’t need a WordPress site to implement Ecwid. So, the 20,000 only refers to WordPress users using the plugin.

What is Ecwid, and how can this function?

Ecwid is a hosted Solution for building an internet store. Unlike competing products like Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion, which permit you to construct a fresh site with e-commerce performance, Ecwid is targeted more towards people who currently have a site and simply wish to add an online store for this.

Much like other E-commerce platforms, Ecwid lets you set up’catalogs’ of products, and add photographs, pricing, weight etc. . each. You are able to specify shipping rates, accept credit card payments etc — all the key stuff that you’d expect to be able to do with an e-commerce alternative.

However it differs Apart from competing products like Shopify, Volusion, Squarespace and Bigcommerce since it is not really designed to allow you to produce a fully-featured, standalone e-commerce site; rather, it is designed to enable you add an online store to an existing online presence.

(That said, Ecwid have Recently added some new functionality, called’Starter Website’, that will allow you produce a one-page standalone offering. We’ll chat through this in more detail later on in the review.) 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

Click Here to sign up to Ecwid now!

The Product operates by giving you a widget which gets put on other sites — hence the title Ecwid: it is short for’E-commerce Widget’. You get a few lines of HTML code (the widget) to add into an existing site or societal media profile, and your shop is displayed wherever you have added this code.

Features

Ecwid makes Strides in the market by catering to businesses which don’t need to start a brand new site. The primary attribute is that you can choose your old website and quickly integrate the Ecwid system inside a few minutes.

You can also Mirror the machine on several different websites if you plan on selling elsewhere on the web. Manage all of these websites from 1 place rather than switching between multiple dashboards.

Another nice Feature is the syncing between multiple devices. Sell on-the-go together with your smartphone. This usually means that you can visit a tradeshow to make a few sales and all of these earnings are represented onto the backend of your site.

The system is Also made to integrate nicely with social networks, and that means that you may sell your things on Facebook if needed. One part of Ecwid we especially enjoy is the delivery aspect. With real time shipping integrations you constantly know what’s going on with your requests and at which they’re being sent to.

What other cool Items are comprised with Ecwid?

It runs on a super fast framework

It comes with an address book for customers and clients

The system has over 43 translations for sale round the world

You get lots of promotional tools like coupons, discounts, bulk pricing and more

Create your personalized email alerts

Utilize the automatic tax alternative (automatic tax charges at checkout, tax reporting and filing)

Point-of-sale functionality

Thank you Into Ecwid’s point-of-sale (POS) functionality, you can use your Ecwid shop to market not only online but in physical places too — in shops, market stalls, in theatres and so on.

With Ecwid’s POS Performance, regardless of whether a customer buys a product in store, online, in their phone or through Facebook, everything stays in sync – i.e., the merchant’s catalog, inventory and customer / trade information.

There’s a couple of ways that you can use this feature: the simplest is likely to use’Paypal Here.’ This involves downloading the Ecwid iOS app from the Apple’s App shop, connecting it to the Paypal Here service, and then taking payments utilizing a mobile card reader (pictured above).

You have two options when it comes to POS Hardware and Paypal This: you can buy a processor and swipe reader (for $24.99) or a chip and also tap reader (for $79.99). Both can be arranged straight from Ecwid.

There is a few Things worth noting the Paypal Here integration: first, it’s only available to retailers in the US and UK. Secondly, it is not yet available on Android apparatus. (On their site, Ecwid state it’ll be available shortly — but they have been saying that for quite some time now). 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

If you’re located outside The US / UK, or need to utilize another mobile device kind, the fantastic thing is that Ecwid also functions with all the Vend, Clover, NCR Silver and Square POS systems. These all ease utilizing a larger range of hardware in a physical retail location (full-sized card readers, receipt printers, cash drawers tablet stands etc.) and are usable in more nations.

Although you can avail Of the Paypal Here POS option on all paid-for programs, you’ll need to be on the most expensive’Unlimited’ plan if you want to avail of a Vend, Clover, NCR Silver or Square admin.

Reactive storefronts

Ecwid Storefronts are responsive, meaning they will display correctly across devices — desktopcomputer, tablet computers and mobile. In an era where smartphone web browsing is eclipsing desktop browsing, this is vital.

Free plan

Unlike many similar Goods, Ecwid offers a totally free plan.

Granted, it is a pretty Basic plan, where features like discount vouchers and service aren’t available, and it only lets you sell up to ten products in two categories — but this could really be sufficient for some customers, and using it is a fantastic way to try the system out.

However, A vital point to note about the free plan is the fact that it is not good from an search engine optimization standpoint — you have to be on a paid plan to make certain that your product pages talk to search engines correctly (more on SEO below).

Speech detection

Ecwid is ahead of the Pack because its storefronts can be automatically translated into nearly 50 different languages — clients can see your shop in their own language, without you having to worry about producing alternate versions of this. Ecwid provides this functionality by discovering visitors’ language mechanically based on their browser settings / IP address.

Competing products like Shopify And Bigcommerce are nevertheless to supply this type of functionality — they force you to rely on third party apps, the production of multiple shops or Google Translate to provide different language variations of your store, which is less than perfect. Therefore a definite win for Ecwid here.

Ecwid and search engine optimization

Search engine Optimisation (SEO) in Ecwid is a pretty straightforward affair. You can edit the title of your webpage and its own meta description; the relevant fields are pre-populated for you automatically, but you can tweak them to match your SEO objectives.

So Far as I can tell However, you can’t manually change the URL of a product — you need to make do with the one which Ecwid generates for you. This is not perfect because keywords in URLs are used by some search engines to categorise content through indexing.

However, The URLs which are automatically generated by Ecwid include the title you have given to your product – so if you include some keywords on your product name (not a bad idea anyway) your URL will comprise them too. This functions as something of a workaround, but I would prefer full control over URLs. 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

1 area where Ecwid does not perform quite so Well on the SEO front involves AMP — accelerated cellular pages. As its name implies, AMP pages load quicker on mobile devices. This encourages people to remain longer on your webpage, thus increasing’dwell time’ –something which is considered by many search engine optimization experts consider to be rewarded with Google with preferential treatment in search results. Additionally, Google sometimes highlights AMP webpages in carousels in search results, providing AMP content an extra little boost.

Regrettably However — and unlike most rival products such as Bigcommerce or even Shopify, you can’t produce AMP variations of your goods using Ecwid.

Importing and exporting data

Like many competing Products Ecwid permits you to import and export your data in CSV format.

The Export option allows you to export merchandise data, orders and clients (in CSV format) and means that if you ever feel the need to migrate your store to another e-commerce platform, then you shouldn’t have some major difficulties doing so.

Utilizing Ecwid with other platforms

Ecwid and WordPress

WordPress does not Provided any e-commerce performance from this box, so anyone wishing to market on the stage will require a third-party solution like Ecwid. There’s an Ecwid plugin available, so adding an Ecwid shop to your WordPress site is very simple — you can get up and running with a couple clicks.

You just sign up to get an Ecwid accounts and then install the free plugin.

Ecwid and Squarespace

Squarespace comes with Increasingly excellent e-commerce attributes, but the number of payment gateway options is very limited — you have to use Stripe or Paypal. (And with Stripe only works if you’re selling products from particular countries). Another main issue with the built-in Squarespace marketing software is that they don’t facilitate dropshipping, and full export of products isn’t currently possible.

Integrating Ecwid with Squarespace allows you to bypass these constraints, and adding it to a Squarespace website is quite easy: it is a simple matter of including a code block to a page and pasting some HTML into it.

Ecwid and Wix

As With Squarespace, there is currently no dropshipping option for Wix users, therefore again Ecwid can provide a good workaround. A dedicated app is provided by Ecwid to allow you incorporate the product on a Wix store easily.

Programs and plugins

Ecwid provides a fairly Restricted number integrations with other apps that are well-known. Integrations do exist with services Mailchimp, Xero and Freshbooks; but to be honest the assortment of integrations may be more extensive — competing products like Shopify provide a much wider range of apps. Notable omissions from the Ecwid store include Quickbooks and Zendesk, such as (that said, a Quickbooks integration is coming shortly ).

The Picture is better when it comes to CMS plugins: these are available for WordPress, Wix and Joomla, allowing to you install Ecwid on one of these platforms quite easily. 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

Interface and ease of use

Ecwid’s Interface is rather easy to use. Like many similar online shop builders, you get a vertical menu on the left that allows you to access key performance, and the area on the right is used to edit or display associated products, website content and reports.

As with any e-commerce tool, you’ll need to Spend a reasonable amount of time getting your head around creating catalogues and product variations, setting up shipping rates etc…but there is nothing here that should represent too much of a learning curve.

Matters are aided by an ‘onboarding checklist’ that’s provided to you once you log in for the very first time.

If You’re stuck however, you can always get in touch with Ecwid’s support staff — more on that later — or, even if you’re on a’Business’ or’Unlimited’, you can take advantage of this included customization service (you get 2 hours and 12 hours customization period from Ecwidon these plans).

Ecwid and GDPR

I am not a Lawyer, so please note the below observations shouldn’t be interpreted as legal information, but I’m going to do my very best to spell out some of the major GDPR problems facing Ecwid consumers under.

With the introduction of The EU’s new GDPR laws, there are many legal measures that website owners now need to take to ensure they are adequately protecting EU clients’ and visitors’ privacy. There are severe financial penalties for doing this (to the point where it’s usually a great idea to consult an attorney on what to do); and even when your company isn’t based in the EU, then you still will need to obey the regulations where any site visits from the EU are concerned.

Based on my Understanding of the crucial GDPR rules, the principal priorities for prospective Ecwid store owners are to:

· Provide sufficient privacy and cookie notices

· Process and store information securely

· Get explicit consent from people signing up to mailing lists it is fine to send them e-newsletters

· Provide a way to opt in or revoke permission to use of non-essential biscuits onto a site (and to log that consent).

There does not Appear to be Anything that stops you fulfilling the first three requirements readily enough with Ecwid, although you will need to spend time and possibly money generating adequate notices and crafting information capture forms so they are GDPR compliant.

Where things get Complex with Ecwid is your fourth requirement — cookie consent. To ensure GDPR compliance, you need to display a cookie banner to your visitors which

· Allows them to select which cookies they would like to conduct BEFORE those biscuits are conducted (i.e., to provide’prior consent’)

· Logs their approval to conduct cookies 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

· Allows them to revoke consent at a later point

So for example, if you Use a Facebook Ads cookie in conjunction with your Ecwid store, you’ll be breaking up GDPR legislation unless you’ve got a banner in place which does all of the above.

Now, out of the box at Least there isn’t a way to deal with the cookie approval issue with Ecwid. Nor is there a decent program accessible from the Ecwid app shop (the only alternative on this front I can find, the’EU cookie banner’, does not seem to supply the essential performance — even though costing $1.99 per month to use).

It Seems to me that the only alternative available to Ecwid consumers would be to use a professional product like CookiePro, which will supply all the necessary functionality to generate cookie approval fully GDPR compliant. Despite being a strong product nonetheless, Cookiepro does need quite a great deal of configuration and you will want to set quite a lot of time aside to set this up.

Installation and Layout

I really like The fact which you can run a web site without paying for anything. This makes the installation process that much easier, since you simply have to punch in your email and create a password to go right to the backend interface.

The machine has Wizards for each platform you would like to place your store on. In case you’ve got a WordPress site, just walk through three steps to get up and running. You can even click on options like Facebook and Joomla, depending on the place you would like to market.

The backend Design is flawless, since it walks you through each site creation and integration step with a few nice text and photos. Once you obtain your store implemented on a website or social page it looks fairly slick.

The design Depends somewhat on the theme you’ve got on your site, however as you can see below, it shows photos well and appears clean and easy to navigate. I particularly enjoy the Shopping Bag place, which is prominent and easy to find for customers when they want to market.

Though many Sites are going to be cellular friendly, its nice understanding that Ecwid involves a native shopping application for both iOS and Android. Merchants now get a native shopping application for iOS and Android.

This means you Can mange your shop and sell on the move, while also giving your customers an opportunity to buy products from the cell interface.

The closing Design item that makes sense to mention is your language instrument. Since running an internet store generally requires one to attain out to individuals from all over the world, you are bound to stumble upon some clients who’d like to read product pages and other content in their native tongue. Ecwid supports 45 languages, so if a user wants to translate from English to Spanish, that is not a problem in any respect.

The Ecwid App Economy

Having the Opportunity to put in applications is a sure fire way to scaling your ecommerce site in a fair manner. Ecwid has a location called the Ecwid App Market. It provides 65 software, helping merchants extend their shop performance readily. 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

A Few of the programs Can give you a hand with rating and reviews, rewards programs, automated ad tools, analytics, customized design topics and more.

SEO and Marketing

Ecwid is a Third party solution to your current site, so you would normally need to implement additional SEO and advertising tools to really get the word out. That said, Ecwid provides quality SEO qualities to help retailers increase their visibility in Google searches.

Moreover, Google now indexes AJAX sites, therefore all Ecwid shops are indexed by Google with no excess work. It gets better with WordPress sites, as you gain access to additional search engine optimization plugins as well as also the default search engine performance around the dashboard.

Managing Your Inventory

The Ecwid Inventory process is as straightforward as they come, because it doesn’t seem to incorporate any of the unnecessary bells and whistles you might find on other ecommerce platforms.

Each measure is Clear and concise, so that you can just go in there and sort in a product name, price and picture then save the product for later. Obviously you can always open the More Powerful Options, however they separate these for if you’re ready to get started ramping up your own store.

As an example of the stock Rich management toolset, you gain access to things like from stock product monitoring, mobile device stock management, barcode scanning and more.

Customer Care

Ecwid provides A Chat With Earnings feature which is one of my favorite ways to converse with companies. Simply send them a query and you can work on something else until they respond.

The Business also Provides a powerful support department with FAQs, a knowledge base, email capabilities and a forum.

Overall, the Support outlets include phone service, online chat support and email support, maintaining the response time brief and support quality .

In my mind, the Platform has all you might want in terms of support.

Payments and Safety

It is not necessarily Easy to find an ecommerce platform which doesn’t charge fees, but that is just what you get with Ecwid. They never control any kind of trade fee with any of those plans they provide, making it desirable for any store that’s hoping to keep down costs and also to improve margins.

Remember that Ecwid is not a payment processor, so you’ve got to set up something like PayPal or Stripe to process all the trades that come through your site. It’s rather simple to employ these systems, because Ecwid integrates with over 40 global payment choices. However, each of those processors have their particular trade fees so that you need to prepare for them.

It is quite Evident that Ecwid takes safety seriously, since the provider is a PCI DSS Level 1 certified service provider. The company also states that each trade that includes sensitive information is transferred through a secure HTTPS channel. 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

What if you Would like to accumulate both online and offline payments? Maybe you’d prefer a point of sale integration?

Ecwid Integrates together with Square, Clover, Vend POS, iZettle and PayPal card readers, enabling Ecwid to turn your operation into both an offline and online system.

Benefits and cons of utilizing Ecwid

Benefits

· Ecwid represents a very simple way to add e-commerce to some present website.

· Point-of-sale performance is available, and there are quite a few ways to implement it.

· The item is cheap by comparison to other alternatives.

· It supports multi-language versions of your store.

· The shop layouts are responsive.

· Plugins / apps are available for major platforms (like WordPress, Drupal and Wix).

· It allows users of site building products which don’t facilitate dropshipping to begin doing so (i.e., Squarespace, Jimdo, Wix etc.. )

· The’starter website’ option is a good stopgap measure for retailers who want a shop quickly, but have yet to develop a full website in order to add the Ecwid widget to.

· The free Ecwid plan is not time-limited, includes support, and is rather generous in terms of attributes.

Disadvantages

· The Paypal This POS system is limited to the US and UK.

· The Paypal Here POS process is limited to iOS users.

· Telephone support is only available on the more expensive plans.

· There’s a limited number of apps / integrations offered in the Ecwid Program store.

· You can not alter product URLs, which can be slightly annoying in the search engine optimization perspective.

· You can’t create AMP variations of product pages utilizing Ecwid.

· Creating Ecwid GDPR-compliant (with regard to getting cookie approval ) sounds hard.

· The free version will not let you get any of the search engine optimization tools.

Pricing

Ecwid comes With four strategies, one of which is totally free. They market the free program like mad, and mention that many other platforms drag you into a free trial, even where you may finally have to pay.

This is where Ecwid stands outside, and you’ll be able to see the other payment programs are rather affordable.

The Free plan Allows you to sell 10 products, while the Venture plan ups that count to 100 products and you get items like an iPhone direction program. The Business program goes up to 2500 merchandise for a wonderful price and you also get live chat service. Priority support comes alongside the Unlimited plan and you might also sell an unlimited number of merchandise.

Ecwid is one of The cheapest solutions available on the marketplace. You can see that it’s actually more affordable than a lot of the other platforms we’ve reviewed previously, so if you’re looking for value, this might be the perfect plugin for you.

Wrap-up

In short, I’m Starting to believe that Ecwid is among the greatest ways to market online, provided that you implement the best methods to enhance your sales online too. Ecwid is a sleek system, with superb easy implementation measures, making it perfect for your small business audience. 3 Column Product Page Ecwid

Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!