Background Ecwid Change Category Layout
Have you ever Wondered if you are using the right ecommerce platform for sale online? Can you sometimes stumble upon a new service that’s more functional 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 business website it often becomes tricky once you would like to attract on a brand new ecommerce platform or even just modify your site whatsoever. Read our Ecwid review to discover more about this option. Ecwid Change Category Layout
Click Here to register up to Ecwid now!
Many solutions Purposefully make a closed system, which is tedious to move away from once you begin. However, with a platform named Ecwid, you do not have to worry about this. In fact, the entire aim of the company, which started in 2009, would be to quickly and inexpensively create an online store system in your present websites.
You don’t have To create a completely different site. Just apply Ecwid on any platform, CMS or social networking (in five minutes) and you’re all set.
That raised my Attention, because I know the struggles that come along with trying to migrate sites, particularly when it comes to ecommerce. So, I needed to put together an in-depth review of the Ecwid system to find out if it’s worth the time.
How Many People Use Ecwid?
It is rather Remarkable what Ecwid has done since 2009, with more than 1 million retailers getting signed up. What’s even more cool is that the Ecwid merchants span over 175 distinct countries, showing that this is not just a platform for people in the united states or Europe. Even businesses in developing nations have a chance to find an internet store going, and you do not even have to squander your prior website if you have one.
The usership Continues to grow, especially considering Ecwid is now PCI DSS Level 1 accredited. If you’re not certain what that is, it’s pretty much the gold standard for safety in the ecommerce world. You can rest easy knowing that you and your clients’ data is safe and secure.
In addition to The total merchant count, over 20,000 active users are using the Ecwid Shopping Cart for WordPress. The difference between that 20,000 along with also the 1 million is the fact you don’t need a WordPress site in order to implement Ecwid. So, the 20,000 simply refers to WordPress users using the plugin.
What is Ecwid, and how does it work?
Ecwid is a hosted Solution for building an internet shop. Unlike competing products such as Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion, which permit you to construct a fresh website with e-commerce performance, Ecwid is geared more towards people who already have a website and simply wish to add an internet store for this.
Much like other E-commerce programs, Ecwid lets you set up’catalogs’ of products, and include photographs, pricing, weight etc. . each. You are able to specify shipping rates, accept credit card payments and so on — all the key stuff that you would expect to be able to perform using an e-commerce solution.
However it differs Apart from competing products like Shopify, Volusion, Squarespace and Bigcommerce in that it is not actually designed to allow you to create a fully-featured, standalone e-commerce website; instead, it’s designed to allow you add an online store to an existing online presence.
(That said, Ecwid have Recently added some new functionality, known as’Starter Website’, which does allow you create a one-page standalone offering. We’ll talk via this in more detail later on in the inspection.) Ecwid Change Category Layout
Click Here to register up to Ecwid now!
The Product works by providing you a widget which gets put on other websites — hence the title Ecwid: it’s short for’E-commerce Widget’. You receive a few lines of HTML code (the widget) to add into an existing site or social networking profile, and your store is displayed wherever you’ve inserted this code.
Features
Ecwid makes Strides in the market by catering to companies that don’t need to begin a brand new website. The main attribute is that you can take your old website and immediately incorporate the Ecwid system inside a few minutes.
You can also Mirror the system on various other websites if you anticipate selling elsewhere on the web. Manage all these sites from one place instead of switching between multiple dashboards.
Another pleasant Feature is the syncing between multiple devices. Sell on-the-go together with your smartphone. This means that you can visit a tradeshow to generate a few sales and each one these earnings are reflected onto the backend of your website.
The system is Also designed to integrate well with social networks, and that means you may sell your things on Facebook if desired. 1 part of Ecwid we especially enjoy is the delivery facet. With real-time transport integrations you constantly know what is going on with your orders and at which they are being shipped to.
What other cool Items are comprised with Ecwid?
It runs on a super fast frame
It comes with an address book to get customers and customers
The system has over 43 translations for selling round the planet
You receive lots of promotional tools such as coupons, discounts, bulk pricing and much more
Produce your own customized email alerts
Use the automated tax solution (automatic taxation rates at checkout, tax reporting and submitting )
Point-of-sale functionality
Thank you Into Ecwid’s point-of-sale (POS) performance, you may use your Ecwid shop to sell not just online but in physical locations too — in shops, market stalls, in concerts and so on.
With Ecwid’s POS Performance, irrespective of if or not a customer purchases a product in shop, online, in their phone or through Facebook, everything remains in sync – i.e., the merchant’s catalogue, inventory and customer / trade info.
There is a couple of methods that you can use this feature: the simplest is probably to use’Paypal Here.’ This entails downloading the Ecwid iOS app from the Apple’s App shop, connecting it to the Paypal Here service, then taking payments utilizing a cell card reader (pictured above).
You have two choices when it comes to POS Hardware and Paypal Here: you can either buy a processor and swipe reader (for $24.99) or a processor and also tap reader (for $79.99). Both may be arranged straight from Ecwid.
There’s a couple of Things worth noting the Paypal Here integration: first, it’s only available to retailers in the US and UK. Second, it’s not yet available on Android devices. (On their website, Ecwid say it will be available soon — but they have been saying that for quite a while now). Ecwid Change Category Layout
If you’re located outside That the US / UK, or want to utilize another mobile device kind, the fantastic thing is that Ecwid also functions with the Vend, Clover, NCR Silver and Square POS systems. These all ease utilizing a larger selection of hardware at a physical retail location (full-sized card readers, receipt printers, cash drawers pill stands etc.) and are usable in more countries.
Although you could avail Of this Paypal Here POS choice on all paid-for programs, you will want to be on the most expensive’Unlimited’ plan if you would like to avail of a Vend, Clover, NCR Silver or Square admin.
Responsive storefronts
Ecwid Storefronts are responsive, meaning that they will display correctly across devices — desktop, tablet computers and mobile. In an era where smartphone internet browsing is eclipsing desktop surfing, this is vital.
Free program
Unlike many similar Goods, Ecwid offers a totally free plan.
Granted, it’s a pretty Basic plan, in which attributes like discount coupons and service aren’t available, and it merely allows you to sell up to 10 products in two classes — but this may really be sufficient for some users, and using it’s a good way to try the system out.
However, A vital point to notice about the free program is that it isn’t good from an search engine optimization point of view — you need to be on a paid plan to ensure your product pages talk to hunt engines correctly (more on SEO below).
Language detection
Ecwid is ahead of the Pack in that its storefronts could be mechanically translated into nearly 50 different languages — clients can see your store in their own language, without you having to worry about creating alternate versions of it. Ecwid provides this performance by discovering visitors’ language mechanically based on their browser settings / IP address.
Competing products like Shopify And Bigcommerce are nevertheless to provide this sort of functionality — they force you to rely on third party apps, the creation of multiple shops or Google Translate to supply different language variations of your store, which can be less than ideal. So a definite triumph for Ecwid here.
Ecwid and search engine optimisation
Search engine Optimisation (search engine optimization ) in Ecwid is a pretty straightforward affair. You can edit the title of your page 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 could 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 ideal because key words in URLs are used by some search engines to categorise content through indexing.
However, The URLs that are automatically generated by Ecwid include the title you’ve given to your product – so if you include some keywords on your product name (not a bad idea anyhow ) your URL will include them also. This serves as something of a workaround, but I would prefer full control over URLs. Ecwid Change Category Layout
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 faster on cellular devices. This encourages people to remain longer on your webpage, thus increasing’live time’ –something which is considered by many search engine optimization experts consider to be rewarded by Google with preferential treatment in search results. Furthermore, Google sometimes highlights AMP webpages in carousels in search results, providing AMP content an extra little boost.
Unfortunately However — and unlike competing products such as Bigcommerce or even Shopify, you can not create AMP versions of your goods using Ecwid.
Importing and exporting information
Like most competing Products Ecwid allows you to import and export your data in CSV format.
The Export option permits you to export product data, orders and clients (in CSV format) and means that should you feel the need to migrate your store to another e-commerce platform, you should not have some significant problems doing so.
Utilizing Ecwid with other platforms
Ecwid and Twitter
WordPress does not Supplied any e-commerce performance from this box, so anyone wishing to sell on the platform will need a third-party alternative like Ecwid. There’s an Ecwid plugin accessible, so adding an Ecwid store to your WordPress site is quite straightforward — you can get up and running with a couple clicks.
You just sign up for an Ecwid account and then install the free plugin.
Ecwid and Squarespace
Squarespace includes Increasingly excellent e-commerce features, but the number of payment gateway options is quite limited — you have to use Stripe or Paypal. (And using Stripe only functions if you are selling products from certain countries). Another principal issue with the built-in Squarespace selling tools is they don’t facilitate dropshipping, and full export of merchandise is not currently possible.
Integrating Ecwid with Squarespace allows you to bypass these constraints, and adding it into a Squarespace website is quite simple: it’s a simple matter of including a code block to a webpage and pasting some HTML into it.
Ecwid and Wix
As With Squarespace, there is currently no dropshipping option for Wix users, so again Ecwid can offer a fantastic workaround. A committed app is offered by Ecwid to allow you incorporate the item onto a Wix shop easily.
Programs and plugins
Ecwid provides a pretty Limited number integrations with other apps that are well-known. Integrations do exist with services Mailchimp, Xero and Freshbooks; but to be fair the assortment of integrations could be more extensive — competing goods such as Shopify provide a much broader assortment of programs. Notable omissions in the Ecwid store include Quickbooks and Zendesk, for example (that said, a Quickbooks integration is coming shortly ).
The Image is better when it comes to CMS plugins: All these are offered for WordPress, Wix and Joomla, enabling for you to install Ecwid on one of these platforms quite easily. Ecwid Change Category Layout
Interface and ease of use
Ecwid’s Interface is pretty user friendly. Like many similar online shop builders, you get a vertical menu on the left which lets you access key performance, and the area on the right is used to display or edit related products, website content and reports.
Much like any e-commerce tool, you will have to Spend a reasonable amount of time getting your head about producing catalogues and product variations, setting up shipping prices etc…but there isn’t anything that should represent also a lot of a learning curve.
Things are helped by an ‘onboarding checklist’ that’s provided to you when you log in for the very first time.
If You’re stuck nonetheless, you could always get in touch with Ecwid’s support staff — more on that later — or, if you’re on a’Business’ or’Unlimited’, you can make the most of the included customization service (you get 2 hours and 12 hours personalization period from Ecwidon these programs ).
Ecwid and GDPR
I am not a Lawyer, so please note that the below observations shouldn’t be interpreted as legal advice, but I am planning to do my very best to spell out a number of the key GDPR issues facing Ecwid consumers below.
With the introduction of That the EU’s new GDPR legislation, there are several legal steps that website owners now should take to ensure that they are adequately protecting EU clients’ and visitors’ privacy. There are severe financial penalties for not doing this (to the point where it’s typically a great idea to consult a lawyer about what to do); and even when your company is not based in the EU, you still will need to comply with the regulations where any website visits from the EU are worried.
Based on my Understanding of the crucial GDPR principles, the main priorities for prospective Ecwid shop owners are to:
· Provide adequate privacy and cookie cutter notices
· Process and store information securely
· Get explicit permission from those signing up to mailing lists that it is okay to send them e-newsletters
· Provide a way to opt in or revoke consent to use of non-essential biscuits on a website (and to log that consent).
There does not Appear to be Whatever stops you meeting the first few requirements easily enough with Ecwid, although you will have to spend time and potentially money creating adequate notices and crafting information capture forms so they are GDPR compliant.
Where things get Complex with Ecwid is your fourth requirement — cookie cutter approval. To ensure GDPR compliance, You Have to exhibit a cookie banner to your customers which
· Allows them to select which cookies they want to conduct BEFORE those biscuits are conducted (i.e., to give’prior permission’)
· Logs their approval to run biscuits Ecwid Change Category Layout
· Allows them to revoke approval at a later point
So for example, if you Use a Facebook Advertising cookie in conjunction with your Ecwid shop, you will be breaking GDPR legislation unless you have a banner in place which does all the above.
Nowout of the box at There isn’t a means to deal with the cookie consent issue with Ecwid. Nor is there an adequate app available from the Ecwid app shop (the only alternative on front that I can locate, the’EU cookie banner’, doesn’t appear to provide the essential performance — despite costing $1.99 per month to utilize ).
It Appears to me that the only alternative available to Ecwid consumers would be to use a specialist product like CookiePro, which does supply all the essential performance to make cookie consent fully GDPR compliant. Despite being a powerful product however, Cookiepro does require quite a lot of configuration and you’ll need to put quite a lot of time apart to set this up.
Setup and Design
I Truly like The fact that you’re able to run a website without paying anything. This makes the installation process that much simpler, because you simply have to punch in your email and make a password to go straight to the backend port.
The system has Wizards for every platform that you would like to place your shop on. If you’ve got a WordPress site, just walk through three steps to get up and running. You could also click on choices like Facebook and Joomla, depending on where you want to market.
The backend Design is flawless, because it walks you through every site creation and integration step with a few nice text and photos. Once you get your shop implemented on a website or social page it appears fairly slick.
The layout Depends upon the subject you have on your site, however as you can see below, it displays photos well and appears clean and easy to navigate. I particularly enjoy the Shopping Bag area, which is prominent and easy to locate for clients when they want to market.
Although many Sites will be mobile friendly, it;s fine knowing that Ecwid involves a native shopping application for both iOS and Android. Merchants now get a native shopping program for iOS and Android.
This means you Can mange your store and market on the go, while also providing your customers an opportunity to buy products from the cell interface.
The closing Design item which makes sense to mention is your language instrument. Since conducting an internet store generally requires one to reach out to individuals from throughout the world, you’re bound to stumble upon a few customers who would like to read product webpages and other content in their native language. Ecwid supports 45 languages, so if a user would like to translate from English to Spanish, that’s not a problem in any respect.
The Ecwid App Economy
Possessing the Chance to install applications is a sure fire way to scaling your ecommerce website in a reasonable way. Ecwid has a place called the Ecwid App Market. It offers 65 software, helping retailers extend their shop performance easily. Ecwid Change Category Layout
A Few of the apps Can give you a hand with rating and reviews, rewards programs, automatic ad tools, analytics, customized layout topics and more.
SEO and Marketing
Ecwid is a Third-party remedy to your current website, so you would typically have to implement additional SEO and marketing tools to really get out the word. Nevertheless, Ecwid provides quality SEO qualities to help retailers increase their visibility in Google searches.
Moreover, Google now indexes AJAX sites, so all Ecwid shops are indexed by Google without any excess work. It gets better with WordPress websites, as you gain access to additional search engine optimization plugins as well as the default search engine functionality around the dashboard.
Managing Your Inventory
The Ecwid Inventory process is as straightforward as they come, because it doesn’t seem to include any of those unnecessary bells and whistles you might find on other e commerce platforms.
Each step is Concise and clear, so that you can just go in there and type in a product name, price and image then save the product for later. Of course you could always open the More Powerful Options, however they separate these for if you are all set to start ramping up your own store.
As an example of the stock Rich direction toolset, you gain access to items like from stock product monitoring, mobile device stock management, barcode scanning and much more.
Customer Care
Ecwid provides A Chat With Sales attribute which is always one of my favourite ways to converse to companies. Only send them a question and you can work on something else until they respond.
The company 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 short and support quality .
In my eyes, the Platform has all you could want concerning support.
Payments and Security
It’s not always Simple to locate an ecommerce platform that does not charge fees, but that is exactly what you get with Ecwid. They never control any kind of transaction fee with any of the plans they provide, making it desirable for any shop that’s hoping to keep costs down and to improve margins.
Remember that Ecwid is not a payment processor, so you have to setup something such as PayPal or Stripe to process all the transactions that come through your website. It is pretty easy to employ one of these systems, since Ecwid integrates with over 40 global payment options. However, each one of these processors have their own trade fees so you have to prepare for them.
It’s quite Evident that Ecwid takes security seriously, since the company is a PCI DSS Grade 1 accredited supplier. The business also claims that each transaction that includes sensitive information is transferred via a secure HTTPS channel. Ecwid Change Category Layout
Imagine if you Would love to collect both offline and online payments? Perhaps you’d like 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 online and offline system.
Advantages and cons of utilizing Ecwid
Advantages
· Ecwid represents a very easy way to add e-commerce to some existing website.
· Point-of-sale performance is available, and there are a number of strategies to apply it.
· The item is cheap compared to other alternatives.
· It supports multi-language variations of your shop.
· The shop designs are responsive.
· Plugins / apps are available for major platforms (such as WordPress, Drupal and Wix).
· It permits users of site building products which don’t facilitate dropshipping to start doing this (i.e., Squarespace, Jimdo, Wix etc.)
· The’starter site’ option is a fantastic stopgap measure for merchants who want a shop quickly, but have yet to develop a complete website to add the Ecwid widget to.
· The free Ecwid program is not time-limited, includes support, and is fairly generous concerning attributes.
Cons
· The Paypal Here POS system is Limited to the US and UK.
· The Paypal Here POS system is limited to iOS users.
· Phone support is only available on the more expensive programs.
· There is a limited number of apps / integrations available in the Ecwid App shop.
· You can not change merchandise URLs, which can be slightly annoying in the SEO perspective.
· You can’t create AMP variations of product pages using Ecwid.
· Creating Ecwid GDPR-compliant (with respect to obtaining cookie approval ) sounds difficult.
· 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 a number of other platforms drag you in free trial, even where you will eventually have to pay.
This is where Ecwid stands out, and you can see the other payment programs are fairly affordable.
The Free plan Allows you to sell 10 products, while the Venture program ups that depend to 100 goods and you get items like an iPhone direction app. The company plan goes up to 2500 merchandise for a wonderful price and you also get live chat support. Priority support comes alongside the Unlimited plan and you can also sell an unlimited number of merchandise.
Ecwid is one of The most economical solutions on the marketplace. You may see that it’s actually cheaper than many of the other programs we’ve reviewed previously, so if you’re looking for value, this might be the right plugin for you.
Wrap-up
In short, I am Starting to believe that Ecwid is among the greatest ways to sell online, as long as you employ the best ways to enhance your sales online too. Ecwid is a sleek system, with super easy implementation measures, making it ideal for the small business audience. Ecwid Change Category Layout
Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!