Background Ecwid Ecommerce Review

Have you ever Wondered if you are using the right ecommerce platform for sale online? Do you occasionally stumble upon a new service that’s more practical and cheaper than what you’re using today? 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 when you want to bring on a new ecommerce platform or perhaps just modify your website at all. Read our Ecwid review to discover more about this option. Ecwid Ecommerce Review

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Many options Purposefully make a closed system, which can be tedious to move away from once you begin. But with a platform called Ecwid, you no longer need to be concerned about it. Actually, the entire goal of the company, which started in 2009, is to quickly and quickly create an online store system on your present websites.

You don’t have To make a whole new site. Just apply Ecwid on any platform, CMS or social networking (in five minutes) and you are all set.

This raised my Attention, because I know the struggles that come along with trying to migrate websites, especially when it comes to ecommerce. So, I needed to put together a comprehensive review of this Ecwid system to see whether it’s worth the time.

How Many People Use Ecwid?

It’s quite Impressive what Ecwid has done since 2009, with over 1 million merchants getting signed up. What’s even more cool is that the Ecwid retailers span over 175 different countries, showing that this isn’t only a platform for most people in the united states or Europe. Even companies in developing countries have a chance to get an online store going, and you don’t even have to squander your previous website in case you have one.

The usership Continues to grow, especially considering Ecwid is currently PCI DSS Level 1 accredited. If you are not sure what that is, it is pretty much the gold standard for security in the ecommerce world. You can rest easy knowing you and your clients’ data is safe and secure.

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 simple fact you don’t require a WordPress site to implement Ecwid. So, the 20,000 simply identifies WordPress users using the plugin.

What is Ecwid, and how does it function?

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

Much like other E-commerce platforms, Ecwid lets you install’catalogs’ of products, and include photos, pricing, weight etc. . each. You are able to specify shipping rates, accept credit card payments and so on — all the crucial things that you’d expect to be able to do using an e-commerce solution.

However it differs Significantly from competing products like Shopify, Volusion, Squarespace and Bigcommerce in that it is not really designed to let you produce a fully-featured, standalone e-commerce site; instead, it is designed to allow you add an internet store to an existing online existence.

(That said, Ecwid have Recently added some new functionality, known as’Starter Site’, which will let you produce a one-page standalone offering. We’ll talk via this in more depth later on in the inspection.) Ecwid Ecommerce Review

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The Product works by giving you a widget which gets put on other sites — hence the name Ecwid: it’s short for’E-commerce Widget’. You receive a few lines of HTML code (the widget) to add into an present website or societal networking profile, and your store is displayed wherever you have added this code.

Features

Ecwid makes Strides in the market by catering to companies that don’t want to begin a brand new website. The primary attribute is that you can take your old site and quickly incorporate the Ecwid system inside a couple of minutes.

You can also Mirror the system onto various other sites if you anticipate selling elsewhere online. Manage all of these sites from 1 location rather than switching between multiple dashboards.

Another nice Attribute is that the syncing between multiple devices. Sell on-the-go with your smartphone. This means you could go to a tradeshow to generate a few sales and all these earnings are represented on the back part of your website.

The system is Also designed to integrate well with social networks, so you may sell your things on Facebook if desired. 1 part of Ecwid that we especially enjoy is the shipping facet. With real time transport integrations you constantly know what’s going on with your requests and where they’re being sent to.

What other cool Items are included with Ecwid?

It runs on a super fast framework

It comes with an address book to get customers and customers

The system has over 43 translations for selling around the planet

You receive lots of promotional instruments like coupons, discounts, bulk pricing and much more

Create your own customized email alerts

Use the automated tax alternative (automatic tax rates at checkout, tax reporting and submitting )

Point-of-sale functionality

Thank you Into Ecwid’s point-of-sale (POS) functionality, you can use your Ecwid store to market not just online but in bodily locations too — in shops, market stalls, at theatres and so on.

With Ecwid’s POS Performance, regardless of if a customer buys a product in store, online, in their telephone or through Facebook, everything remains in sync – i.e., the retailer’s catalog, inventory and client / trade info.

There’s a few ways you can use this attribute: the easiest is likely to use’Paypal Here.’ This involves downloading the Ecwid iOS app from the Apple’s App store, connecting it to the Paypal Here support, and then taking payments utilizing a cell card reader (pictured above).

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

There is a few Things worth noting about the Paypal Here integration: it’s only available to retailers in america and UK. Second, it’s not yet available on Android devices. (On their site, Ecwid state it’ll be available shortly — but they’ve been saying that for quite a while now). Ecwid Ecommerce Review

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

Although you can avail Of the Paypal Here POS choice on most of paid-for plans, you will want to be on the priciest’Unlimited’ program if you would like to avail of a Vend, Clover, NCR Silver or Square integration.

Responsive storefronts

Ecwid Storefronts are responsive, meaning that they will display properly across apparatus — desktopcomputer, tablet and cellular. In an era where smartphone internet surfing is eclipsing desktop surfing, this is vital.

Free program

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

Granted, it is a fairly Standard plan, where attributes such as discount coupons and service aren’t available, and it merely lets you sell up to 10 products in 2 categories — but this may really be adequate for some users, and using it is a fantastic way to try out the system.

But, A key point to notice about the free plan is the fact that it isn’t good from an SEO point of view — you need to be on a paid plan to ensure your product pages talk to search engines correctly (more on SEO under ).

Speech detection

Ecwid is forward of the Pack because 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 detecting visitors’ language automatically according to their browser settings / IP address.

Competing products such as Shopify And Bigcommerce are yet to provide this type of performance — they force you to rely on third party apps, the production of multiple stores or Google Translate to provide different language variations of your shop, which is less than perfect. Therefore a definite triumph for Ecwid here.

Ecwid and search engine optimization

Search engine Optimization (search engine optimization ) in Ecwid is a pretty straightforward affair. You are able to edit the title of your page and its 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 But 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 during indexing.

However, The URLs which are automatically generated by Ecwid include the title you have given to your product – so in the event that you include some keywords in your product title (maybe not a bad idea anyhow ) that your URL will include them also. This functions as something of a workaround, but I would prefer full control over URLs. Ecwid Ecommerce Review

One place where Ecwid doesn’t perform quite so Well on the search engine optimization front entails AMP — accelerated cellular pages. As the name implies, AMP pages load quicker on mobile devices. This encourages people to stay longer on your webpage, thus increasing’dwell time’ –something that’s considered by many SEO experts believe to be rewarded by Google with preferential treatment in search results. Furthermore, Google sometimes highlights AMP webpages in carousels in search results, giving AMP articles an extra little boost.

Unfortunately However — and unlike most competing products like Bigcommerce or even Shopify, you can not create AMP versions of your products using Ecwid.

Importing and exporting information

Like most competing Goods Ecwid allows you to import and export your data in CSV format.

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

Using Ecwid with other platforms

Ecwid and Twitter

WordPress doesn’t Provided any e-commerce performance out of the box, so anyone wishing to sell on the stage will need a third-party alternative like Ecwid. There is an Ecwid plugin accessible, so adding an Ecwid store 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 account and install the free plugin.

Ecwid and Squarespace

Squarespace comes with Increasingly excellent e-commerce attributes, but the amount of payment gateway options is quite limited — you need to use Stripe or Paypal. (And with Stripe only works if you’re selling goods from particular countries). Another principal issue with the built-in Squarespace marketing tools is they don’t facilitate dropshipping, and complete export of merchandise isn’t currently possible.

Integrating Ecwid with Squarespace permits you to bypass these limitations, and adding it to a Squarespace website is very easy: it’s a simple matter of including a code block into a page and pasting some HTML to it.

Ecwid and Wix

As With Squarespace, there’s currently no dropshipping option for Wix users, so again Ecwid can offer a good workaround. A committed program is provided by Ecwid to enable you integrate the item on a Wix store easily.

Programs and plugins

Ecwid provides a fairly Restricted number integrations with other well-known apps. Integrations do exist together with key services Mailchimp, Xero and Freshbooks; but to be honest the range of integrations may be extensive — competing goods like Shopify provide a much broader range of apps. Notable omissions in 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 for you to install Ecwid on these platforms very easily. Ecwid Ecommerce Review

Interface and ease of use

Ecwid’s Interface is rather user friendly. Like many similar online shop builders, you receive a vertical menu on the left which allows you to access key performance, and the area on the right can be used to display or edit related products, website reports and content.

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

Things are aided 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 contact with Ecwid’s support staff — more on this later — or, if you are on a’Business’ or’Unlimited’, you are able to make the most of the included customization service (you get two hours and 12 hours customization time from Ecwidon these programs ).

Ecwid and GDPR

I am not a Lawyer, so please note the below observations should not be interpreted as legal advice, but I’m going to do my very best to spell out some of the key GDPR issues facing Ecwid consumers below.

With the introduction of The EU’s new GDPR legislation, there are many legal steps that website owners now should take to ensure that they are adequately protecting EU customers’ and visitors’ privacy. There are serious financial penalties for doing so (to the point where it’s typically a good idea to consult a lawyer on what to do); and even if your business is not located in the EU, you still need to comply with the regulations where any website visits in the EU are worried.

According to my Understanding of the crucial GDPR rules, the principal priorities for prospective Ecwid store owners would be to:

· Provide adequate privacy and cookie cutter notices

· Process and store information securely

· Get explicit consent from those registering 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 cookies on a website (and also to log that approval ).

There does not Appear to be Anything that stops you fulfilling the first three requirements easily enough with Ecwid, though you will need to devote time and potentially money creating adequate notices and crafting information capture forms so they are GDPR compliant.

Where things get Complicated with Ecwid is your fourth requirement — cookie cutter approval. To Guarantee GDPR compliance, You Have to display a cookie banner to your visitors which

· Allows them to choose which cookies they want to conduct BEFORE those cookies are conducted (i.e., to provide’prior permission’)

· Logs their approval to conduct biscuits Ecwid Ecommerce Review

· Allows them to revoke approval at a later stage

So for example, if you Utilize a Facebook Ads cookie in conjunction with your Ecwid shop, you will be breaking up GDPR laws unless you have a banner set up which does all the above.

Now, out of the box at Least there is not a way to take care of the cookie approval issue with Ecwid. Nor is there a decent app available from the Ecwid app shop (the only alternative on front I can find, the’EU cookie banner’, does not seem to provide the essential functionality — despite costing $1.99 per month to utilize ).

It Seems to me that the only alternative available to Ecwid consumers is to use a professional product such as CookiePro, which will supply all the essential performance to make cookie consent fully GDPR compliant. Despite being a powerful product nonetheless, Cookiepro does require quite a lot of configuration and you will need to set quite a great deal of time apart to set it up.

Installation and Layout

I Truly like The fact which you can run a web site without paying for anything. This makes the setup process that much easier, because you just need to punch in your email and make a password to go right to the backend port.

The machine has Wizards for every platform you want to set your store on. In case you have a WordPress site, just walk through three steps to get up and running. You can even click on choices like Facebook and Joomla, based on the place you want to market.

The backend Design is perfect, since it walks you through every website creation and integration measure with a few fine text and photos. As soon as you get your store implemented on a website or societal page it looks fairly slick.

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

Though many Sites will be mobile friendly, it;s nice understanding that Ecwid includes a native shopping program for both iOS and Android. Merchants now get a native shopping program 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 mobile interface.

The closing Design item which makes sense to mention is your vocabulary tool. Since conducting an internet store generally requires one to attain out to people from throughout the planet, you are bound to stumble upon some clients who would like to read product webpages and other content in their native language. Ecwid supports 45 languages, so when a user would like to translate from English into Spanish, that’s not a problem at all.

The Ecwid Program Market

Having the Chance to put in applications is a sure fire way to scaling your ecommerce website in a fair way. Ecwid includes a place called the Ecwid App Market. It provides 65 applications, helping merchants extend their store performance easily. Ecwid Ecommerce Review

A Few of the programs Will give you a hand with reviews and rating, rewards programs, automated advertising tools, analytics, custom layout themes and much more.

SEO and Marketing

Ecwid is a Third-party remedy to your current website, so you’d normally need to employ additional SEO and marketing tools to truly get out the word. That said, Ecwid provides quality SEO qualities to help merchants 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 even better with WordPress sites, since you gain access to additional search engine optimization plugins as well as also the default search engine functionality around the dashboard.

Managing Your Inventory

The Ecwid Inventory system 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 may just go in there and sort in a product name, price and picture then save the merchandise for later. Obviously you can always open up the More Powerful Options, but they separate these for when you’re ready 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 tracking, mobile device stock management, barcode scanning and more.

Customer Care

Ecwid provides A Chat With Earnings attribute which is always one of my favorite ways to talk with companies. Only send them a query and you are able to work on something else until they respond.

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

Overall, the Support outlets include telephone support, online chat support and email support, maintaining the response time brief and encourage quality high.

In my mind, the Platform has all you could want concerning support.

Payments and Safety

It is not necessarily Simple to locate an ecommerce platform which does not charge fees, but that is just what you get with Ecwid. They never charge any sort of trade fee with any of the plans they offer, making it desirable for any store that’s trying to keep down costs and also to improve margins.

Keep in mind that Ecwid is not a payment processor, which means you’ve got to set up something such as PayPal or Stripe to process all of the transactions that come through your site. It is pretty easy to implement these systems, because Ecwid integrates with over 40 global payment choices. However, each one of these processors have their particular trade fees so that you have to get ready for them.

It is rather Clear that Ecwid takes safety seriously, since the provider is a PCI DSS Grade 1 accredited supplier. The business also claims that each trade that includes sensitive data is transferred via a secure HTTPS channel. Ecwid Ecommerce Review

What if you Would love to collect both online and offline payments? Perhaps you’d prefer a point of sale integration?

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

Advantages and disadvantages of using Ecwid

Benefits

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

· Point-of-sale performance can be obtained, and there are quite a few ways to apply it.

· The item is cheap by comparison to other solutions.

· It supports multi-language variations of your shop.

· The store designs are responsive.

· Plugins / programs are available for major platforms (such as WordPress, Drupal and Wix).

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

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

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

Disadvantages

· The Paypal Here POS system is Limited to the US and UK.

· The Paypal This POS system is limited to iOS users.

· Phone support is only available on the more expensive programs.

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

· You can not alter product URLs, which is slightly annoying from an SEO point of view.

· You can’t create AMP versions of merchandise pages using Ecwid.

· Making Ecwid GDPR-compliant (with respect to getting cookie approval ) sounds difficult.

· The free version doesn’t allow you to access any of the search engine optimization tools.

Pricing

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

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

The Free program Allows you to sell 10 products, whereas the Venture program ups that depend to 100 products and you get things like an iPhone direction app. 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 program and you might also market an unlimited number of products.

Ecwid is one of The cheapest solutions available on the market. You can see that it is actually cheaper than a lot of the other platforms we have reviewed in the past, so if you’re searching for value, this might be the perfect plugin for you.

Conclusion

In short, I’m Starting to think that Ecwid is one of the best ways to market online, provided that you implement the best methods to improve your earnings online as well. Ecwid is a sleek system, with super easy implementation steps, making it perfect for your small business crowd. Ecwid Ecommerce Review

Click Here to register up to Ecwid now!