Introduction Ecwid How To Use
Have you ever Wondered if you’re using the ideal ecommerce platform for selling on the internet? Can you occasionally stumble upon a new service that’s more practical and more economical than what you’re using now? Starting a small business is all about keeping your costs low, and finding an ecommerce platform that will assist you with that is half the battle. Unfortunately, when you operate a small company website it often becomes tricky once you want to attract on a brand new ecommerce platform or even just modify your site at all. Read our Ecwid review to discover more about this solution. Ecwid How To Use
Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!
Many options Purposefully make a closed system, which is tedious to maneuver away from as soon as you get started. However, with a platform called Ecwid, you do not need to be concerned about it. In fact, the whole goal of the company, which started in 2009, would be to quickly and quickly create an online store system on your existing websites.
You do not have To make a whole new site. Just implement Ecwid on any platform, CMS or social networking (in five minutes) and you’re good to go.
This raised my Attention, because I know the struggles that come along with trying to migrate sites, particularly when it comes to ecommerce. So, I wanted to gather a comprehensive review of the Ecwid system to see if it’s worth the time.
How Many People Use Ecwid?
It’s rather Impressive what Ecwid has achieved since 2009, with more than 1 million retailers getting signed up. What’s even more cool is that the Ecwid retailers span over 175 distinct countries, showing that this isn’t just a platform for most people in the united states or Europe. Even businesses in developing nations have a chance to find an online store going, and you do not have to squander your previous site if you have one.
The usership Continues to grow, especially 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 security in the ecommerce world. You can rest easy knowing you and your customers’ data is safe and secure.
Along with The overall merchant count, over 20,000 active users are utilizing 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 in order to implement Ecwid. So, the 20,000 simply identifies WordPress users using the plugin.
What is Ecwid, and how can this work?
Ecwid is a hosted Alternative for building an internet shop. Unlike competing products such as Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion, which permit you to build a new site with e-commerce functionality, Ecwid is geared more towards people who already have a site and simply wish to add an internet store for this.
Much like other E-commerce platforms, Ecwid allows you to set up’catalogs’ of goods, and include photos, pricing, weight etc. for each. You can specify shipping prices, accept credit card payments and so on — all of the crucial stuff that you would expect to be able to perform with an e-commerce alternative.
However it differs Significantly from competing products such as Shopify, Volusion, Squarespace and Bigcommerce since it is not actually designed to allow you to create a fully-featured, standalone e-commerce website; rather, it’s intended to enable you add an internet store to an present online existence.
(That said, Ecwid have Recently added some new functionality, called’Starter Website’, which will let you produce a one-page standalone offering. We are going to chat through this in more depth later on in the review.) Ecwid How To Use
Click Here to register up to Ecwid now!
The Product works by providing you a widget that gets placed on other websites — hence the name Ecwid: it is short for’E-commerce Widget’. You receive a few lines of HTML code (the widget) to add into an existing website or social networking profile, and your store is displayed wherever you have inserted this code.
Features
Ecwid makes Strides in the market by catering to businesses which don’t need to start a brand new site. The main attribute is that you can choose your old site and quickly integrate the Ecwid system inside a few minutes.
You can also Mirror the system onto several different websites if you anticipate selling elsewhere on the web. Manage all these sites from one location instead of switching between multiple dashboards.
Another nice Attribute is the syncing between multiple devices. Sell on-the-go with your smartphone. This means that you can go to a tradeshow to make a number of sales and each one of these earnings are reflected on the back part of your website.
The system is Also made to integrate nicely with social networks, so you may sell your items on Facebook if desired. One part of Ecwid that we especially enjoy is the delivery aspect. With real time transport integrations you constantly know what’s going on with your orders and at which they are being sent to.
What other cool Things are included with Ecwid?
It runs on a super fast frame
It comes with an address book for customers and clients
The machine has over 43 translations for selling round the world
You get lots of promotional instruments such as vouchers, discounts, bulk pricing and more
Produce your personalized email notifications
Utilize the automatic tax solution (automatic tax charges at checkout, tax reporting and submitting )
Point-of-sale functionality
Thank you To Ecwid’s point-of-sale (POS) performance, you can use your Ecwid shop to sell not just online but in physical locations too — in stores, market stalls, at concerts and so forth.
Together with Ecwid’s POS Performance, regardless of whether or not a customer buys a product in store, online, on their phone or via Facebook, everything stays in sync – i.e., the retailer’s catalogue, inventory and client / transaction information.
There is a couple of ways you can use this attribute: the easiest is probably to use’Paypal Here.’ This involves downloading the Ecwid iOS app from the Apple’s App shop, connecting it to the Paypal Here support, and then taking payments using a cell card reader (pictured above).
You have two options when it comes to POS Hardware and Paypal This: you can either buy a chip and swipe reader (for $24.99) or a chip and also tap reader (for $79.99). Both may be ordered straight from Ecwid.
There’s a couple of Things worth noting the Paypal Here integration: first, it’s only available to merchants in the US and UK. Secondly, it is not yet available on Android apparatus. (On their website, Ecwid state it will be available shortly — but they have been saying that for quite some time now). Ecwid How To Use
If you are based outside The US / UK, or need to utilize another mobile device kind, the fantastic news is that Ecwid also functions with the Vend, Clover, NCR Silver and Square POS systems. These all ease using a wider selection of hardware in a physical retail location (full-sized card readers, receipt printers, cash drawers pill racks etc.) and are usable in more countries.
Although you can avail Of the Paypal Here POS choice on all paid-for programs, you will need to be on the most expensive’Unlimited’ plan if you would like to avail of a Vend, Clover, NCR Silver or Square integration.
Responsive storefronts
Ecwid Storefronts are responsive, meaning they will display properly across devices — desktopcomputer, tablet computers and mobile. In an era where smartphone web surfing is eclipsing desktop surfing, this is important.
Free program
Unlike many similar Products, Ecwid offers a completely free plan.
Granted, it is a pretty Standard plan, where attributes like discount vouchers and support aren’t accessible, and it merely allows you to sell up to 10 products in 2 categories — but this could actually be adequate for some users, and using it’s a good way to try the system out.
But, A key point to note about the free program is the fact that it is not great from an SEO point of view — you have to be on a paid program to make certain that your product pages talk to hunt engines correctly (more on SEO below).
Language detection
Ecwid is ahead of the Pack in that its storefronts can be mechanically translated into nearly 50 distinct languages — customers can see your shop in their own language, without you having to worry about producing alternate versions of this. Ecwid provides this functionality by detecting visitors’ language automatically according to their browser settings / IP address.
Competing products like Shopify And Bigcommerce are nevertheless to provide this type of performance — that they force you to rely on third party programs, the production of multiple shops or Google Translate to supply different language versions of your store, which is less than perfect. Therefore a definite win for Ecwid here.
Ecwid and search engine optimization
Search engine Optimisation (search engine optimization ) in Ecwid is a fairly straightforward affair. You can edit the title of your webpage and its meta description; the applicable fields are pre-populated for you automatically, but you can tweak them to match your search engine optimization objectives.
So Far as I could tell However, you can not manually change the URL of a product — you have 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.
But, The URLs which are automatically generated by Ecwid include the title you have given to your own product – so if you include some keywords in your product name (maybe not a bad idea anyway) that your URL will comprise them too. This functions as a tool of a workaround, but I would prefer whole control over URLs. Ecwid How To Use
One place where Ecwid does not perform so Well on the SEO front entails AMP — accelerated mobile pages. As its name suggests, AMP pages load faster on mobile devices. This motivates people to stay longer on your webpage, thus increasing’live time’ –something that’s believed by many search engine optimization experts consider to be rewarded by 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.
Unfortunately However — and unlike rival products like Bigcommerce or even Shopify, you can’t produce AMP versions of your products using Ecwid.
Importing and exporting information
Like most competing Products Ecwid permits you to import and export your data in CSV format.
The Export option allows you to export merchandise information, orders and customers (in CSV format) and means that should you ever feel the need to migrate your store to another e-commerce platform, then you should not have any major problems doing so.
Utilizing Ecwid with other programs
Ecwid and WordPress
WordPress doesn’t Provided any e-commerce functionality from this box, so anyone wanting to market on the stage will require a third-party solution like Ecwid. There’s an Ecwid plugin accessible, therefore adding an Ecwid store to your WordPress site is very simple — you can get up and running with a few clicks.
You just sign up for an Ecwid accounts and install the free plugin.
Ecwid and Squarespace
Squarespace includes Increasingly good e-commerce attributes, but the number of payment gateway options is very limited — you need to use Stripe or Paypal. (And using Stripe only functions if you’re selling products from certain countries). The other principal problem with the built-in Squarespace selling tools is they don’t facilitate dropshipping, and complete export of merchandise isn’t currently possible.
Integrating Ecwid with Squarespace allows you to bypass these limitations, and adding it into some Squarespace website is quite simple: it’s a simple matter of adding a code block to a webpage and pasting some HTML to it.
Ecwid and Wix
As With Squarespace, there is currently no dropshipping choice for Wix users, therefore again Ecwid can offer a good workaround. A dedicated program is offered by Ecwid to enable you incorporate the item on a Wix shop easily.
Apps and plugins
Ecwid provides a fairly Limited number integrations with other apps that are well-known. Integrations do exist with key services Mailchimp, Xero and Freshbooks; but to be honest the assortment of integrations could be extensive — competing goods such as Shopify offer a much broader assortment of programs. Notable omissions from the Ecwid store comprise Quickbooks and Zendesk, for example (that said, a Quickbooks integration is coming soon).
The Picture is better when it comes to CMS plugins: All these are offered for WordPress, Wix and Joomla, allowing for you to install Ecwid on these platforms quite easily. Ecwid How To Use
Interface and ease of use
Ecwid’s Interface is rather easy to use. Like most similar online shop builders, you get a vertical menu on the left that allows you to access key performance, and the place on the right is used to edit or display related products, site content and reports.
Much like any e-commerce tool, you’ll need to Spend a reasonable amount of time getting your head around producing catalogues and product variants, setting up shipping rates and so on…but there isn’t anything here that should represent too much of a learning curve.
Things are aided by an ‘onboarding checklist’ that is provided to you once you log in for the very first time.
If You are stuck nonetheless, you can always get in contact with Ecwid’s support staff — more on this later — or, even if you are on a’Business’ or’Unlimited’, you can take advantage of this included customization support (you get 2 hours and 12 hours personalization period from Ecwidon these plans).
Ecwid and GDPR
I am not a Lawyer, so please note that the below observations should not be interpreted as legal advice, but I’m going to do my very best to spell out a number of the major 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 they are adequately protecting EU clients’ and visitors’ privacy. There are serious financial penalties for doing so (to the point where it is usually a great idea to speak with a lawyer about what to do); and even when your company is not based 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 key GDPR rules, the main priorities for potential Ecwid store owners would be to:
· Provide sufficient privacy and cookie cutter notices
· Process and store data safely
· Get explicit consent from those signing up to mailing lists that it is okay to send them e-newsletters
· Provide a means to opt in or revoke consent to use of non-essential biscuits onto a website (and to log that approval ).
There doesn’t Appear to be Whatever stops you meeting the first few requirements easily enough with Ecwid, although you will need to spend time and possibly money creating adequate notices and crafting data capture forms so that they are GDPR compliant.
Where things get Complicated with Ecwid is the fourth requirement — cookie approval. To ensure GDPR compliance, you need to display a cookie cutter banner to your visitors which
· Allows them to choose which cookies they want to run BEFORE those biscuits are conducted (i.e., to provide’prior permission’)
· Logs their approval to conduct cookies Ecwid How To Use
· Enables them to revoke approval at a later point
So for example, if you Utilize a Facebook Advertising cookie in conjunction with your Ecwid shop, you’ll be breaking GDPR legislation unless you’ve got a banner in place which does all of the above.
Nowout of the box at There isn’t a way to take care of the cookie consent issue with Ecwid. Nor is there an adequate program available from the Ecwid app store (the only alternative on front that I can locate, the’EU cookie banner’, doesn’t seem to provide the necessary functionality — even though costing $1.99 per month to use).
It Appears to me that the only option available to Ecwid users is to use a professional product like CookiePro, which does provide all the necessary functionality to make 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 put quite a lot of time apart to set it up.
Installation and Layout
I really enjoy The fact that you’re able to run a web site without paying for anything. This makes the installation process that much easier, since you just 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 want to set your shop on. In case you have a WordPress site, simply walk through three steps to get up and running. You could even click on choices like Facebook and Joomla, depending on where you want to market.
The backend Design is perfect, since it walks you through each site creation and integration step with some fine text and photos. As soon as you get your shop implemented on a website or social page it appears fairly sleek.
The layout Depends upon the theme you have on your site, but as you can see below, it displays photos well and looks clean and simple to navigate. I particularly enjoy the Shopping Bag area, which can be prominent and easy to locate for clients when they wish to checkout.
Though many Websites are going to be cellular friendly, its nice understanding that Ecwid includes a native shopping program for both iOS and Android. Merchants now receive a native shopping application for iOS and Android.
This means you Can mange your store and sell on the move, while also providing your clients a chance to buy products from the cell interface.
The final Design thing that makes sense to mention is your vocabulary tool. Since conducting an internet store generally requires you to attain out to individuals from throughout the planet, you are bound to stumble upon a few customers who would love to read product pages and other content in their native language. Ecwid supports 45 languages, so when a user would like to translate from English to Spanish, that is not a problem at all.
The Ecwid App Economy
Possessing the Opportunity to install software is a sure fire way to scaling your ecommerce site in a reasonable way. Ecwid includes a place known as the Ecwid App Market. It offers 65 software, helping retailers extend their store functionality easily. Ecwid How To Use
Some of the programs Will help you out with rating and reviews, rewards programs, automated ad tools, analytics, customized design topics and much more.
SEO and Marketing
Ecwid is a Third-party remedy to your present website, so you’d typically have to implement additional SEO and advertising tools to truly 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, so all Ecwid stores are indexed by Google with no extra work. It gets better with WordPress sites, since you acquire access to additional SEO plugins as well as the default search engine functionality around the dashboard.
Managing Your Inventory
The Ecwid Inventory system is as simple as they come, because it doesn’t appear to incorporate any of those unnecessary bells and whistles you might find on other e commerce platforms.
Each measure is Concise and clear, so that you can just go in there and sort in a product name, price and image then save the product for later. Obviously you can always open the Powerful Options, however they different these for when you’re all set to get started ramping up your store.
As an example of the stock Rich direction toolset, you obtain access to items like out of stock product monitoring, mobile device inventory management, barcode scanning and much more.
Customer Care
Ecwid provides A Chat With Earnings attribute which is always one of my favourite ways to talk with companies. Simply 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 Service outlets include telephone service, online chat support and email support, maintaining the response time short and encourage quality .
In my eyes, the Platform has all you could want concerning support.
Payments and Safety
It’s not necessarily Simple to locate an ecommerce platform that doesn’t charge fees, but that’s just what you get with Ecwid. They never control any sort of trade fee with any of the plans they offer, which makes it desirable for any store that’s trying to keep down costs and to improve margins.
Remember that Ecwid isn’t a payment processor, which means you have to setup something like PayPal or Stripe to process all of the transactions that come through your site. It is pretty easy to employ these systems, since Ecwid integrates with over 40 international payment choices. However, each one of those processors have their own trade fees so that you have to get ready for them.
It is rather Evident that Ecwid takes safety seriously, since the company is a PCI DSS Grade 1 accredited supplier. The business also states that each transaction that includes sensitive data is transferred via a secure HTTPS channel. Ecwid How To Use
Imagine if you Would like to collect both offline and online 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 performance into both an offline and online system.
Advantages and cons of using Ecwid
Advantages
· Ecwid represents a really simple way to add e-commerce to some present website.
· Point-of-sale performance is available, and there are quite a few strategies to implement it.
· The item is cheap by comparison to other solutions.
· It supports multi-language versions of your store.
· The store designs are responsive.
· Plugins / apps are available for major platforms (such as WordPress, Drupal and Wix).
· It permits users of website building products which don’t facilitate dropshipping to begin doing this (i.e., Squarespace, Jimdo, Wix etc.)
· The’starter website’ option is a good stopgap measure for merchants who need a shop fast, but have yet to create a full website in order to add the Ecwid widget to.
· The free Ecwid plan isn’t time-limited, includes support, and is rather generous concerning attributes.
Disadvantages
· The Paypal This 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 plans.
· There is a limited number of programs / integrations offered in the Ecwid App shop.
· You can’t alter product URLs, which is slightly annoying in the search engine optimization point of view.
· You can’t create AMP variations of merchandise pages using Ecwid.
· Making Ecwid GDPR-compliant (with regard to getting cookie consent) seems hard.
· The free version doesn’t allow you to get any of the search engine optimization tools.
Pricing
Ecwid comes With four plans, among which is totally free. They market the free program like crazy, and mention that a number of other platforms drag you in 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 Lets you sell 10 products, while the Venture program ups that count to 100 goods and you get things like an iPhone management program. The company program goes up to 2500 products for a superb price and you also get live chat support. Priority support comes alongside the Unlimited program and you might also market an unlimited number of products.
Ecwid is one of The most economical solutions on the marketplace. You may see that it is actually more affordable than a lot of the other programs we have reviewed in the past, so if you’re searching for value, this could be the right plugin for you.
Wrap-up
In short, I’m Starting to think that Ecwid is among the greatest ways to market online, as long as you implement the best ways to enhance your earnings online as well. Ecwid is a sleek system, with superb simple implementation steps, making it perfect for your small business crowd. Ecwid How To Use
Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!