Intro Ecwid Shopify
Have you ever Wondered if you’re using the right ecommerce platform for sale online? Can you occasionally stumble upon a new service that’s more practical and more economical than what you’re using today? 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 business site it often becomes tricky when you would like to bring on a new ecommerce platform or even just alter your website at all. Read our Ecwid review to discover more about this solution. Ecwid Shopify
Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!
Many options Purposefully make a closed system, which can be tedious to move away from as soon as you get started. But with a stage called Ecwid, you no longer need to be concerned about this. Actually, the entire aim of the company, which started in 2009, is to quickly and inexpensively make an internet store system in your present websites.
You don’t have To make a whole new site. Just apply Ecwid on any stage, CMS or social networking (in five minutes) and you are good to go.
That increased my Attention, because I know the struggles that come along with attempting to migrate websites, particularly when it comes to ecommerce. So, I wanted to gather an in-depth review of the Ecwid system to see if it is worth the time.
How Many People Use Ecwid?
It’s rather Remarkable what Ecwid has achieved since 2009, with more than 1 million merchants getting signed up. What’s even more cool is that the Ecwid merchants span over 175 different countries, showing that this is not only a platform for people in the US or Europe. Even businesses in developing countries have a chance to find an internet store heading, and you don’t have to trash your previous website if you have one.
The usership Continues to grow, particularly considering Ecwid is now PCI DSS Level 1 accredited. If you’re not sure what that is, it’s pretty much the gold standard for security in the ecommerce world. You can rest easy knowing that you and your customers’ information is safe and secure.
In addition to The total merchant count, over 20,000 active users are utilizing the Ecwid Shopping Cart for WordPress. The gap between that 20,000 along with the 1 million is the fact you don’t require a WordPress site in order to implement Ecwid. So, the 20,000 simply identifies WordPress users using the plugin.
What’s Ecwid, and how can it function?
Ecwid is a hosted Solution for building an online store. Unlike competing products like Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion, which allow you to build a fresh website with e-commerce functionality, Ecwid is targeted more towards people who already have a site and just want to add an internet store to it.
Much like other E-commerce platforms, Ecwid allows you to set up’catalogs’ of all products, and include photos, pricing, weight etc. . each. You can define shipping prices, accept credit card payments etc — all of 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 isn’t actually designed to allow you to produce a fully-featured, standalone e-commerce website; instead, it’s designed to allow you add an internet store to an existing online existence.
(That said, Ecwid have Recently added some new functionality, called’Starter Website’, that does allow you produce a one-page standalone offering. We are going to chat through this in more depth later on in the inspection.) Ecwid Shopify
Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!
The Product operates 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 couple lines of HTML code (the widget) to add to an existing website or social media profile, and your store is displayed wherever you have added this code.
Characteristics
Ecwid makes Strides in the market by catering to companies that don’t want to start a brand-new website. The primary feature is that you can choose your old website and immediately integrate the Ecwid system within a couple of minutes.
You can also Mirror the system onto several different sites if you anticipate selling elsewhere online. Handle all of these sites from 1 place rather than 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 go to a tradeshow to generate a number of sales and each one these earnings are represented on the back part of your website.
The system is Also designed to integrate nicely with social networks, and that means that you may sell your things on Facebook if needed. One part of Ecwid that we particularly enjoy is the delivery facet. With real time transport integrations you constantly know what is happening with your requests and at which they are being sent to.
What other cool Things are comprised with Ecwid?
It runs on a super quick framework
It comes with an address book to get customers and customers
The system has over 43 translations for sale around the planet
You receive lots of promotional instruments such as vouchers, discounts, bulk pricing and more
Create your own customized email notifications
Use the automated tax alternative (automatic tax charges at checkout, tax reporting and filing)
Point-of-sale performance
Thanks Into Ecwid’s point-of-sale (POS) performance, you can use your Ecwid store to market not only online but in physical places too — in stores, market stalls, in concerts and so forth.
Together with Ecwid’s POS Functionality, irrespective of whether a customer purchases a product in store, online, on their phone or via Facebook, everything stays in sync – i.e., the merchant’s catalogue, inventory and client / trade information.
There’s a couple of methods you can take advantage of this feature: the simplest is likely to use’Paypal Here.’ This entails downloading the Ecwid iOS app from the Apple’s App shop, linking it to the Paypal Here service, then taking payments utilizing a mobile card reader (pictured above).
You’ve got two choices when it comes to POS Hardware and Paypal Here: you can buy a chip and swipe reader (for $24.99) or a processor and also tap reader (for $79.99). Both may be ordered straight from Ecwid.
There’s a few Things worth noting the Paypal Here integration: first, it’s only available to merchants in america and UK. Secondly, it’s not yet available on Android devices. (On their website, Ecwid state it’ll be available shortly — but they’ve been saying that for quite a while now). Ecwid Shopify
If you are based outside That the US / UK, or want to work with another mobile device kind, the fantastic news is that Ecwid also functions together with all the Vend, Clover, NCR Silver and Square POS systems. These all ease utilizing a larger range of hardware at a physical retail location (full-sized card readers, receipt printers, cash drawers pill stands etc.) and are usable in more nations.
Although you could avail Of this 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 admin.
Reactive storefronts
Ecwid Storefronts are responsive, meaning that they will display properly across devices — desktopcomputer, tablet computers and mobile. In an era where smartphone internet browsing is eclipsing desktop browsing, this is vital.
Free program
Unlike many similar Goods, Ecwid offers a completely free plan.
Granted, it’s a fairly Basic plan, in which attributes like discount coupons and service are not available, and it merely lets you sell up to 10 products in two classes — but this may really be sufficient for some customers, and using it’s a fantastic way to try out the system.
However, A vital point to notice about the free plan is that it isn’t great from an SEO standpoint — you need to be on a paid program to make certain your product pages talk to search engines correctly (more on SEO under ).
Speech detection
Ecwid is ahead of the Pack in that its storefronts can be mechanically translated into nearly 50 different languages — customers can view your shop in their own language, without you needing to worry about producing alternate versions of it. Ecwid provides this performance by discovering visitors’ language automatically according to their browser preferences / IP address.
Competing products such as Shopify And Bigcommerce are nevertheless to provide this type of performance — they force you to rely on third party apps, the creation of numerous stores or Google Translate to provide different language versions of your shop, which is less than perfect. So a definite triumph for Ecwid here.
Ecwid and search engine optimisation
Search engine Optimisation (SEO) in Ecwid is a fairly straightforward affair. You are able to edit the title of your page and its own meta description; the relevant fields are pre-populated for you automatically, however you can tweak them to suit your search engine optimization objectives.
As far as I could tell But you can’t manually change the URL of a product — you need to make do with the one that Ecwid generates for you. This is not perfect 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 name you’ve given to your own product – so in the event that you include some keywords on your product title (not a bad idea anyhow ) that your URL will include them too. This functions as a tool of a workaround, but I would prefer whole control over URLs. Ecwid Shopify
One place where Ecwid does not perform quite so Well on the search engine optimization front involves AMP — accelerated cellular pages. As the name implies, AMP pages load quicker on mobile devices. This motivates people to remain longer on your webpage, thus increasing’live time’ –something that’s believed 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, providing AMP content an extra little boost.
Unfortunately However — and unlike rival products like Bigcommerce or Shopify, you can not create AMP versions of your goods using Ecwid.
Importing and exporting information
Like many competing Goods Ecwid permits you to import and export your data in CSV format.
The Export option permits you to export merchandise data, orders and clients (again, in CSV format) and means that should you feel the need to migrate your store to another e-commerce platform, then you shouldn’t have some significant difficulties doing so.
Utilizing Ecwid with other platforms
Ecwid and Twitter
WordPress does not Supplied any e-commerce performance out of the box, so anyone wanting to sell on the platform will need a third-party solution like Ecwid. There is an Ecwid plugin available, so adding an Ecwid store to your WordPress site is quite simple — you can get up and running with a couple clicks.
You simply sign up for an Ecwid accounts and then install the free plugin.
Ecwid and Squarespace
Squarespace includes Increasingly excellent e-commerce attributes, but the number of payment gateway options is quite limited — you have to utilize Stripe or Paypal. (And with Stripe only works if you are selling goods from particular countries). Another principal problem 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 permits you to bypass these constraints, and adding it into some Squarespace site is very easy: it’s a simple matter of adding 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 offered by Ecwid to allow you integrate the item onto a Wix store easily.
Programs and plugins
Ecwid provides a pretty Restricted number integrations with other apps that are well-known. Integrations do exist together with services Mailchimp, Xero and Freshbooks; but to be fair the range of integrations may be extensive — competing products like Shopify offer a much broader range of programs. Notable omissions from the Ecwid store comprise Quickbooks and Zendesk, for example (that said, a Quickbooks integration is coming shortly ).
The Picture is better when it comes to CMS plugins: All these are offered for WordPress, Wix and Joomla, enabling to you set up Ecwid on one of these platforms quite easily. Ecwid Shopify
Interface and ease of use
Ecwid’s Interface is rather easy to use. Like most similar online store 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 display or edit related products, website content and reports.
As with any e-commerce tool, you will have to Spend a reasonable amount of time getting your head about creating catalogues and product variants, setting up transport prices etc…but there is nothing that should represent also much of a learning curve.
Things are aided by an ‘onboarding checklist’ that’s supplied to you once you log in for the very first time.
If You are stuck nonetheless, you could always get in touch with Ecwid’s support team — more on this later — or, even if you’re on a’Business’ or’Unlimited’, you are able to take advantage 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 be aware that the below observations shouldn’t be interpreted as legal advice, but I’m planning to do my very best to spell out some of the major GDPR issues facing Ecwid users below.
With the introduction of The EU’s new GDPR legislation, there are many legal measures that website owners now should take to ensure that they are adequately protecting EU customers’ and visitors’ privacy. There are severe financial penalties for not doing this (to the point where it is usually a great idea to consult a lawyer on what to do); and even if your company is not based in the EU, you still need to obey the regulations where any website visits in the EU are concerned.
Based on my Understanding of the crucial GDPR principles, the main priorities for prospective Ecwid shop owners would be to:
· Provide adequate privacy and cookie cutter notices
· Process and store information safely
· Get explicit permission from those registering to mailing lists that it is fine to send them e-newsletters
· Provide a means to opt in or revoke consent to use of non-essential biscuits on a site (and to log that consent).
There doesn’t seem to be Whatever stops you fulfilling 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 that they are GDPR compliant.
Where things get Complicated with Ecwid is your fourth requirement — cookie cutter consent. To Guarantee GDPR compliance, you need to display a cookie cutter banner to your customers which
· Allows them to choose which cookies they would like to conduct BEFORE those biscuits are run (i.e., to provide’prior consent’)
· Logs their approval to conduct biscuits Ecwid Shopify
· Enables them to revoke approval at a later point
So for Instance, If you Use a Facebook Advertising cookie in conjunction with your Ecwid shop, you will be breaking up GDPR laws unless you’ve got a banner set up which does all the above.
Nowout of the box at Least there is not a means to take care of the cookie approval issue with Ecwid. Nor is there a decent program accessible from the Ecwid app store (the only option on this front that I can locate, the’EU cookie banner’, does not appear to provide the necessary functionality — even though costing $1.99 a month to use).
It Seems to me that the only alternative available to Ecwid users is to use a specialist product such as CookiePro, which does supply all the essential functionality to generate cookie consent fully GDPR compliant. Despite being a strong product however, Cookiepro does need quite a lot of configuration and you’ll need to put quite a lot of time apart to set this up.
Installation and Layout
I Truly like The fact that you’re able to run a website without paying anything. This makes the installation process that much simpler, since you simply need to punch in your email and create a password to proceed straight to the backend port.
The machine has Wizards for every platform you want to place your shop on. If you’ve got a WordPress site, just walk through three steps to get up and running. You can also click on choices like Facebook and Joomla, based on where you want to market.
The backend Design is perfect, since it walks you through each website creation and integration measure with some nice photos and text. As soon as you obtain your shop implemented on a site or social page it looks fairly sleek.
The layout Depends upon the theme you’ve got on your site, but as you can see below, it shows photos well and looks clean and simple to navigate. I especially enjoy the Shopping Bag area, which can be prominent and easy to locate for customers when they want to market.
Although many Sites will be mobile friendly, it;s nice knowing that Ecwid includes a native shopping program for both iOS and Android. Merchants now receive a native shopping program for iOS and Android.
This means you Can mange your store and sell on the go, 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 vocabulary instrument. Since running an online store generally requires one to reach out to people from all over the planet, you’re bound to stumble upon some clients who’d love to read product webpages and other content in their native tongue. Ecwid supports 45 languages, so when a user would like to translate from English to Spanish, that is no problem in any respect.
The Ecwid Program Economy
Possessing the Chance to put in applications is a sure fire way to scaling your ecommerce website in a reasonable way. Ecwid includes a location known as the Ecwid App Market. It provides 65 software, helping merchants extend their store performance readily. Ecwid Shopify
A Few of the programs Can help you out with rating and reviews, rewards programs, automatic advertising tools, analytics, custom design themes and more.
SEO and Marketing
Ecwid is a Third-party solution to your present website, so you’d normally need to implement additional SEO and advertising tools to really get the word out. Nevertheless, Ecwid supplies 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 extra effort. 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 performance on the dashboard.
Managing Your Inventory
The Ecwid Inventory system is as simple as they come, since it doesn’t appear to incorporate any of the unnecessary bells and whistles you may find on other ecommerce platforms.
Each step is Concise and clear, so you may just go in there and sort in a product name, price and picture then save the product for later. Obviously you can always open up the Powerful Options, however they different these for when you are all set to start ramping up your own store.
As an example of the stock Rich direction toolset, you gain access to things like from stock product tracking, mobile device inventory management, barcode scanning and more.
Customer Support
Ecwid provides A Chat With Earnings attribute which is always one of my favorite ways to talk to companies. Simply send them a query and you can work on something else until they respond.
The Business also Provides a potent support department with FAQs, a knowledge base, email capabilities and a forum.
Overall, the Service outlets include phone service, online chat service and email support, keeping the response time brief and encourage quality high.
In my mind, the Platform has all you might want concerning support.
Payments and Safety
It’s not always Easy to find an ecommerce platform that doesn’t charge transaction fees, but that’s exactly what you get with Ecwid. They never control any kind of trade fee with any of those programs they offer, making it desirable for any shop that is trying to keep costs down and to improve margins.
Remember that Ecwid is not a payment processor, which means you have to setup something such as PayPal or Stripe to process all of the transactions that come through your site. It’s pretty easy to employ these systems, because Ecwid integrates with over 40 global payment options. However, each one of those processors have their own transaction fees so that you have to prepare for these.
It is rather Evident that Ecwid takes security seriously, since the provider is a PCI DSS Level 1 accredited service provider. The company also states that each transaction that includes sensitive data is transferred through a secure HTTPS channel. Ecwid Shopify
What if you Would like to collect both offline and online 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 operation into both an offline and online system.
Advantages and disadvantages of utilizing Ecwid
Advantages
· Ecwid represents a really easy way to add e-commerce to any present website.
· Point-of-sale performance is available, and there are quite a few ways to implement it.
· The product is cheap compared to other solutions.
· It supports multi-language variations of your store.
· The shop layouts are responsive.
· Plugins / apps are available for major platforms (like WordPress, Drupal and Wix).
· It permits users of website building products that 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 want a store quickly, but have yet to develop a complete website in order to bring the Ecwid widget to.
· The free Ecwid plan isn’t time-limited, includes support, and is rather generous concerning features.
Cons
· The Paypal This POS system is Limited to the US and UK.
· The Paypal This POS process is limited to iOS users.
· Phone support is only available on the more expensive plans.
· There’s a restricted number of programs / integrations available from the Ecwid App shop.
· You can not change merchandise URLs, which can be slightly annoying from an search engine optimization perspective.
· You can’t create AMP variations of product pages utilizing Ecwid.
· Making Ecwid GDPR-compliant (with regard to getting cookie approval ) seems difficult.
· The free version doesn’t allow you to get any of the search engine optimization tools.
Pricing
Ecwid comes With four plans, one of which is completely free. They market the free plan like crazy, and mention that many different platforms drag you into a free trial, where you will finally need to pay.
This is where Ecwid stands outside, and you’ll be able to see the other payment programs are rather affordable.
The Free program Allows you to sell 10 products, while the Venture plan ups that count to 100 products and you get things like an iPhone management app. The Business plan goes up to 2500 products for a superb price and you also get live chat support. Priority support comes along with the Unlimited program and you can also market an unlimited amount of products.
Ecwid is one of The most economical solutions available on the marketplace. You may see that it is actually more affordable than many of the other programs we’ve reviewed in the past, so if you’re looking for value, this could be the right plugin for you.
Summary
In short, I am Starting to think that Ecwid is one of the best ways to sell online, provided that you employ the best methods to enhance your sales online as well. Ecwid is a slick system, with super easy implementation steps, making it ideal for the small business audience. Ecwid Shopify
Click Here to sign up to Ecwid now!