Introduction Ecwid Vertical Categories

Have you ever Wondered if you’re 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 today? Starting a small business is all about keeping your costs low, and finding an ecommerce platform to help you with half the battle. Unfortunately, when you operate a small company website it often becomes tricky when you would like to attract on a new ecommerce platform or perhaps just alter your website whatsoever. Read our Ecwid review to find out more about this option. Ecwid Vertical Categories

Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!

Many solutions Intentionally make a closed system, which is tedious to move away from once you begin. But with a platform called Ecwid, you do not need to be concerned about it. Actually, the whole aim of the business, which started in 2009, is to quickly and inexpensively make an internet store system in your present websites.

You don’t have To create a completely different site. Just implement Ecwid on any stage, CMS or social network (in five minutes) and you are good to go.

This increased my Attention, since I know the struggles that come along with trying to migrate sites, particularly in regards to ecommerce. So, I needed to put together a comprehensive review of the Ecwid system to find out if it’s worth the time.

How Many People Use Ecwid?

It’s quite Impressive what Ecwid has done 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, demonstrating that this isn’t only a platform for people in the US or Europe. Even businesses in developing countries have a opportunity to get an internet store going, and you don’t have to trash your prior website if you have one.

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

In addition to The overall merchant count, over 20,000 active users are using the Ecwid Shopping Cart for WordPress. The difference between that 20,000 along with the 1 million is the fact that you don’t require a WordPress site to implement Ecwid. So, the 20,000 simply refers to 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 permit you to construct a new website with e-commerce performance, Ecwid is targeted more towards people who already have a site and simply want to add an online store for this.

Much like other E-commerce programs, Ecwid lets you set up’catalogs’ of goods, and add photographs, pricing, weight etc. for each. You are able to specify shipping prices, accept credit card payments and so on — all of the key things that you would 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 isn’t really designed to let you create a fully-featured, standalone e-commerce website; rather, it’s designed to allow you add an internet store to an present online presence.

(That said, Ecwid have Recently added some new functionality, called’Starter Site’, which will let you create a one-page standalone offering. We’ll talk via this in more detail later on in the review.) Ecwid Vertical Categories

Click Here to register up to Ecwid today!

The Product operates 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 couple lines of HTML code (the widget) to add to an existing site or societal networking profile, and your store is displayed wherever you’ve added this code.

Features

Ecwid makes Strides in the market by catering to companies that don’t want to begin a brand-new site. The primary feature is that you can take your old site and immediately incorporate the Ecwid system within a few minutes.

You can also Mirror the system on several different websites if you plan on selling elsewhere on the web. Handle all of these websites from 1 place instead of switching between multiple dashboards.

Another nice Attribute is the syncing between multiple devices. Sell on-the-go together with your smartphone. This usually means you could go to a tradeshow to make a few sales and each one of these sales are reflected onto the back part of your site.

The system is Also made to integrate nicely with social networks, and that means you can sell your items on Facebook if desired. One part of Ecwid that we especially enjoy is the delivery facet. With real time shipping integrations you always know what’s happening with your orders and at which they are being sent to.

What other trendy Things are comprised with Ecwid?

It runs on a super quick framework

It comes with an address book to get customers and clients

The machine has over 43 translations for selling around the world

You get a Lot of promotional instruments such as coupons, discounts, bulk pricing and more

Create your personalized email alerts

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

Point-of-sale performance

Thanks To Ecwid’s point-of-sale (POS) performance, you may use your Ecwid shop to market not just online but in physical places too — in shops, market stalls, in concerts and so on.

With Ecwid’s POS Functionality, regardless of whether or not a customer purchases a product in shop, online, on their telephone or via Facebook, everything remains in sync – i.e., the merchant’s catalogue, inventory and client / trade information.

There is a few ways you can use this feature: the easiest is likely to use’Paypal Here.’ This entails downloading the Ecwid iOS program from the Apple’s App store, linking it to the Paypal Here service, then taking payments utilizing a mobile card reader (pictured above).

You have two choices 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 can be arranged straight from Ecwid.

There is a few Things worth noting the Paypal Here integration: it’s only available to merchants in the US and UK. Secondly, it’s not yet available on Android apparatus. (On their website, Ecwid state it’ll be available soon — but they have been saying that for quite a while now). Ecwid Vertical Categories

If you are based outside The US / UK, or want to work with another mobile device kind, the good news is that Ecwid also functions together with the Vend, Clover, NCR Silver and Square POS systems. These all ease utilizing a wider range of hardware at a physical retail location (full-sized card readers, receipt printers, cash drawers tablet stands etc.) and are usable in more nations.

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

Reactive storefronts

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

Free plan

Unlike many similar Products, Ecwid offers a totally free program.

Granted, it is a fairly Basic plan, in which features like discount vouchers and service are not available, and it merely lets you sell up to ten products in 2 categories — but this could really be adequate for some users, and using it is a fantastic way to try out the system.

However, A vital point to note about the free program is the fact that it is not good from an SEO point of view — you have to be on a paid plan to ensure that your product pages speak to hunt engines accurately (more on SEO under ).

Speech detection

Ecwid is forward of the Pack in that its storefronts can be automatically translated into nearly 50 different languages — clients can see your store in their own language, without you having to worry about producing alternate versions of it. Ecwid provides this performance by discovering visitors’ language mechanically according to their browser settings / IP address.

Competing products such as Shopify And Bigcommerce are nevertheless to provide this type of performance — that they force you to rely on third party apps, the creation of numerous stores or Google Translate to provide different language versions of your store, which can be less than perfect. Therefore a definite win for Ecwid here.

Ecwid and search engine optimisation

Search engine Optimisation (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 applicable fields are pre-populated for you automatically, but you can tweak them to suit 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 that Ecwid generates for you. This isn’t ideal because key words in URLs are used by some search engines to categorise content during indexing.

But, The URLs which are automatically generated by Ecwid include the title you’ve given to your product – so if you include some keywords on your product title (not a bad idea anyhow ) your URL will include them too. This functions as something of a workaround, but I’d prefer full control over URLs. Ecwid Vertical Categories

1 place where Ecwid does not perform quite so Well on the SEO front involves AMP — accelerated mobile pages. As the name implies, AMP pages load faster on mobile devices. This encourages people to remain longer on your page, thus increasing’dwell time’ –something that’s considered by many SEO experts believe to be rewarded with 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’t 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 product information, orders and clients (in CSV format) and means that should you ever feel the need to migrate your shop to another e-commerce platform, you shouldn’t have some major difficulties doing so.

Using Ecwid with other programs

Ecwid and WordPress

WordPress doesn’t Provided any e-commerce functionality out of this box, so anyone wanting to market on the platform will need a third-party solution like Ecwid. There is an Ecwid plugin accessible, so adding an Ecwid store to your WordPress site is quite simple — you can get up and running with a few clicks.

You simply sign up for an Ecwid account and then install the free plugin.

Ecwid and Squarespace

Squarespace includes Increasingly excellent e-commerce attributes, but the amount 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 software is they don’t facilitate dropshipping, and complete export of products is not currently possible.

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

Ecwid and Wix

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

Apps and plugins

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

The Picture is better in regards to CMS plugins: All these are available for WordPress, Wix and Joomla, enabling for you to set up Ecwid on these platforms very easily. Ecwid Vertical Categories

Interface and ease of use

Ecwid’s Interface is pretty easy to use. Like many similar online store builders, you get a vertical menu on the left which allows you to access key functionality, and the place 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 around creating catalogues and product variations, setting up transport rates etc…but there isn’t anything that should represent also a lot of a learning curve.

Things are helped by an ‘onboarding checklist’ that is supplied to you when you log in for the very first time.

If You are stuck nonetheless, you could always get in contact with Ecwid’s support team — more on this later — or, even if you’re on a’Business’ or’Unlimited’, you can take advantage of this included customization support (you get 2 hours and 12 hours customization time from Ecwidon these plans).

Ecwid and GDPR

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

With the introduction of The EU’s new GDPR laws, there are several legal measures that site owners now should take to ensure that they are adequately protecting EU customers’ and visitors’ privacy. There are serious financial penalties for doing this (to the point where it’s typically a good idea to speak with a lawyer about what to do); and even when your business is not located in the EU, you still will need to comply with the regulations where any website visits in the EU are concerned.

Based on my Understanding of the crucial GDPR rules, the principal priorities for prospective Ecwid shop owners would be to:

· Provide adequate privacy and cookie notices

· Process and store information securely

· Get explicit permission from those signing up to mailing lists that it is fine to send them e-newsletters

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

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

Where things get Complicated with Ecwid is the fourth requirement — cookie cutter consent. To ensure GDPR compliance, You Have to exhibit a cookie banner to your visitors which

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

· Logs their approval to conduct cookies Ecwid Vertical Categories

· Enables them to revoke approval at a later stage

So for example, if you Utilize a Facebook Advertising cookie in conjunction with your Ecwid shop, you’ll be breaking up GDPR laws unless you have a banner in place which does all of the above.

Now, out 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 app accessible from the Ecwid app store (the only alternative on this front that I can find, the’EU cookie banner’, doesn’t appear to supply the essential functionality — even though costing $1.99 per month to utilize ).

It Appears to me that the only option available to Ecwid consumers would be to use a specialist product like CookiePro, which does supply all the essential functionality to make cookie consent fully GDPR compliant. Despite being a strong product however, Cookiepro does need quite a great deal of configuration and you’ll want to set quite a great deal of time apart to set this up.

Setup and Layout

I really enjoy The fact that you can run a website without paying for anything. This makes the setup process that much easier, since you just have to punch in your email and create a password to go straight to the backend interface.

The system has Wizards for each platform that you would like to set your store on. In case you have a WordPress site, simply walk through three steps to get up and running. You can also click on choices like Facebook and Joomla, depending on the place you would like to market.

The backend Design is flawless, since it walks you through every site creation and integration step with some fine photos and text. As soon as you obtain your store implemented on a website or societal page it appears fairly slick.

The design Depends upon the subject you’ve got on your site, however as you can see below, it shows photos well and looks clean and simple to navigate. I particularly enjoy the Shopping Bag place, which is outstanding and easy to find for clients when they want to checkout.

Although many Sites will be mobile friendly, its fine understanding 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 shop and sell on the move, while also giving your clients a chance to buy products from the cell interface.

The closing Design thing that makes sense to mention is your vocabulary instrument. Since conducting an online store generally requires you to reach out to individuals from throughout the planet, you are bound to stumble upon some customers who would love to read product webpages and other content in their native language. Ecwid supports 45 languages, so when a user wants to translate from English into Spanish, that’s not a problem at all.

The Ecwid Program Economy

Possessing the Chance to install applications is a sure fire way to scaling up your ecommerce website in a fair way. Ecwid includes a location known as the Ecwid App Market. It offers 65 software, helping retailers extend their store performance readily. Ecwid Vertical Categories

A Few of the programs Will help you out with reviews and rating, rewards programs, automatic ad tools, analytics, custom design topics and more.

SEO and Marketing

Ecwid is a Third party remedy to your present website, so you would normally need to implement additional SEO and advertising tools to truly get out the word. That said, Ecwid provides quality SEO features to help retailers increase their visibility in Google searches.

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

Managing Your Inventory

The Ecwid Inventory system is as simple as they come, because it doesn’t appear to incorporate any of the unnecessary bells and whistles you may find on other ecommerce platforms.

Each measure is Concise and clear, so that you may just go in there and type in a product name, price and picture then save the product for afterwards. Obviously you could always open up the Powerful Options, but they different these for if you’re all set to get started ramping up your own store.

As an example of the stock Rich management toolset, you obtain access to things like out of stock product tracking, mobile device stock management, barcode scanning and much more.

Customer Care

Ecwid offers A Chat With Sales attribute which is always one of my favorite ways to converse to companies. Simply send them a question and you can work on something else until they respond.

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

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

In my eyes, the Platform has everything you could want in terms of support.

Payments and Safety

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

Remember that Ecwid isn’t a payment processor, which means you have to set up something such as PayPal or Stripe to process all the trades that come through your website. It is rather simple to employ one of these systems, because Ecwid incorporates with over 40 international payment options. However, each one of these processors have their own transaction fees so you have to get ready for these.

It’s quite Evident that Ecwid takes safety seriously, because the provider is a PCI DSS Grade 1 accredited service provider. The company also claims that each trade that includes sensitive data is transferred via a secure HTTPS channel. Ecwid Vertical Categories

Imagine if you Would like to accumulate 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 offline and online system.

Benefits and disadvantages of using Ecwid

Advantages

· Ecwid signifies a really easy way to add e-commerce to some existing website.

· Point-of-sale performance can be obtained, and there are a number of strategies to apply it.

· The product is cheap by comparison 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 so (i.e., Squarespace, Jimdo, Wix etc.. )

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

· The free Ecwid program isn’t time-limited, includes support, and is fairly generous in terms of features.

Disadvantages

· The Paypal This 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 plans.

· There is a restricted number of programs / integrations available in the Ecwid Program shop.

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

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

· Making Ecwid GDPR-compliant (with regard to obtaining cookie consent) sounds difficult.

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

Pricing

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

This is where Ecwid stands out, and you can see the other payment plans are rather affordable.

The Free plan Lets you sell 10 products, while the Venture plan ups that count to 100 goods and you get things like an iPhone management app. The company plan goes up to 2500 products for a wonderful price and you also get live chat service. Priority support comes along with the Unlimited plan and you might also market an unlimited number of products.

Ecwid is one of The most economical solutions available on the market. You can see that it’s actually more affordable than a lot of the other programs we have reviewed in the past, so if you’re looking for value, this might be the perfect plugin for you.

Wrap-up

In short, I’m Beginning to believe that Ecwid is one of the best ways to market online, provided that you employ the best methods to enhance your earnings online as well. Ecwid is a slick system, with super easy implementation measures, making it perfect for the small business audience. Ecwid Vertical Categories

Click Here to sign up to Ecwid now!