Intro Free Ecommerce Shop
Have you ever Wondered if you’re using the ideal ecommerce platform for sale on the internet? Do 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 prices 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 once you want to bring on a brand new ecommerce platform or even just modify your site at all. Read our Ecwid review to discover more about this solution. Free Ecommerce Shop
Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!
Many options Intentionally make a closed system, which can be tedious to move away from as soon as you begin. But with a platform called Ecwid, you no longer need to worry about it. Actually, the whole goal of the business, which began in 2009, is to quickly and inexpensively create an internet store system in your present websites.
You don’t have To create a completely different website. Just apply Ecwid on any stage, CMS or social network (in five minutes) and you’re all set.
That raised my Attention, because I understand the struggles that come along with trying to migrate websites, 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 over 1 million merchants getting signed up. What’s even more cool is that the Ecwid merchants span over 175 different countries, demonstrating that this isn’t only a platform for most people in the US or Europe. Even companies in developing countries have a chance to find an internet store heading, and you don’t even have to squander your prior site in case you have one.
The usership Continues to grow, particularly considering Ecwid is now PCI DSS Level 1 certified. If you are 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’ 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 gap between that 20,000 along with the 1 million is the fact you don’t require a WordPress site to implement Ecwid. So, the 20,000 simply refers to WordPress users using the plugin.
What’s Ecwid, and how can this function?
Ecwid is a hosted Alternative for building an internet store. Unlike competing products like Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion, which permit you to build a fresh site with e-commerce performance, 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 add photos, pricing, weight etc. for each. You are able to specify shipping rates, accept credit card payments etc — all of the key stuff that you’d expect to be able to do with an e-commerce solution.
However it differs Apart from competing products like Shopify, Volusion, Squarespace and Bigcommerce in that it is not actually designed to let you produce a fully-featured, standalone e-commerce site; instead, it’s designed to enable you add an online store to an existing online presence.
(That said, Ecwid have Recently added some new functionality, known as’Starter Website’, that will allow you produce a one-page standalone offering. We’ll chat through this in more depth later on in the inspection.) Free Ecommerce Shop
Click Here to register up to Ecwid today!
The Product works by providing you a widget which gets placed 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 present site or social networking profile, and your shop is displayed wherever you have added this code.
Characteristics
Ecwid makes Strides in the market by catering to companies that don’t need to begin a brand new website. The primary attribute is that you can take your old website and quickly incorporate the Ecwid system within a couple of minutes.
You can also Mirror the machine on various 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 that the syncing between multiple devices. Sell on-the-go with your smartphone. This usually means you could visit a tradeshow to generate a few sales and each one of these sales are represented on the backend of your website.
The system is Also made to integrate nicely with social networks, and that means you may sell your items on Facebook if needed. One part of Ecwid that we particularly enjoy is the delivery facet. With real-time shipping integrations you constantly know what is going on with your orders and where they are being sent to.
What other trendy Items are comprised with Ecwid?
It runs on a super fast frame
It comes with an address book for customers and clients
The system has over 43 translations for selling round the world
You get a Lot of promotional tools such as coupons, discounts, and bulk pricing and more
Produce your own customized email alerts
Utilize the automatic tax solution (automatic tax charges at checkout, tax reporting and submitting )
Point-of-sale functionality
Thank you Into Ecwid’s point-of-sale (POS) functionality, you may use your Ecwid store to sell not just online but in bodily places too — in stores, market stalls, in theatres and so forth.
Together with Ecwid’s POS Performance, irrespective of whether or not a customer buys a product in store, online, in their phone or via Facebook, everything remains in sync – i.e., the merchant’s catalogue, inventory and client / trade info.
There is a couple of ways you can take advantage of this feature: the simplest 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, and then taking payments using a cell card reader (pictured above).
You’ve got two options when it comes to POS Hardware and Paypal Here: you can buy a chip and swipe reader (for $24.99) or a chip and tap reader (for $79.99). Both may be ordered straight from Ecwid.
There is a few Things worth noting the Paypal Here integration: first, it’s only available to retailers in america and UK. Second, it’s not yet available on Android devices. (On their website, Ecwid say it’ll be available shortly — but they’ve been saying that for quite some time now). Free Ecommerce Shop
If you’re based outside The US / UK, or need to utilize another mobile device kind, the good news is that Ecwid also works with the Vend, Clover, NCR Silver and Square POS systems. These all facilitate using a larger selection of hardware in a physical retail location (full-sized card readers, receipt printers, cash drawers tablet stands etc.) and are usable in more nations.
Although you can avail Of this Paypal Here POS option on all paid-for plans, you will want to be to the priciest’Unlimited’ plan if you want to avail of a Vend, Clover, NCR Silver or Square admin.
Reactive storefronts
Ecwid Storefronts are responsive, meaning they will display correctly across devices — desktop, tablet computers and cellular. In a age where smartphone internet browsing is eclipsing desktop browsing, this is vital.
Free program
Unlike many similar Products, Ecwid provides a completely free program.
Granted, it’s a pretty Standard plan, where features such as discount vouchers and service aren’t accessible, and it merely lets you sell up to 10 products in two categories — but this could really be sufficient for some users, and using it’s a good way to try the system out.
However, A key point to notice about the free program is the fact that it is not great from an search engine optimization point of view — you have to be on a paid plan to ensure that your product pages talk to search engines correctly (more on SEO under ).
Speech detection
Ecwid is ahead of the Pack in that its storefronts could be automatically translated into nearly 50 different languages — clients can view your store in their own language, without you needing to worry about creating alternate versions of this. Ecwid provides this performance by discovering visitors’ language mechanically according to their browser settings / IP address.
Competing products such as Shopify And Bigcommerce are yet to supply this type of functionality — they force you to rely on third party programs, the creation of multiple shops or Google Translate to provide different language versions of your shop, which can be less than perfect. Therefore a definite triumph for Ecwid here.
Ecwid and search engine optimisation
Search engine Optimization (SEO) in Ecwid is a fairly straightforward affair. You can 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 could tell But you can’t 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 key words in URLs are used by some search engines to categorise content through indexing.
But, The URLs which are automatically generated by Ecwid comprise the name you have given to your product – so if you include some keywords in your product name (maybe not a bad idea anyway) that your URL will include them also. This serves as something of a workaround, but I’d prefer full control over URLs. Free Ecommerce Shop
One area 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 cellular devices. This motivates people to remain longer on your webpage, thus increasing’dwell time’ –something which is considered by many SEO experts believe to be rewarded by Google with preferential treatment in search results. Additionally, Google occasionally highlights AMP webpages in carousels in search results, providing AMP content an extra little boost.
Regrettably However — and unlike most rival products such as Bigcommerce or even Shopify, you can’t create AMP versions of your goods using Ecwid.
Importing and exporting information
Like many competing Products Ecwid permits you to import and export your data in CSV format.
The Export option allows you to export product information, orders and customers (in CSV format) and means that if you feel the need to migrate your store to a different e-commerce platform, then you should not have any significant problems doing so.
Utilizing Ecwid with other programs
Ecwid and Twitter
WordPress doesn’t Provided any e-commerce functionality from the box, so anybody wishing to market on the platform will require a third-party alternative like Ecwid. There is an Ecwid plugin accessible, so adding an Ecwid shop to your WordPress site is very straightforward — you can get up and running with a few clicks.
You just sign up for an Ecwid account and then 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 are selling goods from certain countries). The other principal problem with the built-in Squarespace selling tools is they don’t facilitate dropshipping, and complete export of products is not currently possible.
Integrating Ecwid with Squarespace allows you to bypass these limitations, and adding it to some Squarespace site is very easy: 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’s currently no dropshipping choice for Wix users, therefore again Ecwid can offer a good workaround. A committed app is offered by Ecwid to allow you integrate the item on a Wix shop easily.
Apps and plugins
Ecwid provides a pretty Limited number integrations with other apps that are well-known. Integrations do exist together with key services Mailchimp, Xero and Freshbooks; but to be fair the range of integrations may be more extensive — competing goods such as Shopify provide a much wider assortment of apps. Notable omissions in the Ecwid store comprise Quickbooks and Zendesk, for example (that said, a Quickbooks integration is coming soon).
The Picture is better in regards to CMS plugins: All these are available for WordPress, Wix and Joomla, enabling to you install Ecwid on one of these platforms quite easily. Free Ecommerce Shop
Interface and ease of use
Ecwid’s Interface is rather easy to use. Like many similar online shop builders, you receive a vertical menu on the left that lets you access key functionality, and the area on the right can be used to display or edit associated products, site content and reports.
As with any e-commerce tool, you will have to Spend a fair amount of time getting your head around creating catalogues and product variants, establishing transport rates and so on…but there isn’t anything here that should represent also a lot of a learning curve.
Matters are aided by an ‘onboarding checklist’ that’s supplied to you once you log in for the very first time.
If You are stuck however, you could always get in touch with Ecwid’s support staff — more on this later — or, even if you’re on a’Business’ or’Unlimited’, you are able to make the most of this included customization support (you get 2 hours and 12 hours personalization period from Ecwidon these programs ).
Ecwid and GDPR
I am not a Attorney, 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 users below.
With the introduction of The EU’s new GDPR laws, there are several legal steps that website owners now need to take to ensure that they are adequately protecting EU customers’ and visitors’ privacy. There are severe financial penalties for doing so (to the point where it’s usually a great idea to consult a lawyer on what to do); and even if your company is not located in the EU, you still will need to obey the regulations where any site visits in the EU are concerned.
According to my Understanding of the crucial GDPR principles, the main priorities for prospective Ecwid store owners are to:
· Provide sufficient privacy and cookie cutter notices
· Process and store data safely
· Get explicit consent from people registering to mailing lists it is fine to send them e-newsletters
· Provide a means to opt in or revoke consent to use of non-essential cookies on a site (and also to log that consent).
There doesn’t seem to be Whatever stops you fulfilling the first three requirements readily enough with Ecwid, although you will have to spend time and potentially money creating adequate notices and crafting information capture forms so they are GDPR compliant.
Where things get Complicated with Ecwid is the fourth requirement — cookie cutter approval. To ensure GDPR compliance, you need to exhibit a cookie banner to your visitors which
· Allows them to select which cookies they want to conduct BEFORE those biscuits are run (i.e., to give’prior permission’)
· Logs their approval to run biscuits Free Ecommerce Shop
· Allows them to revoke consent at a later stage
So for example, if you Use a Facebook Ads cookie in conjunction with your Ecwid store, you’ll be breaking up GDPR legislation unless you’ve got a banner in place which does all of the above.
Now, out of the box at There is not a means to deal with the cookie consent issue with Ecwid. Nor is there a decent program available from the Ecwid app store (the only option on this front that I can find, the’EU cookie banner’, does not appear to supply the necessary performance — despite costing $1.99 per month to use).
It Seems to me that the only option available to Ecwid users is to use a specialist product like CookiePro, which does supply all the essential performance to generate cookie approval fully GDPR compliant. Despite being a powerful 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 Design
I Truly like The fact which you’re able to run a web site without paying anything. This makes the setup process that much easier, because you simply need to punch in your email and make a password to go right to the backend interface.
The machine has Wizards for each platform you would like to place your store on. In case you’ve got a WordPress site, just walk through three steps to get up and running. You could also click on choices like Facebook and Joomla, depending on where you want to sell.
The backend Design is perfect, because it walks you through every site creation and integration step with a few fine photos and text. As soon as you get your store implemented on a site or social page it appears fairly slick.
The layout Depends upon the subject you have on your site, however as you can see below, it 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 market.
Although many Sites are going to be mobile friendly, its nice understanding that Ecwid involves a native shopping program for both iOS and Android. Merchants now get a native shopping application for iOS and Android.
This means you Can mange your shop and sell on the go, while also providing your clients a chance to get products from the mobile interface.
The closing Design item which makes sense to mention is your language instrument. Since conducting an internet store generally requires you to reach out to individuals from all over the world, you are bound to stumble upon a few clients who would like to read product pages and other content in their native tongue. Ecwid supports 45 languages, so if a user wants to translate from English to Spanish, that is not a problem in any respect.
The Ecwid Program Economy
Having the Opportunity to put in software is a sure fire way to scaling your ecommerce website in a fair way. Ecwid includes a location called the Ecwid App Market. It offers 65 applications, helping retailers extend their shop functionality easily. Free Ecommerce Shop
A Few of the apps Will give you a hand with rating and reviews, rewards programs, automated ad tools, analytics, customized layout themes and more.
SEO and Marketing
Ecwid is a Third-party remedy to your current website, so you would normally need to employ additional SEO and marketing tools to truly get the word out. That said, Ecwid supplies quality SEO qualities to help merchants increase their visibility in Google searches.
Moreover, Google now indexes AJAX websites, so all Ecwid shops are indexed by Google without any extra work. It gets better with WordPress websites, since you gain access to additional search engine optimization plugins as well as the default search engine functionality around the dashboard.
Managing Your Inventory
The Ecwid Inventory system is as simple as they come, since it doesn’t seem to incorporate any of those unnecessary bells and whistles you may find on other e commerce platforms.
Each step is Clear and concise, so that you may just go in there and type in a product name, price and image then save the merchandise for afterwards. Obviously you could always open the Powerful Options, however they different these for if you are all set to start ramping up your store.
As an example of the inventory Rich management toolset, you obtain access to items like out of stock merchandise monitoring, mobile device inventory management, barcode scanning and much more.
Customer Support
Ecwid provides A Chat With Sales attribute that is always one of my favorite ways to converse 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 Service outlets include phone service, online chat service and email support, maintaining the response time brief and encourage quality .
In my eyes, the Platform has everything you could want in terms of support.
Payments and Safety
It’s not always Easy to locate an ecommerce platform which doesn’t charge transaction fees, but that is exactly what you get with Ecwid. They never charge any sort of trade fee with any of those programs they provide, making it desirable for any store that is trying to keep costs down and also to improve margins.
Keep in mind that Ecwid isn’t 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 website. It’s pretty easy to implement one of these systems, because Ecwid integrates with over 40 international payment options. However, each of these processors have their own transaction fees so you have to get ready for them.
It’s quite Clear that Ecwid takes safety seriously, since the company is a PCI DSS Level 1 certified supplier. The business also claims that every trade that includes sensitive information is transferred through a secure HTTPS channel. Free Ecommerce Shop
What if you Would like to accumulate both offline and online payments? Maybe you’d like a point of sale integration?
Ecwid Integrates with with Square, Clover, Vend POS, iZettle and PayPal card readers, allowing Ecwid to turn your performance into both an online and offline system.
Benefits and cons of utilizing Ecwid
Advantages
· Ecwid signifies a very simple way to add e-commerce to some present website.
· Point-of-sale functionality can be obtained, and there are a number of ways to apply it.
· The product is cheap by comparison to other solutions.
· It supports multi-language variations of your shop.
· The shop layouts are responsive.
· Plugins / apps are available for major platforms (like WordPress, Drupal and Wix).
· It allows users of site building products which don’t facilitate dropshipping to start doing so (i.e., Squarespace, Jimdo, Wix etc.. )
· The’starter site’ option is a fantastic stopgap measure for retailers who want a shop fast, but have yet to develop a full website to bring the Ecwid widget to.
· The free Ecwid program isn’t time-limited, includes support, and is rather generous in terms of attributes.
Disadvantages
· The Paypal Here POS system is limited to the US and UK.
· The Paypal Here POS process is limited to iOS users.
· Phone support is only available on the more expensive programs.
· There is a limited number of apps / integrations offered in the Ecwid Program shop.
· You can’t alter merchandise URLs, which is slightly annoying from an SEO point of view.
· You can not create AMP variations of product pages using Ecwid.
· Creating Ecwid GDPR-compliant (with respect to obtaining 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 strategies, one of which is totally 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 that the other payment plans are rather affordable.
The Free program Allows you to sell 10 products, while the Venture plan ups that depend to 100 goods and you get things like an iPhone direction app. The company plan goes up to 2500 merchandise for a superb price and you get live chat service. Priority support comes alongside the Unlimited plan and you might also sell an unlimited amount of merchandise.
Ecwid is one of The cheapest solutions on the marketplace. You can see that it is actually more affordable than many of the other programs we’ve reviewed previously, so if you’re looking for value, this might be the right plugin for you.
Wrap-up
In short, I’m Beginning to believe that Ecwid is among the greatest ways to market online, as long as you employ the best methods to enhance your sales online too. Ecwid is a sleek system, with superb easy implementation steps, making it perfect for your small business audience. Free Ecommerce Shop
Click Here to register up to Ecwid now!