Introduction New Ecwid Store
Have you ever Wondered if you are using the ideal ecommerce platform for sale on the internet? Do you sometimes stumble upon a new service that’s more functional and more economical than what you’re using now? Starting a small business is all about keeping your costs low, and locating an ecommerce platform that will help you with half the battle. Unfortunately, when you operate a small company website it often becomes tricky once you would like to bring on a new ecommerce platform or even just alter your site whatsoever. Read our Ecwid review to find out more about this option. New Ecwid Store
Click Here to register up to Ecwid now!
Many solutions Purposefully make a closed system, which is tedious to maneuver away from once you begin. But with a stage named Ecwid, you no longer have to be concerned about this. Actually, the entire goal of the company, which started in 2009, would be to quickly and inexpensively make an online store system in your existing websites.
You don’t have To make a whole new website. Just implement Ecwid on any stage, CMS or social networking (in five minutes) and you are all set.
That raised my Attention, since I know the struggles that come along with attempting to migrate sites, especially when it comes to ecommerce. So, I wanted to gather a comprehensive review of the Ecwid system to see whether it is worth the time.
How Many Men and Women Use Ecwid?
It is rather Remarkable what Ecwid has done since 2009, with more than 1 million merchants 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 people in the united states or Europe. Even businesses in developing countries have a opportunity to get an online store going, and you don’t have to squander your prior website in case you have one.
The usership Continues to grow, particularly considering Ecwid is now PCI DSS Level 1 accredited. If you’re not sure what this is, it is pretty much the gold standard for safety in the ecommerce world. You can rest easy knowing you and your customers’ data is safe and protected.
Along with The total merchant count, over 20,000 active users are using the Ecwid Shopping Cart for WordPress. The difference between that 20,000 along with 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 does this work?
Ecwid is a hosted Alternative for building an internet shop. Unlike competing products such as Shopify, Bigcommerce and Volusion, which allow you to construct a new website with e-commerce functionality, Ecwid is geared more towards people who already have a website and just wish to add an internet store to it.
Much like other E-commerce platforms, Ecwid lets you set up’catalogs’ of all products, and include photographs, pricing, weight etc. . each. You can define shipping rates, accept credit card payments and so on — all the crucial things that you would expect to be able to perform using 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 is designed to allow you add an online store to an existing online presence.
(That said, Ecwid have Recently added some new functionality, known as’Starter Site’, that will allow you produce a one-page standalone offering. We are going to chat through this in more detail later on in the review.) New Ecwid Store
Click Here to register up to Ecwid today!
The Product works by giving you a widget which gets placed on other websites — hence the title Ecwid: it is short for’E-commerce Widget’. You get a few lines of HTML code (the widget) to add into an existing website or social media profile, and your shop is displayed wherever you’ve added this code.
Features
Ecwid makes Strides in the market by catering to companies that don’t need to start a brand new site. The primary attribute is that you can take your old site and quickly integrate the Ecwid system inside a couple of minutes.
You can also Mirror the system on various different sites if you anticipate selling elsewhere online. Handle all of these websites from one place instead of switching between multiple dashboards.
Another pleasant Feature is that the syncing between multiple devices. Sell on-the-go together with your smartphone. This usually means that you can go to a tradeshow to make a number of sales and each one of these earnings are reflected onto 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 needed. One part of Ecwid we particularly enjoy is the delivery aspect. With real-time shipping integrations you constantly know what’s going on with your orders and at which they’re being shipped to.
What other trendy Items are included with Ecwid?
It runs on a super fast framework
It comes with an address book for customers and customers
The system has over 43 translations for selling around the world
You get lots of promotional instruments like coupons, discounts, and bulk pricing and more
Produce your personalized email alerts
Use the automated tax alternative (automatic taxation rates at checkout, tax reporting and filing)
Point-of-sale functionality
Thank you To Ecwid’s point-of-sale (POS) performance, you may use your Ecwid shop to sell not only online but in bodily locations too — in stores, market stalls, at concerts and so on.
With Ecwid’s POS Functionality, regardless of whether a customer buys a product in shop, online, on their telephone or via Facebook, everything stays in sync – i.e., the retailer’s catalogue, inventory and customer / trade info.
There is a couple of ways that you can use this feature: the easiest is probably to use’Paypal Here.’ This entails downloading the Ecwid iOS app from the Apple’s App store, connecting it to the Paypal Here support, then taking payments utilizing a mobile card reader (pictured above).
You’ve got two options when it comes to POS Hardware and Paypal Here: you can buy a processor and swipe reader (for $24.99) or a processor and tap reader (for $79.99). Both can be arranged straight from Ecwid.
There is a couple of Things worth noting about the Paypal Here integration: first, it’s only available to retailers in america and UK. Secondly, it’s not yet available on Android devices. (On their website, Ecwid state it will be available shortly — but they have been saying that for quite some time now). New Ecwid Store
If you are located outside That the US / UK, or want to work with another mobile device kind, the good news is that Ecwid also functions with all the Vend, Clover, NCR Silver and Square POS systems. These all facilitate using a larger range of hardware in a physical retail location (full-sized card readers, receipt printers, cash drawers tablet racks etc.) and are usable in more nations.
Although you can avail Of this Paypal Here POS option on all paid-for programs, you’ll want to be to 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 correctly across devices — desktopcomputer, tablet and cellular. In an era where smartphone web surfing is eclipsing desktop browsing, this is vital.
Free program
Unlike many similar Products, Ecwid provides a completely free plan.
Granted, it is a pretty Basic plan, in which features such as discount vouchers and support aren’t accessible, and it only allows you to sell up to ten products in 2 classes — but this may actually be sufficient for some users, and using it is a good way to try out the system.
However, A key point to note about the free plan is the fact that it is not great from an SEO standpoint — you need to be on a paid plan to make certain that your product pages speak to search engines accurately (more on SEO under ).
Speech detection
Ecwid is forward of the Pack in that its storefronts could be mechanically translated into nearly 50 distinct languages — customers can see your store in their own language, without you needing to worry about creating alternate versions of this. Ecwid provides this functionality by discovering visitors’ language automatically according to their browser preferences / IP address.
Competing products like Shopify And Bigcommerce are nevertheless to supply this sort of performance — they force you to rely on third party apps, the creation of numerous stores or Google Translate to provide different language variations of your shop, which can be less than perfect. So a definite triumph 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 match your search engine optimization objectives.
As far as I can 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 ideal because key words in URLs are used by some search engines to categorise content during indexing.
However, The URLs that are automatically generated by Ecwid comprise the title you have given to your own product – so in the event that you include some keywords on your product title (maybe not a bad idea anyhow ) your URL will comprise them also. This functions as something of a workaround, but I’d prefer whole control over URLs. New Ecwid Store
One area where Ecwid doesn’t perform quite so Well on the search engine optimization front entails AMP — accelerated mobile pages. As the name suggests, AMP pages load quicker on cellular devices. This motivates people to stay longer on your webpage, thus increasing’live time’ –something which is considered by many search engine optimization experts believe to be rewarded with Google with preferential treatment in search results. Additionally, Google occasionally highlights AMP pages in carousels in search results, giving AMP content an extra little boost.
Unfortunately However — and unlike rival products like Bigcommerce or Shopify, you can’t create AMP versions of your goods using Ecwid.
Importing and exporting data
Like many competing Products Ecwid permits you to import and export your data in CSV format.
The Export option permits you to export product information, orders and customers (in CSV format) and ensures that should you feel the need to migrate your shop to a different e-commerce platform, then you should not have any major difficulties doing so.
Using Ecwid with other platforms
Ecwid and Twitter
WordPress doesn’t Provided any e-commerce functionality out of the box, so anybody wishing to sell on the platform will need a third-party alternative like Ecwid. There’s an Ecwid plugin available, therefore adding an Ecwid shop to your WordPress site is very straightforward — you can get up and running with a few clicks.
You simply sign up to get an Ecwid accounts and install the free plugin.
Ecwid and Squarespace
Squarespace includes Increasingly good e-commerce features, but the number 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 particular countries). Another main issue with the built-in Squarespace marketing tools is that they don’t facilitate dropshipping, and full export of merchandise is not currently possible.
Integrating Ecwid with Squarespace permits you to bypass these limitations, and adding it into some Squarespace site is quite easy: it’s a simple matter of adding a code block to a page and pasting some HTML into 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 program is provided by Ecwid to allow you integrate the item onto 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 may be more extensive — competing products like Shopify offer a much broader range 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 when it comes to CMS plugins: All these are offered for WordPress, Wix and Joomla, allowing to you set up Ecwid on one of these platforms very easily. New Ecwid Store
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 lets you access key functionality, and the place on the right can be used to display or edit related products, site reports and content.
Much like any e-commerce tool, you’ll need to Spend a reasonable amount of time getting your head around producing catalogues and product variations, 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 is supplied to you when you log in for the very first time.
If You are stuck however, you could always get in contact with Ecwid’s support staff — more on that later — or, if you are on a’Business’ or’Unlimited’, you can take advantage of the included customization support (you get 2 hours and 12 hours customization time from Ecwidon these programs ).
Ecwid and GDPR
I’m not a Lawyer, so please note the below observations should not be interpreted as legal advice, but I’m going to do my very best to spell out a number of the major GDPR issues facing Ecwid consumers below.
With the introduction of That the EU’s new GDPR legislation, there are several legal measures that website owners now need to 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 usually a great idea to speak with a lawyer about what to do); and even when your company isn’t located in the EU, you still will need to comply with the regulations where any website visits in the EU are worried.
Based on my Understanding of the key GDPR principles, the main priorities for prospective Ecwid shop owners would be to:
· Provide sufficient privacy and cookie notices
· Process and store data securely
· Get explicit permission from those registering 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 on a website (and to log that consent).
There does not seem to be Anything that stops you meeting the first three requirements easily enough with Ecwid, though you will need to spend time and potentially money creating adequate notices and crafting information capture forms so that they are GDPR compliant.
Where things get Complex with Ecwid is your fourth requirement — cookie cutter approval. To Guarantee GDPR compliance, You Have to exhibit a cookie cutter banner to your customers which
· Allows them to select which cookies they would like to conduct BEFORE those cookies are run (i.e., to provide’prior consent’)
· Logs their approval to run cookies New Ecwid Store
· Enables them to revoke approval at a later point
So for Instance, If you Use a Facebook Ads cookie in conjunction with your Ecwid shop, you’ll be breaking up GDPR legislation unless you’ve got a banner set up which does all of the above.
Nowout of the box at Least there isn’t a way to take care of the cookie approval issue with Ecwid. Nor is there an adequate program accessible from the Ecwid app store (the only alternative on front that I can locate, the’EU cookie banner’, does not seem to provide the essential functionality — despite costing $1.99 a month to use).
It Appears to me that the only alternative available to Ecwid users is to use a professional product such as CookiePro, which does supply all the essential performance to generate cookie approval fully GDPR compliant. Despite being a strong product however, Cookiepro does require quite a great deal of configuration and you will want to set quite a lot of time aside to set it up.
Installation and Layout
I really enjoy The fact which you can run a website without paying anything. This makes the installation process that much simpler, since you just need to punch in your email and make a password to proceed straight to the backend port.
The system has Wizards for every platform that you want to set your shop on. If 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 would like to market.
The backend Design is perfect, because it walks you through every site creation and integration measure with some nice photos and text. As soon as you obtain your shop implemented on a site or societal page it looks fairly slick.
The design Depends somewhat on the theme you’ve got on your website, but as you can see below, it shows photos well and appears clean and simple to navigate. I particularly enjoy the Shopping Bag place, which can be outstanding and easy to locate for customers when they wish to checkout.
Though many Sites are going to be cellular friendly, it;s nice knowing 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 store and market on the move, while also giving your clients a chance to get products from the mobile interface.
The final Design item that makes sense to mention is your language tool. Since conducting an online store generally requires you to reach out to people from all over the world, you are bound to stumble upon some customers who would love to read product webpages and other content in their native tongue. Ecwid supports 45 languages, so if a user would like to translate from English into Spanish, that’s not a problem in any respect.
The Ecwid Program Market
Possessing the Opportunity to install applications is a sure fire way to scaling up your ecommerce site in a reasonable way. Ecwid includes a place called the Ecwid App Market. It offers 65 applications, helping merchants extend their shop functionality readily. New Ecwid Store
Some of the apps Can give you a hand with reviews and rating, rewards programs, automated ad tools, analytics, custom layout themes and much 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 really get the word out. That said, Ecwid provides quality SEO features to help retailers increase their visibility in Google searches.
Moreover, Google now indexes AJAX websites, so all Ecwid stores are indexed by Google with no excess effort. It gets even better with WordPress websites, as you acquire access to additional search engine optimization plugins and also the default search engine functionality on the dashboard.
Managing Your Inventory
The Ecwid Inventory process is as simple as they come, since it doesn’t seem to include any of the unnecessary bells and whistles you might find on other ecommerce platforms.
Each measure is Concise and clear, so you may just go in there and type in a product name, price and picture then save the merchandise for later. Of course you can always open the Powerful Options, but they different these for when you are ready to get started ramping up your store.
As an example of the stock Rich direction toolset, you gain access to things like from stock merchandise tracking, mobile device inventory management, barcode scanning and more.
Customer Support
Ecwid provides A Chat With Earnings feature that is one of my favorite ways to converse with companies. Only send them a question and you can work on something else until they respond.
The Business also Provides a powerful support department with FAQs, a knowledge base, email capabilities and a forum.
Overall, the Service outlets include telephone support, online chat service and email support, maintaining the response time short and support quality high.
In my eyes, the Platform has all you could want concerning support.
Payments and Safety
It is not always Simple to find an ecommerce platform that does not charge transaction fees, but that is just what you get with Ecwid. They never control any sort of transaction fee with any of those programs they offer, making it desirable for any store that is trying to keep costs down and also 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 website. 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 particular trade fees so that you need to get ready for these.
It is rather Clear that Ecwid takes safety seriously, because the company is a PCI DSS Grade 1 accredited supplier. The business also states that every transaction that includes sensitive data is transferred via a secure HTTPS channel. New Ecwid Store
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, allowing Ecwid to turn your performance into both an online and offline system.
Benefits and disadvantages of utilizing Ecwid
Advantages
· Ecwid represents a very simple way to add e-commerce to some present website.
· Point-of-sale functionality is available, and there are a number of ways to apply it.
· The product is cheap by comparison to other alternatives.
· It supports multi-language versions of your store.
· The shop designs are responsive.
· Plugins / programs are available for major platforms (such as WordPress, Drupal and Wix).
· It allows users of site building products which don’t facilitate dropshipping to start doing this (i.e., Squarespace, Jimdo, Wix etc.. )
· The’starter site’ option is a good stopgap measure for retailers who want a shop fast, but have yet to create a complete website to bring the Ecwid widget to.
· The free Ecwid program is not time-limited, includes support, and is rather 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 programs.
· There is a limited number of programs / integrations available from the Ecwid Program store.
· You can not change merchandise URLs, which can be slightly annoying in the search engine optimization point of view.
· You can not create AMP variations of product pages utilizing Ecwid.
· Creating Ecwid GDPR-compliant (with respect to obtaining cookie approval ) sounds hard.
· The free version doesn’t let you get any of the search engine optimization tools.
Pricing
Ecwid comes With four strategies, among which is completely free. They market the free plan like crazy, and mention that many other platforms drag you into a free trial, where you may eventually need to pay.
This is where Ecwid stands outside, and you can see that the other payment plans are fairly reasonably priced.
The Free plan Lets you sell 10 products, whereas the Venture program ups that count to 100 goods and you get things like an iPhone direction app. The Business program goes up to 2500 merchandise for a superb price and you get live chat support. Priority support comes alongside the Unlimited plan and you might also sell an unlimited number of merchandise.
Ecwid is one of The most economical solutions available on the market. You may see that it is actually more affordable than a lot of the other platforms we’ve reviewed in the past, so if you’re searching for value, this might be the right plugin for you.
Summary
In short, I’m Starting to think that Ecwid is among the greatest ways to sell online, as long as you employ the best methods to improve your sales online as well. Ecwid is a sleek system, with super simple implementation steps, which makes it ideal for the small business audience. New Ecwid Store
Click Here to sign up to Ecwid today!