E-commerce Overview and Comparison

    

Your website is fully equipped with everything necessary to start selling online. Whether you sell one or hundreds of products, the integration of payments buttons and shopping carts is equally easy and takes these simple steps:
 

  • choose an e-commerce solution that allows integration via pieces of code
  • generate your payment buttons / shopping cart code / 'view cart' code
  • add the codes to your website via the HTML Snippet

 

With the above integration the Checkout takes place on the website of the selected e-commerce provider, and is reliably secured. You do not need to obtain SSL certificates or become verified with various e-commerce security institutions.

  

Below we have compared several popular payment options. They all offer e-commerce solutions that you may integrate in your site via HTML snippets.

 

  Setup / Monthly fees Processing fee Details
PayPal none 3% + $0.30 per
transaction
  • Customers pay with PayPal account
  • Buy Now buttons / basic Shopping cart available
  • Suitable for small products range / sales volume
2CheckOut Setup: $49 5.5% + $0.45 per
transaction
  • Customers pay with credit card or PayPal
  • Buy Now buttons / Shopping cart available
  • Suitable for small products range / sales volume
Google Checkout none 2% + $0.20 per
transaction
  • Customers pay with credit card through Google account
  • Buy Now buttons / Shopping cart available
  • Suitable for small products range / sales volume

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The above solutions are recommended for small products range / sales volume. * Fee for the shopping cart not included.

 

 

For mid to large products range / sales volume we recommend using BigCommerce rather than a Webalicious site.

BigCommerce - The Easiest Way to Sell Online!

We love BigCommerce, and it is the only full function e-commerce platform we support - because it is the BEST !!!

BigCommerce is an all-in-one, feature rich ecommerce platform that allows even the most novice of user to create a fully functional online store and sell both physical and digital products online.

Utilizing an easy to use interface, online retailers can publish products in seconds, accept credit cards, use multiple shipping methods, run effective marketing campaigns and more. Built from the ground up to support search engine optimization features such as search engine friendly links, effective use of heading tags, alt tags and per product and per page title tags.

BigCommerce also features a built in content management system to allow easy publishing of website content including web pages, news items, blogs, promotional banners and coupon codes.

BigCommerce Screenshots



BigCommerce Feature List

With BigCommerce anyone can quickly and easily create their own online store without any technical experience. Unique features such as Drag & Drop Design Mode make it easy to completely customize the look and layout of your store using just your mouse. BigCommerce has built-in search engine optimization features which help your online store rank at the top of all major search engines including Google and Yahoo. Below is a complete list of BigCommerce features:

Hosting & Security

  • Premium hosting for all stores
  • SAS 70 Type II certified hosting
  • Powerful Intel quad CPU servers
  • Daily offsite backups
  • 99.99% uptime track record
  • 3 co-located data centers
  • Create unlimited email accounts
  • FTP access to HTML and CSS files
  • Complete disaster and recovery support
  • 128 bit SSL certificate support
  • Hacker deterrent security provisioning
  • On-demand virtual data center
  • Geographic diversity
  • Three redundant network architectures
  • Best-in-class infrastructure
  • High speed, redundant connectivity
  • Hardware firewalls
  • Load balancing
  • Cisco hardware and networking
  • Denial-of-service protection
  • Free regular software updates
  • Network intrusion detection system

Search Engine Optimization

  • Fully SEO optimized HTML
  • Optimized by SEO experts
  • Per-page optimization (title, etc)
  • Proper use of H1...H6 tags
  • Automatically generated robots.txt file
  • Search engine friendly links
  • Alt tags on product images
  • Automatic sitemap XML file
  • W3C valid templates
  • Tableless CSS driven templates

Storefront

  • Full product catalog
  • Online checkout system
  • "Call for pricing" option
  • One click add to cart
  • Optimized for usability
  • Product comparisons
  • Order status updates
  • Live order tracking
  • Email/print invoices
  • Customer address book
  • Private wish lists
  • Public wish lists
  • Order messaging system
  • Related products
  • Suggestive cart
  • "You may also like"...

Marketing and Promotions

  • Trackable coupon codes
  • Coupon expiry date
  • Coupon limited uses
  • Google Analytics integration
  • Bulk discounts per product
  • Online certificate use
  • Promotional banners
  • Discount rules system
  • Buy one get one free, etc
  • Free shipping over $x
  • $x on orders over $y
  • Newsletter subscriptions
  • Export to Google Base
  • Affiliate tracking system
  • Gift certificates
  • RSS feeds
  • Google AdWords export
  • Yahoo Search Marketing export
  • Popular products list
  • New products list
  • Top sellers list
  • Quick search popup box
  • "Did you mean?" spelling
  • Integrates with any live chat software
  • LivePerson Express 30 day trial

Payment & Shipping

  • Accept credit cards online
  • Support for 50+ gateways
  • PayPal, Google Checkout, etc
  • Support for secure checkout
  • Support for "offline" payments
  • COD, pay in store, cheque, etc
  • Take orders over the phone
  • Sell in multiple currencies
  • Real time conversion rate updates
  • Auto-detect location for currency
  • Real time shipping quotes
  • UPS, USPS, FedEx, Aus Post, etc
  • Define your own shipping rates
  • Limit shipping methods by country
  • Limit shipping methods by state
  • Limit shipping methods by zipcode
  • Various free shipping options
  • Add handling cost to orders

Order & Checkout Features

  • Single page checkout
  • Shipping quote estimates
  • Guest checkout option
  • Refunds and store credits
  • Custom checkout form fields
  • Delivery/event dates
  • Shipping tracking numbers
  • Email order confirmation
  • Agree to terms before ordering
  • Add multiple items to cart
  • Create order shipments
  • Order messaging system
  • One click re-order

Technical Support and Training

  • Unlimited free email support
  • Unlimited free phone support
  • Hundreds of "how to" articles
  • Comprehensive user guide
  • Dozens of training videos
  • Weekly training Webinars
  • Built-in popup help tips

Design and Customization

  • Dozens of templates to choose from
  • W3C/XHTML compliant templates
  • Easily integrate your existing design
  • Edit templates in Dreamweaver
  • Drag and drop layout customization
  • Edit HTML and CSS in your browser
  • Upload a logo or use the logo editor
  • Change website text using your mouse
  • Edit email templates from control panel
  • Works in all popular web browsers
  • Web-based control panel

Tax

  • State-based taxes
  • Country-based taxes
  • Unlimited tax rates
  • Prices inc/ex tax
  • Flat tax option
  • Tax rate display in store
  • Tax shown on invoices, etc
  • Flexible tax rules and flow

Content Management Features

  • Full CMS functionality
  • 100% browser based
  • Publish web pages
  • Display returns policies, etc
  • Easy-to-use WYSIWYG editor
  • Page dropdown/pop out menus
  • SEO-friendly pages
  • Restrict to customer groups
  • Publish content from RSS
  • Contact forms on pages
  • Responses sent via email
  • Display page as home page
  • Recent news items
  • Banners and promotions

Search Features

  • Search suggest
  • "Did you mean?" suggestions
  • Related searches list
  • Advanced search options
  • Fiter by price
  • Filter by availability
  • Filter by free shipping
  • Search tips and advice
  • Shop by brand
  • Shop by price
  • Saved searches and views
  • Advanced order/product search
  • Search and export results (admin)
  • Search customers by name, email, etc
  • Quick Search popup in store
  • Search query reporting

Import/Export Features

  • Import existing products easily
  • Extremely flexible import system
  • Export products to CSV/XML
  • Sync to Intuit Quickbooks
  • Export to MYOB, Peachtree
  • Export to StoneEdge
  • Export in custom formats

Customer Features

  • Customer groups
  • Wholesale/retail pricing
  • Per-group pricing
  • Per-group discounts
  • Category level discounts
  • Product level discounts
  • Storewide group discounts
  • Move customers between groups
  • Add new customers to group
  • Filter customers by group
  • Export customers by group

Reporting Features

  • 25+ performance reports
  • Daily conversion rate
  • Top 20 customers
  • Best selling products
  • Order locations (Google maps)
  • Orders by item sold
  • Orders by revenue
  • Popular products
  • Inventory report
  • Customers by date
  • Revenue per customer
  • Search keywords with results
  • Search keywords without results
  • Best performing keywords
  • Worst performing keywords
  • Search term corrections

Product & Inventory Features

  • Per-product inventory levels
  • Automatic inventory control
  • Inventory reminder indicators
  • Sell physical & digital items
  • Product variations (size, color, etc)
  • Configurable purchase fields
  • Gift wrapping options
  • Per-product gift wrapping
  • Live shipping quotes
  • Product reviews & comments
* Feature list correct as of September 2009. Features are constantly updated, the latest feature list can be found on the BigCommerce website.

 

Learn how to integrate PayPal buttons and Shopping Cart in your website