Choosing the right e-commerce platform - Website Design Melbourne, Wordpress Developer, Ecommerce Websites, Responsive, Fitzroy

Over the years, we have tested many e-commerce platforms. Some are badly designed, some lack support & features and others are just difficult to use.

We regularly use 3 platforms which we believe are the best on the market. They are quite different from each other and choosing one would depend on your requirements.

Woocommerce

Pros

Works with WordPress
Easy to update
Easy to use and customise
Very powerful Content Management System features available (because is uses WordPress)
There are many WordPress developers available
Most popular e-commerce plugin for WordPress
Many professional themes on the market
Custom theme development
Everything in the website can be content managed

Cons

Limited e-commerce features and not as powerful as a stand-alone e-commerce platform
Plugins/addons are expensive
WordPress is known for security issues

Opencart

Pros

Many e-commerce features
Many professional themes on the market
Load of plugins/add-ons available
Custom theme development
Easy to use

Cons

Difficult to update
Basic out-of-the-box-features
Lacking good content management features
Limited areas can be content managed by the client

BigCommerce

Pros

Quick to setup
Monthly plan
They host and manage the website
Easy to use admin
Alot of features out-of-the-box
Custom theme development
Automatic updates

Cons

Monthly plan
Code restrictions (limit on what you can change)
No blogging options
Limit to features that they offer
Company owned. If they go bust, You lose your website

Magento is another very popular e-commerce platform. We have tried and tested Magento on a number of occasions. Magento has 3 options that we don’t recommend for the following reasons:

Enterprise Edition – This option costs around $10k per year to use and is not suited for our clients.
Community Edition – This version is built for developers and we have found the administration very difficult to use for our clients. It is also very expensive to develop websites for, due to its heavy code.
Magento Go – This is their ’cloud’ option. We have found it very restricted in customising the layout and design.

In conclusion, we have started recommending Woocommerce more often than the latter two. This is mainly because it uses WordPress as its CMS.

Author: Chris Thomas

Angela Pamic

10:43 26 Oct 13

I’ve now had the pleasure of working with Christom on four different websites over the last 18 months. Chris has developed 2 websites from the ground up and re-worked and vastly improved 2 additional websites for me. He has been fantastic to work with; always professional, knowledgeable and willing to offer advice. He has often gone above and beyond the call of duty and has been generous both with his time and his expertise. His customer service is outstanding.I would highly recommend Christom for any website needs and I’m looking forward to the next website I need to create so that I can work with Christom again. Thanks so much for all of your great work Chris!

Jennifer McPherson

01:28 30 Oct 13

We are fortunate to have found a Web Design company whom listens to our needs and actions it accordingly in an efficient manner. We have established a great relationship with the staff at Christom Web Designs and find them very competent and cost-effective. Chris and his team have worked with us over many years and have developed four of our websites. They are very friendly, and understanding in their approach to help us with any questions asked.I would not hesitate to recommend the company to anyone.Thank you Christom Web Designs.

Nola Turner

06:43 24 Oct 13

Outstanding customer service - what a terrific company. Our company Crackerjack Education have engaged Christom for over a year and hope they never leave us. Our membership driven online Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education site now with an online course, would have challenged most web designers. However Chris and his team have developed a site that has been flexible enough to evolve as we have grown which is perfect for our needs and many changes.(which he is very patient about)Highly recommend them for any type of web design.

Michael Tait

01:25 19 Oct 15

In2Furniture definitely recommends Christom website developers Melbourne.Chris and his team was extremely helpful assisting through the whole process and acted quickly getting my questions answered.Great response time and amazing customer service. I look forward to working with Chris and his team again as our website expands and grows as it did from the moment we launched.Once again thanks to Chris and his team, they made a hard project easy.

Kelly Wang

07:40 06 Dec 12

I feel lucky that I decided to work with Christom. Chris is knowledgeable and responsive. He responded to all our requests promptly and willing to go the extra step to explain the details, especially to one who knows very little. I will refer all my friends to him. Thank you again Chris and it was great working with you.

Blog.

Woocommerce

Opencart

BigCommerce