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Easy eCommerce with Shopify; Hosted Online Store Solution

April 9th, 2007 by Joshua Dorkin | Filed under Web Applications, eCommerce.

shopify ecommerce storeIntroducing Shopify, A Hosted eCommerce Solution

I just found out about a cool new ecommerce solution called Shopify. The site is a beautifully designed web 2.0, Ruby on Rails hosted ecommerce site. According to the few reviews that I found about the site, setup was extremely quick and easy.

The site is free to use, and you are only charged a 3% commission once a sale is complete. This can drop down to 2% if you sell over $10,000 in goods. Users can use Paypal or a merchant account to handle payment and everything from security to maintenance is handled by the Shopify team.

From what I saw, all of the ecommerce shopping sites created with shopify look incredible. They are attractive and easy to navigate. Other key features that caught my eye were: timeline based order tracking and the ability to track orders through an RSS feed.

The biggest problem I see is that it is a hosted solution. In its current form, I would have no way to set up a shop on my server using Shopify. I’d have to send all my traffic to their site (my subdomain) if I used them. This presents a problem for me.

It looks like I’ll be passing on Shopify, and another hosted solution I found called RightCart, but if you don’t care if you host your own shop, I think it is certainly worth a look.

Here are a few other reviews of the site:
TechCrunch: Shopify was worth the wait
CNet: Shopify makes quick work of setting up shop

Sample Shopify Website:
Conrad’s Coffee Company

6 Responses to “Easy eCommerce with Shopify; Hosted Online Store Solution”

  1. adnan rahim | 15/04/07

    I just sign up to the shopify, good and reliable for a beginner and small medium enterprise, anyway nice info Josh.

  2. Joshua Dorkin | 15/04/07

    No problem! Let us know how it goes for you . . . Good luck!

  3.   Free And Easy New Shopping Cart by THENONE - | 18/05/07

    [...] that I visited his blog http://www.timeforblogging.com and then I’ve read his post “Easy eCommerce with Shopify; Hosted Online Store Solution“, and I think that I just found something really useful for my future plan to start an online [...]

  4. webshop | 12/05/08

    Very nice looks good, but indeed the hosting on their servers is a no go. You need an own hosting and domainname

  5. Magazin Online | 15/08/08

    Honestly I do not consider it a good practice to limit customers in number of products to sell online. Our company has similar product where the inventory is unlimited – I dont believe in ecommerce you should put the line in free trail and subscription in the number of products.

  6. Free Online Store | 30/11/08

    Hey, If I am honset there are better quick shop installations methods. Try Kezzon you will be suprised how good it is!.

    Thanks,
    Richard.

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