eCommerce Software - suggestions on choosing the best solution

[4u-domains]

I am looking for an easy to use yet powerful eCommerce solution for an existing site.

The company has about 200 products but only 20 - 30 of them will actually be up for sale online.
I was thinking that an out of the box eCommerce product may be the way to do rather than having a website and adding a simple store.
Most eCommerce solutions I asume can be used as a good way to display products, like a catalogue, even if there are no listed prices.

I a have used Joomla with virtuemart before and had a look at Shopify but was hoping some of you would have some other suggestions from positive experiences that you have had yourself.

The main factors to consider, in order, are:

1. SEO friendly. All the products should have clearly product defined search engine friendly longtail keywords for the actual product page, which can also be editable to match our needs
2. A good looking and easily changed theme/template/skin
3. Easy to add/edit products via the admin area even for noobs
4. Price

Many thanks in advance.

 

[thehostdir]

You can use Magento, Joomla, Zencart or Cubecart.

 

[4u-domains]

Yeah, was just looking at cubecart.

Now I have started looking it has thrown up a lot of hosted solutions which look pretty powerful.

Anybody know anything about any of these other ones:

www.actinic.co.uk

www.bluepark.co.uk

www.netsuite.co.uk

www.netcommerce.co.uk

www.ekmpowershop.co.uk

This is a UK client.

 

[Preciousmetals]

LOL.. as a senior tech / Supervisor for the number two company on the web directly after yahoo I'm pretty familiar with ecommerce.

Some of the most powerful platform are not self hosted and require monthly fees.

Then there are the open source software such as Magneto, OScommerce and few others.. Those all work great, Magento personally pisses me off since their admin panel lacks some very important features especially when bulk uploading your data.. So unless your an API expert expect headaches... OScommerce seems to be like the old school style of ecommerce.. So the top of the line at the moment is Yahoo ecommerce software then followed by a few others that I won't mention due to conflict of interest.

Google came out with a shopping cart software about 2 years ago but did not hit as good as they expected.

So the market is out there for good programmers to create an awesome shopping cart..

I have worked with some of the biggest ecommerce websites on the web including but not limited to:
Skates.com
HotSauce.com
PepperSpray.com
Pez.com
Edhardyshop.com

and thousands of some of the biggest online companies on the web so I have great insight on how ecommerce runs, Let me know if you have any questions.

Regards

 

[4u-domains]

I wasnt even aware of Yahoo eCommerce.
Is this similar to the Google Checkout and Paypal in that its a matter of adding code or is it more of a whole solution?

The client wants a whole new site so this can be an opportunity to go with a total ecommerce setup but we can look at adding software to another solution.
Its flexibility in the search engine friendly URLs that are the most important if only because the client is utterly transifxed on longtail keyword URLs being the best thing since sliced bread. :/

---------- Post added at 09:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:32 PM ----------

Had a quick look. I couldnt find Yahoo eCommerce for the UK, just US but I may have missed it.

Have you an opinion on the best hosted monthly subscription ecommerce system provider?

 

[Preciousmetals]

Yahoo ecommerce solutions is a complete ecommerce platform.

It's straight down and forward for even people without lots of tech knowledge.

They are like godaddy for ecommerce, They offer everything I believe including hosting/SSL/Domains/Merchant services etc.

The company I worked with had a feature setup just for Yahoo Stores which would import everything directly into the new software

including products, Categories, Pictures etc.

You can also import into yahoo stores or pretty much ANY ecommerce software using csv/xml/API

There are currently about 100 ecommerce platforms out there.

Personally I dislike hosted solutions if you are setting up a store for yourself and you like to make adjustments, because hosted solutions are not open source so changes are limited to what the company allows.

In the other hand open source ecommerce platforms you can do whatever you like, Even break the store if you mess up lol.

But if it's for a client usually a hosted solution works since hosted solutions offer tech support, you don't have to worry about the hosting if the site goes down or if something breaks the companies dev's will fix it.

A few popular ones ill mention off the top of my head are
Shopify.com
Bigcommerce.com
Volusion.com
Network solutions was working on one called Small Volution but Volusion sued them over the name.
Go daddy of course has a shopping cart software.

Volusion has a UK office idk about the others.

 

[4u-domains]

Yeah, thanks. I will look into Yahoo some more but, in this case, the hosted solution path may suit this client better.

Volutoin is indeed in the UK and is the one that the client himself mentioned.
At first glance I liked the www.bluepark.co.uk one.
They are all pretty similar so it will likely come down to flexibility.