Yahoo Store, WP with plug-in, or integrated shopping cart software?

[TTR1]

Hello,

Our company is looking  at re-evaluating our e-commerce structure.  Currently, it is run on Yahoo Store with Paypal Virtual Terminal payment authorization.  We are redesigning the website and would like the store portion to look more like our site and less like Yahoo's default template.  Since we sell relatively few choices of products (tree plantings in US National Forests in 4 "sizes" in two categories- memorials or gifts), we are wondering if we are better off moving to a blog set-up with an ecommerce plug-in, or designing the site and then incorporating Volusion, or something like that.  Any insights, comments, or ideas about how best to structure this for a more seamless customer experience and ease of back-end maintenance?  We are not tech gurus by any means, and all solutions need to be pretty straightforward in terms of initial and subsequent set up, marketing tweaks and design.  Looking forward to any feedback you guys might have. 

Many thanks,

www.TheTreesRemember.com

[seamus]

there are a good few wordpress ecommerce plugins, wp-commerce has got alot better (its free to use)

For "ease of back-end maintenance" you'd probably be better using wordpress, that would keep your website content and products all in the same admin panel. You could go for somthing like zen cart, prestashop, opencart and use one of those, you dont have many pages on your site, so one of those would be able to handle the whole website, including info pages and they would give you scope to grow the store, but (as you mentioned) if you only have a few products, wordpress with an ecomerce plugin would do the job perfectly.

edit to add,

I wouldnt use Volusion at all, it isnt exactly what you would call value for money and it is a hosted solution so you would be putting al your trust into Volusion.
I personally would never advise anyone to use a hosted solution, there are plenty of open source cart systems around (and paid for cart systems) that will do a better job than most hosted solutions, and you have total control over your own site, unlike a hosted solution.

[usercart]

Hi TTR1

I took a quick look at your website and based on my own professional opinion, I wouldn't alter what you have already. You site looks fresh, its functional and above all else it represents the type of products being sold on it.

Online shops are great if you have more than say 10 products to sell, as you can quickly grow your customer based, however if your just selling one or two items in different quantities, then you have to ask yourself is the layout for the licence fee going to worth it for a few products.

I would add some flash to your site and possibly some better buttons for checkout, but apart from that, my vote is . . . leave it as it is, your on a winner.


Regards
Isa

Hello,

Our company is looking  at re-evaluating our e-commerce structure.  Currently, it is run on Yahoo Store with Paypal Virtual Terminal payment authorization.  We are redesigning the website and would like the store portion to look more like our site and less like Yahoo's default template.  Since we sell relatively few choices of products (tree plantings in US National Forests in 4 "sizes" in two categories- memorials or gifts), we are wondering if we are better off moving to a blog set-up with an ecommerce plug-in, or designing the site and then incorporating Volusion, or something like that.  Any insights, comments, or ideas about how best to structure this for a more seamless customer experience and ease of back-end maintenance?  We are not tech gurus by any means, and all solutions need to be pretty straightforward in terms of initial and subsequent set up, marketing tweaks and design.  Looking forward to any feedback you guys might have. 

Many thanks,

www.TheTreesRemember.com