Best eCommerce Website Platforms for Small Business

There’s money to be made in eCommerce, and just about anyone can build a successful eCommerce business. Besides a great product, you’ll need a killer website. Here are three of the best eCommerce website platforms to choose from.

Shopify

Shopify is the leading eCommerce platform, and for good reason. The designs look great right out of the box. You can choose from about 20 free templates and over 80 more than you’ll pay for. The designers at Shopify stay up-to-the-minute on trends, so your shop will look fresh and current.

Shopify offers a host of features like inventory management, support for 70 payment gateways, the ability to offer discount codes and gift cards, unlimited SKUs, and more. It’s super easy to get up and running. Unlike many other platforms, it’s not open source, so you’re kind of married to it, but there’s enough functionality to do just about anything you want.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a plugin for WordPress, so it ‘borrows’ the design of your WordPress theme. Some of the WordPress themes have been designed to work with WooCommerce in mind, so if you’re starting from scratch building a website and an eCommerce store, choose one of these themes for the whole package. If you’re in a hurry, use Storefront, the default store theme. It’s free, and will certainly get the job done. WooCommerce is open source, so you can download it for free from WordPress. But once you get the software for free, you will pay for hosting, an SSL certificate, and a top-level domain.

Magento

Magento is another open source platform, with themes that start at $1. Like WooCommerce, Magento is open source, and there are at least 5,000 (yes, 5,000) apps and add-ons you can use with it. If you have some technical aptitude and the time to spend, Magento may allow you to have a more customizable and unique site than the other two.

All three of these platforms offer responsive design, SEO capabilities, customization and blog functionality (although Magento’s blog capability is by way of a plug-in).

To determine which of these platforms is right for your eCommerce site, consider what you need. How many SKUs do you plan to have? What payment gateway will you use? Do you need to be able to drop ship? Do you want to offer gift cards? How do you want to handle abandoned carts? Try to envision the entire ordering process, from start to finish, in every scenario you can think of. And consider what you may need a few years from now, not just today.

Then look at the price. This can be a complicated comparison because different platforms price differently. Once you’ve identified what you need, you can compare the price you’ll actually pay. That will give you a true basis for comparison.

You can set up an impressive eCommerce site on any of these platforms. Comparing them for your specific needs will point you in the right direction.

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Written By: Jocelyn Brown

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What is “CraveTV” ?

CraveTV is a Canadian subscription video on demand service owned by Bell Media. The service is oriented towards television series, with a library of 10,000 hours of programming on-launch, and exclusive Canadian rights to HBO and Showtime’s library of past programming. CraveTV can be subscribed to either as a pay television offering through a TV service provider, with programming available through that provider’s video-on-demand library, or directly through the service’s website. In both cases, content is available over-the-top through the CraveTV website and mobile apps.

CraveTV was initially positioned as a complement to an existing television subscription; as such, the service was not initially made available as a standalone product and could only be purchased through participating cable and satellite providers, although Bell promised that the service itself would be available to “every TV provider in Canada”. Subsequently, Bell announced CraveTV would be made available on a standalone basis in January 2016. It competes directly with other subscription-based over-the-top streaming services, such as Netflix.

 

Source: Wikipedia

What is “Nokia” ?

Nokia Corporation – A Finnish multinational communications and information technology company, founded in 1865. Nokia is headquartered in Espoo, Uusimaa, in the greater Helsinki metropolitan area. In 2014, Nokia employed 61,656 people across 120 countries, conducts sales in more than 150 countries and reported annual revenues of around €12.73 billion. Nokia is a public limited-liability company listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange. It is the world’s 274th-largest company measured by 2013 revenues according to the Fortune Global 500.

The company currently focuses on large-scale telecommunications infrastructures, technology development and licensing. Nokia is also a major contributor to the mobile telephony industry, having assisted in development of the GSM and LTE standards, and was, for a period, the largest vendor of mobile phones in the world. Nokia’s dominance also extended into the smartphone industry through its Symbian platform, but it was soon overshadowed by the growing dominance of Apple’s iPhone line and Android devices. Nokia eventually entered into a pact with Microsoft in 2011 to exclusively use its Windows Phone platform on future smartphones.

In September 2013, Microsoft announced that it would acquire Nokia’s mobile phone business as part of an overall deal totaling €5.44 billion (US $7.17 billion). Stephen Elop, Nokia’s former CEO, and several other executives joined the new Microsoft Mobile subsidiary of Microsoft as part of the deal, which was completed on April 25, 2014. In November 2014, Nokia began to license product designs and technologies to third-party manufacturers, to enable a continued presence for the Nokia brand in the consumer electronics hardware market. Since then the company has started to expand its telecommunications business and enter the virtual reality market. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.

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Source: Wikipedia

What is “Digital Distribution” ?

Digital Distribution (also called content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution (ESD), among others) – The delivery or distribution of media content such as audio, video, software and video games. The term is generally used to describe distribution over an online delivery medium, such as the Internet, thus bypassing physical distribution methods, such as paper, compact discs, and DVDs. The term online distribution is typically applied to freestanding products; downloadable add-ons for other products are more commonly known as downloadable content. With the advancement of network bandwidth capabilities, online distribution became prominent in the 2000s.

Content distributed online may be streamed or downloaded, and often consists of books, films and television programs, music, software, and video games. Streaming involves downloading and using content at a user’s request, or “on-demand”, rather than allowing a user to store it permanently. By contrast, fully downloading content to a hard drive or other form of storage media may allow offline access in the future.

Specialist networks known as content delivery networks help distribute content over the Internet by ensuring both high availability and high performance. Alternative technologies for content delivery include peer-to-peer file sharing technologies. Alternatively, content delivery platforms create and syndicate content remotely, acting like hosted content management systems.

However, the term is also used in film distribution to describe distribution of content through physical media, in opposition to distribution by analog media such as photographic film and magnetic tape.

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Source: Wikipedia

What does “AMD” mean ?

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.) – An American worldwide semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, United States, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While initially it manufactured its own processors, the company became fabless after GlobalFoundries was spun off in 2009. AMD’s main products include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors and graphics processors for servers, workstations and personal computers, and embedded systems applications.

AMD is the second-largest supplier and only significant rival to Intel in the market for x86-based microprocessors. Since acquiring ATI in 2006, AMD and its competitor Nvidia have dominated the discrete graphics processor unit (GPU) market.

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Source: Wikipedia

EPD 332: Fan Mail Friday’s (12/09/2016)

Dear Computer Savvy,

How did you guys come up with the idea to post all thous scam mail address ?

Dana .R

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Reply:  Well Dana…. We just figured it would be very useful. If someone who got an e-mail from Hotmail or Paypal and such that looks off (Fake or a phasing attack). That they then could look it up easily using Google or another search engine  ether using the just the e-mail address or with the subject line they used (Such as Verify Your Account now To Avoid It Closed‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏) So far it seems to have worked and we are doing our best to make it as user friendly as possible.

Right now we are spending most of our time and effort with improving. Just the Hotmail and Foreign Lottery Scam Mail List/Databases. But Dana we have had some major interest in us upgrading all of our Scam Mail Lists/Databases such as our Paypal or Bank or America lists. But that will honestly take a lot of time and effort to achieve on our part. But we do plan to keep on introducing every few months a whole new and upgraded scam mail lists.

So keep your eyes peeled on both the Features Page and our weekly Blog Updates for clues on when that will happen.

PS: That or you could follow us on Twitter

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If you are interested in looking at said upgraded Scam Mail Lists /Databases here are the link to the 2:

**Scam Watch: Hotmail E-mail Account Scam Explained + Example

**Scam Watch: Foreign Lottery Scam Explained + Example

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Till Next Friday,

Danny

What is a “Computer Case” ?

Computer Case (Also known as a computer chassis, tower, system unit, cabinet, base unit or simply case and sometimes incorrectly referred to as the “CPU” or “hard drive”) – The enclosure that contains most of the components of a computer (usually excluding the display, keyboard and mouse). Cases are usually constructed from steel (often SECC — Steel, electrogalvanized, cold-rolled, coil) or aluminium. Plastic is sometimes used, and other materials such as glass, wood and even Lego blocks have appeared in home-built cases.

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Source: Wikipedia

EPD 331: Fan Mail Friday’s (12/02/2016)

Dear Remy And Nico,

I just wanted to say I love your Scam Watch feature on JustAnswer.com –Scam Watch: JustAnswer.com Is It A Scam ? Or Is It Just A Really Bad Investment ?-. I’ve read it a number of times and I am both impressed with the feature it self. As well as the very close follow up with all the people who comment on your post.

I just thank God I Google searched Just Answer before I spent my money.

Anyways I just had one question…..

I remember seeing somewhere in that JA.com comment section. I think it was about how you guys go about researching and posting new Scam Watch features. Could you please re-post it ? as I want to use a similar template and or process.

**Keep up the great work :)

Toby C.

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Reply:  Well Toby, we our always very flattered when we get comments or mail from our core readership. About any post or feature we have written.

I am very happy to hear you enjoyed the feature and it informed you about a possible usage of the JustAnswer.com  Q+A online service.

Now about our very close follow-up with all the people who comment on the JA.com post. Well we the post and comments very seriously so we answer all comments regardless of what they say. We here at the Computer Savvy Weblog (CSW) have always held replying to all our readers comments as very important across all our posts and features. Mainly because we appreciate having readers and hearing what they have to say.

And here is the comment / template you requested…..

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**Pulled from –Scam Watch: JustAnswer.com Is It A Scam ? Or Is It Just A Really Bad Investment ?– Comment section**

2010/04/04 at 8:23 PM | In reply to Ulysses.

Well I want to let everyone in on how The Computer Savvy Weblog (CSW) works in the bulk of cases.

Stage 1: We here @ (CSW) get a report of a possible scam. That is key possible we are not calling it confirmed till much later if at all.

Stage 2: Then depending on the report it can start to go into a further 4 stages. I’ll call them Stages 3, 4, 5 and 6 for sake of keeping it as simple as possible.

Stage 3: -SORTING-

– Scams we are aware of already

– Scams we are not aware of

– Pending more evidence (Example: Not enough e-mail reports or un-verified reports of hear say or just plan angry people)

– Pending more research

** Further sorting as we receive a couple hundred a day by both e-mail, Twiiter PM’s and Comments as you can see by this post…

Step 4: -REVIEW and POSSIBLE HAND OFF-

– Who would best fit to cover this (Which of my current membership is best suited to cover this)

Step 5: RESEARCH

– Self Explanatory

Step 6: PUBLISH And PRESENT

– If the report even gets this far a post/article is written and presented to receive feedback

– Still even at this late stage we are still watching all the comments and e-mails. Which as you very well know I personally e-mail said person back with my response to the comment. At which time anyone is free to e-mail me back or PM me. About my comment or a fellow blog member’s post or comment.

So in conclusion even thou I personally would love to go after all the reports we get, I can’t. But I have a very dedicated research staff and blog crew. Who without none of this blog would even be possible.

But in this case even thou I did not open my own JustAswser.com account. As sure as I am talking to you now, I have plenty of members who did.

Thanks as always for the quick and detailed answer Ulysses,

Remy “Se7en”

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Till Next Friday,

Remy “Se7en”

What is an “Intranet” ?

Intranet – A private network, accessible only to an organization’s staff. Generally a wide range of information and services from the organization’s internal IT systems are available that would not be available to the public from the Internet. A company-wide intranet can constitute an important focal point of internal communication and collaboration, and provide a single starting point to access internal and external resources. In its simplest form an intranet is established with the technologies for local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs).

Intranets began to appear in a range of larger organizations from 1994. The launch of a free webserver from Microsoft in 1996 helped make the technology accessible to a wider market.

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Source: Wikipedia

EPD 330: Fan Mail Friday’s (11/25/2016)

Hi ComputerSavvy,

I was wondering who does your Banners and Twitter themes ?

Ben J.

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Reply:  Well (CSW’s) very own Mattyblog does all our site work graphical wise. He does all banners, icons for both (CSW) main site and Twitter.

If you wish to contact “MattyBlog” with regards to his graphic designer services. Please feel free to e-mail him @ mstanyon@hybridgames.co.uk

PS: The current WordPress theme we are using is a free template called “Contempt” by Vault9.

Hope that answers your question,

Ben J.

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Till Next Friday,

Remy “Se7en”