Everyone wants to sell something nowadays, be it the young girl out of school, the small-time entrepreneur who works from home or the working professional who seeks side income. With the influence of the Internet coupled with the availability of various platforms and tools today, anything ranging from clothing to multi-vitamins and pets can be sold online, all from the comfort of the home without having to step outside anymore.
There are two ways that online entrepreneurs use to market and sell their wares. The first is to set up a blogshop and the other is to set up a hosted website with a shopping cart feature. A blogshop is a site that runs from a blog, usually Blogger or WordPress. In this instance, the URL of your blogshop will be either blogshopname.blogspot.com or blogshopname.WordPress.com, depending on the blog platform that you are using.
Of course, you could also use your own .com domain name on the blogshop which will make your blog look more professional and the blogshop address easier to remember and type.
On the other hand if you have a website hosted, you will have a simpler domain name which is easy to remember and easy to type. Both a blogshop and a hosted e-commerce website have its advantages.
Why Blogshop is Good?
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Convenient and Easy to Setup
Setting up a blogshop is easy. Just select the blog platform (Blogger.com or WordPress.com) you want, think of a name, check its availability, register it and you’re good to go. The setup is immediate and you can start posting photos and details of your items right away. Also, you don’t need to have any technical knowledge of maintaining a website. Thus, you can post, update and edit your blog anytime you want to.
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Blogger and WordPress are FREE
Blogging on Blogger or WordPress, as you all know, is free. By setting up a blogshop, you save on several fees that you have to come up with by having a hosted website. First, there is the domain name, which you need to register prior to having your website. There is also the website hosting fee as well as the need to purchase a shopping cart software (although there are free shopping carts available). You save on all these by running a blogshop!
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Quick and Straightforward Communication with Customers
Visitors are able to inquire, give feedback or place orders by leaving comments on the blog posts. There is also the option of installing a chat box where blogshop owners and their customers can communicate easily. However, there is not much control on how these chat boxes will display and will work, because they are designed for general use and not specifically for doing business online.
However, I think that a hosted website with a shopping cart gives a business leverage because of the following reasons.
Why a Hosted e-Commerce Site with Shopping Cart is Better?
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Delivers a Brand Image and Easy Access
For starters, having your own domain name represents your business well. It is easy to access and remember your website, besides giving customers confidence in your business. Having your own domain indicates that you mean business. To me, I wouldn’t have confidence in dealing with blogshops. With the simplicity in setting a blogshop up, they are just everywhere and I don’t know if the person behind them are serious about the business, reliable or trustworthy.
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Real-time Credit Card and Paypal Payments
This is one great advantage that a blogshop doesn’t have. A hosted website powered by a shopping cart software is able to accept credit card transactions through a payment gateway such as 2Checkout and iPay88 (Malaysia’s most popular online payment gateway that accepts credit cards, Paypal, Maybank2u and many others). The site can also integrate PayPal easily. Having a shopping cart gives your business an edge because customers are not only able to pay for large purchases easily but are also able to shop online in a more secure manner with the SSL and other security measures.
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Better Business Management
Most shopping cart software come with a myriad of features that were created to make business management a breeze. These features include the real time calculation of sales tax, discounts, and shipping cost. Orders, catalogs, inventory and shipping orders can also be managed at ease with the assistance of the shopping cart.
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Delivers Auto-responders
With auto-responders, you can send automated replies and emails to your customers, affiliates, suppliers and prospects easily. By defining an auto-reply and creating multiple mailing lists, your emails will go out automatically to the intended recipients. You can even improve the deliverability of the emails by engaging a third-party auto-responder service. Just imagine if you have to manually send these emails without this auto-responder feature. Most of your time will be spent on emails instead of focusing on your business!
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Search Engines Optimized Pages
Do you know how to get more traffic from Google or other search engines? The average entrepreneur out there most likely doesn’t have this knowledge and using Blogger or WordPress doesn’t help much. But you don’t have to worry about having SEO pages if you have a shopping cart because it provides a search engine friendly environment that will lead to a better ranking on popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo! Search and Bing.
What Shopping Cart do you Recommend?
We strongly recommend CS-Cart shopping cart. It is a really good shopping cart software which is very affordable yet features-rich. CS-Cart is suitable for any online e-commerce sites, such as a fashion or clothing site, a website selling mobile phones, a watches site, and many others.
For more details, check our complete CS-Cart review.
What about Web Hosting?
Now that you have chosen a good shopping cart software, what about the web hosting? We recommend GreenGeeks. Their Eco Site hosting plan costs as low as $4.95 monthly and it comes with a whole lot of features designed for an e-commerce website. On top of that, you can use a discount coupon which will get you $30 discount instantly!
Check out details on our GreenGeeks review.
Editor’s Advice
A blogshop is convenient and needs little effort in maintaining but as its name indicate, they were meant to be just blogs and do not have any features that support a business. Someone who is just starting to dabble in online business and intends to keep it as an additional source of income can remain using blogshops hosted on Blogger or WordPress.
However, if you are serious about being an online entrepreneur, a shopping cart on a hosted website is the better bet for you for the reputation and features that it carries for your business.
Another thing about shopping cart based sites is that you have more control over the design. Livejournal sites can’t be totally customized.
I’m pretty sure you can enable commenting on a shopping cart site too
Fleastyle,
You are absolutely right! You can have commenting on a shopping cart site too. In fact, in CS-Cart shopping cart, you can also have an inquiry-and-reply section for each product. This is a really useful feature because the inquiries and answers posted on the website will serve as further information for other shoppers.
I am from Malaysia, owner of a fashion blogshop. I am more interested in Malaysia based hosting such as Exabytes. Do you recommend hosting with Exabytes and do you have Exabytes coupon?
Hello Lim,
Yes, Exabytes is a great web hosting company. If you are from Malaysia and your target audience are Malaysians, then I would strongly recommend Exabytes. You can read our reviews about Exabytes here http://www.100webhosting.com/malaysia-web-hosting-exabytes/ and use the coupon codes to get good discounts. Let us know if you need any help.
Cheers!
I sell clothes online. Do you think cs-cart is suitable for this kind of blogshop?
Hi Serena,
Yes, CS-Cart is absolutely great for sites selling clothes. In fact I have a few clients using CS-Cart for their fashion websites too! Don’t worry, go ahead with this shopping cart software.
Cheers.
Do you have example of these sites that are currently using CS-Cart?
Hi Michelle,
Yes, sure. The following are sites running on CS-Cart.
http://www.sportsmanswarehouse.co.za/
http://www.rackoutfitters.com/
http://www.swimwearplace.com/
http://www.eziautoparts.com.au/
http://ukbeading.co.uk/
Please do not hesitate to let me know if you have other questions on this shopping cart software. Thanks for dropping by and for your interest in CS-Cart.
Hi ! Is CS cart free? (:
Also , Can it be used under weebly.com ?
Hi Peishan,
Yes and no. CS-Cart has 3 editions, namely Community, Professional and Multi-vendor. The Community edition is FREE! Although it is free but it is still features packed! Give it a try. Of course, the Professional edition is much better with even more features! Check out CS-Cart official website for more details.
I don’t think you can use CS-Cart on Weebly’s free web hosting. Why not you sign up with GreenGeeks, which is guaranteed to work with CS-Cart? Use the coupon code “100WH” to get $30 off instantly!
Cheers!
Im a technology idiot. I dunno how to use those editing etc. So i chose weebly , its very user friendly . Im looking for a cart software so that i can save time on invoices also hope that it cn be used on weebly. Please help me dear (:
Hello Peishan,
Weebly is very indeed friendly. It also has an e-commerce module which you can use to build an online store to sell stuff or services. It can also integrate with your PayPal or Google Checkout account.
However, the features of this e-commerce module is rather limited compared to a full e-commerce software such as CS-Cart. I am more familiar with CS-Cart, and to be frank I have not used the e-commerce feature in Weebly.
If you ask me, I would strongly recommend CS-Cart.
Actually, CS-Cart is easy to install, setup and use. You can get plenty of help from the developer’s helpdesk and/or from the forum. Hope that helps.
But is e-commerce able to auto send invoices whn orders aré recieved ?
Hello Peishan,
I think CS-Cart doesn’t auto send invoices by default, however, please be rest assured this is a complete e-commerce system, and possibly one of the best. The system records order history in the user’s account, so the user can print out the invoice at his/her convenience.
Hi, if I buy a domain from blogger.. Can cs cart apply on my domain? Thx!
Hello Dion,
I am afraid you cannot use CS-Cart on blogger, even if you bought a domain from them (blogger). This is because blogger doesn’t allow you to install anything, you can only use what they offer – blogging platform, not e-commerce.
To use CS-Cart, you must get your own web hosting. We highly recommend GreenGeeks and LunarPages. Check out more here http://www.100webhosting.com/greengeeks-web-hosting-for-e-commerce-and-business-website/
Hope that helps.
Great article
Just want to share with all the people looking for a shopping site, do NOT use bigcommerce. It was recommended by some online article so I got it but it has been terrible so far (in terms of service) Every time I ask a question I am told:
1. Must pay (I am asking if it is possible to do this/ how and not asking them to do it! They don’t even bother reading the question, they just redirect me immediately to their “partner” which is a paid service)
2. Go search our support database (uh duh. I have searched it and the answer is not there hence am asking you? If that is your answer to everything, I seriously wonder why you even bother to have support staff!!
Just my 2 cents. Sorry to rant!
Hi Jasmine,
I am from a country far far away. is it feasible for me to host my e-commerce store with Green Geeks ? What is the pro & cont or different for me to host the e-commerce store here in my country and with GreenGeeks ? I need some of your advise. My product is all electronic forms can send via email.no shipping needed. I am looking for a fast speed data transfer hosting company and with unlimited product listing. May be can you introduce some others hosting company to me ? of course they must have ready shopping cart e-commerce system. Thanks
Hi Andy,
I see. Are you from Malaysia… looking at the IP address you are from. GreenGeeks is a good web host, but of course, we need to look at your website’s target audience (visitors, customers, readers, etc). If you want to target international audience, then it makes sense to host with an international web host. Recommended web hosts are like GreenGeeks, BlueHost and HostGator.
GreenGeeks, BlueHost and HostGator are great web hosts. Now, let’s check out the pros and cons.
Pros to host with an international web host:
1) International audience will find your website loading more quickly
2) You will get more traffic from search engines
3) Great for top level domain name such as .com
4) Unlimited disk space, bandwidth and etc
5) Highly experienced technical support
6) Cheaper
Cons to host with an international web host:
1) Access from Malaysia will be slower
2) Difficult/expensive to call support on the phone (but they have 24 hours live chat)
Pros to host locally
1) Very fast to access the website/FTP
2) Easy/cheap to call support on the phone (but usually not 24 hours support)
3) Great for country level domain name, such as .com.my
Cons to host locally
1) International audience will find your website very slow
2) Less traffic from search engines (from international)
3) Usually expensive (with limited disk space, bandwidth, etc)
4) Less experienced technical support
5) No 24 hours technical support or live chat
If you are really from Malaysia, and wish to host locally, you can check out ServerFreak.
Hope that helps. Do let us know if you have more questions.
I hope to create own blog for partner with friend on product introducing for better or rich family. Thks
Hi Margaret,
That’s a good idea. It’s good to start an e-commerce website. But it will be easier if you do it on a blog platform.
Do let me know if you need any advise or help.
Thank you.