Thinking about starting your own ecommerce (online website store)? It’s always recommended that a new seller spend a good amount of time researching as much as they can before jumping in. So I thought I’d help your research out some by providing some feedback, resources and links to some of the projects I’ve worked on as well as some others that my clients have endeavored to experience on their own.

While I have a lot of experience in various ecommerce platforms, my absolute favorite ecommerce host remains to be Network Solutions. While some of their packages are a little more pricey than others you really get what you pay for with NS. Network Solutions provides a very easy to use platform for selling products, making your own website pages, sales reports, SEO options, design friendly, the list goes on and on. So if you’re looking for a recommendation my first would be Network Solutions.

Clients Using Network Solutions

• Southern Magnolia Minerals Cosmetics
• Smoky Mountain Minerals
• CDR Electronics
• Memory Foam Australia

Other Ecommerce Platforms

• Kyozou – iBuyz
• Magento – Wireless Sounds
• Paypal Shopping Carts – XLHangers

Some of my other clients have used the following ecommerce platforms but their stores are either closed or incomplete and not ready to show just yet for various reasons.

• Volusion
• OsCommerce (see available templates)
• Cubecart
• CityMax
• Godaddy ecommerce
• WordPress ecommerce (using an ecommerce plug in)
• BigCommerce
• Yahoo Ecommerce
• Prostores

Of all the ecommerce’s I’ve heard the worst feedback for Prostore users. Many of my clients have tried it because of the free trial offers ebay advertises to them. But I have not had a client that I know of that ended up staying with Prostores. Most of my clients come back and share their frustrations with me and ask me to help them set up an ecommerce elsewhere. So given all the negative feedback I’ve heard from Prostore users it I could not recommend it to you – for the life of me! lol.

My husband and I are endeavoring to test run an OsCommerce ecommerce (using drop-shippers to fill our product line) so we’ll be able to provide a personal testimonial (for good or bad) as we become familiar with OsCommerce. We may switch to Magento as I’ve recently heard from a new client that there is an awesome plugin for Magento users that enables them to integrate with their ecommerce products with their ebay store products. They’ve used Magento and this plug-in for a year so my curiosity is sky-high!

The Plug-in is called M2e

If you have or have had an ecommerce and would like to share your experience with us please use the comments field below, we would love to hear from you! I am confident my visitors would LOVE to hear your candid thoughts concerning any of the ecommerce’s out there. For example if you could let us know if the ecommerce platforms were easy to use and understand (or not), and if you would recommend this type of ecommerce to others. Thanks!