iPage reviews – eCommerce solutions
iPage
Not many small and medium sized business have the budget to build their own Online Store. Yet they want a fully functional eCommerce solution, where customers can browse, order online and administrator can mange the products and orders. iPage, with its 12 year experience in providing SME solutions, understood this need, and has developed an all-in-one eCommerce solution. All this comes together with iPage standard hosting package (named "Essential Package"), at no extra cost (We have run through a investigation and comparison of 20 most popular web hosting services, and few of them provide eCommerce solutions as iPage).
Following features are included:
There are 4 types of eCommerce package for you to chose from. ShopSite Shopping cart is the most popular one. The eCommerce is made ready for placing order using credit cards. If your customers are from countries where credit cards are not very widely used, you can choose to integrate Paypal as the paying method. This is extremely helpful.
Login to your control panel, under "Website" group, click on ShopSite Starter.
On the next screen, click on "Enable ShopSite". This will activate the eCommerce Package:
Please wait for 1-2 minutes while your site is being installed. Once it's finished, click on "Configure Store" to configure the settings for your eCommerce.
Just follow the screen instructions and run through the settings: Store front, Products, Pages, taxes, Payment methods, Shipping, Layout & Color. Remember to choose the themes and layout that best fit your products. After that, click on "Publish" to make the store live. Finally, just click on "Finishing Up", and your store is now ready to receive customers! It can't be easier. Following is one sample of the shopping site (there are many other themes that you can choose)
If you forgot to add in any products during setup, or you want to add in new categories or products, you can always do so with the Admin panel. Keep the password safe, because your Online Store may store sensitive customer information.
If you run eCommerce website, we highly recommended that you purchase add-on features to the Essential Package. There are 2 addons recommended: Automate Site Backup and a security add-on. Automate Site Backup (ASB) will periodically and automatically take image of your hosting hard drive, to backup it fully. In cases there is any server problem or data loss, you can always restore the data. The security add-on will protect you from malicious attacks, which keeps your business safe and your reputation good. If you do not run an Online Store, to cut cost, you no need to purchase these 2 addons.
If you develop or outsource the development of eCommerce solution, it will costs no less than $1500, and will take at least 1 month! With this built-in eCommerce solution, you can get your Online Store up and running robustly in a matter of an hour, without any knowledge of Web Programming. Therefore, in my opinion, the value of the Essential Package is much higher than its cost (only $3.5/month)