ECwid: Create an eStore in Minutes!
ECwid is a web app which allows you to easily create your own store which you can integrate within your website in minutes. Basically, it’s like Amazon Associates (mostly because it’s powered by Amazon) except this has much better easy-to-use tools installed and is also easier to use for novice users when it comes to integrating your ecommerce store within your website.
Once you have created an account you just select what products you would like in your store, tailor the layout and colour scheme to your tastes and then click ‘Finish’. You’ll then be given HTML coding which you can copy and paste into a page on your website to embed the store. This will then act as your very own store on your website as though your developed and integrated it yourself.
The program also allows you to track invoicing, customers, accounts and other such important data to see how your store is getting on and how it can be improved.
2 Comments
Looks interesting although because the entire thing is run through Ajax they’re really missing the SEO side of the equation… this is a critical component to any web site especially when consumers are searching for specific product names using Google. I’m very confused by their claim that “We take SEO seriously”.
Nick,
You’re right that SEO is a important thing and AJAX apps usually cannot be indexed by search engines.
However we already thought about it when creating Ecwid and found solutions.
1. Ecwid has a mobile catalog option. It is a plain-HTML copy of the entire store. It serves two purposes:
- mobile customers can checkout
- it can be fully indexed by search engines (e.g. Google)
When a visitor with a usual non-mobile browser opens a page from the mobile catalog, Ecwid prompts him/her to go to the normal full-featured and AJAX-loaded page.
2. Another important thing is that Ecwid can be a standalone shopping cart, but it also can be an addition to your site. In such a case Ecwid will be as SEO-friendly as your site is.
I.e. you create pages using your CMS, make them SEO-friendly using your CMS abilities and then just embed your products using the special code and use Ecwid as a free checkout platform (many our users do such a thing).
3. We’re developing modules for all popular CMS`s. They will allow indexing the whole Ecwid store even without a mobile catalog. So your customers get a cool and powerful AJAX interface, but all search engines will get old-fashioned plain-HTML pages .
Such modules will be released in a few weeks.
—-
Eugene
Ecwid Team