Personally, I’d highly recommend checking out Magento on that list. I would also add 2 more, the hosted solution Shopify, and the PHP/MySQL solution CS-Cart. We used CS-Cart on an internal company project a few years ago and it worked quite well. As always, try out a solution before deciding which to use.

Ok, welcome back. Shopify, as you’ve seen, is a hosted e-commerce application. It provides all the tools you need to setup e-commerce sites for your clients. We use it for Gooey Templates. I think it’s the best solution out there for running a store.

Screenshot of the Shopify Admin

Some of my favorite features:

Easy Custom Designs

Liquid is the template system that runs Shopify. It’s a really easy, but powerful templating system that allows you to do pretty much anything you want with the display of your site. It uses simple tags to insert content and you can also use these tags to do more complex programming type stuff, such as if/else statements, loops, etc.

The other really killer feature of the design process is “Vision.” Vision is an app that you download to your computer. It sets up a demo Shopify site on your computer so you can edit all the layout files, add images and css, and browser test everything, right on your computer. When you’re done, just export the design and import it into Shopify. It’s super easy and saves a ton of time.

Great Interface

Yeah, it may sound vain to some, but I know that properly designed interfaces will improve the usability of an app. I also think that the easier an app is to use, the more likely it will be they’ll keep using it. Shopify is both beautiful and easy to use.

Integration with Services

Shopify is integrated with all the usual payment, shipping, and fulfillment services, making it easy to set things up for your client. They also have an API and you can export your data.

Shopify App Store

App stores seem to be popping up everywhere lately, but Shopify’s app store is really useful. Basically Shopify allows developers to setup an app that works with their API. We use Fetch for delivering digital files to our customers. You can also install other apps for things like printing invoices, detailed stats on your store, and more.

Security and Maintenance

You don’t have to do a thing to secure or maintain a store for your clients. Set it and forget it. Need I say more?

What I don’t like

Transaction fees on orders. On all but the most expensive plan, Shopify charges a transaction fee of 1/2 to 2%. Now I understand why they have to do this, they have bills to pay too. However, it can be a hard sell to clients, especially if they have thin margins. On the Shopify site, they do mention that you can contact them for custom plans, so maybe you can work out something if a client won’t go for the transaction fees?

Would I recommend it?

Yes, absolutely! If you need to setup an e-commerce site for a client (or yourself), definitely check out Shopify.