5 ms·

Also sad that Shopify isn't all that good. Their scale enables them to have a community with helpful guides and videos and stuff, but the actual product is arg

Also sad that Shopify isn't all that good. Their scale enables them to have a community with helpful guides and videos and stuff, but the actual product is arguably less sophisticated than what competitors offer. What they have is a zinger of a name and a big marketing budget. Anyone in this space should really check out alternatives. Unless there is a specific plug in or use case you want to use there is not much good reason to choose Shopify.

Readywater 4y ago
What are some of the alternatives you’d recommend?
- jdjdjdjdjd 4y ago
  Bigcommerce
- m0llusk 4y ago
  primarily volusion.com, but it is a big space and often one or two key features make an offering work for a particular enterprise
zippergz 4y ago
Sophisticated is not what is called for in a LOT of ecommerce setups. I have assisted employers and clients with Shopify, Bigcommerce, Miva Merchant, and selling on platforms like Amazon and eBay. For most "small business" style use cases, I find Shopify far better than the others, because it's a lot easier for the business owner (who isn't an ecommerce expert) to run, and they don't need or miss the flexibility that the others offer. Invariably it costs more to configure and run something like bigcommerce, and that's only justified if you actually need what they offer.
thanatos519 4y ago
Indeed. An e-commerce site on which I have 4weekly subscriptions of multiple products has an astoundingly bad UX ... and it's driven by Shopify. Either Shopify's recurring order system is fundamentally broken, or this particular site is misconfigured. In either case, it's a deficiency of Shopify.
- flappyeagle 4y ago
  Shopify has no recurring system. They are using a plug-in.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - dannyw 4y ago
    That's on Shopify, not them.
- core-utility 4y ago
  As stated, Shopify has no recurring subscription system (which is astounding since it seems basic enough for them to offer, but I guess they're getting profits either way). I've experimented with a few popular recurrence "apps" and I can say that one of the most popular ones was awful to setup and maintain. I chose a more indie option (Seal Subscriptions, if you're a Shopify store go check them out) and got much better results.
jamal-kumar 4y ago
What are your favorite alternatives, particularly if there is one that allows for use of a pin pad for in-person sales?
soared 4y ago
Literally nobody uses Shopify because of its cms features. They use it because it quick cheap and easy to set up a really good looking ecom site that has tons of good integrations for shipping/business needs/etc.
jancsika 4y ago
> Anyone in this space should really check out alternatives. Please quickly name your top three. Then we can check the veracity by seeing how they get dissected by HN pundits.
- m0llusk 4y ago
  It has been a while since I evaluated these, so this list is probably not all that good right now. That doesn't change the fact that Shopify is flat out not that good whether you are comparing features or price. And this is all the more reason to check out current alternatives available now instead of thinking you can get what you want from heated discussions with people on HN: volusion.com, ashopcommerce.com, bigcommerce.com are the first that come to mind. This is a big market so it might make more sense to make a list of the top dozen or so and then look more at the ones that offer features that have value for you.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- basch 4y ago
  https://www.cococart.co/ https://www.cococart.co/ found here https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?query=commerce&status=Active https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?query=commerce&status=... https://www.techinasia.com/cococart-seed-funding https://www.techinasia.com/cococart-seed-funding also https://techcrunch.com/category/ecommerce/ https://techcrunch.com/category/ecommerce/ https://www.owler.com/company/shopify/competitors https://www.owler.com/company/shopify/competitors
disantlor 4y ago
I make my living as the developer for a few large e-comm businesses that all use Shopify and it works really really well. I never get why people (devs especially) call out whatever feature they think Shopify should have without realizing that pretty much anything you could want to do is enabled by their API.
- dismalpedigree 4y ago
  Custom pricing for certain customers is a nightmare on shopify. I have built several sites and even made custom apps. I have figured out work arounds, but they are less than ideal. Do you have some ideas that I missed?
  - disantlor 4y ago
    It's definitely easier to discount pricing than it is to increase dynamically. The wholesale store functionality has customer based price lists. I've also added products to cart with a discount amount as line item property, which is then picked up and discounted by line item script. Some concern there with people manipulating it but I think it's pretty theoretical and there are ways to combat that. Both those require Plus though. They announced the new backend pricing API/web assembly script thing a couple weeks ago that seems like it will solve this issue for real. Similarly to how the subscription stuff was pretty janky with apps until the selling plan stuff. That said, it got the job done even if it wasnt ideal, and now they have a good solution. I prefer that model to just rolling out a bunch of half baked features. Responding more to the parent than you now, but in most cases if a business claims to critically need some specific feature, I wonder if they are not just married to the specific solution they have in mind and not the underlying problem. But if they really do need a specific thing, then certainly looking for the platform that offers it makes sense.
WheatM 4y ago

Readywater 4y ago

What are some of the alternatives you’d recommend?

jdjdjdjdjd 4y ago
Bigcommerce
m0llusk 4y ago
primarily volusion.com, but it is a big space and often one or two key features make an offering work for a particular enterprise

zippergz 4y ago

Sophisticated is not what is called for in a LOT of ecommerce setups. I have assisted employers and clients with Shopify, Bigcommerce, Miva Merchant, and selling on platforms like Amazon and eBay. For most "small business" style use cases, I find Shopify far better than the others, because it's a lot easier for the business owner (who isn't an ecommerce expert) to run, and they don't need or miss the flexibility that the others offer. Invariably it costs more to configure and run something like bigcommerce, and that's only justified if you actually need what they offer.

thanatos519 4y ago

Indeed. An e-commerce site on which I have 4weekly subscriptions of multiple products has an astoundingly bad UX ... and it's driven by Shopify. Either Shopify's recurring order system is fundamentally broken, or this particular site is misconfigured. In either case, it's a deficiency of Shopify.

flappyeagle 4y ago
Shopify has no recurring system. They are using a plug-in.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dannyw 4y ago
  That's on Shopify, not them.
core-utility 4y ago
As stated, Shopify has no recurring subscription system (which is astounding since it seems basic enough for them to offer, but I guess they're getting profits either way). I've experimented with a few popular recurrence "apps" and I can say that one of the most popular ones was awful to setup and maintain. I chose a more indie option (Seal Subscriptions, if you're a Shopify store go check them out) and got much better results.

jamal-kumar 4y ago

What are your favorite alternatives, particularly if there is one that allows for use of a pin pad for in-person sales?

soared 4y ago

Literally nobody uses Shopify because of its cms features. They use it because it quick cheap and easy to set up a really good looking ecom site that has tons of good integrations for shipping/business needs/etc.

jancsika 4y ago

> Anyone in this space should really check out alternatives. Please quickly name your top three. Then we can check the veracity by seeing how they get dissected by HN pundits.

m0llusk 4y ago
It has been a while since I evaluated these, so this list is probably not all that good right now. That doesn't change the fact that Shopify is flat out not that good whether you are comparing features or price. And this is all the more reason to check out current alternatives available now instead of thinking you can get what you want from heated discussions with people on HN: volusion.com, ashopcommerce.com, bigcommerce.com are the first that come to mind. This is a big market so it might make more sense to make a list of the top dozen or so and then look more at the ones that offer features that have value for you.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
basch 4y ago
https://www.cococart.co/ https://www.cococart.co/ found here https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?query=commerce&status=Active https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?query=commerce&status=... https://www.techinasia.com/cococart-seed-funding https://www.techinasia.com/cococart-seed-funding also https://techcrunch.com/category/ecommerce/ https://techcrunch.com/category/ecommerce/ https://www.owler.com/company/shopify/competitors https://www.owler.com/company/shopify/competitors

disantlor 4y ago

I make my living as the developer for a few large e-comm businesses that all use Shopify and it works really really well. I never get why people (devs especially) call out whatever feature they think Shopify should have without realizing that pretty much anything you could want to do is enabled by their API.

dismalpedigree 4y ago
Custom pricing for certain customers is a nightmare on shopify. I have built several sites and even made custom apps. I have figured out work arounds, but they are less than ideal. Do you have some ideas that I missed?
- disantlor 4y ago
  It's definitely easier to discount pricing than it is to increase dynamically. The wholesale store functionality has customer based price lists. I've also added products to cart with a discount amount as line item property, which is then picked up and discounted by line item script. Some concern there with people manipulating it but I think it's pretty theoretical and there are ways to combat that. Both those require Plus though. They announced the new backend pricing API/web assembly script thing a couple weeks ago that seems like it will solve this issue for real. Similarly to how the subscription stuff was pretty janky with apps until the selling plan stuff. That said, it got the job done even if it wasnt ideal, and now they have a good solution. I prefer that model to just rolling out a bunch of half baked features. Responding more to the parent than you now, but in most cases if a business claims to critically need some specific feature, I wonder if they are not just married to the specific solution they have in mind and not the underlying problem. But if they really do need a specific thing, then certainly looking for the platform that offers it makes sense.

WheatM 4y ago