BIGCOMMERCE vs MAGENTO vs SHOPPING CART ELITE - LAUNCHING THE WEBSITE IN 30 DAYS
IMAGINARY BENEFIT OF OPEN SOURCE vs. COMMODITY HOSTED SHOPPING CARTS
Michael started with a commodity hosted Shopping Cart (The BigC) and sooner than later he realized it was a piece of vaporware that doesnt work. Mikes biggest issue was that he didnt have the control to dig into the code and modify what he needed. Mike started comparing other commodity shopping carts, and he ended with the same conclusion that he needed his own custom open source shopping cart to be in control.
Mike did not consider that maybe he just needs an ecommerce partner who can offer an end to end solution. What Mike didnt understand is that once he modified the source code of the open source shopping cart, he now owned it forever to maintain.
If you reviewed my Ownership Accountability system above, you now understand that owning something that you cant control will end up in someone dropping the ball guaranteed.
Think about it, you know what needs to be done in your daily routine of your business, and you hire someone to delegate that part of the job. You quickly realize that the person you hired is incapable of doing the work, so instead of hiring another person, you end up doing the work yourself.
When you choose to go open source with a shopping cart, you now own that task. Frustrated and defeated, Mike got lured in doing business with Magento Open Source Shopping Cart instead of the BigC.
OPEN SOURCE SHOPPING CART IS LIKE A WHEELCHAIR
Mike made the decision that he will own the job of maintaining and being in control of this project, but he quickly realized that he is not the right person to own it. Mike had no idea what needs to be do or how to do it. Mike is not a developer, he never coded in his life, and he didnt realize that the second he had someone else modify the code of this open source platform, then he will buy himself a permanent wheelchair.
Mikes new decision put him in control of sitting in a wheelchair that he has no idea how to ride. Mike will forever have to depend on someone riding him around town for as long as he remains on that wheelchair.
If one of your family members agreed to ride you around town on your new wheelchair, maybe that would work. However, when you choose a person that will have complete ownership and accountability of the complete infrastructure of your business, and this person happens to be a third party agency in India who plans to hire a newb developer for 10 hours per month to work for you, well all I can say is GOOD LUCK!
What ultimately happened was the blame shifted from the hosted commodity shopping cart for not giving you enough control, to passing that control to a single Indian newb developer that will overcharge you, waste one year of your time, and ultimately fail your project.
Mike wanted to control the end to end process, but what he actually got was an employee from India who is sleeping while Mike is experiencing problems in his business. Sometimes Mike would need to fix something NOW, but the developer would be sleeping. The developer will be up in 12 hours, and then he will take a week to fix the 15 minute issue while billing you for 20 hours for it.
In the end, Mike will end up in the same spot where he started, reinventing the wheel over and over and over again until he learned the lessons that he could have easily learned from others.
HOW TO TRULY CONTROL THE END TO END PROCESS
What you need is to find a hosted eCommerce partner who can be an accountable owner and actually deliver on the whole process.
Let me tell you a story of what happened in Shopping Cart Elite:
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Last year we had a significant drop off of clients leaving Shopping Cart Elite. The number one reason for leaving was because the client never launched their website. Some tried for weeks, some tried for months, but they never launched it. Some of them took 5 hours of support from us, some took 50 hours before quitting. When we calculated the numbers we realized that if we put the total amount of hours we spent on customer support into completing the end to end process for our clients, we would have spent the same amount on payroll. Except we would have happy clients that launched and we would have an incredible retention rate.
As Seth Godin wrote, The only purpose of customer support is to change feelings. Not the facts, but the way your customer feels. The facts might be the price, or a return, or how long someone had to wait for service. Sometimes changing the facts is a shortcut to changing feelings, but not always, and changing the facts alone is not always sufficient anyway.
If a customer service protocol (your call center or complaints department or returns policy) is built around stall, deny, begrudge and finally, to the few who persist, acquiesce, then it might save money, but it is a total failure.
The customer who seeks out your help isnt often looking to deplete your bank account. He is usually seeking validation, support and a path to feeling the way he felt before you let him down.
The best measurement of customer support is whether, after the interaction, the customer would recommend you to a friend. Time on the line, refunds given or the facts of the case are irrelevant. The feelings are all that matter, and changing feelings takes humanity and connection, not cash.
Next time you see a commodity shopping cart praising their live 24/7 customer support, RUN! Sure they will make you feel better, but ask yourself why do they need such a extensive support team in the first place?
They will not change the fact that you will never launch your website on their platform. Commodity Shopping Carts know that their software is garbage vaporware, so they carefully designed their Customer Support departments to make you happy, and stall you until you quit for yourself. They want you to feel overwhelmed, and happy, they want you to feel in control, and dependent on their support. The commodity shopping carts designed a sophisticated sales funnel that has a sole purpose of taking your hard earned savings while slowing turning you into a failure before you quit and blame yourself instead of blaming them. This is how they can avoid negative feedback and chargebacks.
Last year we did an internal research case study, and found out that 75% of BigC customers never launched. We are talking about 25,000 people who paid them, keep paying them but they are not live. Why else would they have a 50% drop off rate every year? Here is the reason why those clients will likely never launch.
It takes Shopping Cart Elite eight experts and 100 200 hours to launch a website in 30 days. It will take you half a year if you are lucky to do it yourself. Ask your eCommerce partner if they offer an END TO END solution, where they do your design, data, setup, fine tune, add the little things you specifically need and launch on behalf of you. Find out who will own this process and which people specifically will be accountable.
Most of the commodity shopping carts heavily depend on their partners to deliver the setup services for their clients. The problem is the majority of these partners only handle part of the end to end process, and not the whole thing. In addition, even the most expensive design firms do not have a system in place and are incompetent to complete the job to your satisfaction. Considering you will go for the mid to low price package from a design firm you can expect the job to fail.
Now in the scenario that you have done your research, and found the right expert and partner who can do the job for you for a specific shopping cart, you are left with ONE LAST PROBLEM that you will most likely experience, LAUNCHING TO YOUR SATISFACTION.
LITTLE THINGS COUNT
70% of all Shopping Cart Elite clients demand little things specifically to their website that may not be available out of the box in any shopping cart. This is the main reason why Mike switched from BigC to Magento because BigC couldnt do the little things he needed for his website, and the developer he hired promised him that he can make them work on Magento.
These little things play an enormous role for every business. For example, product filters, inventory rules, inventory syncing, checkout countdown, integrations, etc.
Even though some of the little things can be done by a partner, the little things that affect the core of the shopping cart itself is out of the partners control.
The only accountable owner who can successful launch your website, and own the complete END TO END PROCESS, is a Shopping Cart platform that is willing to do modify the core every time if necessary to launch every client they sign up. 70% of clients require these little things to work in order to have a smooth end to end work flow in their business. This is THE MAIN REASON why you are constantly putting out fires in your eCommerce business because the workflow is broken and the system is not complete.
CONCLUSION
Shopping Cart Elite built the software from the ground up, we own our hardware, we integrate the two together, we OWN the complete END to END process to launch your website in 30 days, and we do not charge a setup fee to do that.
We can AUTOMATE EVERYTHING in 30 days or less for you because of this precise reason listed above. All we ask of you is to fill out three forms that will take you 30 minutes, and we do not need anything else from you until to launch you on Shopping Cart Elite.
This is as easy as it can get, and we cant wait to speak to you about how we can help your business grow to new levels.
Dont settle for mediocre, always aim for perfection.