There are several strategies you can take to make money online and a content-based site, like a blog, is just one of these. A rather major alternative is e-commerce, providing you with the ability to sell physical goods over the Internet. Unfortunately, most of us have no idea how to code an e-commerce website. StoreBox Ecommerce Solutions put in this review request, showing us just how easy it is to have and to use a fully functional shopping cart software suite. They’re targeting everyone from entry-level to advanced users.
Putting Your Store In a Turnkey Box
StoreBox has a number of different ecommerce solutions, but they all fundamentally work in the same way and come with the same $99 monthly fee. This monthly fee will include the hosting of your website, shopping cart integration, payment processing, and access to a manager’s backend. I highly suggest that you watch the demo video — available from the main page — to get a better sense of how StoreBox works.
In this video, StoreBox goes through all of their key features and how your online store will work. The video is broken down into several sections and you can navigate to previous sections if you missed anything. I did find that the transition between sections was not all that smooth and this is something that they might want to work on.
The shopping cart software suite comes with four key managers to run your e-commerce site: Catalog Manager, Order Manager, Tax Manager, and Shipping Manager. Each of these, as you can imagine, takes care of its portion of the sales cycle. With the Catalog Manager, you are able to enter new items, control discounts, implement coupons, set shipping charges, and so on.
For a complete list of what is included with your StoreBox ecommerce solution, check their full feature list. Some of the highlights include nightly backups, unlimited POP3 email accounts, and integration with PayPal, Moneris, and LinkPoint.
Painless Entry Into Ecommerce
I am quite impressed with professionalism displayed on the StoreBox site. I obviously have not tried their ecommerce solution, but it seems like a comprehensive package that just about anyone can use. They have even set up a sample site so that you can know what a StoreBox-run ecommerce solution would look like in the real world.
Further to this real world view, StoreBox also has links to some of their best-known customers. These include Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, Metalsmiths Accessories, and Telus Mobility. In their own words, each of these websites “started with our core product, StoreBox, and were customized to meet the specific business requirements of the respective company.” The StoreBox implementation is seamless. I didn’t even know that StoreBox powered the Telus Mobility site.
Most customers would probably be interested in the StoreBox turnkey ecommerce solution, because it’s probably the easiest to use and deploy. Select from 12 graphic themes, integrate your company logo, update the catalog, and you’re pretty much ready to go. This is certainly easier than trying to code your own online shopping cart. At the same time, there is enough personal branding to make your online store look unique and original. It would have been nice if the themes were available in different colors without having to pay an additional premium.
Basic, Professional, Custom
In addition to the $99 monthly fee, the other major cost involved covers project and setup charges. For example, if you just want the basic solution, it’ll only cost you $149 to setup. Professional integration, on the other hand, costs nearly $5,000 to setup. This is because the Basic Solution results in a very plain website that is mostly text-based. The Professional Integration, by contrast, sets up a site that is more in line with your current corporate image. You can go even further with the Custom Solution too.
Simplify Your Ecommerce With StoreBox
The StoreBox Ecommerce Solution sounds very solid and reasonably easy to use. I also like they offer a developers kit, opening up their ecommerce engine to people who need to design ecommerce sites for their clients. The setup and project charges are a little steep ($4,995 for professional integration), but the $99 monthly fee seems fair. If you’re serious about ecommerce, StoreBox might be for you.
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(11 votes, average: 2.82 out of 5)
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The service looks decent, nothing new though. With prices like that I’d rather go with Yahoo stores or another company that has been in the business for ages. Personally I run my sites on OScommerce. Its about $500-$1000 to have a designer put up a nice site with great add-ons and the monthly cost can be as low as $5 for some hosting packages nowadays. I’d rather take the savings and put it into marketing to get some real sales. I don’t know…it seems pricey for a company I never heard of..
I agree. And I have not seen the videos, but I this may also be a highly modded version of OSCommerce.
Same here - I also like Monster Commerce - although it’s a bit tight with the design process - it’s about the same, and even costs the same.
As for me, I prefer Zen Cart.
Gud collection..You simple Rock!
Thank you for this helpfull article!
Noone should forget that strategy is needed everywhere in our lifes, not just in business.
If you can’t afford StoreBox, Zen Cart is offered free if you use DreamHost as your hosting provider. You can check out Zen Cart at: http://www.zen-cart.com/
I’ve looked at it and it appears very complete but, I haven’t fired it up yet. Does anyone else have experience with Zen Cart?
Zen Cart works like charm… very easy to manage
Great tip! Thanks!
I haven’t used it but will be looking for these types of technology soon. Thanks for the tip John and Not John!
It looks more like a store in a box.
As an aside, read your ebook today, and frankly found it very informative, thanks, I kinda expected a bunch of advertising and no real value like the common garden variety out there.
I’ve been thinking this whole estore and blog world through and right now better stay focused on the blog, but have marked to read again later.
I prefer to use either Cubecart or zen for my websites.
I’ve thought about this for a while. I have sold my work in galleries but never online.
I have used cubecart and zen in the past as well. A lot of people have trouble with eCommerce, and it often seems more daunting than it really is. It is nice to see these package deals like StoreBox Solutions bringing eCommerce to the web in a neasier-to-understand model for the rest of us.
Looks great but it’s nothing new.
For a hundred bucks a month, you better be getting some good sales. Otherwise, chalk this one up for a income tax expense writeoff! I’m liking hte open source versions
Another option like OsCommerce is Joomla
The product looks good and I don’t know much about ecommerce sites but paying a monthly charge for new online stores is not always an option. Imagine a company selling products at $5, profit would be no more than $3-4 so that is 20-25 sales to break even on the ecommerce solution.
I would personally look for a free option that takes a little longer to set up.
Looks good but does it worth.
looks like very steep price to me.
anyone know anything about volusion.com. I was thinking about using it for a project I am working on. Someone above mentioned Yahoo, but they want 1.5% of your sales. That is on top of your CC processing fees.
I don’t see an affiliate module on their feature list. I’ll contact them to find out if there is anything or if it integrates with a standalone affiliate marketing system.
This ecommerce solution looks pretty straight forward and appears easy to use. It’s probably good for someone that isn’t too tech savvy and wants to get a ecommerce site set up as quick as possible, without too much hassle.
One thing about the review I’m not sure about though is the Text Link advertising for other ecommerce solutions and shopping carts, which gives competition to the site review you are doing, right within the review.
~Terry
If you are looking to set up a totally professional web site even the $5,000 price tag doesn’t look bad. Years ago people were paying these prices and getting crap, this looks nice. Finally, a well spent $450 (soon to be $500) on a worthwhile review for the company involved. I wonder why some of these guys spend that kind of money for a schloky outfit. Good review.
This is a great solution. A lot of would-be business owners are hesitant to jump into an online business because they aren’t tech savvy. I’d say that the best way to go about this is to set up your own site first and see if you can sell your product or service. Once you have some sales and a proven track record, sign up for this, and simplify the process. The ease of this product will take the load off you and probably double and triple your sales.
Yah, I know you wrote this site as a review, but I think that there are other options available. This is obviously marketed to the person who just wants to sell stuff and know nothing else. oscommerce is a great alternative as others have pointed out. It’d be better to spend the money to have your site created and situated, then to pay $100/month to have a website set up by these guys… that’s just my opinion.