Ecommerce Platforms to Consider After a Crowdfunding Campaign

By Enventys Partners | July 3, 2018

Crowdfunding

Thanks to your hard work and hustle and the support of your backers, you’ve raised the biggest share of your crowdfunding project’s funding goal on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, or you’ve smashed your target and received lots of orders. Now what? This is n …

This is not the time to kick back and relax. After all, you are now obligated to fulfill your promises made to your funders, distribute your rewards, continue raising money, communicate with your community and transition to an online store.

Read on for more information about post-campaign success on a variety of ecommerce platforms – the pros and cons, fees and more.

Shopify

If you’re new to Shopify, you’ll need to create an account. Once signed up, it’s time to build your store. There’s no way around it, setting up any ecommerce store will take time and a little elbow grease, and Shopify is no different. Start by choosing a theme, and then you can add more features through paid or free apps on the Shopify App Store – and you’re off.

Pros: Shopify offers 24/7 support along with tips and tricks on the Shopify blog to make the process a bit easier to navigate. Shopify also offers a 14-day free trial to get you started. After that, you’ll choose from three monthly plans:

Basic. Recommended for starting a new business – $29/mo.
Shopify. Recommended for growing your business – $79/mo.
Advanced Shopify. Recommended for scaling your business – $299/mo.

You can upgrade plans at any time. Most campaigners recommend starting with the Basic or Shopify plan, and moving up from there as your business grows.

Cons: For all the pros to Shopify, there are a few cons also to consider:

Platform transaction fees, in addition to your monthly costs. These fees vary depending on your Shopify plan, with the more advanced plans taking a small percentage in transaction fees.
Add-on fees can be pricey depending on which plug-ins, apps or software you choose to purchase to make your store better.

Overall, if you want to concentrate on running your store and prefer an all-in-one solution then Shopify is a great way to go.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is an open-source ecommerce platform. There are many themes to choose from, built-in blogging tools, a tool to embed products and check out on any page of your store, and much more to make it easy for you to manage and easy for customers to shop.

Pros: WooCommerce offers product ratings and reviews, you can customize your location, and there are unlimited images and galleries to highlight your product(s). It also lets you sell your products or services from your WordPress site. Other benefits include:

You keep 100 percent control over all your data.
There’s support for mobile devices.
The potential to scale your site is limitless.

Like Shopify, there are multiple monthly plans to choose from:

$13.99/mo. for the starter package, web space is limited to 100 GB.
$17.99/mo. for the plus package, unlimited space
$31.99/mo. includes an advanced backup solution

Cons: However, WooCommerce isn’t without a few drawbacks too. There are limited templates to customize your store, WooCommerce does not offer multilingual options, and many users find it difficult to use. What’s more, certain preferred features are not available with the starter package.

Amazon and Amazon Launchpad

In July 2015, ecommerce giant Amazon released Amazon Launchpad, one of the largest retail platforms on the internet. Most users would agree the onboarding process is fairly simple. To get started, you simply open a vendor account. Once approved, your initial order is sent to Amazon’s fulfillment center, which is set up to facilitate distribution with the Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) service. Photos, videos, and more are then uploaded to your vendor site, and you’re in business.

Pros: A first-rate marketing and distribution strategy offered through Amazon is what makes Launchpad so appealing, in addition to many other features. You’ll also have access to Amazon Vine, Amazon’s customer review program, and faster shipping of your products through Amazon Prime.

Cons: Like other e-commerce sites, Amazon too has its own set of drawbacks. In order to distribute your products with Fulfillment By Amazon, you must wholesale your products to the company, which will impact your bottom line. Although Amazon won’t set product pricing, they do have some input. If you set a price that they feel is too high, they will recommend a lower price per their terms and conditions. Another big obstacle: Terms are Net 60, which means you won’t get paid for up to two months for any products sold.

There is no fee to sell through Launchpad as long as you are set up as an Amazon vendor and agree to wholesale pricing. But, you may choose to enroll as an Amazon Seller, which will cost a small fee.

Professional plan costs $39.99/mo., (+ selling fees) and is best if you plan to sell more than 40 items a month.
Individual plan costs $0.99/mo., (+selling fees) and is best if you sell fewer than 40 items per month.

All things considered, each of these post-crowdfunding campaign options has both pros and cons. Where one may offer fairly simple onboarding, another may have lower fees overall. For help deciding which solution is best for you and to ensure transitioning to an online store is as painless as possible, get in touch today. Our full line of ecommerce marketing services allows us to handle every aspect of your ecommerce business. From strategy and execution to review and planning, our team of experts has you covered every step of the way.

Want to keep learning about crowdfunding?

Not quite ready to talk with sales or just here to learn? Here are some of our most popular articles on how to run a winning Kickstarter campaign:

Need professional help with your crowdfunding campaign?

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