Shopping cart as ebay management app?

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Ive noticed more shopping carts building themselves out as app platforms (Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento) and they all seem to have options for eBay/Amazon integration, order management plug ins, book keeping etc etc. My question is how well do these stand up against the marketplace specialists (ChannelAdvisor, Zoovy etc)?

Thanks!

Howdy eBayaholic,

Great question.

There is OpenBay for OpenCart and M2E Pro for Magento, but how do they compare?

I'm going to pick on M2E Pro for Magento for a couple of reasons rather than OpenBay,

The primary reason for not including OpenCart & OpenBay is because it doesn't stock control variation products properly and the extensions that enable this, break the free product loaders which renders it useless for fashion sellers or any category that supports variations.

So on to M2E Pro, this is based on Magento, so from the inventory side, you have simple, configurable (variations) and kits or bundles as they're called in Magento in that sentence we've just surpassed a couple of dedicated software products for eBay & Amazon.

Then there is the order management side, marketplace orders (from 1 or more eBay and/or Amazon accounts) are collected and appear as orders in Magento. As we're talking every-man-and-his-dog integrates into Magento and if say your fulfilment company does not, then there are well documented API's available to allow an integration.

If we pick on ChannelAdvisor specifically, they still have a restricted "juggler" that "shares" products across the marketplaces, where as M2E Pro (along with another provider eSellerPro) supports the allocation of 100% of available stock to all sales channels to maximise the potential sales.

ChannelAdvisor will always have a better support system and if you're in the UK that's what you're paying the £600 +1-2% or US $1800 + 1-2% (values approximate) and a similar question was asked here that also included more specific details lastdropofink.co.uk/forum/ever...s-channel-advisor-vs-mangento/

Coming back to Magento + M2E Pro, M2E is provided free because it is subsidised by eBay and it wasn't until earlier this year that I finally got around to actually using it and was very surprised how far they had got. You have listing templates, keywords, stock control with features that surpass CA in places, a policies system to template pretty much everything and it works of the Magento inventory which is very flexible.

However, we are comparing chalk & cheese.

ChannelAdvisor is a 1st generation provider that moved to the 2nd generation when it added Amazon in ~2008/2009, the thing is there are loads of 2nd generation providers that pretty much offer the same features & functionality now, however they all have one fundamental differenceto using Magento + M2E Pro, open source code and thousands of extensions.

If Magento which is the base system doesn't do something you want it to do, there is either an extension already off the shelf OR a close fit extension you can grab and extend further OR you can have it made to fit your needs, where as all the 2nd generation providers are closed source and you have to wait on their dev teams to get to the feature request, if at all.

Probably the easiest way of thinking about ChannelAdvisor compared to Magento + M2E Pro, one has a minimum fee of £600/$1800 and one does not.

As for Zoovy, I'm unable to comment, no real details on their site and never used it.

Hope that helps you,

Matt

Thanks Matt, really helpful.

I've heard Magento is a lot of work to set up though?

If a "second generation" provider has an API can't that be used to build custom extensions?

Howdy Andy,

To a degree yes, API's allow you to interact with the core system, but they don't allow you to change the core system and that's the fundamental difference.

I've heard Magento is a lot of work to set up though?

Yea it's scary to begin with, all those menu options and are attributes anyway? Once you work out that the 3 key sections are sales, products and configuration, it's pretty straight forwards to pick up.

Matt

@Matthew Ogborne
August 2015 - If I want to sell on eBay, Amazom and my own site - what are my choices? I am not an IT pro.

Thanks for practical explanations.

Howdy @JerryB

Good news & bad news, You have lots of options!

Navigating them is tricky and will depend on numerous things, however what I would say is that ANY multi-channel software will help you massively.

So with that in mind, if one feels kinda right to you, go with that.

Last year I wrote a book on the subject that you can download here understandinge.com/ultimate-guide-multi-channel-software-book/ that covers everything you need to know on what such sofwtare can do and the basics of how everything integrates with each other.

I am biased because of my teams work on the 3rd generation for the past ~2 years over at UnderstandingE and also know very little about your business to make a suggestion, however that book will help you get you up to speed with what is possible, very quickly.

Hope that helps Jerry,

Matt