StoreFront Reviewer's Comments
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StoreFront Now is the low-end ecommerce package from LaGarde; their main package is the AE edition (starting around 500 dollars a month, but you'll still have to pay for your own credit card processing and website hosting). Even though StoreFront Now is just for those who want to test the ecommerce waters, we found this plan pricier than others we reviewed. Learn how to start your eCommerce site here.
Feature Set:
StoreFront offers several attractive features. For example, the built-in affiliate program is a useful utility that allows you to set a commission price for individual customers or groups; this means that you, the merchant, can set up thousands of affiliates to sell your product for you. You can set how much commission you want to give to those who sell your products.
For your customers, Storefront offers you diverse coupon and discount choices, allowing you to invent any online discount you can think up. Importing your existing product database is a snap with StoreFront, and you can also integrate live chats with your customers into the program.
StoreFront provides you with several choices for receiving payments including electronic checks, purchase orders, CODs, credit cards, and telephone or fax orders. StoreFront also offers a promotional email tool that will send product announcements and special offers to your customers.
Storefront's shipping capabilities are flexible, yet simple; you can easily customize options for UPS, FedEx, and USPS. You can also block countries or locations that you won't ship to, and calculate shipping by weight, price, or other configurations.
The company offers sales reports based on storewide sales or individual product sales.
Unfortunately, there is only one website traffic report available from the StoreFront; advanced traffic watching tools are available with higher-priced packages.
StoreFront will host your website and will give you one template for your store. Most other website services we reviewed offered several website themes for free; StoreFront offers 30 themes to choose from but you must pay an extra $169.00 for each one after the first.
StoreFront also offers a merchant account and a payment gateway (credit card processing service). They also have partners with which you can arrange these services, all at typical prices. To use their merchant account and credit card service will cost you $150.00 to set up and an extra 39.95 each month. But you must use their in-house services or partner services for your other needs as these are compatible and can integrate with their online tools and software. This is true of any hosting service—you must use compatible services.
Ease of Use:
Storefront's merchant tools are easy to use; navigation is intuitive. You can quickly access any part of your ecommerce site easily.
Ease of Setup:
StoreFront doesn't give you many choices when configuring your store, but this makes it easy to set up. Choosing the way you want your products to appear on your website is simple because you only have one choice. The service does offer unlimited subcategories, though, which makes managing many products more convenient.
Help/Documentation:
StoreFront help is unparalleled. Each page offers context-sensitive help—just select an area, click the help button, and you'll receive help for that task. This means you get your answers to specific questions without maneuvering through a large index.
StoreFront also offers online chat. It's easy to use and get questions answered as fast as you can type. They have a knowledgeable, helpful online chat staff. You'll probably need them. StoreFront doesn't offer a website builder, so to integrate your website with their merchant controls will be difficult for most people—nearly impossible for a novice without excellent help. Quick start guides, tutorials, knowledge-based questions and an online community round out the help resources.
LaGarde also offers Personal eBusiness Consultant services; an experienced business analyst will oversee your order and provide insight and assistance specific to your needs. For the first 30 days of your service you'll get free, unlimited, live support 2 4 hours a day, 7 days a week. After 30 days you can opt to sign up for one of StoreFront's support packages.
Fraud Protection:
Click here to learn how credit card fraud affects you.
StoreFront's fraud protection service will cost you an extra .20 cents per transaction; if you are exposed to fraud through StoreFront they will pay the bill. Also, StoreFront uses a secure https server (SSL) for transactions and requires customers to enter the CVV2 code on the back of most credit cards. This helps ensure that the customer actually has the card.
Summary:
Though StoreFront is a quality service with superior help, it will cost you more. Setting up all the required services may cost over $400, plus about $78 per month. Other services (in particular, our #1 ranked all-in-one package) offer you more for less.
©2008 TopTenREVIEWS, Inc.
