ecommerce websites & online business

pinkhelmets

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What is the best accounting & customer database software that integrates with ecommerce shop websites?
Like if you have an online shop and need to keep track of orders, track payments from customers, keep database of customers, make accounting and stock control integrated etc, then what is the solution? Also, is there an option for integration of ebay selling at the same time too?
Thing is that its ok for a business to cope with a dozen or a couple of dozen orders, using manually methods to keep track of everything and using different softwares for their purpose. However, what if it's several thousand orders a day, how can it remain manageable & automated?
 
Quite a lot of shopping web site have a backend that takes care of the stock, customer and supplier side of things.

Some software in particular are

oscommerce
Zen Cart
CubeCart
Presta Shop
Open Cart

I have setup and used a Sage 200 system which is basically an in house system that will interface with an e-commerce front end. This will provide full accounting and VAT returns.

The last place I worked at installed software from these guys - Fletcher O'Brien Ltd - Business Systems it does in house and ecommerce with epos for counter sales. We used to have around 1200 orders per day including counter customers and over-the-phone mail order. It wasnt cheap though at around £10,000 but was cheaper than Sage who wanted £18,000 for the same features. But the system did not handle the account, instead it interfaced with Sage Line 50.
The web site we setup as part of the system is here - Cookson Hardware
 
Not asking for much mate, lol.

You can get plugins for some carts that link to Sage (Sage Line 50). Probably the most powerful Cart system at the moment is Magento. It's PHP and is packed with features, but you it needs to run on a dedicated server as it's resouce heavy, or you can get specialist Magento hosting these days, just don't install it on shared hosting and expect it run smoothly.

I think one of the best all in one solutions for what you are looking for is Actinic E-commerce Shopping Cart Software, Ecommerce Solutions UK, Selling Online - Not looked at what they are upto for a while but they make an ecom sys that syncs to epos - even says on the homepage about processing telephone and post orders. It's quite popular and been around for years and have a lot of pricing options.

Presta shop is supposed to be nice to work with and not as resource intensive as Magento.
 
Thanks for the reply guys.
I know its a bit of a tall order like needing something that does the whole lot, but this is a business that is so large that I wondered what solutions there were?
The Sage plugin may be a solution but I will take a look at all those useful links and ideas. The funding wont be the issue it will be more about how everything will work together with large amounts of orders.
I appreciate the comments guys.
 
I think Magento is the way to go, Its very resource hungry as madeinbeats stated but has a lot of features both free and for a price.

If cost is no option then they also can provide support too, which you may probably have to as it's not an easy cart to work with.
 
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