Ecwid by Lightspeed vs. Local by WP Engine

Ecwid is absolutely perfect for any business that is looking to start out with online sales and mobile point-of-sale. Many times, business owners may have limited experience in setting up a website or point-of-sale. Having to spend on this expertise with a limited budget can be frustrating. Ecwid allows you to have great results even if you are a novice.

Incentivized

It's great for quickly cloning an environment down from WP Engine and/or Flywheel servers but can also just be used as a way to setup local environments on your own with manual syncing. If you need to spin up local environments that are not WordPress based then this tool isn't ideal. It can be used for it but it's not design for that.

Incentivized

• Clarity - there has been very little confusion and need to reach out to Customer Support for help
• Consistency - no big, crazy updates or changes have been made to the format of Ecwid during my time using it, so I know when I log in to preform my business tasks I can always locate what I need and accomplish what is at hand easily
• Simplicity - everything is so clear and straightforward. It's like e-commerce for dummies.

• Easily clone installs from WP Engine to local envrionments
• 1 click setup of Local WordPress sites for new or existing builds
• Can optionally push back to WP Engine with ease
• Easily change PHP versions
• Integrates with IDE for error reporting

Incentivized

• Recurring billing - ability to bill subscription customers without having to go to my payment gateway
• Robust order management - very limited in managing orders, therefore I had to subscribe to a different software
• Expensive customization - if you want to customize anything, it is very expensive

• Interface for syncing files could be improved
• Would be nice if there was an easy way to use media from WP Engine host to save on space for larger sites
• 1 click login doesn't always work as expected if SSL in place.

Incentivized

The value given by Ecwid is unmatched. When combined with the ease of use of the product, it is a no-brainer to continue to use the product. The only thing that could cause us to switch is if some feature we needed which is not available which is unlikely based on the feature list we reviewed when making the decision to go with them.

Incentivized

I gave a 9 instead of a 10 only because I haven't figured out a function or two. I believe it has less to do with Ecwid's overall usability and more to do with my own understanding and skill level, but regardless, it may also have something to do with the limits of Ecwid's functions.

Super easy to use the only thing that might need some improvement is the interface for syncing files. It's intuitive for push/pulling down from WP Engine and Flywheel environments but can sometimes disconnect and require re authentication. Also currently sometimes it can be difficult to tell proper account name you are pulling from bug that's a known bug that's being worked on

Incentivized

Always available. Very reliable

Good overall performance both in desktop and mobile

I have always received the support I need in a timely manner. I enjoy receiving emails every week on trending business topics and new suggestions. They often serve as a reminder for me to include new e-commerce tools into our strategy. And I've always had great experiences with reaching out to the support team with specific questions.

Fast and simple implementation of Ecwid's solutions. Easy to learn and navigate

We sell a product that requires certain controls to sell and most of the companies we researched had specific policies preventing us from selling on their platform. We aren't selling anything dangerous, they are parts of ammunition (the shell casings) and not entire ammunition rounds. Most other vendors restrict the sales of firearms and ammunition, but even when just selling a part used to create ammunition, we were still restricted. I'm not really sure why they restrict sales of products like ours from different vendors. Ecwid had no such restrictions and were happy to confirm that for us.

Incentivized

While Docker is powerful, setup is more complicated and is less consistent. Local minimizes friction and does what it needs to do with out extra complication that can sometimes come with using Docker or other platforms.

Incentivized

Good scalability. I use the second plan and there are 2 more plans that I could use if I needed other features or services

• We have not been able to measure the ROI as of yet, as we cannot get out of the gate with customization required.
• It can be implemented quickly for basic online stores.
• Once the system is configured, ROI will dramatically go up.

Incentivized

• Save hours of onboarding time for development
• Consistent environments across the time minimize unexpected issues
• Integrated error reporting makes it easy to track down issues

Incentivized