Welcome to LemonStand , a simple e-commerce solution
Rating: 9 out of 10
IncentivizedUse Cases and Deployment Scope
I work as a freelance IT consultant. My clients range from small home businesses to medium sized companies. In the past when a client needed an e-commerce site I recommended PrestaShop. In some situations I still recommend PrestaShop, but with the growth of cloud based e-commerce platforms some clients prefer a simpler and safer solution. I now recommend LemonStand for clients who need only a single storefront.
Pros
- LemonStand is cloud based on AWS.
- You get: Instant deployment whenever you choose to publish, automatic software updates, Site-wide SSL, and PCI/DSS compliant infrastructure.
Cons
- LemonStand has a limited number of templates. Each template has a different set of features that can be modified in the back office theme customization area.
- LemonStand claims their templates are highly customizable. To accomplish this, they expose individual web page code in page templates and widget blocks. These are windows into the template where you can modify, add and delete html code. However, as in all PHP/CSS/HTML templates, even those written with Twig as LemonStand templates are, the coding goes very deep through many files. I don't think it would be cost or time effective for a small company to attempt more than superficial customization. This is pretty much the same for Shopify and PrestaShop. As a store front and blogging platform, LemonStand is elegant but it is not a website development tool like Wix, Weeble or even Squarespace.
- LemonStand manages this expectation with excellent email support. There is no user forum and no third party templates for LemonStand, and this is a good thing. When I wanted to modify a specific aspect of the template, I emailed the issue/question to LemonStand support and consistently received advise including instructions on how to adjust the widget or exposed page code to resolve my problem.
- Documentation is out of date and could use a good proofread. Videos and tutorials are too simple to be really helpful.
Likelihood to Recommend
<ul><li>Good alternative to Shopify and similar services.</li><li>More than basic template adjustments will require programmer hours.</li><li>If you want a slick store with great features LemonStand's for you. </li></ul>
PM
Philip Martin Jenck
Consultant in Information Technology at Get Smart Computing (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
1 year of experience