Best Hosted eCommerce Solution for Beginners 2008

For those of us with little or no previous experience of selling online, we have chosen Internet Retailer as the best hosted eCommerce solution for beginners.

Although competition is particularly strong is this category and there are cheaper hosted eCommerce solutions available, we felt that their overall package coupled with a very easy to use shop keeper admin system put them out ahead of the rest.

By including unlimited support and advice on everything from setting up the contents of your shop to even helping you find suppliers for your products, in a friendly non-technical way they won't leave you sitting in front of your computer scratching your head about what to do next!

With an equally impressive record of helping shops reaching high positions on the search engines, Internet Retailer is our 2008 Best Hosted eCommerce Solution for Beginners.

Visit Internet Retailer's Web Site

Best eCommerce Software for Developers 2008

In another very competitive category, our winner for the Best eCommerce Software for Developers in 2008 is Actinic. 

We first came across Actinic many years ago displaying their first version eCommerce software at a Business Start-up event at the NEC in Birmingham.  At the time it was a new concept but since then many thousands of alternatives have become available. 

Having reviewed dozens of eCommerce Software systems we are yet to find eCommerce software that offers as much as Actinic in terms of ease of use, the ability to customise it, their online support and advice forums and their developer licence which offers a quick return on investment for developers creating online shops for retail businesses of all sizes.

Once again, Actinic is not the cheapest eCommerce software solution but now in its eighth version it continues to be the UK's market leader for developers.

Visit Actinic

Best Do-It-Yourself eCommerce Software

For those of you who cringe at the thought of paying a developer to build a shop for you, or pay a hosted eCommerce solution provider a monthly fee for their services, we recommend osCommerce as the Best Do-It-Yourself eCommerce Software for 2008. 

osCommerce, now in its 3rd official version, is a free to use eCommerce software that provides nearly every feature you would hope to have in your own online shop.  It is easy to install and set-up, although to customise it to give your shop that personal touch, it does require a bit of PHP programming knowledge.

There are now many similar free to use systems and some that openly mimic osCommerce, but in terms of an online community of support and willing developers to help you every step of the way, osCommerce is our clear winner for the Best Do-It-Yourself eCommerce Software.

Visit osCommerce

Best of the Rest 

Our category winners above offered that bit extra, something special, unexpected or downright impressive to make them this years clear category winners, but we found some very good eCommerce services worth keeping an eye on in the coming year.

Below our some of the 'best of the rest' from the hundreds of eCommerce services we reviewed;

Geran SEO - eCommerce Search Engine Optimisation service Visit Geran SEO
AWebApart - Web design and eCommerce shop creation Visit aWebApart
BT - Hosted eCommerce shop creation Visit BT
Open Mind Commerce - eCommerce shop creation Visit Open Mind Commerce
EKMPowerShop - Automated hosted eCommerce solution Visit EKM Power Shop
Pace Retail - Hosted eCommerce service Visit Pace Retail