Best Hosted eCommerce Solution for Beginners 2009

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 Search Engine Optimisation Service 2009

Sometimes it seems like you need a degree in the black arts and a healthy supply of snake oil to reach the first page of Google.  With so many competing firms all promising a much higher position on the search engines in return for your hard earned cash, this was the most difficult category to decide upon.

One of the biggest problems we've found with search engine optimisation companies are that their prices are often vague, excessive and seem to be based on a businesses ability to pay rather than the true value of their service. 

However there are some SEO companies that do provide clarity, and our favourite for 2009 is Geran SEO.  Not only can they provide evidence of previous successful SEO campaigns but they operate on a consultancy basis, providing shop owners with all the information, advice and guidance they could ever hope for... all for less than £80 a month!  Yes, one single fixed fee proven service with no cancellation fee, no minimum contract and an approach that gives even the biggest Internet novice a sense of understanding and purpose.

Geran SEO are our deserved winners for the Best Search Engine Optimisation Service for 2009.

Visit Geran SEO's website

Best eCommerce Software for Developers 2009

In another very competitive category, our winner for the Best eCommerce Software for Developers in 2009 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 2009. 

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 Hosting Solution

As those of you who have hosted eCommerce solutions over several years, finding a hosting partner that are reliable, responsive and cost-effective is a rare thing.

This years Best Hosting Solution provider goes to CS New Media, who manage to offer unrivalled customer support for a market beating price and with excellent reliability scores.

They are responsive to existing and new customer enquiries, providing several communication channels and showed a remarkable level of patience with our questions about their service. With 100% availability since we encountered them, they are a worthy winner of this years Best Hosting Solution award!

Visit CS New Media

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;

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