Easystore Review 2021- Start Your Ecommerce Without Paying!
Overview
As a Malaysian, I’m always proud of saying that EasyStore is Malaysia version Shopify. If you consider starting your online business for Malaysia market, EasyStore might be a better choice, since you no need to pay USD for starting online business.
Furthermore, as latest update of EasyStore pricing in 2021, now EasyStore comes out with free plan to start your business. Given the free plan, you don’t have to worry of 14 days trial anymore, just try to explore as much as possible. If your new online business is not working out, it costs you nothing to start ecommerce, but if the new online business successfully launches and grows, with the profit you earn, you can reinvest the profit for high-tier plan of EasyStore, since the free plan has quite limited functions.
Pros
Pricing
EasyStore provides free plan to start your ecommerce business. For EasyStore high-tier plan, compare to local competitors, actually the price EasyStore charge is within the range of the industry, it is fair and acceptable.
Multi-linked Sales Channels
With one EasyStore webstore, you can connect to multiple sales channels such as Lazada, Shopee, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and more. In other words, you only do one time job to upload your products, then distribute all product listings to other multiple sales channel and all sales result will be collected and shown on EasyStore backend, so you save times of login other sales channel to check the sales one channel then another channel.
Online & Offline Combination (Business Plan only)
The function I love the most is the Point of Sales (POS) system provided by EasyStore. Traditional POS, you have to invest in hardware like scanner and the software to bill your customers. Now with EasyStore POS, all you need is just a smartphone!!!
Nowadays in this era, most people has their own personal smartphone, all you need to do is take out your smartphone, open EasyStore app, scan the barcode, bill your customers within the app, done!!! Forget your scanner and additional POS software!!!
0% Payment Charge
Unlike some overseas competitors, EasyStore doesn’t not charge any fees on your transactions. But you still have to take note that you have to pay transaction fees to your payment gateway partners.
Flexible Shipping Options
You can arrange your own shipping methods, or plugin third party logistics companies’ apps to arrange your shipments.
Search Engine Optimized (SEO)
SEO can be quite technical to some users, what SEO do is, EasyStore will auto optimize your products link, so other users can easily find your shop when they are searching related products.
The good thing here is, all EasyStore plans include SEO function, so you can focus more on sales and marketing.
Abandoned Cart Auto-Recovery
This is a must-function for ecommerce. Due to many factors may distract your customers from placing orders, this function will remind your potential customers to checkout their carts.
Unfortunately, you have to go up to Standard Plan and Business Plan to get this function.
App Integration
Basically all ecommerce functions already provided by EasyStore. Other functions, especially third party related, you have to integrate their apps with your webstore. Shipping, marketing, customer service, there are many more functions you can integrate with your EasyStore.
Among those third party apps, the most recommended is accounting app integration. When come to business, accounting and bookkeeping always troublesome matter to business owner. Now ingrate with accounting app, you can import/ export your ecommerce order, all the transactions records will be done processing within minutes, what left you need to do is, double check or adjust the account if there is mistake.
After checking, you are all done for accounting, fast and furious right?
Cons
Disable EasyStore Logo (Business Plan only)
It is quite annoying to show EasyStore logo on your webstore, it might make your customers thinking that you are not professional, or you might afraid that your competitors will copy your doings by selling on EasyStore also!
Unfortunately, to remove the logo, you have to go up to Business Plan, which might be not a good option for everyone.
Limited Theme Selection
When choosing theme design for your webstore, at first glance you think there are many options to choose, after viewing all themes one by one, you will find out that only few themes on the top, their design is modern and astonishing, other themes at the bottom are quite old-fashioned web design.
Limited App Integration
Ecommerce market penetration still growing in Malaysia, not everyone like to shop online, so we can expect that the growth might be slower, especially third party app integration. If more Malaysians shopping online, we can expect more and more third party app will release to public.
From this perspective, current third party app within EasyStore still acceptable, but it can be better!
Fair and Acceptable Customer Support
After login, you will see a chat icon at right lower part of your computer screen. First thought comes to my mind, it is something like Facebook Messenger, if you face any problems, can immediately seek for help from EasyStore.
After trying, you will find out it is more like email support, they will reply you within hours, it is acceptable for me. But compare to overseas competitors, they do perform like chatting, immediate reply and help.
From business perspective wise, it is understandable that EasyStore doesn’t want to allocate more resources to customer support, after all EasyStore has smaller market, while the overseas competitor has larger market.
However we do hope that EasyStore can be better!
Conclusion
Overall, although there is room for improvement, EasyStore is doing well at every part of ecommerce. Whether you are beginner seller or advanced ecommerce player, EasyStore has different plans to cater your ecommerce needs.
If you plan to do ecommerce in Southeast Asia region, EasyStore definitely is a go!
