Ekm Systems Ltd ekmPowershop Review

Overall Rating

Really easy to integrate with your existing website
The design control given means you can get the shop to look exactly like you want it too

No FTP access with the standard package (although to be honest this really didn't effect me)

We were recommended to use ekmPowershop a year or so ago by a web designer friend and we moved our site from an open source ecommerce package to ekmpowershop. Initially i was a little concerned about this as we felt that we would have as much control over our store and that we would be very restricted by the controls, however since using the system i have been nothing short of impressed every time.

Powershop costs £19.99 per month and there is a £50 setup fee. The main attraction to me was that there was no contract so i was safe knowing that if it didnt delivery any results i could cancel without spending a fortune.

The system is really aimed at users with a basic to intermediate knowledge of setting up a store, so if your a programmer who can create your own ecommerce solutions then maybe ekm isn't for you, however if you want a quick, easy and simple way to sell on the internet then this is it. Our web designer friend for example uses ekmpowershop as the ecommerce solution and then just designs customers front ends around it as it saves him a lot of time and effort building his own systems and then having to support them, so this might be worth a look if your a designer type person too.

Once you have signed up for an account you simply log in via their main website and you instantly have a empty shop where you can add your own categories and products. Adding products and categories is very simple and you are asked very simple questions all the way through so really anyone can add this information, it realy does ask questions like "do you want to add a product or category" and you simply select the one you want to use. Its child's play.

The whole system takes this approach and it really is easy, however once you know how to do all the tasks it does get a little annoying having to go through the same basic steps, it would be nice if there was a way to make it more "un-user friendly" once you have mastered it. However there are some quite advanced options such as a CSV/Excell import and export system which makes adding lots of products quick, although it does require a little more technical skills.

Once you have added your categories and products and their related content, images, etc... you then need to pick a design for your store. ekmPowershop comes with several templates some of which look pretty good, there is a amazon style one for example. However all these templates do (unfortunatly) look like templates and so really you will be wanting to customise them to make your site a little more bespoke. This can be achieved by editing the templates and changing the colours, adding your own graphics etc, or if you are a little more advanced using your own HTML code.

If you know HTML and/or have a good design program such as dreamweaver, frontpage for example you can knock up your site in this and then just copy and paste in the HTML code which makes up your design into powershop and your shop will look like the design. This does require some skill and quite a bit of testing and making sure it all looks okay.

Another option (which keeps my web designer friend in business) is to get your site professionally designed, you can use a designer to do this and ekm have their own design team also which seem to be very competitive, prices range from £350+ when i inquired about this, however this may have changed since then as it was a few months ago.

Technical support is really good, they have a uk based call centre and the people on the end of the phone really do seem to go the extra mile to help you out, they also offer email support which is very good also.

As there is no contract they help with promoting your shop and seem to actually care (probably cause if they didn't you would just cancel i suppose) and since being with them we have ranked very high in Google, MSN and Froogle and have received a lot of business as a result, much more than our old website. Search engine submission is included within the standard package.

In summary my experience with ekmPowershop over the past 12 months or so has been very good and i have already recommended the system to several friends and business associates.