WHY IS GODADDY GOOD FOR ECOMMERCE?

If you are looking for a well established, fastest, and easiest platform for starting with your ecommerce store, GoDaddy is the best option for you. There are many options for you out there in the market, with each option having its pros and cons. Is GoDaddy good for ecommerce? Read ahead to find out!

WHAT IS GODADDY AND WHY TO USE IT FOR ECOMMERCE?

GoDaddy, established in 1997 as Lomax Technologies, is an American internet domain registrar and web hosting company. Apart from this, GoDaddy also provides a wide range of other services. These services include SSL certification, website security, email marketing, ecommerce solutions, and providing website builders. They provide you with all the help and the right tools for you to help grow your business online exponentially. GoDaddy is a smart choice for anybody who is running a small business and would like to sell a few products online, without spending a lot of time designing the website.

Read More: Shopify vs Godaddy

Founded by Bob Parsons, since 1997, GoDaddy has grown to become one of the largest ICANN-accredited registrar on the internet, and most recently, it has grown to be known as the world’s largest web host globally. It is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware. Now, GoDaddy has 14 offices around the globe; from Seattle to San Francisco to Cambridge, and works with over 19 million entrepreneurs. Furthermore, they have provided with 78 million domain names so far, and this number keeps on increasing.

Using GoDaddy for ecommerce has a few advantages over other ecommerce platforms. One of the most important and sought after advantages is that GoDaddy is considered to be the quickest and easiest option for setting up an online store. This is mainly possible due to the Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) used by GoDaddy to provide a smooth and quick experience for its users. To sum it all up, GoDaddy is a good option for beginners with small businesses. Neither does it have a limit on selling products on their platform- you can sell an unlimited number of products. Moreover, the user-friendly interface and reasonably priced plans are a big hit with entrepreneurs. GoDaddy supports more industries than its competitors, providing a much better platform than the rest. Another advantage of using GoDaddy is that the user is provided with great marketing tools for email campaigns and they also provide good performance analysis. If this is not convincing enough, then you would be delighted to know that GoDaddy offers a 24/7 customer support and web hosting, and also provide with a one-month free trial for you to figure out the pros and cons.

FUNCTIONALITY

GoDaddy provides its users with versatile functions; whether you are a beginner or an internet pro, they have everything covered for you. The different services provided by GoDaddy are listed below.

1. Domain Names

Claim your territory of the web

—Domain Name Search

You can register your domain and receive free extras.

—Bulk Domain Search

Register 6 or more domains and get a discount.

—Whois

Find out about domain availability.

—Domain Category

Choose a domain to help make your way into the web world.

—Business Name Generator

Get professional help in choosing the best name for your business.

 —Transfers

Transfer domains and get one year free.

—Bulk Transfers

Transfer up to 500 domains at one time.

—New Domain Extensions GTLD

Get a domain which is self-explanatory and speaks to your audience.

—Domain Name Generator

Get help to look out for an available domain.

—Domain Broker Service

Get the domain you want.

—Domain Investing

Earn money by buying and selling domains.

—Discount Domain Club

Purchase domains at a low price.

—GoDaddy Auctions

Bid, buy, and sell domain names.

—Domain Value Appraisal

Get an accurate estimate for your domain.

—Certified Domain

Get certified domains to gain visitors’ trust.

—Domain Backorders

Purchase a domain as soon as it is available.

—Premium DNS

Keep your website safe and always keep it online.

—CashParking

Get cash from your unused domains.

2. Web Hosting

Keep your site up and running continuously

—GoDaddy Web Hosting

Great for personal or business websites.

—Business Hosting

With a user-friendly control panel, get the power of VPS.

—Reseller Hosting

All that you need for your web hosting and domain business.

—WHMCS Hosting

Simplify and automate your hosting reselling business.

—WordPress Hosting

Bring the best out of your WordPress blog.

—GoDaddy Virtual Private Servers

Get the service of a virtual private server.

—Dedicated Servers

Bring out the best of your server.

—Dedicated IP

Get a dedicated unique web address for your hosting account.

—Premium DNS

Easy accessibility for visitors to your site.

—Cheap Web Hosting

Low cost hosting with a reliable service.

—Drupal Hosting

Get reliable hosting with your Drupal site.

—Email Hosting

Get email hosting to match your domain.

—Joomla Hosting

Get access to more than 8,000 free and paid extensions to build a unique site.

—Magento Hosting 

High processing power for your customers and yourself.

3. Security

Improve your site’s security for a better experience for yourself and your customers.

—SSL Certificates

Protect all your data and transactions with an SSL certificate. The deluxe SSL on GoDaddy is good for ecommerce as it supports the Intel vPro Technology for remote PC management.

Read Also: Shopify SSL Certificate

—Managed SSL Service

Let the professionals manage and maintain your SSL certificates.

—Website Security

Protect your website from any malware and also from hackers.

—Express Malware Removal

Fast malware removal service for retrieving your hacked website.

—Code Signing Certificates

Use your digital signature to protect your software.

—Website Backup

Create backups for your website and all of the associated data.

4. Website Builder

Build your website easily with the do it yourself options. Design an attractive and eye-catching website by using the drag and drop options.

5. Earn Money

Sell GoDaddy’s products to earn money.

—Reseller Plans

Sell GoDaddy’s products on your pre-built store.

—Affiliate Programs

Refer customers to earn money.

6. Email and Productivity

Tools for better productivity.

—Microsoft Office 365 from GoDaddy

—Professional Email

A domain-based email for your business.

7. Business and Marketing Solutions

The basics of selling online.

—Online Store

Sell products from your web store.

—Email Marketing

Marketing through emails without any spam.

DESIGN

GoDaddy helps to build an image for your web store. Brand imaging and marketing are the most important aspects of your online business and should never be undermined. Choosing the right color palette and font are the key elements in creating an impact on your audience. These days, people prefer having simpler logos with bold colors, as opposed to something bright and shiny. Furthermore, photography of your products also plays an important part. With the design algorithms used by GoDaddy, over 1,500 different types of industries are supported. Moreover, photography should be bright, bold, and inspiring. Your design should reflect what your brand delivers to the audience. To give a different touch, GoDaddy adds a touch of illustrations to their brand. This further enhances the experience of the customers.

THEMES

In a typical web store building process, you are prompted to browse through the template library to choose a specific theme for your store. However, this is not the case with GoDaddy; your website theme is auto-generated by GoDaddy, according to your industry. If you still want to go with the conventional method, you can manually browse through the templates and choose the most suitable template for your store. Once you have selected a template, you would be redirected to the GoDaddy Websites + Marketing editor so you can complete setting up your store. With the assistance of ADI, it is ensured that the template you have chosen is relevant to your industry. GoDaddy overs mobile responsive themes.

DEVELOPMENT TIME

It is thought that GoDaddy offers the most simple setup for setting up your web store. Most of the web  development time is saved by the use of ADI, which automatically chooses a template for your specific industry. Once your website has been designed, you would get an option of choosing from 20 different styles from the Theme Customizer. You can utilize the preview option before locking down a theme for your website.

There are over 100 themes offered by GoDaddy which are modern. If you want to change the design of a section, you can, however, this option is very limited since every section has a predefined look, and changing it would disrupt the whole look of that particular section. On the other hand, adding a new section, such as a contact form, is much easier than changing the design of a section. If for some odd reason, you would like to change the theme of your store sometime later, GoDaddy will reformat your content onto the new design chosen by you. This automation helps to save on development time.

FEATURES

GoDaddy provides most of the basic features and tools which are required in running a small business. They are not that great for a large scale business as they lack the high-quality features, which would be a requirement for an entrepreneur of a large scale business. The main features have been discussed down below.

1. Custom domain name

You can buy a domain or redirect/transfer an existing domain name.

2. Depth of navigation

A basic level of navigation is offered, but you can add a menu to display all navigation links in one place.

3. Monetization

You can add Google AdSense.

4. Ecommerce

If you need an online store, you would have to subscribe to the most expensive price plan to avail of this option. You can add a PayPal button on all price plans.

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You can edit all SEO relevant areas on GoDaddy. More on this later.

6. Blog

A simple blog feature is available, but it does not support the RSS feed. This means that you cannot have any subscribers to your blog, and neither can you add tags or different authors to your blog. But, you can add an external blog, such as Tumblr, to your website.

6. Visitor statistics

You are only allowed to add the Google Analytics tool.

7. Contact form

The contact form comes with some presets, but you cannot add any additional fields to it.

8. Password protection

You can hide some pages from the navigation, but no password protection is offered for different pages.

9. Newsletters

You can send newsletters through email for marketing.

10. Add HTML code

HTML and JavaScript can be added through the specific HTML-Element.

11.Storage space

There is no limit for webspace or bandwidth.

12. Backups and restore

You are allowed to create and restore whenever you want to.

13. Extras for a better experience

Basics, such as a picture gallery, adding your social media accounts, etc. are available. However, GoDaddy does not have an app store.

PAYMENT GATEWAYS AND FEES

Like all othe well known ecommerce development platform such as Shopify payment gateway, the GoDaddy lets you choose to pay from PayPal, Stripe, and Square. You will not be charged any transaction fees. However, you would be charged at the standard rate of 2.2.% + $0.30 per transaction.

BUDGET AND PRICING

GoDaddy offers a one-month free trial. It is always a good idea to utilize this option and get an idea about the platform, before paying up for the services. Since GoDaddy is considered to be a viable option for small businesses and fresh entrepreneurs, it is budget-friendly as it offers different price plans which are suitable for every budget. The price plans offered by GoDaddy are fairly competitive. If you want a simple shared hosting plan, you could pay as little as $2.99/month, and for a dedicated hosting plan, you could pay between $89.99/month and $179.99/month. The economy hosting plan of GoDaddy could go as low as $4.49/month and works well with basic websites. The monthly prices for a one-year contract are listed below, without the cost of the domain name.

Basic: For a simple, ad-free site – $10

Standard: PayPal Integration and https protocol included – $15

Premium: Marketing tools, social media integrations and optimized speed – $20

Commerce: Credit card payment processing and abandoned cart recovery – $25

MARKETING TOOLS

With GoDaddy Insight, you receive a detailed metrics for your store’s performance. With this tool, you can easily monitor your store’s progress and adjust your marketing skills accordingly. With email notifications, you can remind your customers, who have abandoned their carts, to continue with their purchase. A remind can be a successful tactic in bringing back customers to your store, and in turn, increasing your sales. Furthermore, you can even send your customers coupon codes to help encourage them to shop from your store. This is a part of the tailor-made marketing campaigns which you can use to send emails to your subscribers. Sending emails is just not enough- you can even track your campaign’s performance through the analytic tools to see how many people opened the email and how many people responded to these emails. GoDaddy has an in-built customer and revenue tracking system, which helps to monitor the shopping behavior of your customers. Once you are aware of their shopping behavior, it would be easy to make adjustments to your marketing skills accordingly.

SEO

GoDaddy has an in-built SEO spotlight tool that offers professional advice on product and company descriptions by giving you suggestions. It shows you how your site would show up on Google and other search engines. With an additional $4.99 per month, GoDaddy can monitor and manage your site’s SEO functions.

CUSTOMER HELP AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Unlike many ecommerce platforms, GoDaddy offers its customers with a 24/7 phone help and live chat support run by a dedicated team of professionals. They respond to your queries promptly, usually less than 2 minutes! They also have a Twitter account which you can use for your queries and questions. Apart from the live technical support, GoDaddy also has a pre-formed knowledge base which you can use to find a solution to your issues, just like how you use a search engine.

INTEGRATION

You can integrate GoDaddy with WordPress, one of the biggest platforms for content management. GoDaddy will provide you with the best WordPress Hosting features, such as managing and automation of different tasks, high performance for your site, malware scan, and removal. You will also get WordPress themes and plugins to choose from for your store. Apart from WordPress, you can even integrate your social media accounts with your GoDaddy store.

SALES FEATURES

Generally, GoDaddy provides you with a basic range of tools for your website development. However, you cannot sell directly on many channels, as you can on its competitors, such as Shopify or BigCommerce. With GoDaddy, you can sell an unlimited number of goods, and also attach multiple variants of your products. This means that you can attach both size and color options to your products.

GoDaddy has made interaction with customers very easy. It allows setting up email notifications for users who have abandoned their carts. Also, you can provide your customers with coupon codes to help increase your sales.

With GoDaddy Insight, you get a better and detailed metrics for tracking your store’s performance. This is a very useful tool for any business owner, as they are always interested in knowing how they can make their store’s performance better and earn more profit.

To provide a smooth shipping experience for your customers, GoDaddy allows you to send and track invoices and ship the packages with one of the best carriers, such as UPS, DHL, and Shippo. This ensures that the packages are easily trackable and reach the customers intact.

If selling on GoDaddy is just not enough, you can utilize Godaddy’s latest feature, Marketplaces, to help sell your products on other platforms, such as Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Jet.com, and many more.

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT

With the GoCentral account of yours, you can easily keep your inventory synced, regardless of the fact on which platform were your products sold. All your orders are managed from your GoCentral account. You would not have to juggle between different inventories or do manual entries to keep your inventory updated. These automatic updates make less room for any errors which may cause any hindrance in running your store smoothly. GoDaddy has an in-built system for managing your stock.

MOBILE RESPONSIVENESS

GoDaddy’s themes are all mobile responsive. You can use the preview mode to see what your selected theme would look like on a mobile screen. If you are not happy with how it looks, you can always make changes to it and make it suitable for yourself and your customers.

COMPARISON BETWEEN 3DCART VS. BIGCOMMERCE

3DCart and Bigcommerce are two rich ecommerce platforms. They both offer almost similar features with a fair difference in prices, with BigCommerce development being pricier than 3DCart. The startup and standard price plans of both the platforms have been compared below.

FEATURES	3DCART	BIGCOMMERCE
Products	-Website builder -Inventory tracking -Shopping cart software -Shipping software	-Payment processing -Website builder -Inventory tracking -Shopping cart software -Shipping software
Prices starting at	$19/month (startup)	$29.95/month (standard)
Hosting	Hosted	Hosted
Sales Limit	None	$50,000
Transaction Fee	None	None
Abandoned Cart Recovery	No	No
Product Limit	100	Unlimited

Quick Guide

GoDaddy vs. Shopify. Is there an absolute best?

Shopify app development and GoDaddy are two different platforms that are good in their way. Shopify is one of the biggest e-commerce platforms and GoDaddy is a hosting provider and website builder and is also good for e-commerce stores. GoDaddy is a good option for a small business set up and Shopify is good for medium-scale to large-scale businesses.

What e-commerce platform does GoDaddy use?

GoDaddy uses Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) to help set up your store quicker than its competitors. It chooses a template for you according to the industry of your store. This is one feature that makes GoDaddy different than its competitors.

How much does GoDaddy online store cost?

GoDaddy has various price plans for all budgets. They also offer a one-month free trial to help you decide if GoDaddy is the one for you. You could pay as little as $2.99/month, and for a dedicated hosting plan, you could pay between $89.99/month and $179.99/month.

Which is better: Wix or GoDaddy?

Wix is considered to be a better option. It is known as the best all-around website builder and is most likely to be recommended by users. Wix has better price plans than GoDaddy, with one free plan and eight premium plans, starting at $13 per month. Apart from the better price plans, you get to choose from over 500 templates for your website, but once your website goes live, you cannot change your template, unlike GoDaddy.