Importify VS ViewForge

Importify's answer

Importify's primary audience primarily consists of ecommerce entrepreneurs, dropshipping business owners, and online retailers seeking efficient tools for product sourcing and store management. This includes aspiring ecommerce professionals new to the industry, small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to expand their online presence, and ecommerce managers tasked with scaling online operations. Additionally, it caters to global ecommerce players who require a platform supporting a wide range of international suppliers. Overall, Importify appeals to a diverse group that values efficiency, ease of use, and flexibility in their ecommerce endeavors.

ViewForge's answer:

Shopify merchants whose customers need to know whether a part fits before they will buy it — and who do not have an engineer on staff to build that themselves.

Concretely: auto and truck parts retailers, powersports and motorcycle dealers, tractor and agricultural parts sellers, marine and outboard suppliers, small-engine and power equipment stores, bicycle and e-bike component shops, printer supply merchants, and electronics accessory sellers.

Catalog sizes run from a few dozen products on the free tier up into the tens of thousands; it is running in production on a catalog of roughly 40,000 SKUs. The common thread is not the industry — it is that "does this fit my thing" is the question deciding the sale.

Importify's answer

Choosing Importify over its competitors can be advantageous for several reasons, each aligning with the specific needs of ecommerce entrepreneurs:

1. Wide Range of Supported Websites: Importify stands out with its support for importing from over 30 different websites. This extensive range provides users with diverse sourcing options, allowing them to find unique products and cater to various market niches.

2. User-Friendly Product Import: The platform is designed for ease of use, enabling quick and efficient product importation.

3. Customization Options: Importify allows customization of the products being imported. This feature is valuable for tailoring product listings to match the store's branding and customer expectations.

4. Semi-Automatic Order Fulfillment (Gold Plan): For users opting for the Gold plan, Importify offers semi-automatic order fulfillment, which can significantly streamline the order processing and reduce the manual effort required.

5. Automated Pricing Rules: Available in all plans, this feature aids in setting up pricing margins automatically.

6. 24/7 Support: Importify provides round-the-clock support, ensuring users have access to assistance whenever needed. This continuous support is crucial for addressing issues swiftly and keeping the store running smoothly.

7. Simplicity and Efficiency: Importify is designed to simplify the ecommerce process, from product sourcing to order fulfillment. This efficiency is vital for businesses looking to optimize their operations and focus more on growth and less on logistical complexities.

8. Flexible Pricing Plans: Importify offers multiple pricing plans (Basic, Premium, and Gold), making it accessible for businesses of different sizes and budgets. This flexibility allows users to select a plan that best fits their business needs without overcommitting financially.

ViewForge's answer:

Data ownership. Fitment lives in your Shopify metaobjects, so uninstalling does not take your compatibility data with it. Convermax, EasySearch and PartFinder all keep it in their own databases, and getting it back depends on their export tooling on the day you cancel.

Cost at the low end. The search widget, the compatibility table on the product page and the saved-vehicle garage are all on the free tier, up to 50 products, with no expiry. EasySearch puts the table and the garage behind its $75/month Premium plan. Convermax starts at $250/month.

Automotive and non-automotive coverage. Eight built-in templates, and fully custom templates from $19/month, for catalogs that do not decompose into Year/Make/Model at all.

Importify's answer

1. One of the standout features of Importify is its support for importing products from over 30 different websites. This capability is particularly beneficial for ecommerce entrepreneurs as it offers them a broad spectrum of choices for sourcing products. Here's how this feature makes a significant difference:

2. Diverse Product Sourcing: With access to over 30 websites, users have the flexibility to choose from a wide array of products, catering to different niches and markets. This variety is crucial for businesses aiming to diversify their product offerings or to find unique items that set their store apart.

3. Competitive Edge: The ability to source from multiple websites can give Importify users a competitive advantage. By having access to various suppliers and products, store owners can quickly adapt to market trends, customer preferences, and stock availability.

4. Market Adaptability: As market trends change, having access to a diverse range of sourcing websites allows businesses to quickly pivot their product offerings. This adaptability is key in the dynamic ecommerce landscape, where customer preferences and trends can shift rapidly.

ViewForge's answer:

Three things. (1) Data ownership: ViewForge writes fitment as Shopify metaobjects native to your store — most competitors store fitment in their own database. (2) 8 verticals out of the box: auto, motorcycle, tractor, marine, power equipment, bicycle, printer, electronics — most competitors are automotive-only. (3) Smart Parse: extract fitment automatically from your existing product titles and descriptions instead of re-typing everything.

Importify's answer

The founder of Importify (Moshe), who was working as a part-time sales manager in the video game industry in 2016, was drawn towards entrepreneurship and began exploring online business opportunities. He initially started with affiliate marketing, then shifted to selling products online, beginning with a t-shirt business using Teespring.com. Realizing the limitations of selling only t-shirts, he expanded by creating an online store on Shopify, offering additional products and accessories.

While working with different suppliers on AliExpress, Moshe found the process of adding products and fulfilling orders too time-consuming and cumbersome. This challenge led him to conceive the idea for Importify. He envisioned a solution that could automate the process of adding products to a Shopify store, including managing product listings, variants, images, descriptions, and titles.

To bring this idea to life, Moshe outsourced a developer to create an app for Shopify that would automate these processes. The development of the first iteration of the app took only three months. Despite initially hesitating to publish the app, fearing it would reduce his competitive advantage as a store owner, he was persuaded by a friend to release it. Publishing Importify turned out to be one of his best decisions. Since its launch in mid-December of 2016, Importify has grown significantly, providing a valuable tool for online storefronts to manage their businesses more efficiently​​.

ViewForge's answer:

ViewForge came out of agency work. Normal View was building for a parts retailer running roughly 12,000 SKUs who needed fitment search, and every app we evaluated stored the merchant's compatibility data in the vendor's own database.

That is a strange trade when you look at it directly. Fitment data is genuinely expensive to produce — it is weeks of work — and the merchant would not own the result. It would belong to whichever app happened to be installed that year.

Shopify metaobjects made a different answer possible: write fitment as native structured data inside the merchant's own store. The theme reads it, the Storefront API queries it, Admin GraphQL exports it, and it is still there after an uninstall. That decision is what the rest of the app is built around.

Everything else came from real catalogs rather than a roadmap. Eight verticals exist because a tractor catalog is not Year/Make/Model. Smart Parse exists because that retailer had already written fitment into 12,000 product titles, and nobody was ever going to retype them.

Importify's answer

The primary technologies used for building the Importify app are:

jQuery and JavaScript: HTML and CSS: Fundamental to web development PHP REST API MySQL

Together, these technologies provide a robust framework for the Importify app, ensuring it is responsive, scalable, and capable of meeting the diverse needs of its users in the ecommerce space.

ViewForge's answer:

• TypeScript
• Shopify metaobjects, as the fitment data store
• Shopify theme app extensions for the storefront components: fitment search, saved-vehicle garage, compatibility table, product-page fit notice
• Shopify Storefront API, for querying fitment from the theme
• Shopify Admin GraphQL API, for writing and exporting fitment records
• NHTSA vehicle database, for VIN decoding
• ACES and PIES XML parsing, for automotive catalog import

Importify's answer

Importify respects the privacy and confidentiality of its customers, so we don't disclose details or names of our major clients. Our diverse customer base mainly consists of ecommerce entrepreneurs, dropshipping owners, and small to medium-sized online businesses.