Poor support from sellerdeck

[Mike Hughes]

Nope. A clear majority of these sign-ups are at 0 questions.

Oh well, there goes that theory then.

When you look at the way sellerdeck is managing the software; i.e. dropping the entry level products and encouraging everyone onto support contracts, then it seems clear to me that their focus is on looking after the existing users rather than trying to grow the business with new users.

It's a shame that they haven't been able to work out why they have such a strong, loyal customer base and use that to push the product to new prospects. I can't help wondering if that might be the result of having a lot of technologists involved who invariably tend to be drawn to new shiny things.

Of course standard portfolio theory says that if you have a strong, mature product you should use it as a cash cow and invest the money in new growth areas.

On the other hand, you're better off being a whale in a small pond than a minnow in the ocean and i suspect Sellerdeck are the whale in desktop ecommerce software.

I think it's a mistake for them not to be bringing in lots of new users in order to grow their future customer base. I don't see it as that difficult a task.

[chickenhouseman]

Sellerdeck/actinic was my second Ecommerce system after using romancart.. The enter level product was the most i could afford at the time. As a start up now i'd probably go for shopify as they are a zero cost start up, there is plenty of online documentation and plenty of add-ons. Even with a business that is growing they are still cost comparable. There are bits of sellerdeck that work really well but the mobile ready side, although out of the box, looks and works ok, customisation seems to be expensive although the prices now seem to have dropped. When i first looked i'm sure the only options for sellerdeck design were £10000+

[printerbase]

Just to add my part.

I jumped ship from SellerDeck/Actinic about 3 months ago.

It was something that I had been thinking about for a number of years and not a decision I took lightly, I had been using Actinic since before the year 2000 and at one point I even had shares in company when they floated. I really believed in the product.

However, I think the writing was on the wall when Actinic became SellerDeck and the Actinic name moved to a cloud system, not knowing the in's and out's of the deal but it all seemed a bit strange that the new Actinic was allowed to market to all the existing SellerDeck customers and attempt to move them to the cloud product. This really was the writing on the wall for me, that the original Actinic/SellerDeck local software application was dead.

I do believe they are right as well, cloud is the future. The desktop application has no future. My e-commerce platform is now 100% on my web server and the convenience is amazing. I can work on it from anywhere, my developers can work on it at the same time, changes are instant and the flexibility is everything I need in the modern world.

The migration was not easy, it was expensive and the new site is not perfect but we are getting there! The biggest thing I miss is the speed of SellerDeck's flat pages!

I still love Actinic/SellerDeck and I always will for what they have allowed me to build but it was time to say goodbye.

P.S. I didn't move to the Actinic or SellerDeck cloud systems.

Peter

[Duncan Rounding]

Totally off subject I wonder what happened to that crazy Chinese girl with the car sales and unbelievable site design

She's still around: http://www.lingscars.com/ and her site still hurts your eyes

[chris ashdown]

Sellerdeck/actinic was my second Ecommerce system after using romancart.. The enter level product was the most i could afford at the time. As a start up now i'd probably go for shopify as they are a zero cost start up, there is plenty of online documentation and plenty of add-ons. Even with a business that is growing they are still cost comparable. There are bits of sellerdeck that work really well but the mobile ready side, although out of the box, looks and works ok, customisation seems to be expensive although the prices now seem to have dropped. When i first looked i'm sure the only options for sellerdeck design were £10000+

They offered i think in V7 a free copy of Actinic which was limited to 25 products which was a super way to get new people into trying and using it, cost them little a few thousand disks and postage to the magazines who promoted it

Sellerdeck go back to your roots and offer a system to tempt people to use you

[NormanRouxel]

Quite so, Chris. Last time they did a 25 product "lite" version was for Actinic V8 I think.

My daughter has such an 8.0.4 site with a handfull of craft products running to this day.

[Duncan Rounding]

The free lite version also got me into Actinic in the v7 era. IIFC I think it was a giveaway in one of the magazines in the day when you received a CD with each issue. Actinic used to have a standing ad down the side of one or two of the pages in the computer mags.

I think the drive at that time was towards the website DIYer rather than the already established small to medium sized business, which seems to be the drive nowadays. I would guess the return on a couple of small to medium business sites out-weights the numerous do-it-yourself start-up sites. I haven't any research but I suspect most start-ups would go straight to an online product now, hence the cloud.

[Buzby]

I am thinking about moving from Sellerdeck due to lack of features etc.

Is there any cloud version that people would recommend as an easier jump from Sellerdeck, maybe just a csv import and a bit of laying around with design?

[Fairyglass]

Sad to say but we're also in the process of moving sites to another platform. We've used Sellerdeck since 2005 and it's been a key part of our growth, but I've become increasingly dissatisfied with it on a number of levels. I don't know whether we've outgrown it in terms of feature requirements, or our paths have just diverged, but I've got tired bolting on extras from outside suppliers (thank you Norman!) which really should be inclusive. When I came across another software system, cloud based, that works real time with Sage, I decided to jump ship and we're developing a new site now. This will be the last year we'll pay for cover, and although we'll doubtless continue with Sellerdeck on our small peripheral sites, our main ecommerce offerings will move in around 8 weeks.

The main redeeming feature of Sellerdeck to me is this community- while I rarely comment I read posts most days, and it's been a massive help to me over the years. I'll probably continue to monitor the forums, but as has already been said, the post counts are declining fast. I still think that SD is good value overall, but it is a commitment for a small business especially when you add cover, and there are plenty of other options out there which are also attractive. I hope they find a way forward.

[Buzby]

What platform are you moving to Ben?

[Fairyglass]

I'm not sure it would be appropriate to comment publicly on a SD forum, but I've sent you a mesaage with more info.

[EdHarrison]

Unless miracles happen 2016 will be our last year with SellerDeck, a shame as I have invested several years with everything under the one banner.

We were quoted on migrating to their own new cloud version but it was just as expensive (if not more) as moving away from them to the leading platforms.....

[chris ashdown]

I must be a bit dumb or just old fashioned but i fail to understand what the benefits of "Cloud" are to most companies

With a office based system we can work if broadband drops out, change servers at will, no fixed costs for everything and have total control

I could use a remote login to work from anywhere if i needed to though cannot think of any reason to do so

Cloud based systems totally out of your control, Company can and do close or merge and stop after a while, increase costs as you grow larger and unable to really modify like say sellerdeck, and to myself most unable to integrate to Sage accounts

In my case support costs 0.25% of turnover, but again for a new company it's very expensive

I do feel though that they should freeze any new software version for a couple of years and change to making some new apps that just slot in with features, for instant customers have the ability to order more than one item at a time of the same product but in different sizes or colours, but then they intrude into area's like Normans

At the start of this post I screwed up somehow and solved it myself, not sure i could have done the same on a Cloud system but Rubbish in Garbage out so maybe i could and anyway it was a lack of a days backup that was the main problem, someone else tried something without making a snapshot first that caused the problem

[Fairyglass]

I know what you mean Chris. I've resisted cloud systems for some time, but we now have a key staff member who lives 100 miles away and needs access to accounts and website. The new system we're moving to integrates in real time with Sage 50, and we also use Sage Drive to allow her access to data, so we can all work together even though geographically we're miles apart.

I do have concerns with data storage and protection, but it seems that this is the way the world is moving. I like being able to take a morning off and work from home (and we attend several trade shows where it's great to be able to log in and put orders directly on the system) so there are benefits for us.

Cheers
Ben

[zgap111]

Makes my blood boil when I heard Sellerdeck Cloud...

I thought Actinic was sold and that became cloud, and Sellerdeck was supposed to be totally dedicated to desktop version.

We stuck with Sellerdeck (desktop) and avoided Actinic (cloud), our main concern is
if the cloud company went bankrupt, what happens next?
- where's your data? who do you restore your site?

I'm pretty angry that they've dedicated time on another version, a cloud version even!

However, if the cloud version offers a form of a fallback to the desktop (eg. a snapshot backup on the cloud version can be used in the desktop version) then we can consider it!

We too are thinking of leaving Sellerdeck, our latest payment for cover will probably be our last... we've been with them from at least version 5....

You can PM me on any alternatives.

Actually... how many people here are going to Sellerdeck's Annual Conference
22/9/16 (= tomorrow as at time of this post)

I've never been to one... how many people actually attend?
and can you vent your frustration there??