given the limited future of desktop sellerdeck

[graphicz]

A client with a number of Sellerdeck sites has emailed me with some work but wants to limit what is done because, as he says, "given the limited future of desktop sellerdeck"

If a major client thinks this, what is SD doing to promote it's unique product 'Sellerdeck desktop' and to counter any rumours that may have lead to comments such as that made by my client?

Any comments?

Anything we're not being told?

[Buzby]

Not heard anything, but my feeling is it is a product that won't be here forever.

I remember the features in magazines, Light version given away, and Actinic was the software to have.

Now it seems anyone I talk to has never heard of Sellerdeck, the forum has tumbleweed most days.

I would too like to know what the future plans are.

[chris ashdown]

Surprised that they have never done the free limited copy again as it must be the cheapest advertising you can get, special forum for Q&A so you dont clog up support and the cost only slightly more than cost of a cd

[Gareth Wanklin]

I don't think that a free lite version would do much to improve things.

Whilst sellerdeck are endeavouring to bring the desktop version up to speed the cloud will ultimately be where their priorities lie. you could take the lack of the desktop platform being promoted on their homepage as a sign of this.

and Phil Rowthwells comment on THIS thread was quite telling i feel.

Mag-ento is an incredibly flexible system to work from as a base and has the advantage of an astonishingly large developer base and i can understand why they would make this move.

That being said there are other options that dwarf Mag-ento's market share LINK

I can only imagine that being a dedicated SD web developer is going to become a more niche market.

[PJ ENG]

It is all to clear to me that SD are on a new adventure and it is marketing and sales, and i think they have used Mag-ento to fill the gap. What i find bizarre is why did they not come up with there own version of cloud platform

What i find strange is why they did not come up with a new company to push the sales and marketing side of things?

I think they need to take a leaf out of there own book when it comes to branding as i dont see what there USP is.

As for the desktop version, dead in the water in my opinion. We may get a few more versions then i think it will be history.

[GreenBerry]

16 plus years plus eCommerce experience, thats their USP.

They're London based and can rebrand themselves as an experienced eCommerce Agency focusing on , a platform used by thousands of large eCommerce business.

The shift in focus makes perfect sense from a business point of view.

Platforms like WooCommerce or Shopify are cheap entry level options and just aren't worth the hassle to a large eCommerce Agency.

[PJ ENG]

16 plus years plus eCommerce experience, thats their USP.

They're London based and can rebrand themselves as an experienced eCommerce Agency focusing on , a platform used by thousands of large eCommerce business.

The shift in focus makes perfect sense from a business point of view.

Platforms like WooCommerce or Shopify are cheap entry level options and just aren't worth the hassle to a large eCommerce Agency.

16 years with eCommerce software yes and to me that is what sellerdeck was and what i pay my support , payment processing etc for.

Now they are rebranding away from software to design and marketing, surely a new enterprise would have been better with a USP.

At the moment they are in between with existing customers me included feeling let down.

I can only imagine how the resellers, web designers who have supported, sold and promoted SD over the years feel.

[brucet]

Thanks for all your comments. In fact we are continuing to promote and develop SellerDeck Desktop, and extensions for it, alongside SellerDeck Cloud. We are also in the process of launching a new subscription service, SellerDeck 365, which is based around it. More details here: http://community.sellerdeck.com/showthread.php?p=353277.

We do have customers who are migrating to SellerDeck Cloud because it offers advantages for their businesses. We also have many for whom SellerDeck Desktop remains the preferred solution. It has different attractions, such as ownership of the data; the ability to preview design changes; and very fast delivery of pages, particularly filter pages, which cannot be matched by a database-driven solution. By providing both options, we can better meet the needs of the broad range of customers that we serve.

For a bit more about our strategy and our commitment to these two platforms, see the following comment which Phil Rothwell posted earlier: http://community.sellerdeck.com/show...0&postcount=46

I hope this helps

[maroni35]

It is now 2 months since 16.3 beta version. Any idea when this might be out since it seemed to deal with a few problems that actually made the paypal extension work.

[brucet]

Hi David, v16.0.3 has been out for a couple of weeks, see http://community.sellerdeck.com/showthread.php?t=57167

[maroni35]

What, how am I to know that. I pay for premium support, nothing from my contacts. I haven't seen any emails about it. Nothing in the Beta post about the fact it is out of release. Annoyed.

[brucet]

David, I apologise for the lack of email notification. This will be rectified today or tomorrow, and we'll ensure that it's not overlooked in future.

Release announcements are always posted in this forum. So if you're expecting something, then it's worth checking here from time to time. We normally do send out emails following every release, but we can't guarantee 100% that they will all be delivered.

[maroni35]

Dear Bruce, Thank you for the reply. I check the forums a couple of times a week as it is very useful to see what is going on and is a great resource. Because it was a Sticky rather than a regular post then I did not see it at all. It simply replaced the previous Sticky I assume. I open up the regular posts to see what they are about. Apart from a bill I have not really had any contact from Sellerdeck for awhile. Josh Barling used to keep me informed and in the loop but not to the extent that he had actually left so there was no hand on at all. I had to use linked in to check that he had left.

I'll download the new version and finish the site update that I had on hold.