Actinic or ?

[paul in london]

Hi all

Just a general question. Would it be true to say that xxxx would give me more functionality then Actinic does? I am looking to revamp the site and I keep being told to move to xxxx. This I am loathed to do because Ive worked with Actinic for years.

I am trying to replicate the functionality of some of our competitors sites, but dont seem to be able to do it in Actinic? Are there plugs available for Actinic that I can use? Filters etc?

If anyone out there would be interested in speaking to me about this or quoting to improve the site within actinic, please call me on 020 3044 2044. Im based in Surrey.

Thanks in advance!
Paul

[leehack]

In round terms IMO, although the gap is closing, you will find that actinic has a very good backend for processing and maintenance and a front end that is improving if not a little lacking at present.

This means that as standard your customers will not get the interaction they require at 'shopping' level, but you as a site owner will get what you need. So this is where you need to go to plugins/addons to bridge the gap. For 5 or 6 years now I have added at least 2 addons/plugins to every site I have ever built. 3 or 4, sometimes more is pretty standard nowadays. That's not great, I agree, adding the same addon for nearly 6 years to almost every site I build, points to a large flaw.

There is only so much they can develop in the time though and although it's not great, it's better that they work on areas where there are no plugins and we use plugins to fill in any gaps. We get an overall better package that way.

As to whether actinic is right for you, is down to what you need to do, the simple fact is that with all packages, certain sites should never be built on them. I have advised 5 or 6 people this year not to use actinic for instance, not because actinic is no good, it was just not suitable for their requirements.

The grass is always greener situation is very strong here and even those that rave about other packages, have often just found other packages that suit their requirement better. Their new choice has many flaws as all packages do, they're just in different areas and not ones that bother that person's normal everyday operations.

List out what you need to do, your requirements for now and also long term for the site over the next 5 years. I'm sure a few of us can jump in and let you know what is possible and offer some impartial advice.

Sticking to a solution because you're familiar with it or like it, is a little naive IMO, but likewise so is jumping ship believing you are going to something better. It really can be a tough decision at times.

[Mike Hughes]

You can get plug ins for Actinic but I guess the answer all depends on what functionality you want. Can you be more specific.

Mike

[cbarling]

I think that the points made are all pretty sensible.

I would just like to add a couple more thoughts.

Actinic Online, which has been available for a couple of months, fills in a number of gaps that the Actinic Desktop products don't cover, so that's always worth a look.

It's true that the Actinic Desktop range has some online features that aren't supported and may require plug-ins (although that gap has closed quite a bit in v11). However, as the person who commissions and reviews very detailed point by point reviews of Actinic versus the competition, I can assure you that overall Actinic does have a huge amount of functionality and stacks up very well against the competition.

Of course, not everything is needed by every merchant but when you look at a very detailed level Actinic is extremely powerful, particularly in the areas of products and their inter-relationships, tax, shipping (with one exception), marketing which is further expanded in v11, and order processing.

That's why there are more than 10,000 online sites using Actinic.

Do you use Actinic Payments? You get a whole load more functionality if you do, and it's very well priced and reliable. There's nothing at the bottom end of the market that even begins to match the overall functionality when combined with Actinic Desktop.

Of course, I am prejudiced but I am sure you will allow for that.

Chris

[Jan]

What plugins do you usually add on to your customers sites Lee?

Regards,

[intrapreneur]

I recently reviewed a number of the major offerings and came to the conclusion that whatever drawbacks Actinic has, moving to another platform and abandoning the indexed links and PR built up over the years in Google, Bing, Yahoo etc would negate any benefits gained! 301 Redirects really don't help either....

The other thing I considered was cost - Actinic really is quite inexpensive when compared to the SAAS model.

[leehack]

What plugins do you usually add on to your customers sites Lee?

Hi Jan

Tabbed product descriptions is a given on 99% of them.
A multiple image facility such as magic zoom or fancybox or a lightbox derivative on 99% of them.
A slideshow facility on 99% of them.
Some sort of dynamic menu, probably on 75% of them.

I also use a few others regularly such as drop down jump lists, spp duplicate addon, related product upsell.

I'd go as far to say that at least 2 if not 3 of the top addons are pre-requisites on a site nowadays. For something to be included that often points to a pretty big hole in the front end IMO or more to the point a front end not quite up to date with what people use/want/need.

BUT, like Chris says, in other areas there is real strength and Actinic at the very least matches up, with Actinic Payments I personally feel the integration with that into the software is the best in the industry.

Stupid little things like not being able to add to cart from a marketing list and the most glaring omission - no bullet points in the interface are really poor in 2011. But, it has to be looked at as a complete package, you can't just pick the crappest area and label the software crap, it is far from it. The product front end is behind the times though, the area of the software that is most behind IMO.

[Jan]

Thanks Lee, that is really interesting.

Regards,

[Darren B]

The product front end is behind the times though, the area of the software that is most behind IMO.

This is probably the area i would like to see improved. I dont use the offline ordering to any great degree so can not comments but now with the stock link its vastly improved and i am sure some people love it. So its slowly creeping forward but its not for everyone, as Lee said its a case or deciding what you require then finding the product to suit

i would suggest once you have a list and if you need more clarification on certain elements then come back here as your get an honest opinion from some on the functionality of that particular area.

[paul in london]

Thanks for all your replys.

How does Actinic online fit it? Is this worth a look?

Thanks

Paul

[paul in london]

Now Im being told about Zoomla?

Anyone know about this one?

Thanks
Paul

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Paul,

There are lots of ecommerce systems out there. As the others have said, rather than jumping on any names that come up you should work out what functionality you need and then evaluate each one against that.

Otherwise you're just gambling that whatever anyone recommends will do what you want.

Mike

[cbarling]

As stated, the forum is for the discussion and support of Actinic products.

That's why I've now closed the thread.

Chris