Actinic Desktop is now called SellerDeck

[RoofingWarehous]

Whats happened to Actinic Desktop telephone support then? Do we need to call the USA every time now?

EDIT: Found the details!

[Benjamin Dyer]

Whats happened to Actinic Desktop telephone support then? Do we need to call the USA every time now?

USA?

As per FAQ item number 17:

17. How do I contact SellerDeck (including sales and support)?

Through the normal channels, you can call sales on 0845 1891859 and support on 0845 1294848 or see our new web site at www.sellerdeck.co.uk.

All of these questions are answered here, we are the same company just with a new name and focus on the desktop product.

[Benjamin Dyer]

EDIT: Found the details!

I was a bit quick off the mark

[graphicz]

Jonathan, I understand not everyone likes the name change, your own views have been very clear.

It is a fact of life that there are people that tend to overlook the positives in favour of the negatives. During this rebranding process we have worked tirelessly to keep our customers updated. We have made these decisions to benefit our customers in the long term. We are not perfect, we don't pretend to be, we are in fact our own biggest critics, but we are striving to continuously improve every aspect of our business.

Woah Benjamin. It was my client's comments, don't shoot the messenger. I am running with the new name and promoting it (my site comes well up a Google Sellerdeck search) but my point is it is the customers we have to convince and my quote shows that some customers will need a lot of convincing!

[mje]

I seriously considered switching to Actinic Online, my initial thoughts were to run it along side my desktop site with exactly the same content and see how they got on against each other.

So applied and was given a user name and pass word - when I first logged on I was horrified at how difficult it all looked - probably isn't, but much of the terminology is very different to what we are used to.

Anyway, you get a 20 / 30 minute telephone call "lesson" and a very helpful follow up email as it is all but impossible to take it all in. There is a very handy tool that allows you to upload your "seller deck" content to Actinic Online, but it does fall down a little as you then have to spend what seems an age creating links and so on. It is good, but not perfect!

So I spent quite a while with the software - you do also get regular "how you doing calls" from Actinic, which personally I find irritating and feel there should be an option to opt out of ( there is "free" telephone support after all)

After much deliberation I decided for the time being to stay with desk top version, having had it for a number of years through many revisions, I kind of feel attached!

I was happy enough with the design potential even for a non techy like myself, but what I didn't like was that the pricing structure took us to a level that is three times what we currently pay, I didn't like the add ons and excess fees that would be applied, I was really disappointed that my existing FEEFO can't be integrated and the various 3rd party plug ins would also become redundant.

I am sure Actinic Online is perfect for many people, but what I didn't like the most, was that I would never feel as if I owned anything, simply renting space.

[jont]

So applied and was given a user name and pass word

Funnily enough I have just looked at Online for some of my smaller clients and thought I would check out their 30 day trial. Horrified to see you need to give them a phone number so they will call you back to talk you through things.

This is piss poor:

If I want to evaluate something an email registration is sufficient for just about every other software company - they can then follow it up and send out marketing material to make the sale. This immediately led me to click the close button as it shouts out:

1. I will get a hard sell on the phone for something I have yet to know anything about

2. it is so difficult they have to talk you through it. As it is hosted I can't see any need for this - it is not like having to install it manually on your own server with different environment settings.

Sorry. Either way is not acceptable. Download the software. Have a play. If it is good buy it, if not it expires after 30 days.

SellerDeck - please bring back a lite desktop version with say 3 different product limits 50/100/200 ... I am sure you would have lots of interest.

[Benjamin Dyer]

SellerDeck - please bring back a lite desktop version with say 3 different product limits 50/100/200 ... I am sure you would have lots of interest.

Unofficial market research: Interesting, if this is something you think we should do then like my post. I'll be intrigued at the results.

[Mike Hughes]

Funnily enough I have just looked at Online for some of my smaller clients and thought I would check out their 30 day trial. Horrified to see you need to give them a phone number so they will call you back to talk you through things.

Just make up a phone number.

Mike

Or are you saying there's no way of getting the trial without them calling you first.

[jont]

Or are you saying there's no way of getting the trial without them calling you first.

No - they need to speak to you to make sure you are not a Russian SpamBot

[jont]

Unofficial market research: Interesting, if this is something you think we should do then like my post. I'll be intrigued at the results.

Ben - I am seeing a lot of people starting up on the internet after losing main jobs or having hours cut back due to the recession. Selling online is seen as an easy, low cost way to earn money.

Many do not know the costs involved, which whilst cheap compared to say buying a shop on the high street does still require some investment which many seem to baulk at, often due to it being more than they imagined.

A database restricted version at an affordable rate would allow a one off investment which other than hosting is essentially free thereafter. People much prefer to paying an acceptable one off fee than an ongoing amount for something they are not sure about.

I would have thought it would be reasonably straightforward to database restrict the existing core product just as it is with the different flavours of SellerDeck at the moment.

You could even include a years free hosting with the software as part of the deal. A desktop solution which works from the box which you own outright. You control it. Fixed prices. No sliding scales. Buy and forget.

My consultancy invoice is in the post

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Ben - I am seeing a lot of people starting up on the internet after losing main jobs or having hours cut back due to the recession. Selling online is seen as an easy, low cost way to earn money.

Many do not know the costs involved, which whilst cheap compared to say buying a shop on the high street does still require some investment which many seem to baulk at, often due to it being more than they imagined.

I would agree with these observations. When I first started as a part-time small business I installed a free version of Actinic 7LE (a lite version limited to 25 products) and found it to be an ideal starter package so when I then grew and was ready to invest in ecommerce software I was already on the Actinic/Sellerdeck route and was happy to pay out for the full business version. If the free version wasn't available at the time I would have gone down a completely different route and Actinic/Sellerdeck wouldn't have had my money from me.

[robbb3]

Funnily enough I have just looked at Online for some of my smaller clients and thought I would check out their 30 day trial. Horrified to see you need to give them a phone number so they will call you back to talk you through things.

This is piss poor:

If I want to evaluate something an email registration is sufficient for just about every other software company - they can then follow it up and send out marketing material to make the sale. This immediately led me to click the close button as it shouts out:

1. I will get a hard sell on the phone for something I have yet to know anything about

2. it is so difficult they have to talk you through it. As it is hosted I can't see any need for this - it is not like having to install it manually on your own server with different environment settings.

Sorry. Either way is not acceptable. Download the software. Have a play. If it is good buy it, if not it expires after 30 days.

I agree, I signed up for a free trial just to have a look at the product out of interest and entered 0 as my phone number to avoid unwanted calls and instead I have been emailed (more than once) for a contact number so they can speak to me to setup the trial...

[chris ashdown]

I would agree with Johnty

We started up in 2003 just selling Fishermans smocks to test the market, but having at that time a very well paying job I went for Catalogue to test it out, but if a limited product software had been available I would definatly have gone that route especially if little dosh, remember there are plenty of open source systems out there

I would not be suprised if there are still some 25 limited sites running out there, and many more must have converted up to the full system

Throw in say three months hosting and easy setup instructions for ebay and they are up and running

[mje]

I welcomed the phone call tuition, as don't forget not all of us are website literate, and I would guess that many of the people looking at the product are beginners too and find this, plus the very detailed follow up email very useful indeed.

It was the barrage of follow up calls that I object to for the simple reason that a big selling point is the product has free telephone support, so if I was struggling I could ring, I did, and it works very well indeed.

Even after we "unsubscribed" via the software control panel we still got a call.

Maybe, some form of "opt out" or "opt in" of phone calls should be offered,

[Mike Hughes]

I think the 'lite' / 25 products is a good idea and a great way to catch prospective customers early.

But, it does have to be done properly. In the past it was almost done as a disposable item that wasn't very usable. IIRC V7 lite was done on an early release (to promote the release of V7) but couldn't be upgraded so always suffered from the early bugs.

And the 25 products limit included fragments so was a bit more limiting than you might think at first.

So yes. A good idea but do it properly so people can use and it and invest some time and effort into learning how it works. Once customers have invested their time and effort in making it work they're far less likely to switch to something else when they need to expand. (and of course the opposite applies if what you give them isn't usable or full of bugs).

Mike