I need to replace my shopping cart software. My criteria for new cart
and affiliate management software are as follows:
1) It should handle both tangible goods and downloadable goods (books
& e-books, specifically).
2) It should give me the ability to customize pages or templates, so I
can insert my own graphics and other code. It's even better if I can
create my own shopping cart pages from scratch, and connect to the
shopping cart software via code snippets, like ASP or ColdFusion
tokens or form fields. This isn't absolutely necessary, but is a major
plus. The cart pages should look like my Web site.
3) The sofware should have sophisticated sales features, such as
cross-selling (if you put Item X in your cart, it offers you Item Y at
a discount when you check out) and the ability to use several
different methods of determining shipping charges.
4) The software should have built-in tracking and affiliate management
capabilities. I should be able to run reports at any time to see which
affiliate has sold what, to whom and for how much, and which pages
were "clicked through" even if there was no purchase (so I know which
pages are drawing more traffic and from whom).
5) I should be able to download reporting or transactional data in an
open format, such as CSV, so I can import the data into Microsoft
Access.
6) The whole thing should be hosted by an ASP (or an ISP that partners
with the software manufacturer), rather than my own server. The ASP
should be responsible for making automatic payments to affiliates and
sending them reports. For the goods that I sell myself, the ASP should
either deposit receipts directly in my bank account, or should let me
use the online credit card processing service I already have
(www.echo-inc.com). If the only payment method they have is PayPal, I
won't even look at it.
7) The ASP should have an automatic affiliate sign-up process and let
me accept or decline an affiliate's application and cancel some or all
affiliates, if I need. I should be able to determine how much the
affiliates' commission is. The ASP should also periodically send
affiliates a list of products available to sell.
8) There must be active, real sites already using the product and I
should be able to see them.
9) Price: If it's a monthly fee, it should be a maximum of $50. If
it's a software license, the purchase price should be less than $400.
If it's a percentage of gross sales, my maximum is 12%. If the charge
is a flat fee per sale, my maximum is $1. Under no circumstances
should I be subject to any minimums. If there is an initial set-up
fee, I'm open -- setup fees are often negotiable.
If such a thing doesn't exist, here is an alternative: find cart
software for me that does all the above for downloadable goods, but
not for tangible goods. However, it *must* accept 3rd-party tracking
software.
Here is software we already use and software we investigated and ruled
out:
A) We currently use Cart32 (www.cart32.com) for tangible products.
Their software is good and *highly* customizable, but it doesn't
handle downloads.
B) To sell downloadable goods, we now use eSellerate
(www.esellerate.net). It's great, but it doesn't handle tangible
goods.
C) For tracking, we use TrackingSoft (www.affiliatetracking.com),
which is also good, but eSellerate won't accept 3rd-party tracking
software and won't lend its own tracking to someone else's cart. I
can't have 2 different tracking systems in use.
D) ShopSite Pro (www.shopsite.com) was all this and a bag of
chips.....but it was way too expensive.
E) For other reasons (price or functionality), we also ruled out
Digibuy (www.digibuy.com), Hazel Enterprise (hazel.netsville.com),
1shoppingcart.com, clickbank.com and shareasale.com. |
Request for Question Clarification by
taxmama-ga
on
25 Sep 2003 05:28 PDT
Dear Tunghoy
I've got it all in the service that I am using
www.1automationwiz.com
Except for your item #6 - they don't have the personnel to
write your checks or make your payments. And the level of
service you want costs $69.00 per month.
For $50.00 per month, I don't know of any ASP that provides
all that AND writes your checks. If you find one, I'd surely
like to know, too.
Their customer service is quite good, but the system is
seriously clunky to learn. Not intuitive. But, if you ask,
the president of the company, Don Schnure, will sit with you
on the phone and spend an hour or so teaching you how to use it.
The system revolves totally around the ability to cross-sell,
using one of the best series of intelligent autoresponders I've
seen, including the ability to track ads.
One of the main reasons I selected it is that I can sell downloadable
digital goods and it provides a short-term URL for the download
- only good for about 48 hours, so people can't share the URL.
It works with payment providers (like Authorizenet.com, etc.) AND PayPal.
You can customize the pages. You can offer coupons, discounts,
volume discounts, discounts with expirations, or only good for
the first xx people...It's pretty nifty.
I am not posting it as a response because it doesn't meet your
criteria in those two elements.
If you decide you like it, please let me know.
Best wishes
Your TaxMama-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
tunghoy-ga
on
25 Sep 2003 16:11 PDT
Thanks, TaxMama! I've been playing around with 1automationwiz today,
and so far, it looks like it has just about everything I want. It
gives me slightly less control in some areas than Cart32 does, but it
more than makes up for it in other ways, especially the mailing list
service (I didn't think to ask for that since I have my own bulk
mailer software, but I think theirs is better). It will take another
day or two to get into the serious details, but I think they have
everything. The tech support guy I spoke to was very helpful, too. As
far as I'm concerned, you answered my question!
(Note to Leader and Jose: thanks for your responses. The enterprise
edition of Cart32 does support downloads, but not the hosted version.
I much prefer doing this through an ASP, since the upkeep is someone
else's headache. We're a small company and don't have the man (or
woman) power.)
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