Best solution for retail/wholesale/trade sales

[familychoice]

Most of my clients sell directly to the public, but occasionally offer wholesale discounts to trade customers. Most ecom software handles this sort of thing pretty wel. However I'm currently dealing with an enquiry from a manufacturer who wants to have 'two sites in one', one for trade customers and one for the public, all in the same interface.

Personally I don't think that's a good idea, I think it'd be better to have two separate sites which as well as avoiding any confusion for visitors, will allow him to target his marketing appropriately for each site.  As ever, he's a tightarse, and despite thinking nothing of shelling out 50k on a fancy car for his PA baulks at spending an extra couple of thousand for an online shop-front for his multi million pound retail business. As this is his sole method of selling his products I'm shocked at the lack of money he's prepared to invest in it. And looking at his current website I'm even more shocked he's selling anything at all.

Just to cover all the options, can anyone recommend a shopping cart that handles retail and trade selling in a more comprehensive way than your average shopping cart?

I'm ruling out Cubecart and JShop as I've wasted years of my life grappling with their inconsistencies and buggy interfaces. I'm happy to pay (or quote for anyway) a decent price if the software is good enough.

TIA

[Whatever]

I'm sure that Magento does but don't touch it with a barge pole in my opinion! It certainly offers multiple front ends from one backend.

[familychoice]

I'm sure that Magento does but don't touch it with a barge pole in my opinion! It certainly offers multiple front ends from one backend.

Thanks for the reply

I didn't realise it did that, that'd be just what I'm after if the rest of it wasn't so big and buggy.

[SAMMo_0]

Maybe use two seperate installations which look like one single installation (same login details so it doesn't matter which one they login to); ie. edit the dashboard of both so they look the same and have a 'trade' or 'public' mode, which would actually go to the actual dashboard of whichever installation...?

Seems silly though, I mean they'd need to differentiate in the back end anyway so it'd keep things simple to have two installs.

[familychoice]

Maybe use two seperate installations which look like one single installation (same login details so it doesn't matter which one they login to); ie. edit the dashboard of both so they look the same and have a 'trade' or 'public' mode, which would actually go to the actual dashboard of whichever installation...?

Seems silly though, I mean they'd need to differentiate in the back end anyway so it'd keep things simple to have two installs.

I know, he's just being stingy. His sitemap shows the home page as having just two links, 'trade' and 'retail'. Brilliant.

Looks like I'll be on the software hunt again, Trading Eye no longer provide temporary development URL's, or the ability to change the registered domain after you've purchased. Which is a total bugger and rules them out now.

What is it with web software companies? Why are they all poo?

[familychoice]

I'm now looking for a new ecom solution, with or without wholesale support. Tried and ruled out:

Cubecart
Wordpress Themes
Trading Eye
Jshop
Magenta

Don't want open source, and happy to pay for a decent bit of software. Something in the same league as Trading Eye but without the bugs and complete lack of support.

[sponna]

Hi,

Just intrigued to know where you find JShop inconsistent and buggy? Given we are JShop proponents but I've never heard any comments about it being buggy? We also handle trade and public well enough with JShop.

Dave

[familychoice]

Hi,

Just intrigued to know where you find JShop inconsistent and buggy? Given we are JShop proponents but I've never heard any comments about it being buggy? We also handle trade and public well enough with JShop.

Dave

Hi Dave,

We were unimpressed by JShop for a few reasons:

There were a couple of bugs in the last one we did that were (reluctantly) fixed by support related to a new payment option my client paid for. We were also promised the imminent appearance of a new built-in blog, one of the reasons we bought it, but something that never (and still hasn't a year later) materialised. Support-wise my client has been completely underwhelmed by the responses he's had from them, and as he's always been polite and friendly with design-related enquiries to us I'm inclined to see things from his perspective.

Template-wise it has some good things going for it: for example the ability to have custom templates for different sections, is great. What isn't good is the way the menu works - adding new pages is a complete faff and seriously needs to be updated.

Then there's the admin interface. This hasn't changed in years, and when a new feature is added it appears that it's just slotted in somewhere. It looks at least 10 years old and is a complete nightmare to use. Even after a year of using it I still had to hunt around to find things. I cannot recommend that interface for clients, it's just not good enough.

I'm looking for a product that's reasonably bug-free, has reliable support, good documentation and is kept up to date. Occasionally a decent product will pop up but then the company that owns it will leave it to rot while they concentrate on new products so a couple of years later it's no good any more. Trading Eye would have been great, but they seem to have almost stopped supporting the product and their existing customers, and so things have stopped working as they should.

Still looking.

[sponna]

Hi,

Sounds like you had a bad experience with their support? They can be a bit blunt but usually you get a result.

No system is perfect but we've found JShop to be a good balance of functionality and robustness - certainly no security or failings in the core functionality as far as we know. I do know what you mean about the admin system being a little less than intuitive but easy enough once you've found your way around and we don't have any negative comments coming back from clients (15 + installs). The admin system is being reworked at the moment so I think when that finally emerges it will make an already good product great.

We looked at open source stuff and its just too flaky at the moment. However, I was in London on Monday with one of the Oscommerce core developers and its being completely re-written so that should be interesting when it appears. We took a look at Magento but its just a mess in our opinion. We'll stay with JShop for the time being.

Cheers
Dave

[familychoice]

We looked at open source stuff and its just too flaky at the moment. However, I was in London on Monday with one of the Oscommerce core developers and its being completely re-written so that should be interesting when it appears. We took a look at Magento but its just a mess in our opinion. We'll stay with JShop for the time being.

I think you're right, for stability and features it's definitely ahead of the competition, but I can't face setting up another store via that ropey admin panel, and until they sort out their system so new page creation and menu building isn't slower than building static single pages, then I'll have to give it a wide berth.

It's embarrassing too when clients have a bad time with their support, it reflects badly on me for recommending and using their product.

Saying that though it's reassuring to know that unlike..Cubecart...for example, it's going to do the job in a robust, secure way. Hopefully they'll sort out the admin issues in the next version and support will smooth out their rough edges a bit.

[Jeep Stone]

You could look at some of the Joomla solutions such as: Virtuemart http://virtuemart.net/ or  Tienda http://redcomponent.com/redshop

Not tried Tienda but looks interesting. VMart isn't awesome but does fill a hole.

[familychoice]

You could look at some of the Joomla solutions such as: Virtuemart http://virtuemart.net/ or  Tienda http://redcomponent.com/redshop

Not tried Tienda but looks interesting. VMart isn't awesome but does fill a hole.

Thanks, never used Joomla but I'll have a look.

I've always ruled out open-source shopping carts, but looking at the terrible support and slow updates in the commercial sector I think I might have to start taking them more seriously.

I put in a sales enquiry to TradingEye last week, still haven't heard back and apparently support is even slower.

[suedenem]

No off-the-shelf solution is going to match your wish-list 100%.

Are your problems with jShop really insurmountable? 

We would usually provide first-line support for any client problems with a site we engineer, for example, and directing the client to an 'upstream provider' wouldn't even occur to us.  We build great relationships with our clients (and repeat custom) that way - a single point of contact for all their Web requirements.

Do you really want a cart to handle your blog?  Wouldn't blog software be more appropriate?  (Reverse for e-commerce plug-ins for Wordpress and CMSs like Joomla!).

It's not unusual for freshly-written software (like a payment gateway) to have bugs.  It sounds like the problem was resolved, though.

I can see a bad admin interface being a turn-off, but anecdotal experiences of people like Sponna suggest good training and hand-holding can overcome it.  You should be able to command a higher training rate, too (we charge a 50% higher hourly rate for training sessions...).

All-in-all these problems seem run-of-the-mill and easily sorted with a bit of good project/account management.

Re: Trading Eye, have you tried picking up the phone to talk to them?  It's usually far more effective than filling out a contact form...

[familychoice]

Are your problems with jShop really insurmountable? 

Thanks for the reply. Probably not, but I'd hoped there was something out there that provided a better user admin - most of our clients break into a cold sweat when writing an email.

We would usually provide first-line support for any client problems with a site we engineer, for example, and directing the client to an 'upstream provider' wouldn't even occur to us.  We build great relationships with our clients (and repeat custom) that way - a single point of contact for all their Web requirements.

We do that too, but one of the priorities of many of our new customers is 'ownership' of the software powering their sites, due to bad experiences with other design companies who wouldn't let them near it, or release them from costly hosting contracts. It's been a big selling point, but we don't say 'there you go now bugger off'. Many prefer to have the option to upgrade their own software, but we're happy to do this for them or any other aspect of their site/software maintenance.

We also get a lot of low-budget, grant assisted work for new/small businesses via local business advisers. Part of the brief that the companies use when getting quotes specifies the ability to upgrade, maintain, and deal with software companies directly.

Do you really want a cart to handle your blog? 

With the job in question part of the brief included a preference for simple blog feature. Jshop had the edge because they said they were adding one very soon.

You should be able to command a higher training rate, too (we charge a 50% higher hourly rate for training sessions...).

We offer training sessions as well, and most clients have one. 

All-in-all these problems seem run-of-the-mill and easily sorted with a bit of good project/account management.

I'm not completely sure how managing our customer accounts is going to help speed up bug-fixing in the software companies we use.

Re: Trading Eye, have you tried picking up the phone to talk to them?  It's usually far more effective than filling out a contact form...

Of course, and I've also tried a personal mobile that's been provided. No answer. Someone from the forum contacted me to ask me if I had any other contact details for them as they were also unable to get through.

What do you use? Is it a bespoke system?

[familychoice]

Haven't heard back from the wholesale/retail bloke so I'm guessing he's decided to spend the money on a new necklace for his PA instead, but have (after long and intensive grilling of other Trading Eye customers) decided to give it a go for another (more straightforward) ecom site. It does still seem to have the odd bug, and their offshore based new developers are apparently a bit slow/crap at dealing with new bugs, but at least they get fixed. Eventually. And everything seems to be working at the moment.

I couldn't face Cubecart and JShop again so hopefully this will be less painful to use.

We build great relationships with our clients (and repeat custom) that way - a single point of contact for all their Web requirements.

What do you use? Bespoke, commercial, open source? Not telling?

[familychoice]

Update for anyone that's bothered:

Bought Trading Eye for a straightforward ecom job and so far it's been a good experience -

Support were quick and responsive and set up was pretty painless.

The default template is a joy to use as a base compared to the old bits of tat that some of the others come with. I'm customising it anyway, but it's nice not to have to rebuild everything from scratch.

Admin panel easy to use, not as feature packed as some but covers the requirements of this particular job.

Best bit is the documentation, just looking through the developers manual as I'm working on the templates and pleased to see it knocks spots off anything that's come with other software...though most of the time (Cubecart, Expression Engine...ahem) they don't even bother to provide one.

Apart from not being given an option to develop in a temporary domain which caused a bit of additional faff this has been a very pleasant experience and so far definitely recommended.

[sponna]

Hi - yes thanks for the update.

We had our first real issue with JShop support this week. We took our a developers "umbrella" contract years ago which gives us ongoing updates and unlimited use foc. I suspect this doesn't sit too well with JShop but this was the contract we entered into and we do promote the product when we can.

However, we've now spotted a definite bug but the developers are refusing to correspond with us because (we suspect) we haven't taken out the yearly support contract. If it was a support question and not a bug report that would be understandable but its definitely a bug. Other users on their forum who have a support contract have been given an update file but not us - not pleased to be honest.

If you enter into a contract, you would expect it to be honoured, even if its a little disadvantageous later on. Or am I missing something?

Cheers

[familychoice]

If you enter into a contract, you would expect it to be honoured, even if its a little disadvantageous later on. Or am I missing something?

If there's a bug in the software and it means that functionality advertised is not being provided, or worse that it poses a security risk then they are obliged to make this available for anyone that has purchased a copy, regardless of whether they've paid for additional support.

What's the bug? If possible please PM me if it's security related as I have an active store using JShop, I'll also check out the forum.

This is exactly the sort of thing I've been moaning about, the support and after sales service from some of these companies is shocking.

[sponna]

Hi,

Not security related but still irritating - the articles functionality is duff on multi language stores. The second language updates but does not "hold" in place in admin. So edits etc become pretty tricky! I suspect its pretty simple and I'll prob be able to fix it but I shouldn't really need to 

[familychoice]

Hi,

Not security related but still irritating - the articles functionality is duff on multi language stores. The second language updates but does not "hold" in place in admin. So edits etc become pretty tricky! I suspect its pretty simple and I'll prob be able to fix it but I shouldn't really need to 

As they're already aware it doesn't work properly and have created a fix then it sounds as if they're sitting on it to squeeze a bit of support money out of customers instead of releasing a free patch, which is what they should be doing. Very similar to my experiences with Cubecart, and another reason why I won't be buying copies of either for the foreseeable future.

TradingEye can be buggy and the new developers are a bit slow to respond apparently, but bugs do get fixed eventually and all patches are promoted on the forum. Plus any bugs that are reported are not counted as support requests so you don't lose any credits. *So far* Trading Eye has been a little belter.