Actinic Express Disappointment

[Greenmind]

Hi everyone. I'm new here. I recently signed up for Actinic Express and I wondered if anyone else was as disappointed as I was at first. I looked at the demo and was originally rather impressed with the way it looked. I couldn't seem to change things around the way I wanted but foolishly assumed it was down to my unfamiliarity with the service. It seems I was wrong; it's extremely limited. There was one change that was very important to my store and I thought Actinic would be happy to help their new and eager customer. But no, I was given a reply which, on reading this forum, appears to me to be a stock phrase i.e. 'I'll add it to the wish list'. That phrase is certainly a reply, but not a solution, and not at all useful.

I understand that Express is a simplified version and that's reflected in the price, but is 'cheap' really synonymous with 'limited to the point of being very detrimental to the operation of your business'?

I can't put up a welcome page without having to juggle sections around in a way that seems at least half logical. I can't do away with the + system of drop down menus. I can't change the basic layout of my product lists. I can't add 'best sellers', or 'you may also be interested in'. Others have expressed problems with checkout pages and postage charging. What I have found with software in the past is that learning to use it involved realising more and more about what can be done. Now it seems the more I learn, the more I realise what can't be done. I find that, while I’m setting it up, I’m having to put little explanations for customers about things that aren’t right. Looking at the sites at others, it appears it’s not just me.


Actinic may say that what I need is a more advanced service and it may be true, but for the time being at least, I'm new to online trading and a simple entry was what was need at first, perhaps moving up later on. But for me to move on to another Actinic service, wouldn't I need to be at least satisfied with the current one, if not impressed. Shouldn't your hallway look nice if you want people to look at the rest of your house?

I originally looked at using a different service from a rival company. The Actinic shops looked better I admit, but the other company were prepared to go out of their way to ensure I was satisfied. Whereas Actinic’s general attitude seems to be ‘you get what you pay for’.

Perhaps I’ve got it wrong. If so, do put me right; just that what I feel right now is that signing up for this service was a mistake.

[Jan]

What did you ask them to do?

Regards,

[pinbrook]

Actinic may say that what I need is a more advanced service and it may be true, but for the time being at least, I'm new to online trading and a simple entry was what was need at first, perhaps moving up later on. But for me to move on to another Actinic service, wouldn't I need to be at least satisfied with the current one, if not impressed.

Express has a particular place in the market and is targetted at either new to online or people with limited time/ability to customise. It is very much out of the box with a given number of features

Because it is an online tool it doesn't have all the flexibility of the other products within the Actinic family.

I wouldn't dismiss Actinic because of Express.

However I would phone Actinic Sales and discuss your disapointment, and have a list of things that are listed in the feature list that you have been unable to find or manipulate.

You may find there is a different product that suits you better, but at least take steps to see if your issues can be resolved with the people who are equiped to help. Actinic can't help you if you don't ask them.

[Greenmind]

There are a few things I'd like changed but I do accept that Express is a simple shopping cart service. The one thing that I believe is very small software-wise, but immensely important to me was that I could have a drop down list with sizes and their corresponding prices. This is only possible with the '+' system. for example size 1 might be 5.25 and size 2 might be +3.87. While I want size 1 £5.25 and size 2 £9.12, i.e. without the maths.

If you're buying the odd item the '+' system is fine, but shoppers at my store are likely to buy many components that all fit together into a system, and may buy multiple amounts of each item. Having to sit there with a calculator to find out what the actual price is is likely to put people off. Each drop down list will also have as many as 15-20 different sizes.

I asked another provider if they could make this change for me if I paid them and they said it was no problem and there'd be no charge. I asked the same of Actinic, offering to pay them also, and it seemed it was too much trouble for them (the problems it caused me were seemingly of no relevance).

As I say I do understand that express is a simple service but even so there doesn't seem to be any recognition from Actinic that shops and the products they sell don't all fit perfectly into this simple shop. Some flexibilty is required and yet when I've pointed this out I just get, 'sorry but no', and 'we'll put it on the wish list', which from a practical point of view isn't worth a sh*t. It all seems to be built around Actinic's total satisfaction, at the expense of the customer's.

Reading the forums I can see that I'm not the only one who's unhappy.

[Greenmind]

Pinbrook, I appreciate your reply and you are right, it would be wrong to dismiss them because of Express. I have phoned them. I spoke to two people, a girl who was rather off-ish and unwilling to go any further than give what seemed like stock responses, and a guy who was very polite I'm pleased to say, but only polite in telling me he couldn't help.

"Express has a particular place in the market and is targetted at either new to online or people with limited time/ability to customise."

That is me, but does "new to online or people with limited time/ability to customise" mean people wanting to set up a shop that fits perfectly into the Express mould. Isn't it possible to want something simple that doesn't require a great deal of customisation but at least has a little flexibility?

[Greenmind]

I've had a look a Catalog and it seems more suitable to my business. Although it seems there's nothing to be done about the '+' sign problem in that either. Can anyone tell me if it's possible to show the price of each size in Catalog rather than a price of smallest + extra size premium?

Like this:

Size
100mm - 5.00
200mm - 8.00
300mm - 12.00

Rather than:

Size
100mm - 5.00
200mm - +3.00
300mm - +7.00


I'd really appreciate any input. Thnaks.

[leehack]

Yes you can, why not download the FREE 30 day trial and try it out?

[Greenmind]

Hi. Yes I have and I like what I see. I'm going through the start up tutorial. It does touch on attributes and choices but doesn't seem to deal with changing the '+' sign thing. Could you give me any pointers?

Also, can I set up my shop with the trial without having to set up again when I buy it?

[leehack]

Type in what you want to see and set what you want to charge (fill option). You can setup on your hosting yes, you can even renew the trial if you run out of time.

[Greenmind]

Ok, my frustration has abated. Express was simply far too basic for want I need to do. Catalog seems far better. :)

[pinbrook]

It does touch on attributes and choices but doesn't seem to deal with changing the '+' sign thing. Could you give me any pointers? when you set up a product with attributes you can choose your pricing plan.

ie use product price and add component price ie cheatest in £10, next one is plus £2 and so on

or set the price as component price only - then you can say £10, £12 and so on

[Greenmind]

Yes, I sussed it in the end. In the component part you select the layout tab and 'basic price' in the drop down, rather than 'additional price in brackets', which is the default/parent. I feel I can actually move on with this now.