22 Apr 07 eCommerce providers = un-userfriendly. Part2

In response to a comment, I decided to expand more on my opinion that eCommerce providers are un-userfriendly.

Lets look at Plimus:

-Okay, I sign up. That seemed a bit too easy. I set up my payment info, which seems easy enough. I am interested in payment via wire transfer, but I have no idea what any of the fields mean. So I look around for an FAQ somewhere on wire transfer on Plimus and find nothing. I know this might not be Plimus’ fault, I should probably talk to my bank to find out how wire transfer works. By “works”, I mean what do I fill in, in all the fields? I expected an eCommerce provider to at least give some info on the basics of wire transfering.

-Next up, I wanted to create a product. I had a choice between BuyNow and Recurring… What is the difference? In my eyes, BuyNow means a once-off product (ie, buy one and then its gone) and Recurring, well means, you can keep selling it. I apparently later found out that BuyNow means something else… I still do not know the difference.

-Now. Being a newbie to selling online, I had to somehow, someway provide my product. I had an try and buy concept in mind. The different options there were, were either using Armadillo, hosting your keygen or providing a list. This seems fair enough. I also wanted the option to let the customer download the full version instead of just entering the code, but that was a bit vague… Apparently, I paid extra for a download warranty? But what if the customer just downloads it just after he/she bought it? Is THAT the download warranty? And what? I pay $4 extra for that?

-Switch Promotion: I noticed Plimus has a switch promotion, which is all too cool. I am going to see how that works out. Somehow, it still does not entitle them to being user-friendly. The customer (or total beginner) should be able to setup a product without the use of a switch promotion.

eSellerate:

-Well, eSellerate seemed to impress me. They provided decent FAQ’s. Stuff like, how to setup a product, and what most of the fields actually mean.

-Why call products SKU’s? It was confusing at first.

-The problems I had with eSellerate is the evaluation trial account thing. It might seem usefull, but I found it a tad more confusing than helpful. So I was browsing through the FAQ’s and looking around, when I started to wonder, where I should enter my payment options. I never did that. I ended up wasting 15min looking for payment options, when I eventually stumbled to the fact that when I sign up for a full account, they will provide that option. Pffftt… That helped!

Avangate:

-So, I tried Avangate too. I had trouble logging in, but that is a bad on my part. I didnt realise they provided a demo account.

-Whats with the statistic info in the bottom left? For a second, I thought that was the whole avangate’s stats. To my knowledge that is just an example… I hope so.

-I have to choose a shipping class. The options are -Standard- and SRS. I have no idea what that means. No FAQ on it either.

-Avangate shed some light on how the licencing system works. I understand it better now.

-The demo stuff is really unprofessional. To have licence key-list-generator stuff called “dbdb” and “floalia” is really stupid. I repeat. Evaluation accounts should be done properly!

Conclusion:

-Excuse my long post. Now you see what I have to go through! Gosh. I am going to take up Plimus on their switch promotion… for now. Ill detail on how everything works out.