Royal Mail/eSeller "Lite" ecommerce solution

[JakeH]

Is anyone else trying to implement the new ecommerce solution from Royal Mail / eSeller? We signed up to it in January with the promise of being live within a matter of weeks. We are now months down the line and eSeller are still unable to say when they will have finished the solution. Each week they promise a working solution "next Monday" each week we have been let down. New bugs found almost daily and fundamental functionality still not available and not timetable for delivery.

I would be interested to find out if we are the only company to sign with Royal Mail/eSeller for this "Lite" solution or to hear from other companies who have signed up to see what stories/promises you have been told.

Starting to think we might have made the wrong decision...

Jake

[Baa]

Do you have a link please?

Can find Eseller Pro, is that the same site?

[scotserve]

Starting to think we might have made the wrong decision...

Any hosted solution is the wrong decision IMHO for most people

But......................

One operated by Royal Mail I would never touch considering they have no experience at all of providing any web services to end users in this field.

If 8 months of promises are broken how are you going to feel at the months of wait to get a resolution to a problem once up and running? will your clients wait? This industry is full of broken promises, dust down and move on

[JakeH]

Yes - This is the "lite" version from eSellerPro. Last promise from their Operations Manager was Friday 22nd stating a release the following Monday would resolve the remaining problems. The release never happened. They are still trying to fix the bugs. It appears to me that eSeller do not really have a handle of this product and to be honest, Royal Mail (who sold us the system) don't seem to be too bothered.

Can anyone recommend an entry level ecommerce system that is proven?

[seamus]

there are plenty of open source carts you can use (open source being free to use and develop)

all you need is your own hosting account and you can install whatever you want, zen cart, prestashop, open cart, wordpress, loads to choose from
all tried and tested and do the job perfectly well

[Baa]

Yes - This is the "lite" version from eSellerPro. Last promise from their Operations Manager was Friday 22nd stating a release the following Monday would resolve the remaining problems. The release never happened. They are still trying to fix the bugs. It appears to me that eSeller do not really have a handle of this product and to be honest, Royal Mail (who sold us the system) don't seem to be too bothered.

Can anyone recommend an entry level ecommerce system that is proven?

This is where there is a bit of a gap in the market IMO.

Entry level ecommerce systems that enable you to have some kind of freedom about your hosting I've never seen myself so they might exist but I've never seen them.

This won't earn me any friends here I know  Open source means you have to do a lot of donkeywork and time to get up and running and a certain amount of technical knowhow or willingness to learn.

Hosted solutions are fine but your hands are so very tied in what you can and can't do and moving to upgrade or because (and this happened to me) the business owners ran off and the hosting company is unwilling to help. I'm unwilling to recommend them due to my experience so others may have rather better stories to tell

To run an ecommerce site on a budget at entry level means you have some tough decisions to make about how much time and money you have to spend actually running the site as opposed to the difficulties of having your efforts in online marketing at the mercy of another business in the form of a hosted solution.

Sometimes you can find an open source site that is properly set up and has various mods which you can move, it's a good compromise and with the popular software there is a lot of advice and backup available in both free and paid forms.

It's quite easy for those of us who are more into the techy side of it to appreciate that many retailers just want a platform on which to sell without being an expert in the subject. As the industry grows there will come a time where it's a lot easier to run an ecommerce operation, at the moment we independents are a bit between a rock and a hard place.

[scotserve]

Entry level ecommerce systems that enable you to have some kind of freedom about your hosting I've never seen myself so they might exist but I've never seen them.

It's quite easy for those of us who are more into the techy side of it to appreciate that many retailers just want a platform on which to sell without being an expert in the subject. As the industry grows there will come a time where it's a lot easier to run an ecommerce operation, at the moment we independents are a bit between a rock and a hard place.

Hmmmm................
http://www.scotserve.co.uk/shared-hosting/entry-e-commerce-plan

Been quite successful with the majority of customers up and running in a few days since I launched it - sometimes though people want to make it hard for themselves

[JakeH]

I think the most frustrating thing is the supplier Royal Mail/eSeller are incapable of saying when the system will be working. They also do not seem to care that it is costing us money in terms of sales. Had we been told the truth when we were sourcing a system we shoudl not have selected them and, if the way they are treating this implementation is anything to go by, I would certainly not recommend eSeller as a provider.

WARNING to anyone considering Royal Mail / eSeller as a ecommerce provider - MAKE SURE YOU GET SOMETHING IN WRITING TO SAY WHEN YOU WILL BE LIVE AND MAKE SURE IT IS CLEARLY AGREED WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN THEY FAIL TO DELIVER!!!!!

[ukjamesscott]

JakeH - what's the update on this? Did you get live yet?