Anyone using the shopping cart from ShoppingQ.com? If so have you had any issues such as bugs or unusually high loads? Also how has the support been?

Thanks

I have just recently purchased ShoppingQ for a small e-commerce site. I did some research on e-commerce software a while back for a larger e-commerce site that I developed, and went with the Make-A-Store solution for that project. Since then the guys at Make-A-Store have gotten REALLY proud of their software. ShoppingQ was on my short list when I was doing my research. since my current client does not have the budget to handle the price tag of the Make-A-Store product, I opted to go with ShoppingQ.

I needed assistance with the install, but that came from the lack of knowledge on my part on installing software onto a server. The software seems to be running pretty well so far. we are still in the initial stages of implementing and designing the front-end and back-end of the site. i will keep you posted on the progress.

We're a certified hosting provider for Bitwise (the company that makes ShoppingQ). We've been using their software for our hosting customers since they released their first version of "InTheQ", ShoppingQ's predecessor.

Here are my ratings:

Excellent features for the money.

Confirmed bugs fixed relatively quickly, though sometimes it takes a fair bit of time to get a bug confirmed.

Tech support is adequate.

Software versioning is a major headache. The guy that writes the software won't write bug fixes for old major versions of the software, even if it was the latest version just 2 days ago. Often times, the only solution he'll present to you to fix a bug is that you need to upgrade to the latest version, even though that could raise more issues than it solves. There is no such thing as a "patch" in this guy's mind, only a new version number.

In the past, we've had major issues with the software license. They went so far as to change the software license agreement to the extent that it substantially affected how we were allowed to use the software and then threatened to sue us when we expressed dissatisfaction over the change. We were fully within the terms of the agreement that we signed, but not within the terms of his newly revised agreement that we had never signed. We had two options, give in to the new terms or be the defendant in a frivolous lawsuit. We gave in to the new terms because it was less hassle, though still a major headache to explain to the customers that were no longer allowed to use the software. The whole issue revolved around a changed definition of what constituted a "web hosting company."

In all fairness, those licensing issues were with InTheQ. ShoppingQ was released in part to alleviate many of those licensing issues.

ShoppingQ had its own licensing issues for awhile. Like I mentioned before, they required you to upgrade to the latest version to fix bugs. As a hosting provider, you are required to purchase licenses via one unified acccount. In order to upgrade one store to a new major version, the hosting provider had to pay a fee for every license in the account to be upgraded, even if only one license needed the upgrade. The hosting provider was then just "out" that money if their customers didn't choose to buy the upgrade. You see, the hosting provider would be legally liable to the customer if there was a bug that substantially hampered functionality of the software we sold to the hosting customer and the only way to fix that bug was to pay for a full version upgrade. Consumer law - some states are worse than others in this regard.

Just about the time we were getting ready to ditch Bitwise software altogether, they changed their policy regarding upgrades. My guess is that someone decided they were going to bring suit (or there was a substantial threat of it) against Bitwise because of their upgrade policies. Or maybe they would have lost a big customer if they didn't fix those policies. All upgrades after the initial license purchase are free. I fully expect that this will change once he has had sufficient time to revamp his licensing system so that a single license can be upgraded all by itself and major bug fixes don't become new major versions.

My personal impression is that the owner of the company is slowly beginning to understand the needs of his customers (hosting companies and a few end-users). It is hard to say when or if they will pull another stunt that puts us in a difficult position with our customers like what happened with InTheQ.

Hopefully this post has been helpful to you.

Hi Jeremy,

I am also a certified reseller for ShoppingQ. We absolutely love the software. It is really simple to use and is loaded with tons of features. We have compared many other software programs and feel that, along with it's robust features, the skins idea is next to none.

Bug fixes are quickly fixed and the support is excellent. They almost always get back to us the same day, most of the time within a couple of hours. They were also very helpful when we first came on board with them in answering our questions and helping us with almost anything we asked of them.

When it comes to feature requests they have been very accomodating where feezable. Several of our suggestions and ideas were implemented which has continued to make ShoppingQ outstanding.

I would respectfully say that I'm not sure what advantagecom is talking about when he says that software versioning is a headache. To upgrade to the newest version you simply untar a file which takes a couple of seconds to do. The reason that bugs are usually fixed in the newest version is because they are always adding new features and upgrading the code. I personally like new features.

If you look at the What's New link at the top of the Features page on their web site, you can clearly see that they are always working on new versions - especially since they have released 7 new versions in the past year alone with tons of new features and customer requested improvments - and all of this free to resellers. The fact that all upgrades are free to resellers is a major plus as well.

We have more than 30 ShoppingQ's on one server and have not had any load issues at all with them.

I think that advantagecom really borders on liable when he says...

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"My guess is that someone decided they were going to bring suit (or there was a substantial threat of it) against Bitwise because of their upgrade policies. Or maybe they would have lost a big customer if they didn't fix those policies. All upgrades after the initial license purchase are free. I fully expect that this will change once he has had sufficient time to revamp his licensing system so that a single license can be upgraded all by itself and major bug
fixes don't become new major versions."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That is totally untrue! We have worked with the owner for Bitwise for the past several years as well and we know that free reseller upgrades were done as a guesture of goodwill for all resellers. I know we certainly appreciated it. Often times people want new features and enhancements, but the don't want to pay for the added work that goes into the upgrades. We were willing to pay for upgrades, but it's nice that we don't have to.

I dont think any other professional e-commerce software provider has as low a price point as they do, offers free upgrades to resellers, or comes out with new features and upgrades as fast as they do.

I would roll with it if I were you Jeremy!

To keep things peaceful in this post, I will say that I mean no offence to advantagecom or his opinions. I was not trying to start a debate. I guess there is always two sides to things. I just wanted to present mine.

Cheers!


Chad E. Roadhouse
NitroMax Web Hosting
http://www.nitromax.com