the other side of shopping

y apologies for writing little over the last week or two. I've been distracted by evaluating two rival software packages for creating an online shop for April Young. As part of this, I've had to upgrade my webhosting package to allow the use of PHP and mySQL databases. (That means I could switch this blog to Wordpress - more on this another time.)

The first option, called easyGen, has the main benefits of being cheap and highly configurable. The drawback, however, despite the many claims of ease of use and various tutorials, is there are no explanations of the principles of how it works, so I find it impossible to apply the techniques to my own ends. I think you would have to be a programmer to get the most out of this.

(Actually, that's the polite version. I felt that I ought to be able to understand the easyGen packgage. I've developed relational databases in the past, so this shouldn't be beyond me, but I was beginning to wonder whether my brain had stopped working.)

The other option, called Actinic, is much more straightforward but has less potential for using your own designs and is far more expensive - £1,500 + VAT for the developer version.

I was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that developing an online shop was beyond my skills and budget.

Yesterday, however, I received a phone call from Actinic. They had already sent me a letter by post after I'd registered for the 30-day free trial, so my initial reaction was one of caution against heavy-handed pressure selling. The conversation, however, turned out to be very useful.

Version 8 of the software is in the beta testing stage just now, and may be ready for release as soon as next week. The pricing structure has been drastically changed, and is much cheaper now, and there is much more opportunity to incorporate the shop into web pages designed elsewhere.

I've downloaded the beta version, and will investigate further, but this looks promising.

Tags: online shop | easyGen | Actinic