Actinic Business v7
Summary: Actinic Business v7 is a scaleable out-of-the-box e-commerce solution that allows both individuals and companies to start selling online.
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Editors' rating:
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User rating:
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RRP:£799.00
Pros
- UK-based
- powerful
- improved interface
- scalable
- includes 30-day trial hosting
Cons
- No Undo action
- no search engine optimisation or direct mail tools
- need to budget for long-term hosting and payment processes
The latest version of Actinic's software sports a new user interface and adds a range of new features. These include: basic content management and task scheduling; extended back office integration through support for ODBC databases; improved discounting functions; and a digital download module that enables delivery of electronic products such as digital images, MP3 tracks and other software via download. For added value, the software now comes as standard with two modules that were previously sold for a further £500: Sage Line 50 and QuickBooks accounting plug-ins.
That’s not all though. This UK-based e-commerce solution boasts extended reporting and customer accounting features, together with all the features new to Actinic Catalog v7, such as improved navigation, better catalogue management and overall design enhancements. Larger companies will appreciate better order processing and reporting tools, while email and template upgrades will find favour with smaller firms. The software now also supports shared SSL encryption.
Actinic Business v7 is part of Actinic Software’s new range, which consists of three products all designed for smaller companies seeking to build a complete Web site for selling products online. Actinic Business v7 is the mid-range offering and is essentially the same as the entry-level Actinic Catalog (£379 ex. VAT), but supports more products (up to 10,000), allows you to offer a range of discounts and surcharges to any group of products and/or customers (two for the price of one, for example) and offer discounts triggered by entering a coupon code or clicking a hyperlink. Actinic Business v7 also offers built-in support for the download of electronic goods, allows you to create customer accounts with usernames and passwords, and links dynamically with third-party databases. Actinic Developer (£1,500 ex. VAT, with a one-year Developer Subscription) further offers multi-site licensing and Dreamweaver integration.
The fact that you can set up shop in a matter of days (or even hours if you’re a smaller trader) rather than weeks is a great incentive to start trading online, and the way Actinic Business takes care of the back-end processes that manage stock levels makes life a whole lot easier. It’s also worth noting that there are no monthly rental charges for the software, so smaller companies needn’t worry about hidden catches. You will, of course, have to make an additional outlay on Web hosting, as well as stump up a little extra for the services of third-party payment processors, such as WorldPay, and any marketing you wish to undertake.
When it comes to creating an online shop, the software’s updated interface is much easier to use. For instance, the opening screen now includes a preview panel showing changes to your store pages as they are made, and there’s a panel that displays the properties of the currently selected object. From the main menu bar you can now also customise toolbars and other features that were previously hidden in custom variables.
The 'Content Tree' window is used to navigate the structure of your store, as well as to organise products into sections and subsections. From here you can also view the details of a product, as well as duplicate a product in more than one section, should you want to promote the same product in different areas of your store. You can also include links to other products, sections or URLs as part of the product’s full description for cross-selling and promotion, as well as view your store in a Web browser to see how things are progressing.
Other key features allow you to import large quantities of product information in either a comma-delimited or tab-delimited text file, export the current hierarchy of sections and products, link directly to a spreadsheet or an external database via ODBC (for managing a catalogue of products in another application), and set minimum order levels at a store. You can also make it mandatory for customers to agree to your terms and conditions before they proceed with their order.
Finally, orders can be colour coded for improved order management, discounts can be made to expire after a certain time period, and you can create surcharges that are restricted to certain payment methods, should you want compensation for any extra charges applied by third-party card-processing companies.
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Talkback
5.5
From a developer's point of view, the site is not particularly easy to customise unless you remain within the boundaries set by the template system and the proprietary system.
There is not much of an online community bar Actinic's own Web site and forum (Developers need to pay to access the developers' forum!).
Some excellent features include a link to Sage Accounts.
In short, it's potentially good but let down by poor support and limited customisation facilities. Take away the Sage Line 50 link and there is no reason to recommend this product over free open source systems such as OSCommerce and the like.
6.5
8.0
The thing I hate most about this product is that the pay process goes over multiple pages, which is a real pain as these days this should be kept to a minimum. As that is my only real gripe, I would say that this is a pretty decent proposal for anyone wanting to set up an online store.
6.0
The template system on the whole seems quite simplistic on the face of it, but unfortunately several (...hundred...) HTML snippets have been orphaned from the template system and now reside in a list elsewhere in the interface. If you should find yourself wanting to edit these chunks, you'll have to look through a lengthy appendix of a PDF guide just to identify what it is you're going to need to modify. Admittedly this is a better solution than earlier versions - where you'd have to start poking around in perl scripts to change fundamental elements like table widths - but it's not what you'd expect from a leading eCommerce package.
If you're at all interested in developing accessible websites, or you need a system that will provide a flexible framework for developing attractive websites, give this product a miss.
9.0
4.0
6.0
Most important of all are that the stock management system is limited - it is particularly clumsy in its (in)ability to manage stock that is sold in a variety of quantities e.g. 50ml & 100ml; pack of 25 pack or 50 - it can tell you how much of each size you've sold but not the total amount of base product sold i.e. it can tell you you've sold 1 bag of 50 nails and 1 of 100 nails but not that you've sold a total of 150 nails.
Also, there are clearly issues with the marketing system. I've had instances of completely inappropriate discounts being given - to the point where I am very careful about what special offers I make. There is no upselling 'you may also be interested in' facility and no newsletter facility.
To top it all off, support for these problems has been poor. Actinic seem more interested in developing new products than getting the existing ones working well.
If you just want a simple but fairly effective web site and have no great ambition for your I'm sure this will do fine but if you want something that can really grow with your business then I can't recommend this software.