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Small Business ComputingFrom security concerns to software selection, this is the place to ask your fellow small-business owners how to approach and improve your small-business computing.
IM SCHOCKED!! at how long this thread has been going. Ok my 2cents over the past 6 years.
1- MOM not worth it at all stay away.
2- Mainstreat Commerce = Ripoff $1,000 a month, no demo time
3- IS = I looked into this 3 years ago and ive always said the concept is great but no way is this ready for the real world.
SO what im currently using is ********* Order Manager = excellent once you get usaed to it and figure it all out, Support is excellent, their forums are filled with other users and employees and very active, help is a click away literally. VERY Worth every dime.
Site is hosted on a yahoo store platform, which i hate, small fortune to build professionally though YStoreTools.com is my number one source and choice for anything to do with my yahoo store after being ripped off by 3 other developers.
now my only problem is finding a Database developer who can build me a database to integrate all my suppliers and custom calculations etc..
Ive been in development with aspdotnetstorefront shopping cart for 9 months. Let me just say stay the heck away from this shopping cart too, this company is in the business of price fixing their cart, as well as deleting your posts from within their forums if they cant fix a known bug with their cart, they are extremely unhelpful and the truth is they do nothing to help you, their forums are answered mostly by their reps when they feel like it and if they feel like it. If i had any money i would take this company to court. Their documentation is confusing at best and very unclear. Unless you know everything there is to know about XML and ASP.net, plus other programing skills most of dont have stay away from aspdotnetstorefront shopping cart youll save yourself 1500 bucks, stress and a huge freaking headache.
Seeing how long this thread has been going and how many of the same people are still tracking this, I kind of feel like asking what about if a bunch of us get together and develop our version of a real shopping cart and order management system, supply chain management, shipping system, etc.. everything we need under one roof. This would be a huge undertaking. Im not even sure if would be possible.
We would need a development team and few dedicated individuals who are willing to fund, test and build this from our first hand real world use knowledge.
I have been scouring the internet day and night for years looking for a solid system, and to the best of my knowledge it doesnt exist without an absolutely ridiculous investment.
Can it be done? can it be scalable? can it be profitable or can we just build it for our own use?
Looks like the forum thread starred out the name of the order manager i currently use. its abbreviation commonly used is SEOM.. google it. "SEOM order manager" if this gets cut out, i would believe this is done on purpose or this forum is moderated by someone who hate this company for one reason or another. which is absurd because this is the entire point of this forum people sharing jeeeesh guys keep some part of the fee world free for g-d sakes. really cmon...
First of all, great information on this post. Currently, i am too shopping for all-in-one solution but willing to separate the financial side of the process. We are a office supplies wholesaler/distributor with about 15 users.
Currently, we are offering our products via B2B (wholesale), B2C (retails, multiple websites, multiple eBay account, and Amazon) and planning to add Yahoo shopping and more ecommerce site in the future. The tasks to manage inventories and orders from multiple channel is just too much for our QuickBooks Enterprise version.
Therefore, we are looking for ERP/CRM/OCM. Must have requirements: Able to handle multi-channel (Retail, B2B, Ecommerce, EBay, Amazon); Web-based so that i implement them anywhere i want; support multi-brandings or companies.
These are the few companies that we are looking at:
CORESENSE ON-DEMAND RETAIL MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE www.coresense.com
Just went through a 2 hours demo with them. Great software that probably will solve 70% of my operations. However, they do not have any financial integration except for the sales processes. I've been told that they are working on the P.O integration with QB so that i can write check/payment on QB. Pretty impressed on the demo.
Pricing: 25K to 30K implementation with training included (90 - 120 days of implementation)
Monthly: $2000/month + 0.25 per order transactions. This is for unlimited users and include one website. For additional website or channel, there is be an extra of $99/channel
RiteCart Multichannel http://www.palindromesoftware.com/
Had a 2 hours demo with them as well. Software is able to handle multiple channel ordering but less polish than Coresense. I guess that's probably why the cost is substantially lesser.
Would post a follow up after the demo with the rest on the list. As for now, i am happy to get some feedback from Coresense users. I tried to google it but found nothing. Keep up the good work guys.
Ohh by the way, i'm too looking for some ERP Systems and financial system to replace QB and solve my multi-channel purchasing. Here is some that i found:
I can say something about coresense, their platform does look great, and yes you can scour the internet about them and all youll find are PR articles they wrote about themselves or published and thats it. As far as a good company to do business with ? i wouldnt deal with them if they paid me. After going thru a demo with them i get told that my company doesnt fit with them. hmmm lets see my first year in business i grossed 1.4mm second yr 2.3mm (when i first spoke to them), 3rd year (after corsense experience) 3.8mm (too bad for them) so far this year to date gross 4.1mm.
This forum automatically stars*** out the 4th company on your list above Stone, e d g e. the reason why they do that i have no clue this is a good company and their software is open source so you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you have the know how. They also have an extremely active forum with many users out to help each other on top of their excellent support for their platform.
It will handle multiple selling channels an websites fro a variety of shopping carts granted each cart costs a one time fee. For a company of your size i would definitely recommend going with their SQL version. Though i do not know the details of your business its very hard to say if this would be good for you or not, but they are an honest company to do business with and thats what matters to me more than the coresense hoopla.
Devix is another very big player and expensive too. never went through a demo with them as fro what i hear their prices are into the thousands as well.
Mainstreet - did not want to provide a me with a demo to log in and view, all he, and i say he because i think its a one man show, only offered to do a remote desktop session for 30 minutes and if im testing out a platform that im going to spend 1k a month for you better spend more time on the phone detailing your hopped up platform and show me what you can do or give me a demo to log into and see for myself thats why i hate these big companies. They are not willing to do that. They want you to sing your life away without showing you what they can really do and then when you run into problems they say oh opps ok we'll work on it and you have to pay us $200 an hour to fix the problem with their own platform.
So to sum up whomever you go with make sure you get it in WRITING that if "anything" goes wrong with their system they will fix it without charge.
Oh and in case you want the canned email response i got from coresense after 2 weeks of providing them all my data specs and database this is the disgusting slap in the face response i get. Even though when this person threw her numbers at me which were equal to your above i accepted and was willing to pay them for their platform. VERY glad i did not move forward. At the end of my 2nd year in business after this experience i donated $12k to 3 different organizations. My comments about these big companies would not be kind at all. If i was to spend the money i would go with SAP, SAGE, Microsoft Dynamics these are the guys you should be looking at. If i learned anything, none of these programs are easy and none exist that say they are easy that actually work the way they say they do.
My recommendation? The simple/hard way but definitely effective, each site would be managed individually into its own system. Then tally them up into quickbooks on their own and then tally that up end of the quarter which is what i do. Costs a heck of a lot less causes slightly more work, but once you get the workflow you can create some automated process with a program called "Automate" by Network automation, this program is a lifesaver and i mean it, best 1k i ever spent besides my Herman Miller chair.
EMAIL FROM CORSENSE
Thank you for your interest in CORESense. Our mission is to create a competitive advantage for mid-sized retailers by providing them with everything they need for achieving retail business success.
As such, we feel it is best to let you know that our experience has shown that companies like yours are not a good fit for CORESense. Most likely you can be best served with a standalone POS and/or ecommerce solution. Quite often after talking with companies who are just starting up in business or ecommerce, they will come back to us later on to help them take their business to the next level. We hope that is the case with you.
If you would like a few suggestions for affordable systems, please feel free to contact us. If you would still like to be included in our educational program (newsletter and webinars), please let us know.
I actually ended up choosing 'NetSuite Small Business' shortly after posting this question, $90/month per user (not their full blown 'Netsuite Enterprise' system for $399/month per user, or somewhere in abouts that).
I met with them at their local office to discuss the product in detail and to tell them what we were looking for, our rep even pulled one of the web techs down a few times when we started to get a bit technical with what we were looking for in regards to the website functionality.
To date, I've been very happy with the features and flexibility of the system.
Major warning: the learning curve is steep.
To be fair, I did opt out of any training they were offering, and any setup work they quoted, to save an additional $5-6k. I felt that since I was starting from the ground up, and had no data to import, I could get by (I was also relying on my 3 years of business degrees to help me out - lets just say they were rusty!)
They did have a few 'getting started' type web seminars that I logged into and participated in, and I know they have other presentations in their "NetU" offerings that I have yet to try. Plus there is an online forum which you can subscribe to and seek help with others. I haven't hit any roadblocks that bad yet, and with the 'Small Business' application you get 3 free tech support emails per month... ...not much, but it's something, and I have yet to use those too!
The entire 'Help' sections were very well thought out, and quite extensive. Nice little things like if you're on a page in the application and select 'Help' it brings you directly to THAT page's help page, and tells you just about everything you'd need to know about the page your looking at. Also, all the input fields are 'help clickable'(eg. if you're staring at a box field that wants some type of information punched into it, but your brain simply cannot process what it's asking for, click on the field description to get a more detailed answers as to what it's expecting from you - neat! saved my butt more than a few times)
re multicurrency: The system is setup for it. I am currently using CAN, US, Euro and British Pound.(at launch time, it will only have CAN)
Pros & Cons:
Pros - too many to list quite frankly! highlights are everything you and I asked for and then some I've never even thought would be possible (eg set your minimum stock level, and when inventory quantities drop below that, warnings are sent, and a PO is automatically generated...). Dashboard is really nice, you can customize it to give you just about any sort of an up-to-minute info/report you'd like, so when you log in you have an instant overview of profit/loss, inventory sold, web stats, whatever! There's tons, I could go on and on, but I don't want to sound like a sales man, check it out yourself... ...I know iCode and Netsuite can give you access to a live demo of the application, should you want to mess around.
Cons - my biggest gripe is that the system was clearly built for people moving from QuickBooks, who are familiar with how that system was developed and works, rather than a 'lets build this in a logical way'. It's not hugely bad, but while learning the system you can't help but laugh at how it was laid out at times (okay, it may simply be that way to me being a System Administrator for MS products through the years - Win95/98/NT/2000/XP, NT/2000/2003 Server, Exchange 5.5/2000/2003, IIS, SQL, etc, etc - so you kind of get used to how things get laid out, it's not just MS, I work with Adobe and Macromedia product on a daily basis as well, and it's all about the same UI...). I didn't realize this until I signed up to a web seminar, where they demonstrate how easy the system is to use, because a lot of the functions are the same in QuickBooks and Netsuite. Great marketing to get people away from QuickBooks (#1 business app!), not the greatest for non-QuickBooks folk. Which is fine really, like any app, it only does so much, and when you've figured that out, you'll be fine like I am now. Or just take some training.
[as I’m rereading this, I should note that Netsuite has a variety of ‘Roles’ which are all customizable. When I log in, I log in as the 'Administrator' so I see all and can do all which may also be why it’s a little, err, ‘complex’(?). Should you change your ‘role’ to, say, an ‘accountant’, you’d only see accounting items and not shipping, website, POs, etc, etc – so my biggest con, may not be a con at all…sorry!]
iCode vs Netsuite
Originally I was quoted $1600 for an iCode licence. In the time I waited to buy (trip to Europe, meeting with tuners), they switched CEOs and direction. When I called them back to sign up, I was requoted $21,000. My reaction to Mr.iCode rep "ha ha ha ha ha - 'click'" (I admit, not very professional, but I'm a SMALL BUSINESS with LITTLE START UP $$$ - why would I want to sink 1/3 of my start-up funds into a software package?? morons I tell you! yes, you Mr.iCode CEO!)
In that time Netsuite had also released their new online product (no more "Oracle's Netsuite" requiring a $$$ Oracle backend, hardware, etc) which I am so glad right now that I chose! How can you go wrong with a 100% hosted app (that allows you to back-up!), accessible from any web browser, with everything built-in, +ecommerce website and hosting for $90/month?!
One thing I'd recommend to someone looking at Netsuite, or any licensing software package, is really sit down and think about how many licences you need. Does every employee require one, or can some 'share' (hey, if it's 'per licence' and only one person uses it at a time, it's still legal, no? ) May save you a few bucks.
My eCommerce website should be live next Friday (finalizing legal, design, etc). Feel free to check it out. It’s honestly nothing special, key word here is “clean”. It's been a long time in production, but that all been because of my end, credit card processing companies(!!!), banks, website design, and not Netsuite. I think they had my company access setup in about 4 days.
Hope some of this helps future readers.
Bryan
I own Everest ver. 4.03 with the ecommerce solution, CRM and more. It was terribly expensive and while you think you are getting in cheap, maybe less than $20k for the entire package, look the hell out for the yearly maintenance fees, installation fees, training fees and more. By the time we were finished, or should I say, Everest was finished with us, we had more than $50k in the finished solution. From there, a tech named Brent came out from Salt Lake City, did a half ass job of installing. He didn't get my shipping option working before he left (Starship) which was purchased from Everest, not Starship, and was told it was not their responsibility to make it work. WHAT THE HELL!!!! Then he didn't set up my chart off accounts properly as per standard Accounting Practices would dictate so my Income statement was inaccurate and I ended up paying a local CPA to fix it all. This ran me about another $3k to have fixed.
Over the course of 4 years now, I have been passed to 3 different sales reps, all of which can only work with you if you are spending more money it seemed. They would not get any of Everest's screw ups fixed for us without more money...yea, I had to pay them again to fix what was screwed up from them in the first place.
Just ask them about the ecommerce module Indexing function...yea, what indexing function?!! After adding 80,000 part numbers to our system, it jammed it up to a snails pace and they told me to have my local computer person make the software index. Right!! Whatever the hell this means, but is a function of tweaking their proprietary code, and my local computer man had no idea how to get this done, so I had to pay, yes pay Everest to do it and it made very little difference.
They made false promises, and screwed me at every turn for more money. I told my sales lady (Anita) to look into the crystal ball with me for a moment. Your company is all about sales, and service after the sale is way down their list of priorities and certainly making customers happy and honoring their promises is somewhere on the bottom. Anita, you will not survive in a difficult economy with this attitude. I predict Everest will be sold, traded, swallowed or shut down within a year or so if your upper management does not wake up.
This was about a year ago, I have refused to pay any maintenance fees, and I contacted Anita for a proposal to finish some unfinished programming and she told me Everest had been bought out. Humm, go figure. Funnier thing is that the attitude of the company is worse now than ever. She doesn't even return my emails because I will not pay maintenance fees until they fix issues with their software. They feel no responsibility, so we are at stale mate.
I have been considering NetSuite but my tail is still smoldering from the whole Everest experience so if I were you, I would do all your books by hand with a stack of notepads and pencils before investing a penny or one minute with the used, car salesmen at this company.
One more factor, look at the Google presents of Everest when doing a search term they should be utilizing, "Accounting Software" or "POS Software." They are nowhere to be seen. Nowhere!! I would assume sales are down, down, down for them and they are on the ropes or they would be advertising like crazy as all the other major players are. Beware!!
Here is the irony in all of this. These dumbass companies dont even realize that all we are looking for is honesty. If any of them would open their big fat mouths and just come out and say a certain part of their program doesnt work BUT "we figured out a workaround for you " we would stick around and work with them but know rather they BS you, lie and spit straight in your face as if your hard earned money means nothing to them. all these guys do not deserve one cent of my money. thats my 2cents.
I still vote for 10-20 of us (online retailers) get together and build a system form all of our experiences together. It may take est 2 years, but we can hire out a legitimate company in India, get together once every 3-4 months, elect one of us or two of us to go to india for 2 weeks every 5-6 months to look over the project.
All we need is some dedicated and gutsy individuals that are willing to to go for it and finally to hell with all these "erp solutions"
OR
You can always elect to go with SAP, Microsoft dynamics and pay 75 - 250K plus for the system you dont want. Lets see overtime the last 4 years i have lost about 70-80k from these companies and other developers same story as Bdenny they just **** you dry till your dead. And we wonder "geee i wonder why the economy is going down the drain" Because of looser companies that do this at least thats one of the reasons.
) May save you a few bucks.
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