roblawrence

Hi, I am considering 1shoppingcart or ultracart to process my recurring billing transactions for my membership website and am looking for an order processing solution that works with authorize.net and an affiliate manager built in.

Can anyone here comment on their experience with 1shoppingcart? I emailed them but haven't heard back yet. I would prefer real feedback from actual users.

1. It is possible to turn off Customer Notifications for Recurring Transactions in 1shoppingcart? Almost everyone says no, but then on one post I came across on the Internet somebody said that it was possible. Is this true? I don't want to email my customers every month and "remind" them about a bill.

2. Can 1shoppingcart automatically create an affiliate account for a customer when they buy something? For example add a tick-box on the order form, "become an affiliate"? I know 1shoppingcart does this for themselves but won't allow this for us?

3. Will 1shoppingcart be increasing the size limits for digital files? 7MB seems ridiculously small nowadays. (Is anyone here in the warrior forum using their digital product delivery service? Any good?)

4. Can 1shoppingcart use paypal for recurring billing?

5. Is 1shoppingcart fully integrated with Wishlist Member Wordpress Plugin? What I mean is, if someone cancels their membership or their credit card bounces, 1shoppingcart will communicate back with the website and tell wishlist member to block access.

6.1shoppingcart has other costs for using recurring billing option. I read somewhere there was a transaction fee of 25 cents per charge. That adds up to a lot. Imagine having 100 members and having to pay an EXTRA $25 to them every month ON TOP OF what you are already paying ($99 month). They don't list these charges anywhere on their sign-up page.

Any real world experience and feedback using their service is appreciated. Many thanks warriors.

Warm Regards,
Rob

roblawrence

Still no feedback from anyone? I emailed 1shoppingcart but got no reply.

SimonHarrison

Well....

I have had a 1shopping account for years.

We had around 220,000 people on our list

The deliverability was appaling, inboxing dire.

Over many years of discussion and lists simply not adding new users
and "faulty" reports , I just gave up and we moved 95% of our business
away.

The overall 1shoppingcart system is superb, it's really and all in one
and their new 1 click upsell is superb.

But I just lost the will to live arguing with them about the lists.

I recently deleted over 100,000 users from our lists there,
they told me they were all undeliverables...

sharris203

I'm thinking of switching from Aweber to 1SC. I need everything they offer, I'm just concerned about email deliverability. Everyone on my list will be customers who have paid. Would it help to have them add me to their address book safe list? Is there any recent news?

Colin Theriot

I've worked a lot with a whitelabel version of 1SC called 1AutomationWiz. We didn't use it for email messaging, just billing and affiliate tracking, for which it was great. The guy who owns it, Don Schnure, is an awesome guy, and knows the product inside and out and can often offer support help well beyond what 1SC does (simply because he knows our industry so well).

Of the MANY systems I've used with clients over the years, 1AW is one that just WORKED consistently and without even a squeak, even for some of the biggest launches in IM history.

Is it the best overall solution? Nah. Are there better ones depending on the situation? Yeah, probably. But if you want something that will work great as an IM shopping cart and affiliate management ware, it's battle-tested.

Roy Carter

Have a look at Nanacast.com (not an aff link). I have been investigating both this and 1SC over the last few days and Nancast looks awesome to be honest, so I will likely be moving to them shortly.

Hope that helps as I think it will do everything that you are looking for and some.

Roy

WontBeDenied

We've been using 1SC for years. With clients
we have helped them with Aweber, MailChimp
and others. The thing that stands with 1SC
is that it everything: autoresponder, shopping
cart & affiliate program. There Upsell Express
feature is an awesome benefit. Hands down!

Here are the answers to your questions....

1. It is possible to turn off Customer Notifications for Recurring Transactions in 1shoppingcart? Almost everyone says no, but then on one post I came across on the Internet somebody said that it was possible. Is this true? I don't want to email my customers every month and "remind" them about a bill.

Don't see an option to turn off notification... They send me a recurring statement each month just like with cable or electric. People are going to stay because you're providing great service.


2. Can 1shoppingcart automatically create an affiliate account for a customer when they buy something? For example add a tick-box on the order form, "become an affiliate"? I know 1shoppingcart does this for themselves but won't allow this for us?

It will be some thing to be done on webmaster side. You can send the customer a follow up email to where become an affiliate.

3. Will 1shoppingcart be increasing the size limits for digital files? 7MB seems ridiculously small nowadays. (Is anyone here in the warrior forum using their digital product delivery service? Any good?)

There's a back way to upload files to your autorepsonder account. You would get a link where the customer can download the product after check out.

4. Can 1shoppingcart use paypal for recurring billing?

No. You must have a merchant account. Last I know of this was August of 2010. It would be nice.

5. Is 1shoppingcart fully integrated with Wishlist Member Wordpress Plugin? What I mean is, if someone cancels their membership or their credit card bounces, 1shoppingcart will communicate back with the website and tell wishlist member to block access.

This would be tied to API parameters. I'm unsure of this.

6.1shoppingcart has other costs for using recurring billing option. I read somewhere there was a transaction fee of 25 cents per charge. That adds up to a lot. Imagine having 100 members and having to pay an EXTRA $25 to them every month ON TOP OF what you are already paying ($99 month). They don't list these charges anywhere on their sign-up page.

It's small investment to have an automated system that sends out a message to the subscribers and you when a CC has declined or to take care of monthly recurring processing.

Live Life to Leave a Difference,
C.F. Jackson

sharris203

Can you elaborate a little bit on this? It's one feature I need (50mb files). Also, any experience with their email deliverability rates?

IdeaLady

I recently moved from a private label version of 1SC to Ultracart. I had already moved all of my email lists from 1SC to Aweber.

1SC was very frustrating for me, and the support was lacking. Hint: If they can't answer an email when you are thinking of buying, what do you think will happen once they have you locked in?

sharris203

I had a different experience. I asked them a question about larger uploads and got a very informative reply the next day. Said their best for what I wanted was their "ad tracking" feature which could hide the real location of my amazon s3 downloads, track clicks, and disable links at will. I'm looking into UltraCart as well.

rjbutterworth

Just to resurrect this thread - did anyone actually figure out a work-around for the 1SC download file-size limitation?

1SC recommend simply mailing customers a link to a 'self-hosted' (>7MB) download in the post-purchase autoresponder, which would be fine... BUT... I need to use the 'license-code distribution' feature of 1SC, which means I'm stuck with their digital product options (including the <7MB limitation).

Comments about "out of date" and "7MB is a ridiculous limit, these days" aside, I'd love to hear if anyone figured out a creative solution.

One option I'm considering right now is using a "pre-installation executable" like the one Yahoo use when you download/install Yahoo Messenger. It's not ideal (one extra step for users), but would get past the limitation.

Rich

TrafficMystic

Have you used any of ultra carts API functions and do you know if it supports IPN notifications? ie. for monthly re-occurring billing?

I've got a system setup to do this but I'm looking some alternatives that supports affiliates better for a new product..

thanks

Steve

rjbutterworth

For info: Some findings following a phone call with UltraCart this afternoon:

- UC does handle digital product downloads, WITH sale-specific license code issue (if you need it);

- No file size limits (but they do charge a fairly nominal storage/bandwidth fee per month, and the bandwidth charge is more than 3x S3...not an issue if you're selling the downloads though, really, when you look at the numbers);

- The platform integrates with AMember, so you can easily plug a membership offering into the product list (and yes charging monthly, recurring);

- In-built affiliate module looks pretty solid;

- Can order SSL from them direct, inexpensively, and map CNAME (for https://secure.yourdomain.com);

- Integrates with AWeber (and I was told on the phone MailChimp, too).

Seems like a plausible alternative, given the 1SC issues people are reporting - I'm going to go for the trial and see how it holds up (rates are pretty low, too).

Rich

Marc Harty

First, I think the specific needs have been covered in early posts in this
thread.

I wanted to add my own 2 cents.

I have had 1shoppingcart since 2003. I am in the process of migrating to Premium Web Cart (in part, because of the positive reviews from here on the WF.)

I have colleagues that have been happy with Nanocast. I have heard that UltraCart is good, but they only had a limited support team. (May no longer be true as of today.)

One thing that I really like about PWC is you get your own cart advisor. This person is assigned to your account. It was beyond frustrating when I had to pay 1sc for tech support when basically it was because of the limitations of their system.

I haven't been pleased with the deliverability of 1sc emails. I also don't like to have to pay for more than 1 level of upsells/downsells.

I also found the affiliate program with 1sc very limiting since you have to define a default program. With PWC, you can have as many programs as you like.

PWC is relatively new but they have quite a robust selection of features. I'm still paying about what I did per month with 1sc, but getting a lot more for it.

Hope that provides some additional framing of this discussion.

Marc

James Campbell

Let us know what your experience is like with PWC.

Just know that many of the PWC reviews here have been highly suspect in my eyes because they seemingly come from people who are promoters of the service.

Also, there is some misinformation on their website, in particular, regarding the comparison chart.

Nanacast is great, however you are right, the support on an individual basis is a bit frustrating for some people.

James

Jesus Perez

James, go read my Premium Web Cart Review. It wasn't exactly "glowing" like the others.

EDIT: Link leads to a biased review site of Nanacast with affiliate links.

Amy Carczak

Jesus, did you really answer a question about "biased reviews" with a link to an obviously biased review / affiliate site? Very subtle -

I'll tell you up front that I actively promote Premium Web Cart as part of my Small Business Training Guide, but I do it openly in my program and what I found is that people actually prefer to use my affiliate link as they feel like they're doing me a great favor (and they are... a 35% recurring favor) .

I can answer many of these questions about 1Shoppingcart and then contrast them to Premium Web Cart (and I have no affiliate link here):

Not at this time. You should also take a hard look at the affiliate payment process.

With PWC, you can have an affiliate account automatically created and you can instantly combine a Tell a Friend script with this as well.

Not known ... but 1SC is a little sneaky on their sales page as they claim "unlimited bandwidth" so it makes it seem like you have the ability to have an unlimited size for the digital file but this is not the case. 7 MB is the current limit.

PWC has 50MB in their Pro package and a true Unlimited in their new Elite package (announced to existing customers only)

No. If you have multiple products in the cart and any of them have a recurring billing associated to the product, then PayPal will be removed as a payment option for that entire order.

PWC Works with PayPal for recurring payments, trial payments etc.

In the past 1SC only created the membership. Since the new update of Wishlist, I'm not 100% sure how they do it now.

PWC is built into Wishlist and manages the customers from creation to suspension, etc.

Yes, 1SC does charge the $.25 fee even with their Professional package. PWC does not.

Here's where I get my clients to bite on Premium Web Cart:

1. Everything included under 1 system.

2. Cart advisor. My people are not tech savy and need more help than a trouble ticket offers.

But in the end, your business is unlike anyone else's so pick up the phone and call all the options out there. If you don't like what you hear during the sales pitch, it never gets better after they have your money.

Jesus Perez

Amy, did you really answer a question about "biased reviews" when you clearly state you promote PWC within one of your products? Oh, I see...you used a disclaimer.

Regardless of the site it's posted on, it's still an honest review based on my experience. PWC was buggalicious and it's weird, jumpy, domain-based system didn't seem cohesive.

My only regret is not logging every bug I found.

Amy Carczak

Jesus, it does make a difference... both ethically and legally.

It also lends itself to credibility. If we're providing reviews on products and services, then we should admit when we have a biased viewpoint.

And a bias towards a specific product is not really a bad thing to admit.

It's obvious you're an affiliate of Nanacast, so instead of trying to hide this fact, it's better to clearly state, "I'm an affiliate of Nanacast and here's why I chose to promote this cart over all the other options on the market today".

This takes the credibility issue off the table and allows you to focus 100% on why Nanacast is the best product in your opinion, or in this case, Nanacast versus Premium Web Cart.

Think about all other products, when you recommend a car to someone, people do not discount your opinion because you drive that car. It actually adds to your credibility because you liked a product well enough to personally use it / buy it.

Bugs??? ...There are only 2 types of software companies:
1. Companies that admit to having bugs and then fix them ... or
2. Companies that claim they have never had a bug (these companies are known as liars).

This forum is filled with complaints from the biggest names in cart business as being down for extended periods of time ...sometimes for multiple days. But I have never had downtime with premium web cart that I've known about. Either their servers have not gone down or they have been for time periods too short for me to notice.

Do I think they will never go down? No, this would be naive. I bank with Chase and their system crashed for 3 days recently. All the revenue from all the shopping cart systems combined are nothing more than a rounding error to a company like Chase ...it's obviously not something that can be avoided with 100% certainty.

I stand by my original point though ...each business is unique and has unique requirements. It's extremely important that a person contact (call) multiple companies and learn what each of them does well. Nanacast, 1SC, Infusionsoft, Premium Web Cart, etc, etc all have their strengths and all have weaknesses.

Make sure the company you go with has a matching strength in the specific area of your need. It's more about the "match up" than anything else.

Alex Barboza

Today I subscribed to a list using 1ShoppingCart. The conformation email arrived three hours later Is it always that way?

roblawrence

And 1shoppingcart REFUSES to listen to it's customers. 7MB file downloads make the digital download portion of their offering ABSOLUTELY USELESS. If they merely increased this to 50MB to 100MB this would cover nearly all ebooks and audio downloads. Bandwidth is dirt cheap nowadays.

STOP promoting digital downloads as a "selling point", Mr. 1ShoppingCart when they certainly are NOT one. Listen to your market and give us what WE WANT.

Josh Anderson

Premium web cart affiliates are very commonly found posting fake reviews of Nanacast using anonymous pseudonyms online. PWC itself bids on our trademark in google using false claims about our service. premium web cart publishes inaccurate and misleading comparisons to other carts.

You can learn a lot about a company that practices deceptive advertising.

While I am not referring to anyone in this thread... It's just something that is unfortunate about the practices of PWC and their affiliates and fake reviewers.

If anyone wants an accurate review of Nanacast get one from someone who has done more than poked their head in the front door and nothing else.

Nanacast has a reputation for providing some of the best support in the industry, having one of the highest levels of user satisfaction, and providing innovative solutions that have doubled or even tripled many clients revenues after they migrated to us from other solutions.

Watch the testimonial videos on our home page at Nanacast.com and then contact any of those users and they will let you know what an impact Nanacast has on real businesses.

We are honest, innovative, and don't bother comparing ourselves because our platform is so uniquely powerful.

Sparklesperson

ultra carts' autoresponders are pathetic. I finally gave up and left. Don't go if you need a good ar - "We're a shopping cart" was their response to my suggestion. their other answer to that was to offer custom programming - which is pointless for me.

Tom Reed

Josh

This started as a 1Shoppingcart thread, and nobody said a disparaging word about NanaCast, so it seems a bit hypocritical of you to write a multi-paragraph tirade about Premium Web Cart's "honesty".

Especially when Jesus came out like an attack dog on the thread and you know full well of his relationship with you.

And anyone watching his "honest review" site also saw him remove all comments once people started saying positive things about Premium Web Cart that didn't quite fit in his "honest review" narrative.

Please re-read this thread and see if you can find anything dishonest written by people that openly admit to being Premium Web Cart affiliates. Then compare the text and the tone of your affiliate.

You can't take the highroad while riding in the gutter with Jesus.

Tom Reed

Just imagine how many "bugs" would have been found had an actual product been loaded into the cart.

I'm not sure how you perform an "honest review" when you do not add 1 product or make 1 order.

See the attached screenshot and then judge the validity of this review, from an affiliate of a competitor, for yourself.

Jesus Perez

Validity? Are you questioning the integrity of my review, Tom? Because if we're talking about integrity, I'm curious why you posted my personal account details from your internal system on a public forum without my consent? Is that in accordance with your company policy? Maybe it's the same company policy that allows the posting of nasty Adwords ads on competitor search terms?

Regardless, I thank you for confirming that I did, indeed, sign up and test the system. There is nothing like having the original product owner post an internal screenshot with my private details that confirms I was, in fact, a customer.

To answer your question: At the time, I was trying to create a membership, not a product. I can't recall if I made it that far since this was over a year ago (and there were a lot of bugs that discouraged additional testing).

And yes, I'm an affiliate and customer of Nanacast. I currently use Nanacast because their platform is the best fit for my needs. I tested your platform and several other solutions like Delavo, LFM, WLM and others before deciding on Nanacast.

My review is valid and honest and based on my personal experiences on January 2011. I don't know how it's changed since then so I can't comment.

Since you have enough time on your hands to hunt down my signup details in your system and post my personal account details, maybe you can take 2 minutes to answer a quick question...

Why do you use a bunch of different public domain names to host each different feature you offer?For example, you use pwcproject.com for project management, pwcmembers.com for the Member Pro feature and pwcanswers.com for the Knowledgebase/Answers feature?

Why didn't you setup your system with only one URL? I find it quite an inconvenience to tell customers to visit 5 different URLs for 5 different features.

sprawl5

My views on 1sc:

1) They used to have *crappy* delivery... but as far as I can see, things have gotten much better in the last two or three years.
2) Their customer support system is terrible-- they actually charge you for phone tech support.
3. Their account-size tiering is abrupt; when your lists hit a certain size, instead of being able to buy more space incrementally, you pretty much have to double your outlay.

So... they're okay, but if I was just starting out, I'd look around fairly extensively.

I'm actually surprised at some of the remarks about PWC-- in my dealings with them, they were an extremely professional and going-out-of-their-way helpful bunch.

roblawrence

You have raised some interesting points which should give us all pause for concern. As the original poster of this thread (nearly 2 years ago). I am disturbed at how competing companies are treating each other. Customers just want a fair way to compare different companies to ensure that they get the best fit for them. This thread has certainly become an eye-opener as to what goes on "behind the scenes" in the marketing world.