roblawrence

Has anyone here had difficulties using Wishlist Member? I am about to build my membership site and would like to know what pitfalls or mistakes to avoid. Some of the comments in their support desk have me concerned:

WishList Products Support : Details on WLM v2.50.882?

The software looks powerful but maybe it's not the best choice? What do you think?

George Tee

I've been using since start of this year and i think it's real awesome! i'm still on the process of creating the membership.

roblawrence

Good to hear you like it. That's encouraging! There's nothing like real world experience.

VegasGreg

It works well and is very powerful.

It is best to plan out exactly how you want your site set up first and note any specific features that you want included. That will make setting it up much easier.

Kenster

I am using it with no complaints! Very easy to use

SmartCutGeek

WishList is a complex piece of software and the more capabilities something like that offers, the greater the chance for it to burp (or explode) when changes are made to the environment. There have been a few issues when the upgrade to WP 3 came out as well as a conflict with one of their own addon plugins but these were fixed relatively quickly.

I have attended two of the WishList Live events and think that the owners are good guys and that the company is pretty solid.

Disclaimer: I own a couple of the unlimited licenses and am a certified developer so there might be a slight bias because of that.

Jesus Perez

Every WLM site I've setup in Hostgator and LiquidWeb gives me the same problem. The dreaded "temp" user. People that, for some mysterious reason, never complete signup. I get them from Paypal all the time and I have no idea why. Support tried to help...but it keeps happening. I'm not alone either. This results in frustrated customers and a frustrated owner since I need to jump around and fix things up.

This leads to problem #2. For the busy site product developer, WLM (and most WP member plugins in general) force me to jump from site to site managing members. They're not in one consolidated place. I've been looking to centralize my operations and customer center. There are few solutions that do this and they're pricey. Delavo is $47/mth but doesn't work with WP installs on separate servers. Nanacast does it for $97/mth.

Alone in the sea of cheap is SiteManPro. It's a newcomer that does it for $50 one time fee.

Keep this business fragmentation in mind when purchasing a solution. It eventually becomes quite a burden to customers and product owners alike.

Good luck.

Jason Fladlien

I love Stu and Tracy, but have had lots of problems with Wishlist Member. Here are some of the issues I've personally had:

1) has trouble handling volume - like when you send 200+ people through a registration process, many get hung up... which is a customer support nightmare

2) Almost every time wishlist updated and/or wordpress updated, there were problems

3) menu items inexplicably disappeared - things like a "login" and signup" page that I'd create would NEVER show up in the menu after the first time they were displayed. I'd have to create custom menus with actual LINKs every time, or HACK the menu

4) the temp user problem that Jesus had I also had

5) one time we got locked out and one of our customers became the admin - I still have NO idea how that happened, but it was with a fresh released version of wishlist. Their support gave me no indication on how to get back in, luckily my assistant scoured the web and we found a hack

6) was promised integration for at least one year (probably longer) with infusionsoft, and never got it

That's why we ended up creating WP Member Champ as a solution to offer for the marketplace, and instead of trying to be all things it's just a few features such as automatic integration with paypal and aweber - but it works like a charm!

Kirk Ward

I'm with Jason on this. The program seems slick, but it is clunky for complex membership sites. And, it does not do true "drip" for sequentially released products. I used it for two years and had to leave because (1) it broke on updates, and (2) it was a nightmare doing drip release products.

The last time it broke, I lost the majority of my members because they could not access the product, and WLM support repeatedly told me that I did not have a problem. It wasn't until I posted in public forums that there were "X" number of threads in their support forum on exactly the same topic that I even got a recognition that there might be a problem. They still weren't able to fix it.

So, six months ago, I moved to Digital Access Pass (DAP) and the support comes directly from the developers, and it can handle almost any kind of product release I can dream up. Also, because of the way the developers have the integration with Wordpress handled, I think it is going to be much more stable and expandable in the long run.

Vic Shake

Wishlist is a good tool, for just to start off,

-I've got 2 New wishlist licenses available for anyone who needs it?

- I don't need it..



Vic

Kirk Ward

I pushed for and got a refund for my unlimited. I'm supposed to still have a single, but I don't think I'll use it again. Support was too messed up. The support team weren't coders, but they tried to answer coder questions.

Kevin AKA Hubcap

Is that because DAP runs outside of WP not in it like Wishlist Member?

Kirk Ward

Yes.

For one thing, having only one small plugin/bridge to communicate with Wordpress means it should have fewer "touchpoints" and would be much easier to debug when Wordpress updates.

Mark Ford

I have been using Wishlist for a clients site I built in January this year - it is integrated with Clickbank. It is slick and relatively solid but there are things that do go bump in the night occasionally.

A couple of times, a new member was not added after processing at Clickbank - no errors on the site, and no reason as to why it happened - it just did.

The way Wishlist handles members is clunky - I find the search member function retarded and extremely limited and once you get over 100 or so members becomes frustrating.

I think Wishlist is OK for the smaller membership sites - but large sites I would be looking for a better solution.

Vinden Grace

Hmmm, these comments are worrying as I have purchased an unlimited Wishlist Member license! We're hoping for significantly more than 100 members, so scalability is key! A couple of questions then please:
1. Has anyone successfully used Wishlist Member with a large number of members?
2. Can anyone recommend a very good Wishlist member consultant to help us map out the structure and set it all up please?

Many thanks for any help you can provide folks :-)
Cheers.
Vinden

Kirk Ward

This is especially true if you have multiple drip series that you want to grow.

I had over a half dozen drip product series with up to fifty items in each series. Wishlist did not have a smooth way of handling that kind of operation. It got so bad that my product listing admin page would time out loading. No explanation or solution from tech support for that either.

mobility

Kirk - Thanks for your honest feedback about Wishlist Member, the problems w/ WP upgrades, and problems with drip content. I agree with your comments about support! I don't own Wishlist Member, but I'm considering buying it. A few days ago, I opened a support ticket asking about its capabilities. The response I received was terrible - very vague and boilerplate. It was clearly from someone who was NOT a techie. After 4 emails back-and-forth, I STILL don't have a solid answer from the woman who responded to my ticket.

I asked whether Wishlist Member had the capability to offer members who joined an individual "page/blog" where they could write articles about their hobby, and post photos. Hence, each member would need the ability to post/upload content to his own individual Wordpress page. Support's response was...

This is a very vague answer, and it demonstrates the lack of tech skill this person has. Unfortunately, I *cannot* setup my membership "however I want it to be." There are certain restrictions - due to how the plugin was developed and its own inherent limitations. I suspect this answer is a "boilerplate response" that she's just spitting out - in order to encourage me to buy. I have asked for further confirmation that this is INDEED possible, and have received no reply.

Can WishList Member offer each member who joins his own individual page (to write articles on, and post photos to) inside the membership area? Or am I dreaming?

Jeff Klein

mobility

Thanks for your post. I would like to know the answer to your question about member profiles. Please let me/us know if you receive an answer from WishList Member support.

Did you find another membership plugin solution that offers the member profile functionality you're looking for?

Thanks

Jeff Klein

Kevin AKA Hubcap

For a low cost alternative I'd suggest giving SiteManPro a try---$50 for unlimited domains.

Kirk Ward

Someone can correct me, but I doubt most membership scripts offer this out of the box. I think you could probably find a plugin to do this and use it as a feature inside the membership area.

Stanley West

Wow, these comments are very worrying. I am planning to buy a membership site (like Wishlist).
What's the best membership site software out there??

Thank you!
Stanley

Kirk Ward

Right now I recommend Digital Access Pass (DAP), but things seem to change quite frequently, and sometimes developers get worn out and tired, then dump their programs. I think that's happened to several systems. I know Mark Joyner just picked up one that had peaked some time before. (I quit using it after getting into a "spitting contest" with the developers support person.)

ravijayagopal

Kirk,

Appreciate all the kind words you've said about DAP.

You bring up a great point.

Most developers will eventually get worn out, tired, and then dump their programs, because...

1) They thoroughly and completely under-estimated the concept of "Support". It's easy to launch a product, but providing support consistently, day in and day out, month after month, year after year, is no easy task. So they get overwhelmed that the "customer" never really "goes away", like with an information product, where you launch it, sell it, and then forget it, until you launch the "next big thing".

2) They charge too little, because once again, they've either not taken into consideration the "support" aspect of it, or they just sold it for less knowing fully well that they won't be around for too long anyway to worry about offering tech support, writing documentation, creating videos, etc.

See our monstrous documentation site at http://DigitalAccessPass.com/documentation/ - there's such a boatload of content and videos there, that if we had instead been creating other "information" products during that same time, we would've ended up with 50 different amazingly detailed and incredible web sites!

So yes, it takes an *insane* amount of time, effort, passion, commitment and dedication to actually create documentation and offer technical support to your customers AFTER they've paid you.

3) No recurring revenue model. Many of them offer "lifetime support and updates". That's just insane! There's no way a company can forever continue to develop and enhance the product, and continue to provide world-class support, if they never got paid more than once.

Imagine having to forever keep looking for new customers in order to sustain your business. Just doesn't work that way. So, just to make a few sales, they make impossible promises like "forever support" and "forever updates", and guess what - once the flow of new customers slows down at some point (because 20 new and shiny platforms were just launched), they simply don't have the incentive or the wherewithal to continue developing the software, fixing bugs, implementing new features, and supporting "old" customers.

So once again, they price themselves out of business, knowingly or unknowingly.

And many of the developers of such products are not into this full-time.

Don't get me wrong - nothing bad about that, because that's how I got started too. But because they under-price and under-value their products, they never make enough money to make this a full-time business. So they end up stuck as a one-person operation.

It would be crazy to put your "membership" eggs into the hands of a part-timer, not knowing when they'll close shop and call it a day.

The software industry - especially the "do it yourself" niche, is a really tough one to survive in. You need to have multiple skills in order to survive. Great software, great developers, a great vision for many years to come, ability to consistently provide customer support, and the ability to price it right so that it's not too high to bring in new users, and it's not too low to bring down your business.

Which is why we at DAP have been able to carve a niche for ourselves, where we're known mainly for our support, closely followed by the quality of our software.

Having been a coder since I was 10 years old, and having created a successful online business in the software industry, maybe I should just create a "How To Create A Sustainable Software Business" information product ;-)

Any takers? ;-) LOL.

- Ravi Jayagopal

iamchrisgreen

I've been using this to run a membership site now for seven months. I have nothing but good things to say about it.

askloz

the software itself, looks awesome... little confusing to set up at first, though playing around with it for while one will get used to it...

if you're using it to act as a members area for a launch soon to come, give yourself a few weeks before hand to get all the configuration correct.

I can't tell you how many times I've had problems with it, its not compatible with hostgator, for some reason the settings keep getting reset, by themselves after a day or so...

so it was dumped; refunded... and went with DLGuard.com instead, MUCH Better! More control!
Sets up in an easy 30-60 minutes, plus Sam Stephens support is OUT OF THIS WORLD!

Loz

askloz

With all due respect to Ravi, he's support is also AWESOME too, very kind gentleman, however though, DAP is NOT secure, my programmer was able to hack it in less than 30 minutes.

Riddled with bugs...


My programmer is a Cryptologist / Expert Encryption programmer who has worked for Banks for their ATM's and Corporate Companies like Ford, Nissan, etc who programs the robots artificial intelligence software programs, of 27 years with 29 programming languages under his belt that he knows fluently.

Peace.

Loz

Jeff Klein

Has anyone else had issues running wishlist member on HostGator?

ProEFI

None. I have 32 WLM installs on Hostgator and they all work perfectly.

Andrew