Office Autopilot or Premium Web Cart or Other???

32 replies
I'm trying to decide between office autopilot and premium web cart... Infusionsoft is out due to their mandatory $2000 "getting started" fee.

There are not a ton of reviews on either service out there and was wondering if anyone had any experience with either?

I am most concerned with the email delivery of each, as that is a big factor in marketing.

Thanks!
#autopilot #cart #office #premium #web
  • Profile picture of the author JVManna
    Originally Posted by yerrato View Post

    I'm trying to decide between office autopilot and premium web cart... Infusionsoft is out due to their mandatory $2000 "getting started" fee.

    There are not a ton of reviews on either service out there and was wondering if anyone had any experience with either?

    I am most concerned with the email delivery of each, as that is a big factor in marketing.

    Thanks!
    This is a good question and is on the mind of newcomers of Infusionsoft. The Quick-Start Services are services that make migration easy and literally help get new users moving and using the software the way it was meant to rather than *only* email or CRM.

    However, it is a large investment for startups and we know very well that we're not for everyone.

    As an alternative, you might want to consider a combination of AWeber + 1ShoppingCart. I've found that AWeber has their stuff together and is generally more reliable for email marketing than other solutions on the market.

    Here are several things to think about in your decision:
    - Customer service and their availability and/or costs. Are they attentive to customers online?
    - Email marketing, what is their performance (emails per second), deliverability and reputation?
    - Data retention, do you have full control over your data?
    - How will you collect the cash from customers?
    - Strategic alignment, does the company help your business grow?
    - How often do they update their service/software?
    - Uptime, what is the percentage of uptime their production servers have? Industry excellence is defined by "five-nines" (99.999%+)

    Hope this helps. Let us know how your quest goes.
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    • very greats frend, no autopiolot ... u must do it yerself , not alone . and cart and no hors cann't work . do alone wit no piolt and no cart ! tings i know of all . tanks .
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  • Profile picture of the author IanCB
    I'm in the unusual situation of having been a customer of Infusionsoft for a couple of years, temporarily switched to Premium Webcart, then switched to Office Autopilot.

    What follows are my experiences. Yours may vary, of course.

    Infusionsoft as I'm sure everyone knows is incredibly powerful, but pretty difficult to use.

    About 6 months ago I decided I'd had enough. I was spending far too much time on simple stuff like creating new optin forms and getting all the tagging and starting sequences right. With Infusionsoft even very linked things are on completely different parts of the menu system in obscure places.

    What tipped me over the edge was finding that the Classic email builder (needed to create plain html emails) just started losing my updates. I had to start doing everything in a text editor, then upload 2 or 3 times before it stuck.

    I switched to Premium Webcart for a while. The shopping cart aspects are very good - very similar to 1shoppingcart - and they can apparently get recurring orders to work on paypal standard which other carts can't do.

    The autoresponder side is a bit unusual. Rather than sequences, people are put in funnels and can follow one of many "sales paths" within the funnel. You can reproduce a lot of what Infusionsoft does with these funnels/paths - but not everything. There's no "if then" logic based on tags, for example. Nor can you chain one sequence after another yet.

    I found a couple of bugs - like in email signatures, for examples - which seemed to randomly appear and disappear and didn't get resolved. So I didn't get a great feeling about stability.

    The membership site site can only really control access to pages created on premium webcart's own system - not a wordpress site. it does integrate with Wishlist Member pretty well though.

    I ended up going with Office Autopilot. It's almost got the same functionality as Infusionsoft but it's MUCH easier to use. When I first strated using it I created a bunch of forms and sequences in 10 minutes that would have taken me hours
    to do in Infusionsoft.

    Their membership system Pilotpress works with wordpress too. And the tracking facilities are second to none - you can track what people who've opted in actually do on your site.

    They also do postcards (in the US) as well as emails and can do PURLs too which I haven't tried yet.

    They can also split test emails properly which Infusionsoft can't do.

    The shopping cart is quite basic. it basically does single orders - no cart functionality. But that's OK for me - that's all I need.

    Another weakness is that they only support a few merchant gateways. If you're in the US it's no problem, they have authorize.net and some other big ones. Outside of the US you can use eway in Australia, but the only thing that would work as a proper gateway for UK based folks is paypal website payments pro.

    Both premium webcart and Infusionsoft have more gateway options.

    But overall, for combined power and ease of use I went with Office Autopilot.

    Their support team have been really good too - very responsive. I had some problems with website payments pro which they helped me resolve.

    Ian

    PS Inevitably, things change. When I cancelled my Infusionsoft subscription they told me about a new easier to use version they're currently trialling. Too late for me - my mind was made up - but maybe worth looking into if you're still with Infusionsoft and struggling with the complexity.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom Reed
      Originally Posted by IanCB View Post

      I switched to Premium Webcart for a while. The shopping cart aspects are very good - very similar to 1shoppingcart - and they can apparently get recurring orders to work on paypal standard which other carts can't do.

      The autoresponder side is a bit unusual. Rather than sequences, people are put in funnels and can follow one of many "salespaths" within the funnel. You can reproduce a lot of what Infusionsoft does with these funnels/paths - but not everything. There's no "if then" logic based on tags, for example. Nor can you chain one sequence after another yet.

      I found a couple of bugs - like in email signatures, for examples - which seemed to randomly appear and disappear and didn't get resolved. So I didn't get a great feeling about stability.

      The membership site site can only really control access to pages created on premium webcart's own system - not a wordpress site. it does integrate with Wishlist Member pretty well though.
      Overall I would say that your depiction of Premium Web Cart is pretty accurate as there are things that the system does NOT do that Infusionsoft does do and this was basically by design.

      There simply isn't a single system that is right for every business and it's often more about the "match" between the business and the system rather than the capabilities of the system itself.

      The #1 reason that people switch from Infusionsoft to Premium Web Cart is their frustration with the Infusionsoft complexity and the fact that while many things were "possible", these possibilities were simply too hard to achieve.

      The Premium Web Cart design theory was to make the automation easily accessible so it can be put into operation because if it can't be used, does it really exist?

      Think of the difference between a free form database search, that a programmer can construct, with infinite possibilities versus a database search that is performed using drop down windows and check boxes. One is more powerful than the other but if you can't write the query, what good is all that power?

      If you're old enough, you can remember this same debate with DOS versus "point and click" Macs... and you can see how that worked out.

      So to the specific point, Premium Web Cart does use a funnel and sales path approach which is more linear than Infusionsoft for certain... but can you "point and click" on a graphical sales path to update it in Infusionsoft like you can with Premium Web Cart?

      Daisy Chains - You stated that there is no "linking of sales paths" but it is there already and has been for a long time. You can "link" conditional sales paths / funnels together and this daisy chain will provide an "if then" condition. It just does not do it at every step of the sales path.

      This was a compromise made to make the automation easier to create and accessible to the non-techie folks.

      The other "if then" conditions available in Premium Web Cart is the "Lead Scoring" system which allows you to trigger tasks / actions based upon the cumulative lead score of a person. This lets' you focus on the hot leads and not waste time on the disinterested leads.

      Email Signatures - This is an area where we have seen trouble.

      Instead of placing the email signature in a fixed location, a signature merge code is used for more flexible formatting and we have seen many people not add this merge code into their emails and subsequently not have the signature file get merged into the emails. We are working on making this more obvious to help people avoid this problem.

      Membership Systems - The internal system is optimized for "courseware" memberships and is extremely good at this role. If you're teaching people to do things with video / audio / PDF, etc. then you'll love it. It is hosted by PWC but it can be attached / integrated with any website / WordPress site, etc.

      But it's not for everyone and that's where the integrations with Wishlist, DAP and Amember come into play.

      The one thing I have not seen anyone mention yet in any comparison of a cart / CRM system is the "overall business solution" comparison. This is one I personally would love to see.
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      • Profile picture of the author AndrewMurray
        I have used both Premium Web Cart and Office Autopilot.

        Premium Web Cart's elements don't talk well to each other. It seems like a prefect solution until you get inside. And then you see how everything was hacked together.

        Office Auto Pilot is really more robust. I LOVE the integration with the autoresponder and the CRM. It's super tight and you can customize everything under the sun in it. It can even set up lead scoring - so leads get points for certain action and degrade slowly over time at rates you set.

        The Office AutoPilot shopping cart is probably the weakest link. It's not really a shoppingcart, per se, but work fine unless you sell something like clothing.

        Premium Web Cart is like 1shoppingcart.

        OfficeAutoPilot is a true automated marketing machine like Infusionsoft, but less confusing, so it makes a GREAT alternative to Infusionsoft.

        I like the ability to followup seamlessly with email + postcards + voice broadcasts. And now it can talk to gotowebinar since gotowebinar opened up an API.

        I did a video walkthru of from the perspective of a marketer - which may give you a bit more insight than the corporate sales videos.

        Not confusing like Infusionsoft, but be prepared to watch a lot of training videos (they're actually kinda funny in a good way) because of the vast amount of options.

        I understand why marketers NEED a robust centralized system like Office Auto Pilot.

        Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author IanCB
    Oh - PS - Office Autopilot seem to put a lot of effort into deliverability. If you check out their wiki (google "office autopilot wiki") they've obviously put lots of work into that side of the system.

    Ian
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  • Profile picture of the author kasher9
    Office autopilot usually leads to hassle if you have a team working for you, especially if it's outsourced work..
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Reed
    Hi Andrew

    It appears that you did take Premium Web Cart for a short test drive about a year ago but in software, especially at PWC, this is a HUGE time period.

    To put it in perspective, OAP didn't even have a shopping cart in their system at that time so you would really need to compare their system to ours without their shopping cart or any improvements made to their system since then.

    1 glance at the PWC blog will show you just how much we've added in the last 3 months alone.

    Going back a full year would simply take too much time and space but I do want to directly address the "speaks to each other" comment made as this is an impressive selling point for Premium Web Cart and one that is not accurately represented in your comments:

    So short and sweet:

    CRM & Cart - Fully integrated with product specific actions triggered in the CRM by the Cart. The order details are in the CRM in a "Cliff Notes" format for brevity with the full details of each order 1 click away... all fully automatic.

    CRM & Ticket System - Access all customer tickets in the CRM customer details, add manual tickets from the customer CRM details, add "non-customers" to the CRM from the Ticket System with 1 click of an icon, pull up full customer details from the CRM into the ticket system with 1 click of an icon.

    CRM & Live Chat - Pull up full customer details of a person on chat with 1 click of an icon, add new prospects from chat into the CRM with 1 click.

    CRM & Affiliate System - Integrated for direct access and marketing/ communication to all your affiliates.

    Project Manager & Ticket System - Customer tickets can be used to generate a Project Task with 1 click of an icon and the Ticket and Task become linked together with color coded icons to communicate the status of the Project Task. Might seem like a small integration but is extremely useful in "real life".

    There's more but I think this is enough to demonstrate that there is an impressive amount of "speaking" amongst our various business systems.

    Lead Scoring - We have it (we did not last year though so you would not have seen it)

    Action Links - Complete segmenting and actions from 1 click in emails, etc.

    To be certain, OAP is not PWC and vice versa.

    Nobody else does what PWC offers and I think it's pretty easy to see that folks using OAP for the cart/ CRM, and Basecamp for project management, and ZenDesk for ticket support, and LivePerson for live chat, will happily shed all those logins, and monthly bills, to have everything under one system with Premium Web Cart.

    Tom Reed
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    • Profile picture of the author Vitus
      Originally Posted by Tom Reed View Post

      Hi Andrew

      It appears that you did take Premium Web Cart for a short test drive about a year ago but in software, especially at PWC, this is a HUGE time period.

      To put it in perspective, OAP didn't even have a shopping cart in their system at that time so you would really need to compare their system to ours without their shopping cart or any improvements made to their system since then.

      1 glance at the PWC blog will show you just how much we've added in the last 3 months alone.

      Going back a full year would simply take too much time and space but I do want to directly address the "speaks to each other" comment made as this is an impressive selling point for Premium Web Cart and one that is not accurately represented in your comments:

      So short and sweet:

      CRM & Cart - Fully integrated with product specific actions triggered in the CRM by the Cart. The order details are in the CRM in a "Cliff Notes" format for brevity with the full details of each order 1 click away... all fully automatic.

      CRM & Ticket System - Access all customer tickets in the CRM customer details, add manual tickets from the customer CRM details, add "non-customers" to the CRM from the Ticket System with 1 click of an icon, pull up full customer details from the CRM into the ticket system with 1 click of an icon.

      CRM & Live Chat - Pull up full customer details of a person on chat with 1 click of an icon, add new prospects from chat into the CRM with 1 click.

      CRM & Affiliate System - Integrated for direct access and marketing/ communication to all your affiliates.

      Project Manager & Ticket System - Customer tickets can be used to generate a Project Task with 1 click of an icon and the Ticket and Task become linked together with color coded icons to communicate the status of the Project Task. Might seem like a small integration but is extremely useful in "real life".

      There's more but I think this is enough to demonstrate that there is an impressive amount of "speaking" amongst our various business systems.

      Lead Scoring - We have it (we did not last year though so you would not have seen it)

      Action Links - Complete segmenting and actions from 1 click in emails, etc.

      To be certain, OAP is not PWC and vice versa.

      Nobody else does what PWC offers and I think it's pretty easy to see that folks using OAP for the cart/ CRM, and Basecamp for project management, and ZenDesk for ticket support, and LivePerson for live chat, will happily shed all those logins, and monthly bills, to have everything under one system with Premium Web Cart.

      Tom Reed

      Tom, this is all nice and true, but people can't understand all these functions without proper tutorials or guidance... and that's where OAP is paying close attention to people being able to use all the functionality.

      I'm trying to work out your system for a couple of weeks now, I even emailed you personally, but nobody provides guidance, and proper documentation on how to set it all up...

      Lead Scoring is great, but how does it work?

      Action links - fine, how do they work?

      Nothing in the tutorials, and no eBusiness advisor that I actually asked you for in the email.

      I don't like writing this critique in the public here, but it seems the only way to get attention...

      It's rather important to know how to track click-through rates, if the system doesn't do it automatically...
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  • Profile picture of the author AndrewMurray
    PWC is easier to get setup and running with for sure, but when I used it, it forced you to login to each section (ie CRM/Tickets/Project Management).

    I'm fine with an external project management system. I'm pretty picky about those. I used to use Basecamp but am now using TeamworkPM.

    I'm not saying it's not a good product. It just wasn't right for me!
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    • Profile picture of the author lerxtjr
      I wasn't searching for this topic on wf, but it caught my eye and I felt a little compelled to add something here. I used 1sc for 10 years and more than a year ago moved to pwc when 1sc started charging for support.

      I'll agree it took me a while to really sink my teeth in to the advanced features of pwc, but their system has also, I know this sounds corny, "opened my eyes" to the possibility of a shopping cart system being much more than just that. For example, once someone becomes a lead, they're immediately kicked into the project manager system. When they buy a product, their order goes right across the parking lot from their main office for print-on-demand and fulfillment. Not every tom, dick and harry cart can do that!

      Finally, there were a few things I mentioned to support that I really could use in the system...and the enhancements were developed and included for public use within a month! When was the last time you made an enhancement request to a software company and had it implemented in a year or less??

      PWC seems determined to me to grow their product to do what its users really need it to do.

      The functionality is one thing, and ALL my 100+ websites are WordPress by the way. PWC works just fine with WordPress. But, it's the people behind pwc that have really positioned the product for huge expansion.
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  • Profile picture of the author asiancasanova
    I will not suggest you to subscribe the office autopilot. You should do it yourself with organic traffic. You will get stuck by autopilot traffic generating.
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  • Profile picture of the author LanceHampshire
    We are using PremiumWebCart (Elite level). They have a lot of the functionality that we had in UltraCart but are much easier to use. Their support, while it blows that of UltraCart away, still leaves much to be desired.

    For example, we went with their hosting (RackSpace) because we wanted company.com and not company.pwcstores.com. Our email is running through Google Apps, and they have no one on hand during normal business hours that can change the MX records! This is a change that literally only takes minutes to do, but because of their odd staffing, our business email is now down for the entire day.

    --

    EDIT: An hour after this was posted, they fixed our MX records.
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    • Profile picture of the author Vitus
      the functions are great, but the support and the help documentations are not up to scratch... unfortunately the "eBusiness Advisor" is not assigned as mentioned in the package listing, which would be a great help to set a client up to use the system.

      As is, all functions are there, probably, but it's hard to follow the logic of developers... for example, it's great that you can split test opening rates of emails, but how about a simple and easy way to access the click through data?

      I'm sure it's there, but no guidance to it in the tutorial section...

      Maybe by posting here we'll get some help, and finally an eBusiness advisor to talk to us...
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  • Profile picture of the author Vitus
    closing thoughts here... after having to stay up many nights to speak to support because the email and ticket system don't seem to get answered without special pressure, I figured out that PWC can only track email click throughs in a way that you set up a special link for each email, then attach a tag to that link, and then search the database for the people who clicked that link.

    Sorry, Tom, this is a really labour intensive way of tracking if somebody clicked a link in an email or not to know how emails perform... we are in 2012, it can't be that difficult!

    You are so defensive here about your product, but the support and documentation is just very much lacking behind, if I can't easily see how many people clicked on my damn link in the email... if I need to stay up a couple of nights past midnight to speak to support because tickets are not answered and no documentation is there to explain this complicated set up to do an essential function for an auto-responder, then something is severely wrong.

    Then multiple logins and bills that add up to the same amount seem to be more advisable...

    Sorry to have that discussion here in public, but I think other Warriors should know about these pitfalls before they waste a month on the system like I have...

    Stuff that could have been set up in 2 days max, with the right kind of tutorials...
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom Reed
      Originally Posted by Vitus View Post

      closing thoughts here... after having to stay up many nights to speak to support because the email and ticket system don't seem to get answered without special pressure, I figured out that PWC can only track email click throughs in a way that you set up a special link for each email, then attach a tag to that link, and then search the database for the people who clicked that link.

      Sorry, Tom, this is a really labour intensive way of tracking if somebody clicked a link in an email or not to know how emails perform... we are in 2012, it can't be that difficult!

      You are so defensive here about your product, but the support and documentation is just very much lacking behind, if I can't easily see how many people clicked on my damn link in the email... if I need to stay up a couple of nights past midnight to speak to support because tickets are not answered and no documentation is there to explain this complicated set up to do an essential function for an auto-responder, then something is severely wrong.

      Then multiple logins and bills that add up to the same amount seem to be more advisable...

      Sorry to have that discussion here in public, but I think other Warriors should know about these pitfalls before they waste a month on the system like I have...

      Stuff that could have been set up in 2 days max, with the right kind of tutorials...
      I have been traveling quite a bit lately so I'll do my best to catch up on all these issues and answer as many questions as possible.

      1. Defensive - Guilty as charged. I take great pride in our system and I do take things personally. I doubt this will ever change but I do think it drives me (and the others) to resolve items that people do not like or simply want improved.

      2. Tutorials - The new tutorials and Quick Start guides have been a sore spot - guilty again. There has been a concerted effort to update these recently and there are now quite few completed and posted. These are in the Help section, posted at the "point of action" so you can just click in the video for that specific section, and also posted in our Blog (not all but many).

      Look at the new categories in the blog labeled: Videos - CRM, Videos - Customer Portal, Videos - Shopping Cart

      More videos are on the way as we speak.

      3. Email Tracking - Our email tracking will be loved by some and not loved by others. We cater to folks that are looking for the CRM to automate the sales process versus "looking for customers that opened / clicked emails".

      The Action Links provide a level of automation that allows a person to have something happen when an email is opened/clicked versus simply knowing an email is opened/clicked. After all, what good is knowing that someone opened an email if you're not going to take an action based upon them opening the email?

      We automate this action so your business sells on autopilot.

      But what if you only want a number?

      Then you can look at the Broadcast stats and see your open rate. If you want to know exactly who opened your emails, then you simply do a search, place a check mark on the tag that represents that email broadcast, and the entire list appears. If you decide that you want to do something with the list, then the action can be done either en mass or 1 at a time.

      *Note: I say "list" but you have only 1 "list" and this list is segmented by Tags and Sales Funnels. You do not have multiple "lists" as you do with an alternate system like Aweber.

      4. Support Tickets - All support is performed in the USA from our Chicago office. We guarantee 24 business hours (not counting weekends) for all support answers so I would need to review your situation to see if we did not live up to our guarantee. I do not know who you are so I cannot really comment one way or the other.

      The newest UI updates seem to also be helping people understand and navigate the system. The icon / image based system versus the drop down menus seems to be well received.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom Reed
      Originally Posted by Vitus View Post

      Then multiple logins and bills that add up to the same amount seem to be more advisable...
      This is always a strange point that people make and it's half true... but not really true.

      You do not have to "login" multiple times.

      All you have to do is login 1 time and then navigate through all the modules from the master login i.e. CRM, Project Manager, Ticket System, live chat.

      This is always a 1 click or 2 click operation.

      And our system allows you to have multiple applications open at the same time so you can have live chat in 1 window, tickets in another, CRM in another, your Project Manager in another and then just bounce from Tab to Tab to maximize your efficiency.

      Now having said that, you do have the ABILITY to log into each section and we do that so you can limit other users from accessing areas you do not want them to access.

      For example, it's common to out source ticket support & live chat. It's also common to work on projects with outsiders so you will not want these folks inside your cart but you will want to give them access to the necessary module.

      Also think about the fact that if you were using "shopping cart competitor A" + Zen Desk + Basecamp + Liverperson, you actually would need to have multiple logins (plus monthly bills) and none of these applications ever really speak to each other. You could not get a support ticket in Zen Desk, click an icon and have that ticket turned into a Basecamp task inside a project like you can with us.

      Anyhow, I hope I cleared this up. There simply is never a need for multiple Logins unless you choose to restrict people to 1 or more modules.
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  • Profile picture of the author Christian Fox
    I've been using PWC and have been very happy with them but waiting over 2 weeks now just to have my cart calculate shipping correctly.

    I have no idea how something so important could go unfixed for so long.

    I still get nothing but a we are working on it, for a reply.

    At 200$ a month, I expect a little more than that...

    Sorry to post up dirty laundry here, but I've been MORE than patient.
    Maybe someone will see this and get something done.

    I agree with Vitus, it's a huge investment getting these carts set up so
    I have no problem posting both the good and the bad because a cart is a big investment in both
    time and money.
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  • Profile picture of the author hd28qi
    I really like PWC for wishlist integration. It works super awesome. It's easy to use.

    I also use 1sc for hard good products. AND I have aweber for lists.

    Just signed up for OAP. I can use the 1sc cart. It integrates in OAP via API. OAP will handle my member site too starting with new people. So then, it's all integrated. PWC can't touch OAP in many areas, including list delivery rates.

    So, in time I will phase out PWC and be left with OAP and 1sc.

    THEN when OAP makes it's own cart, I can phase out 1sc.

    Having hard goods, wishlist wordpress site, kajabi site, etc.. I needed an all in one place...especially for the affiliate program.

    OAP and Infusion were the only real solutions. PWC is clunky when it moves beyond it's cart.

    That said, for a basic cart or member site cart, PWC is great. Great staff too.

    It's just I'm outgrowing it all, and need something sleeker and more robust. See Ontraport.com to see what OAP is becoming. They are on the rise.

    However, if it's between 1sc and PWC... go PWC. (unless you need future OAP integration) ACK!
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    • Profile picture of the author Christian Fox
      PWC been working very well for me lately. Little bit of trouble I had is well behind me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Adam Longnecker
    Has anyone here outsourced their PWC or OAP set-up to someone they would recommend?
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom Reed
      Originally Posted by Adam Longnecker View Post

      Has anyone here outsourced their PWC or OAP set-up to someone they would recommend?
      We can set you up with people (VA / Webmaster) that have many satisfied customers... we call these folks our "short listers" because they always get the job done as they say they will.

      Or you can run your set up and other miscellaneous work through our internal Services Group and this is billed to you on an hourly basis.

      I would recommend a 3rd party VA / Webmaster if you're planning a long term relationship as these folks provide a lot of value outside of "cart specific" items.

      For example, you might want them to maintain your Facebook page, or write email content for you and this takes tighter bond closer working relationship.
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      • Profile picture of the author michaelcorvin
        Originally Posted by Tom Reed View Post

        We can set you up with people (VA / Webmaster) that have many satisfied customers... we call these folks our "short listers" because they always get the job done as they say they will.

        Or you can run your set up and other miscellaneous work through our internal Services Group and this is billed to you on an hourly basis.

        I would recommend a 3rd party VA / Webmaster if you're planning a long term relationship as these folks provide a lot of value outside of "cart specific" items.

        For example, you might want them to maintain your Facebook page, or write email content for you and this takes tighter bond closer working relationship.
        Tom, just sent you a an important PM. Please take a look and get back with me.

        Michael
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        • Profile picture of the author Taajah
          Has the support at Premium Web Cart improved? I've tried the service at least twice (even paid the $4 or $5...I can't remember). The last time I tried the service, I was never contacted by an e-advisor. When I attempted to get support, I was told that they had just been so busy preparing for an upgrade or system release....

          Also, the shopping cart templates that they had were surely a sore spot. Very ugly and difficult to modify without extensive html knowledge. I would love to give them another try, but time is valuable and if the attitude toward customer service hasn't improved, then I would merely be wasting my time.

          Positive note...I was just on their site and it looks like they've added a lot of videos to provide an 'initial' explanation of their features. I don't know how much their actual help videos have improved.

          I would appreciate some insight from real users. Thanks!
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  • Profile picture of the author AndreVas
    Delavo does what Premium Cart and Office Autopilot can do. And it's cheaper and way more feature full. No many people know about it, as it's not heavily promoted. DELAVO Gold | Simply the best eCommerce platform for Internet Marketers
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Reed
    Hi Taajah

    I can answer 2 of your questions:

    1. Templates - The templates provides cover all the basic layouts, etc. Many have the large slider, sales videos, product videos, product reviews, etc. But one thing we changed a few years back was to make the free templates less configurable to make it easier to add advanced functionality with a simple "click" of the mouse.

    Want Live Chat? Click the check box and it's on your site. Affiliate system, same, Click to Call, same, Ticket System, same, etc, etc.

    We also found that if we offered enough variety and version layouts, people could more easily choose a template, upload their products and images, and be online faster. It was counter intuitive to our original thinking that people wanted maximum flexibility... when really they wanted maximum ease of use.

    We liken it to buying a spec house with a floor plan you like versus building a full custom house. There are only so many logical house floor plans and there are only so many logical website structures... and the rest comes down to the "decoration" of the website with colors and images.

    ...but having said that, we do offer semi-custom and full custom options based upon your design / screen shot / PSD / "bench marked" competitors site, etc. The full custom sites are very affordable and can be online in about a week after requested.

    2. Support - This one is always tricky as "support" means different things to different people. Because we offer an e-Business Advisor, we can run into issues where things are beyond "support" and into the "do it for me" mode (which is not the intent of our support).

    We take some hits from folks that believe the "support versus doing it for them" is different from our definition. Not saying you're in this position as I have no clue, I'm just pointing out that it's harder to answer this one accurately.

    So here's the real test - CALL us and select the SUPPORT option versus the SALES option. If you get through to us before you become a paying customer, there's a really good chance you'll get through to us after you're a customer.

    Most companies will be really good on the Sales line so it's critical that you check their Support line! Make sure you try it several times as 1 call can be a fluke in either direction but f you call 5 times, you'll really know what to expect going forward.

    Not sure if you need a Scheduling / Billing system but that has ben added since your last trial. Makes life really easy for coaches, consultants, webinar folks, etc.
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    • Profile picture of the author Taajah
      Hi Tom,

      Thanks for the response. I did notice your scheduling system as I was reviewing your site yesterday. Looks great. I was wondering how many 'coaches' can we set up schedules for.

      Regarding support. I can honestly say that I was not looking for the 'do it for me' option. I was merely seeking answers to some questions that I didn't understand. One of the questions was just linking the multiple log in systems together. At that time, it was requiring me to log into every 'module' separately. At the end of the day, during my last trial, I never, ever had a chance to speak with my 'e advisor'. So, I cancelled the trial. I didn't even request a refund because I didn't feel like it was worth the time to pursue it. Hey, it's less than a cup of hot chocolate!

      I'm interested in a trial again to see how your software has advanced. I'm aware that 6 months is a long time in the software world and I believe it's even been longer than that since my 'last' trial. I was also hoping to hear from a few users who aren't employees of Premium Web Cart. It's been difficult to find any real reviews of the software due to all the blogs that your company has created.

      Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom Reed
    1. Coaches = Unlimited

    2. Module Login - This is a common misconception as logging in through the "main" or "master" login gives you immediate access to every business module. It's only when you wish to limit access would you have people log in directly to that specific module.

    For example, if you have an outsourced support person that handles tickets or live chat for you, then they can log directly into the live chat or the ticket module as there is no need to give them access to the cart / orders.

    This really comes into play with the Project Manager system as it is very common to have a 3rd party webmaster or graphic artist, etc. working on a project with you but they should never have access to other areas of your business. In this way, our Project Manager will operate as an independent Project Manager alternative to Basecamp, etc. while offering the benefit of being integrated with your other business modules when used for "internal only" projects. Now you have the best of both worlds.

    Blogs that "we created" - LOL, we only have 1 blog and it's on our site. Affiliate blogs would be more likely but we also have a significant number of people / customers that simply "like" us.

    But really, you're on the right track with the trial. Call us, test our support responsiveness before wasting a minute on a trial, but then take the trial to find out what we're really about. Sometimes we're simply not the right fit as every business has unique needs but we cover a LOT of territory which means we win a lot more than we lose.
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    • Profile picture of the author Taajah
      Tom,

      I signed up for another trial today. I'll update on my progress. Enjoy the week. Thanks for the responses. I hope the support is just as good!
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  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    Tom I sent you a PM.

    Assuming you work for or own Premium Web Cart.
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  • Profile picture of the author ratdogdaddy
    premium web we had for 1 year and, had to leave on the reason the cs support went to null. the site doesn't update for credit cards security nor can you reach them to have any files uploaded into the system. Called 8 times a day for 8 days no answer. and didn't call back when option chosen. tried texting with their system wait time said 3 min wait for 4 hrs., and I gave up. We did this for days. Don't go there you will be sorry. also if you cancel your account you will have to cancel your credit card to get it done. The reason why is no way to do it unless it is by contact and you won't get that.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom Reed
      Originally Posted by ratdogdaddy View Post

      premium web we had for 1 year and, had to leave on the reason the cs support went to null. the site doesn't update for credit cards security nor can you reach them to have any files uploaded into the system. Called 8 times a day for 8 days no answer. and didn't call back when option chosen. tried texting with their system wait time said 3 min wait for 4 hrs., and I gave up. We did this for days. Don't go there you will be sorry. also if you cancel your account you will have to cancel your credit card to get it done. The reason why is no way to do it unless it is by contact and you won't get that.
      Really Ratdog?

      You signed up today to make your first and only post and it just happens to be this outlandish slam post?

      I certainly would never say we're perfect, although we work really hard to create the perception, but 8 calls per day for 8 days straight? And nobody answered ever? Not even a sales person thinking they could land a new sale by answering the phone?

      I'll just put the simple challenge out there for anyone to call the office, or come on live chat, or use the click to call, etc. and just see what happens.

      You will get your call answered or you will get a return call if you call during peak hours and nobody picks up. Perfect - nope. Pretty darn good - yep.
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