Actinic Express!?

[TechCombo]

Anyone ever thought of using the new Actinic Express 2.0? ? Apparently it's meant to be really helpful, you pay a monthly subscription but it allows you to manage your clients, products all via a browser! They do all the tech-related issues brought up for you?!? What do you guys think?

[derekwong28]

Actinic is particularly popular in the UK but not anywhere else. It is basically a hosted cart which although very easy to manage at first, could prove very expensive in the long term. There are a number of reasons that I would not use a hosted cart but would prefer to set up one myself at my own host.

1. It is far cheaper in the long term
2. You are completely dependent on their hosting
3. You are completely at their mercy as you will not be able to transfer your database elsewhere.
4. Because you are completely at their mercy, you could be wiped out if something untoward happens, such if someone accuses you of spam or selling stuff that violates copyright or trademarks.

Derek

[TechCombo]

Thanks for the input Derek and yes, personally I would not use it for almost the same reasons. By the way I recently made a review on Actinic Express, if you get time, take a look perhaps.

Actinic Express Review

[Mike Wright]

Agree with Derek's views except for popularity in the UK.
I could count the number of Actinic webstores that I have
visited or encountered this year so far on the fingers of one foot

However, in the same period, must have seen thousands of OSC,
Zen, X-cart, CubeCart and many more besides.

[derekwong28]

Mike, I agree with you. I should have put it another way i.e. it doesn't really sell anywhere else outside the UK. One of the big reason was that this cart was recommended by Worldpay which is one of the most popular payment processor in the UK.