Thread

Mark, why don’t you set up a page where you sell your plugin. I’ve seen you mention it a few times, always with an email me for more info. I’m sure you could make a bit of cash with a dedicated page for the plugin with a list of features that it supporrts.

Well I was going to do that but I just thought that no-one would want to pay the £1,000,000 price tag I have on it? 😉

In all seriousness though yep I do need to get my site online and as soon as possible as I have already sold the plugin to around 30 users on the forum now and all that without a page!!

You know how it is though, clients and other work have to come first and I always seem to put my site to the back. I am going to do it soon though so keep an eye on me! 😊 Perhaps give me a shove every now and then too!!!

Hey guys and gals,

Interesting reading so far. Firstly I’d like to apologise to Leevi, as Martin Luff pointed out we’ve hijacked your thread but I wanted to reply to the concerns raised on here rather than starting another thread.

We were well aware that as soon as we announced pricing that it would polarise people, but we felt it important that people knew the pricing structure before they registered for the public beta. We knew there would be those that “get it” and those that don’t. Appears we were right, even though there’s a bunch of other cool stuff we haven’t even told you about yet. So, read on…

Let me assure you - eeCommerce is real, it’s not vapourware. We’re aiming to have the demo available online for your perusal towards the end of next week. That’s gotta be better than a couple of screenshots, right? We all know what a storefront looks like, after all. We’ll update Twitter as soon as it’s available. PHP UK itself is a relatively small, but agile company. We’re all PHP professionals (as the name suggests) with many years experience onsite consulting with clients. Everyone at PHP UK is either a PHP5 Zend Certified Engineer, or is currently studying to take the exam. We’re in the process of joining the ExpressionEngine Pro Network, and also becoming Magento Platinum Partners. We have a few open source projects in the pipeline, and we’ve already contributed the sfErrorHandlerPlugin and sfRequestPlugin to the Symfony framework. We’re currently actively developing the sfDynamicFormsPlugin, also for Symfony. PHP UK is currently not affiliated in any way with Zend, EllisLab or Varien.

We’re positioning eeCommerce somewhere in the middle-ground between FoxEE and ElasticPath. We feel ElasticPath is the closest product to the eeCommerce suite in terms of features - however, an eeCommerce license costs just 5% of the ElasticPath equivalent. We’re trying to further establish that position with our affiliate and partner schemes. By allowing only ExpressionEngine and Magento professionals into the partner program, we ensure some level of confidence in the integrators both from their own customers and from us - this reduces our own support costs (which is what allows us to offer the heavy discount to these customers to start with) and allows us to create an environment where the partner can choose to either pass the cost saving onto their client, or use it to subsidise the integration fees they are charging. If you feel we’re charging too much for the module -  pass the saving onto your client. Simple.

Something else I wanted to address; you DON’T need to be an ExpressionEngine Network member or a Magento Partner to register for the beta - we want that information because we’re more likely to select those to participate that are. Please, fill in ALL the details about your server environment, the PHP version etc - we need to test in as many combinations as possible. The beta is about helping us fix errors before we release the product fully, and about you getting a head start before the masses, so you can offer it to your clients as soon as it’s released. You scratch our backs, we scratch yours. Simple.

eeCommerce actually comprises of 2 components. An ExpressionEngine module, and an add-on for Magento. The eeCommerce module provides a set of tags which allow ExpressionEngine users to quickly build a fully functioning ecommerce store purely from within ExpressionEngine. The benefit here is obvious in terms of time to implement, and seamless integration of ecommerce with the rest of the website. We’re fully aware that time spent implementing an ecommerce store costs the store owner twice - firstly in terms of paying for the implementation, secondly in terms of opportunity cost - when the store isn’t open, it isn’t selling.

There are a few other nice features that eeCommerce enables - for instance, it’s entirely possible to use the product search tags to display context sensitive products. This is a cool feature, and you can’t find it in many other ecommerce products. If you’re not sure what I mean by this browse the destinations over at http://www.lonelyplanet.com - see the items displayed in the store sidebar relate to the context of the content? This is a cool feature, and you can’t find it in many other ecommerce products.

There also currently isn’t any webservice for Magento to deal with carts or checkout - so it’s currently not possible to have a Magento backed eCommerce application that doesn’t at some point need to return the customer to the Magento checkout. That effectively negates the point of integrating with ExpressionEngine, as you’d still need to skin Magento accordingly. Our MagentoConnector component solves that problem.

With our MagentoConnector, it’s entirely possible to carry out an entire transaction from your chosen channel - be that ExpressionEngine, Flash, AIR, an iPhone app or even a cool JSON and JQuery combo. Did somebody mention widgets and syndication? 😉

As you can imagine we’re pretty excited about this, as it opens up a whole new world of possible integrations with Magento. Multichannel sales has always been a headache for enterprise ecommerce - not anymore.

We will be releasing the MagentoConnector component separately, but at the same time as eeCommerce. All eeCommerce licenses will include a license for MagentoConnector.

Continued in next post…

... continued ...

Back to costs. There’s a bunch of things to bear in mind about costs : Firstly, and most importantly; if it’s not profitable for us, we wouldn’t release it - let me rephrase that : if it’s not going to be profitable we WON’T release it. That’s simple economics. I like my job, I want to keep it. We have a bunch of people here working that would also like to keep their jobs, not only that, but they really, really want to get paid for all of their time and hard work - sound fair? Bear in mind that we have to keep up to date - and compatible - with both ExpressionEngine and Magento, that’s a constant development task. We have to ensure that new releases of either work with the module, whilst maintaining backwards compatibility too. Our aim is to ensure compatibility within 7 days of a new release of either.

We also need to have support staff to support you guys. We could do without those, and leave you without support, but you’re gonna be real glad we didn’t if something goes wrong and your clients store is down for a week. I’ll say again - an ecommerce store that isn’t working isn’t making money.

We also need to port the module to EE 2.0 when that’s released. Don’t worry guys, we’ve already considered this - you’ll be able to switch your license to the EE 2.0 version, free of charge.

Comparing the price of the module against Magento and ExpressionEngine is a pointless exercise. It’s like your clients comparing your quote to a template from TemplateMonster. Totally different animals. Sayings about oranges and apples spring to mind.

As I said right at the beginning, we knew there’d be people who got it. Why? Because eeCommerce enables you. It enables you to quote on that ecommerce project you need for your portfolio and for your wallet, and it enables you to save DAYS if not WEEKS implementing that site. How much cash is that shortened development cycle going to save you? How much is it going to save your client? Need I remind you again that an ecommerce store that isn’t working…?

The actual cost itself isn’t so high. The most expensive option (yearly) is $1299.99 - that’s only $108/month. That’s not a significant expense for an ecommerce store. With the partner program 35% discount that’s only $844.99 or $70.41. Not really much more than FoxyCart costs, and it gives you so much more.

Lastly, we won’t be asking for anybody to part with any cash before they get a product. Both eeCommerce and MagentoConnector will have 30 day time limited evaluation versions available to download when we launch. Try before you buy.

As you can tell from everything I’ve already said, there’s a lot more to eeCommerce than initially meets the eye and we’ll be telling you more about it in the weeks to come. Hopefully, those that didn’t “get it” now do. Of course, there will be projects where the budget just can’t stretch to a license for eeCommerce - in those instances there are perfectly adequate alternatives such as FoxEE or SimpleCommerce.

I hope that’s put your minds at rest, and you can see we’re perfectly reasonable people (at least we think so), who have thought long and hard about what we’re going to offer, and how we’ll make sure it’s profitable for all involved. I look forward to speaking with you all during the beta testing period. In the meantime if you have any further questions they can be directed to us at beta [at] eecommerce.com

You ARE all gonna go register now, right?

Lee Bolding
Technical Manager, eeCommerce

Hmmm, thanks for the comprehensive reply.

I guess part of the issue is that ecommerce covers such a broad spectrum of activity so when you poll for ideas in a broad discussion like this then the participants are sometimes coming from different ends of the spectrum.

Will be interesting to see the demo…

Regards, Martin (perhaps we really do need to move this to a new thread?)

Wow, what a ripoff. Time to whip up my own integration. Edit to not sound like a total arse: please prove me wrong.

Must admit im reserving any kind of judgement on this until ive seen more of the product and what it can actually do…. if it can save me time and money then yes, if not then as you say yourself i also WANT to keep my job.

Keep us informed of developments thou…

Hmmm, thanks for the comprehensive reply.
I guess part of the issue is that ecommerce covers such a broad spectrum of activity so when you poll for ideas in a broad discussion like this then the participants are sometimes coming from different ends of the spectrum.

Kind of reminds me of “The Long Tail” but might be at the wrong end of it, for the general EE populations economic solutions.
Good luck though, Lee and thanks for replying.

With the partner program 35% discount that’s only $844.99 or $70.41.

What?  Isnt that a one time deal as a beta user?

Not really much more than FoxyCart costs, and it gives you so much more.

What?  FoxyCart cost $15 per month.

Still don’t see how you can charge such an exorbitant yearly for this; being it not a real app but more of a bridge.

Lastly, its not a certified add-on, so until its certified by Ellis Labs, not sure if I can trust its stability with EE.

With the partner program 35% discount that’s only $844.99 or $70.41.

What?  Isnt that a one time deal as a beta user?

Sorry, I should have made that clearer. There are 2 different discounts going on here.

Everybody that registers for the beta - whether accepted or not - will receive a 35% discount on their first license.

Partner program members will receive a 35% discount on EVERY license they purchase.

Thanks for clarifying.  I’ll personally hold final judgment until you guys prove this modules value, but just know you guys have a lot of proving to do… 😏

Sounds interesting. And we all certainly knew it was not going to be an easy implementation. I guess we all just figured a different type of economic structure. Like sell more licenses by keeping the costs low but dealing in quantity vs charging high costs and only selling a few. But that is a decision that you will need to make I guess. But I would gather that extensions that cost 2500 will see limited use at best. Extensions in the 50-250 dollar range will be purchased over and over again.

Draaaaaaaaaaagging this thread back on topic…

Regarding any sort of “new” solution (and I was laughing at Mark Bowen’s $1M joke) I’m no developer, but I think that concept of using EE basics for most of the actual data (weblogs/channels, custom fields) but making them somehow special for use with inventory tracking and payment gateways (and maybe specials/coupons/promos) is an interesting concept. I could see myself building the custom fields that my client might want in their store, but it’s the getting that to payment gateway that’s a major problem, unless you use one of the aforementioned modules others have built.

Also, many people I know, including clients, hate hate hate Paypal, and so when I mention that Simple Commerce uses it, I get all sorts of guff. For instance, I’m subbing for EE development for a designer whose client is a department in a pretty famous university, and we’ll be needing to do class registrations. However, the Paypal thing doesn’t cut it with them. We were likely to go with an external shopping cart/payment processing system given the limitations of existing systems.

Mark, I really’d love to see your plugin out there for sale too, at some point. It might even be a good solution to the project I mentioned, which isn’t slated to start for a couple months anyway.

As for me, if I could offer this sort of functionality to clients, I’d happily pay $50-100 per license to do it. Also, I might have some cash to donate, seeing as again, having this module will extend my marketability in my use of EE.

Just my (nearly worthless these days) $.02US!
Lynne

@LynneL hello there - good to get us back on track…

Mark’s plugin is for sale - just PM him (and soon to be for sale on Marcus Neto’s EETemplates site - link in his post above).

Agree completely on your suggestion re an integrated EE solution that dovetails with the front-end Weblog display and custom fields mechanism (whilst also tied in with the backend users - although hopefully EE 2.0 will be closer to Solspace User module Weblog integration, plus permit the same sort of custom fields in users as in the main weblogs).

Some sort of easy modular way to add/integrate new payment gateways seems pretty key feature…

If you think $0.02 is not much where you are you should try being in New Zealand. Anyway there’s my latest $0.02 NZD worth! 😉

Martin

Just chiming in quickly to get this thread going again, I really do think EE needs a will built e-commerce module. I’d be willing to put money towards it getting built, especially if it was being built by a developer with a proven EE Extension track record.

As far as I’m concerned this is about the only thing that is really missing from EE.

Check the link to eetemplates as the plugin is cheap and allows for shopping cart.not a full fledged ecommerce solution but half way there