View Full Version : Hello - potential newbie here
Hi everyone,
I wanted to introduce myself. I am very seriously considering making Bluepark my next ecommerce software after bitter disappointments with my current cart. I had a nice long chat with Richard today as I am being very cautious this time and doing my homework thoroughly ;)
So with that in mind I wanted to get to meet you all on here and see what some Bluepark users feel about the cart. I think you get a great idea of the software by speaking to the users first :)
One of my big concerns is about upgrades. After heavily customising my current cart (mostly to fix their own bugs and to add features they claimed they already had) I am now told my cart can only be upgraded at a fee of £150 each time. So I am off.
So how do you all find Bluepark? And are the upgrades timely and trouble free? Any gripes? Obviously all software has its moments and some bugs... but more telling is how fast they are looked into and fixed.
I have never used a hosted cart before. Usually I install the cart software onto my own server. So a hosted cart is new to me. Are the Bluepark servers reliable? Nice and fast? Is there much down time?
I look forward to hearing some of your views and maybe joining you all here soon, all going well :)
little-linguist
23-09-2011, 18:04
I would highly recommend Bluepark. We tried a few e-commerce software packages before finding Bluepark in 2006 and the fact that we're still here 5 years later speaks volumes about how happy we are with it.
Upgrades - they're free, happen quite regularly and are usually customer-driven (i.e. if enough people request a particular feature and it's seen to have wide-reaching benefits Richard will do his best to integrate it).
There have been very few bugs and mishaps. If you do find a bug and point it out it's usually fixed straight away (as in within minutes / hours rather than being held over to the next "upgrade"). They've never been anything major though.
Bluepark servers are generally reliable. There has been the odd period of downtime here and there due to server issues but they are few and far between and sorted promptly. I understand that new users are on a better server system although I'm not too clued up on the ins and outs of this as we're still waiting to be upgraded.
Hi Deefer,
Like you I was very wary about what shopping cart vendor to use. I have to say, I am 100% happy with this system, updates are regular & free.
I have never had any issues with bug's or things not working, I believe this is largely down to the fact that all updates are fully tested before being applied to the software.
Servers our, of course hosted in the UK & speed has never been an issue.
The great thing about hosted is, that there is no wasting time, messing around with server settings etc etc, you simply get on and run your business.
The community here is fantastic! it's like a family (I am starting to get emotional now!) seriously though, you have any questions, how to etc, you wont be waiting long for a reply.
Also, and the biggest thing for me, is that Richard plays a very active part in this community & want's to hear users feedback, for example, if you have an idea/feature you would like to see integrated into the software and enough people agree its a good thing, then Rich will take notice and give an idea on how to achieve this.
I cannot recommend Bluepark enough.
jimmyservis
23-09-2011, 18:24
Hi Deefer
Lots of people seem to turn up having had bad experiences elsewhere. I've been with Bluepark for almost a year, and its my first and only ecommerce site.
I've got no experience of other carts, but i've absolutely no reason to consider leaving Bluepark. Everything seems to work just fine!
Hi Deefer
Looking at forums is a good way to tell how good an e-commerce package is. Unlike many of BP competitors forums you won't find people on here complaining about bugs in the software. Most of the posts on here will be people asking for advice on how to do things or asking for enhancements etc
The forum is very friendly and a great way of getting help and learning things you never knew BP did. Even I come across things I never knew BP could do after using it for 6 years.
In short BP is feature rich, bug free, fast and backed up by fantastic support.
Assuming all the features fit your requirements then go for it. Your only regret will be that you didn't find BP years ago!
To echo the above posts, Bluepark is brilliant. You can be confident. It's a just month's notice to leave for a reason
I moved to BP 2 years ago, I have four sites with them. The software is bulletproof - it just works and it works well. Upgrades don't cost anything and are regular and driven by requests on the forum - which means that Rich does actually listen to his customers. I have only had one problem in all this time and that was a problem of my own making.
It also has some great features that work well (if a little on the basic side but if you want bells and whilstles you can always bold on additional software) for example, inclusive newsletters, affilliate tracking, loyalty points, live chat, live webstats and so on.
Before this I had a terrible experience with another system, it broke constantly and it wasn't VAT compliant at all.
Before that I used another shopping cart and each time they put into place an upgrade, something else broke plus they charged for all the additional features such as statistics, newsletters and so on.
In summary I can't recommend BP enough for included features and stability.
Red Devil
24-09-2011, 07:19
Just to add, any upgrades are automatically rolled out across all the sites by Richard. There is no need for the website owner to get involved in applying the upgrades to the software. So everyone's site is up to date. No need to worry.
Also, unlike other ecommerce software, many of the "add ons" come as standard with Bluepark.
I would highly recommend Bluepark to anyone. You won't regret it.
Fields of Blue
24-09-2011, 10:04
Been here for nearly 2 years, had a series of other carts, some Ok, but not enough support or features, BP is the best move we made, good upgrades, rarely have any issues, and even then it is likely to be an error on our part, which is quickly sorted either by help from people on forum, or a quick email to Rich.
Planning more sites, which will be here....
shelleym
24-09-2011, 11:27
I'd highly recommend Bluepark, the system is rock solid, hardly any bugs and if there is they're normally sorted out within 24 hours.
Also great help and advice on the forums
Oh wow guys.... this is so amazing... I am totally blown away. You all sound so friendly and so happy with Bluepark. I am sold. I am so excited. I can't tell you what a rough 6 months I have had with my current cart. I need to put it behind me and move on as quickly as I can before my business is completely killed off by the awful cart I am on.
I am so pleased to have found Bluepark and you all. It was a recommendation from a supplier. I checked it out with little hope in my heart, expecting more let downs. But this sounds like the real deal. I can't wait to get started now.
Thank you for all your replies and I look forward to becoming part of the 'family' :)
Oh wow guys.... this is so amazing... I am totally blown away. You all sound so friendly and so happy with Bluepark. I am sold. I am so excited. I can't tell you what a rough 6 months I have had with my current cart. I need to put it behind me and move on as quickly as I can before my business is completely killed off by the awful cart I am on.
I am so pleased to have found Bluepark and you all. It was a recommendation from a supplier. I checked it out with little hope in my heart, expecting more let downs. But this sounds like the real deal. I can't wait to get started now.
Thank you for all your replies and I look forward to becoming part of the 'family' :)
Your welcome :)
The thing is, (well for me anyway) unlike other commercial shopping cart vendors out there, Bluepark is different, as it's focus is on the community & providing a rock solid service, hence the family effect it has here. Richard is very good at engaging with his customers (or should I say children, as we are a family here...lol).
There is no doubt you have made the right choice, and welcome aboard :)
Hi there. We've been with Bluepark since 2006 and now have 3 sites with them. I can confirm comments above and thoroughly recommend Bluepark.
Just about to start my trial. Yay :cool:
Just about to start my trial. Yay :cool:
Good luck, you won't look back. BP is the third ecommerce software provider we have used and is far and away the most robust, flexible and user friendly.
I've been with BP for aound a year now after having a rubbish experience with a EPOS & Ecomm package, when the company tried charging crazy amounts for minor updates.. started to lose faith in finding the right ecomm package as mmany others out there look like they just trying to flog their buggy software and offer rubbish support with expensive upgrades, and then i found BP. Thios forum was a major factor in my decision and i can quite honestly say that i am kicking myself that i didn't find BP sooner!! it is such an easy to use package with so many great features (still discovering things aLl the time!) and the support on this forum is second to none! the people on hereare so helpful!!
go for BP, you won't be dissappointed!
I am loving it already :)
Thank you for all the replies. This community is amazing.
I am loving it already :)
Thank you for all the replies. This community is amazing.
Glad your loving BP and the Forum, Best of luck with your site(s)
Thank you :)
I'm resorting to the forum to contact you, as your email address is currently bouncing. I've tried to reply to your emails today, but can't contact you via your "info" address.
Thanks. Not sure what is going on today. My server crashed big time, so my whole site was down. I thought everything was fixed but it seems not. Sorry for any bother. I will post here when it is fixed.
Emails still down :confused: I'll drop you an email once fixed. No idea as yet whether I will receive all the missing emails or not.
I have really enjoyed these past two weeks. I didn't get to play with BP as much as I hoped as I had big server issues last week which took up loads of my time... but I got to know some of you on here (which was great, thank you for all the help already and for the warm welcomes) and I managed to fit in a few questions to Richard (thank you Rich).
I haven't tested everything I wanted to but very much get the idea that nearly everything has been thought of and thoroughly tested (very refreshing) and the support is amazing. Loving it. Am signing up today :) Yay.
I have really enjoyed these past two weeks. I didn't get to play with BP as much as I hoped as I had big server issues last week which took up loads of my time... but I got to know some of you on here (which was great, thank you for all the help already and for the warm welcomes) and I managed to fit in a few questions to Richard (thank you Rich).
I haven't tested everything I wanted to but very much get the idea that nearly everything has been thought of and thoroughly tested (very refreshing) and the support is amazing. Loving it. Am signing up today :) Yay.
Good for you :) and welcome to BP
Thank you. I think it is going to take me quite some time to get my new shop up and running as I have so little spare time to work on it... but hopefully a couple of months :)
Hi, another potential newbie here. Reading through this thread I do have one big concern - everyone is "Richard this" and "Richard that" giving the impression that BluePark is a one man outfit.
Now there's nothing wrong with that for someone running an ecommerce store selling widgets - if anything happens I can just find another online supplier of widgets. But for an e-commerce software provider - especially a hosted one like this* - it seems very dangerous to rest the fate of my entire business in the hands of a very small company that may stop trading at any time... (no offence to Richards road crossing skills but what happens if he gets run over by a bus tomorrow?)
Can anyone expand on the company size/structure?
*Currently I use Actinic which is a desktop e-commerce solution, and if they went bust tomorrow it wouldn't impact me at all. And if my hosting company went bust I could very quickly move my domain to another host and upload my site there. Unfortunately, Actinic is very outdated now, hence the search for a replacement.
Rich is the main developer and owner of BP, over the last few months BP has grown, Rich recently took on another member of staff named Cate, I am sure as BP continuies to grow, so will the staff. I am not 100% sure how many work people work for BP you would have to discuss that with Rich.
Regarding your other concerns again you would need to discuss this with Rich, however I am sure we would not be left to hang out and dry!
Bluepark are here for the long haul. They have been around for nearly 8 years. They are a small company but sometimes small is better and in BP case it definitely is. Rich is the brains behind the product and the main developer with support from Cate. Lynne looks after the finance side along with George.
I used to use Actinic as many others on here did and came to BP not long after tHey started. The product is rock solid with excellent support and on the very rare occasion a bug is found it's fixed straight away. It knocks the spots off Actinic and really you would not regret moving for one minute. As long as you are happy with the features go for it.
You can export everything from customers to orders and the product database. So if the unthinkable did happen just make sure you have a backup plan. With any hosted solution you will always have the same what if problem but honestly don't let that put you off going with one which suits your business needs.
Pretty sure Rich doesn't walk round with the servers strapped to his back, so if he got hit by a bus your website would carry on running normally giving the other shareholders time to sort something out.
Yes, development would be hit, but so would actinic development if they went through, so same boat really. We all have to consider the worse, but I'm pretty sure with the reputation BP has there would be someone willing to step in and carry on Rich's good work if the worse case ever happened.
Finance wise i believe BP is ok, or they were when we joined them (we did credit check BP before signing up) and they have grown a quite bit and got a lot better since then.
I'm happy to address this question. Bluepark is essentially a family owned business, and is far more than any one individual. As the original developer of the software, I do tend to take prominence on the forums - especially with regard to feature requests and bug reports (the latter of which we have relatively few). The remaining directors and shareholders each handle other essential areas of the company. Were the need to arise, additional developers would be brought in to ensure that software development continues.
In terms of technical support, there is myself and also Cate who joined the team last year. We are likely to expand our technical support team further in the near future, especially as Cate's talents extend far beyond technical support. We have an office in Witney, Oxfordshire with plenty of room to expand (have a look at our Twitter page for some photos of the office).
We have a very sound infrastructure. Our sites are hosted on our own cloud/grid platform, and located in one of the best data centres in the country. The hosting platform ensures that live site data is located on at least 2 physical servers at any one time, meaning that hardware failure affecting one of our physical servers would not bring down the site for longer than a matter of minutes. That doesn't mean that our system is invulnerable, no hosting system is, there are always other variables that can affect site performance and connectivity - but we consider this our #1 priority at all times. For that reason, we never overload our servers and monitor them constantly.
We've been actively trading since January 2006, after an initial 2 years of development beginning in 2004. Bluepark's ecommerce software is our only business interest, it has our undivided attention at all times.
To answer the original question, were I to be hit by a bus tomorrow - Bluepark would continue as it is now, with the exception that further software development would be delayed by a couple of months to allow new developers to familiarise themselves with the system.
Pretty sure Rich doesn't walk round with the servers strapped to his back.
Now there's a thought! :)
Bluepark are here for the long haul. They have been around for nearly 8 years.ok, but irrelevant. My business might have been running for 10 years but as the 'key-man' if I got run over tomorrow the business would be screwed...
You can export everything from customers to orders and the product database. So if the unthinkable did happen just make sure you have a backup plan. Sure, but what's your backup plan? With actinic I can get new hosting setup, and have my website uploaded to the new host in less than an hour, the only issue would be waiting upto 24hrs for the DNS to propegate the domain name to the new hosting. If something happened to bluepark as a company can you just transfer the website to another host? If not then your back plan would be to start again from scratch with a new type of website and import all the products into the new site, which could take weeks/months... unless I'm missing something?
Pretty sure Rich doesn't walk round with the servers strapped to his back, so if he got hit by a bus your website would carry on running normally giving the other shareholders time to sort something out. Yes, development would be hit, but so would actinic development if they went through, so same boat really.Not really the same. Some of my sites have been running for around 5 years, and if actinic had stopped trading the day after my sites went live it wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference (I'm still using v7, so all their development since then has been meaningless to me). The question is how long would your website last if bluepark (or any other hosted solution) stopped trading tomorrow? That's the problem with hosted solutions like this.
To answer the original question, were I to be hit by a bus tomorrow - Bluepark would continue as it is now, with the exception that further software development would be delayed by a couple of months to allow new developers to familiarise themselves with the system.Fair enough, as long as everything is documented. The problem with small tech businesses is too often they rest on the expertise of the founder, who hogs all the admin passwords and is the only one who knows how key procedures work... ;)
Don't get me wrong - I do want to move away from actinic, and everything seems to be a 'hosted solution' these days - but with a big company there is less of a "key-man" problem. At the moment I'm still wavering between bluepark and BigC, but in the end I think it's going to come down to features...
The worse case scenario is its going to cost you some money and time. Frankly building a site from scratch is doable assuming you have backups. You need to weigh up your potential risk against reward but you must have bigger business risks than this.
At the moment I'm still wavering between bluepark and BigC, but in the end I think it's going to come down to features...
Also don't forget to take into account hosting location, support location and look through the forums as this gives a good indication of how robust the software is and how happy/unhappy people are.
There are plenty of other non-hosted solutions available if you like having control of your own hosting etc or you could stay with Actinic.
The worse case scenario is its going to cost you some money and time. Frankly building a site from scratch is doable assuming you have backups. You need to weigh up your potential risk against reward but you must have bigger business risks than this.
Well you say that, but if your entire business revolves around a single website how much bigger risks are there than losing your website?
Fire or destruction of offices? website keeps running and taking orders, we have offsite backups so we could rebuild the back end in 2 days tops including delivery of the new PCs - minor delays to orders.
Loss of key personel? ok, very serious, but the website keeps selling in the mean time.
In the end you need to make up your mind as to what is best for you.... arguing with responses here does not really take you any further. BP is good. We have had our websites hosted by BP since the autumn of 2006 and have no complaints about the support or the system. If you (as you appear) not to believe any of the posts here that are positive for BP I might wonder if you are actually working for the competition.
Given all your concerns maybe BluePark isn't the right solution for you? This is a hosted solution, run by a small team and developed (mainly) by one person (although the second developer does seem to be very knowledgeable now) and therefore if these are genuine concerns of yours and fall in to your "essentials" rather than desirables for a solution then this really isn't the software for you.
However, before I moved to BP I had a custom built site (disaster - the hosting crashed and the back ups were corrupt and three years worth of specific development were lost but at the time the site was clunky and as bits were bolted on became quite a cumbersome package and was therefore the push I needed to look for something new). I then had several sites with EKM - nightmare - the management treated their customers like rubbish at the time (no idea if they are still like that), it was very buggy and each time they added a new feature something else broke and on the whole remained broke. I then moved to a third system and only after full development and having custom modules written did I realize that despite being a UK version of the software being purchased it wasn't at all VAT compliant and the company concerned offered incredibly poor customer service, they couldn't be contacted and the whole experience was 12 months of aggro and nightmares!
BluePark may be "a one man band" so to speak but it is stable and reliable, bugs are rare but are treated with prioirty, developments have been plentiful and reliable. The packages contain a whole host of included features which have saved us money in the long run, the software is so versatile and highly configurable and we have had two very stress free years.
Only you can really decide how important the size of the company is and whether or not to go for a hosted (rented) package.
If you (as you appear) not to believe any of the posts here that are positive for BP I might wonder if you are actually working for the competition.I didn't say I didn't believe any of the posts, I just disagreed with some of the points made. It certainly seems from this and other posts that bluepark has a loyal following of happy customers, and clearly that is a big plus (as others have pointed out some competitors are less customer oriented, especially to UK clients). But as a business we have to look at the risks.
But I'm happy with the response from Richard - yes it is a small company, but it's not a one man band.
To me it's not a huge deal as I have multiple websites running under actinic and I'm only planning on moving one to a new platform at the moment, and it's not one of top 3 - It's just some people didn't really seem to appreciate the risks or the point I was trying to make.
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