Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Greetings all, I happened upon this today and thought it might be very useful for the ecommerce folks. It`s an ecommerce platform called GoodBarry that integrates all the important stuff into a single interface, and at a fantastically reasonable price.

Home page is here: http://goodbarry.com/

I can`t get the video to play, if you have the same problem there`s one on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7myzaGX0N4

You are right, it does look interesting.  How comprehensive is the CRM?  Can it be used for sales and customer service?  You cannot really tell from their web site description.

-------------------------

Bert at Harvey Software, Inc.
Multi-Carrier Shipping Software and Supply Chain Solutions for Internet Retailers

Also a provider of free shipping information and resources at Harvey Software`s Parcel Shipping Blog along with free tracking solutions at TrackingPage.com...

-------------------------

Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

I signed up for a trial run and although I haven`t had time to get too deep into it, it looks extremely comprehensive, including the CRM. Once you get logged into the back end you can see there are additional modules to add, and they also offer the ability to develop your own modules.

It is a hosted solution, but that`s kind of the point. It`s EVERYTHING all rolled together — basically plug-and-play hosting, design, ecommerce, email marketing, forums, blogs, job boards, POP email, payment gateways, etc, so that an aspiring web merchant doesn`t have to worry about piecing everything together or hiring someone to do it, which can be prohibitively expensive.

What I like is the reseller program for designers... they`ll let you rebrand and resell it as your own. I`ve signed up for a webinar this coming Monday to see how it works.

—paula

Roland, I noted that too.  I guess you could work around this by hosting your site one place and when you need a page that supports what they offer, call it from your site.  A little messy but a work-around if you decided their other offerings were worth it.

I would still like to know what they mean by CRM though.  That is a term that seems to have different meanings and is used loosely.  Their site really breezes over it and it is important feature.

-------------------------

Bert at Harvey Software, Inc.
Multi-Carrier Shipping Software and Supply Chain Solutions for Internet Retailers

Also a provider of free shipping information and resources at Harvey Software`s Parcel Shipping Blog along with free tracking solutions at TrackingPage.com...

FWIW — the "customers" subtabs:

• search
• customers
• cases
• bookings
• opportunities
• orders
• forecasts

the side nav includes the option "build a customer report," although I don`t know what that means since my free trial has no customers in there.

There`s also an API so if you were feeling ambitious you could write an interface between a hosted-elsewhere site and the GoodBarry back end.

—paula

Paula thanks for the info and the post!  I think I will check them out.  Since we released our Google Checkout shipping product known as CPS Basics (http://www.CutNShip.com), there has been a lot of interest from other eCommerce companies and web designers for us to make a similar type interface for their offerings.  Even though it has worked very well for Google Checkout users and others, the design of some systems have kept us from doing it in a way that we feel is acceptable.  This one seems different in many regards even if their newness may mean that there may be early release bugs.

 

My concern about the CRM stems from our experience with other systems.  One of the problems we have seen with many of these systems is the CRM or historical data is really lacking.  A poorly created CRM really cripples good parcel tracking capability after the order is processed.  The fact they have API access and you can construct modules means they may be a good match up with our product even if the way it appears from the tabs is still a little questionable.  At least they are opening the door to improvement by them and others.

 

Thanks again for the info.  I will let you know what I think when I give them a try.

-------------------------

Bert at Harvey Software, Inc.
Multi-Carrier Shipping Software and Supply Chain Solutions for Internet Retailers

Also a provider of free shipping information and resources at Harvey Software`s Parcel Shipping Blog along with free tracking solutions at TrackingPage.com...

Bert, please do, I would very much like your opinion. I can see a zillion ways this can be useful if it really is what it claims and appears to be.

(Also, FWIW, Google Checkout is one of their prefab gateway options. Not familiar with your product but could possibly make API-ing easier for you if you were to go that route.)

—paula

I will...And I would like to hear your opinion too as you learn more...

Thanks,

Bert

-------------------------

Bert at Harvey Software, Inc.
Multi-Carrier Shipping Software and Supply Chain Solutions for Internet Retailers

Also a provider of free shipping information and resources at Harvey Software`s Parcel Shipping Blog along with free tracking solutions at TrackingPage.com...

Even worse, if they own the domain name of your website and you brand your business around that web address, you really are hosed.  If you already own a domain, you can change the DNS entries to their servers, but unless you are ready to transfer ownership, never assign the admin contact to anyone.  (The admin contact *is* the domain owner).



-------------------------

Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email