Thread: Eta for V9.1

I know v9.0 is just out the door, but is there any idea of when v9.1 will be out, since this will contain the fully working mobile storefront.

Thanks
...Jim

I'm also interested in knowing the estimate on when 9.1 will be ready. Will it be this summer, fall or winter? Thanks!

The inherent nature of the solution in version 9 is, of course, ideal and we look forward to the whole mobile checkout which we understand will be forthcoming in a later version. Meanwhile, we have built our own mobile solution specifically for AspDotNetStorefront http://www.vortx.com/p-90-mobile-com...torefront.aspx and we are really proud of how well it works – to see it in action, use your smartphone to visit www.bowlerstore.com , www.musicfactorydirect.com or www.dealyard.com (those are just 3 of many)

$175 per month...I don't think so.

I'm fascinated to see your resistance to the price (and , of course, I'm biased). Here's what I'd love to do, if you'd let us? I'd love to have somebody from my team take a look with you at how many visitors a day are visiting your online store from a smartphone. Google Analytics is pretty good today at segmenting the "visiting device". You may already know for sure that $175 a month would be a waste, but I have to tell you that almost all of our mobile users were doubtful until they turned it on and found that they earned more in a week than they spent in a month. What's more, the charge is a monthly subscription - turn it off and stop paying any time you like. So it might cost you $175 to find out ....... although if you're willing to work with me (for free) to take a look at your visitor stats, I can maybe agree with you and find something better on which to spend your money.

If enough people let us know that they would like to learn more about the devices being used to view their site, then I'll hold a worldwidewebinar and we'll have some fun. Just let us know - any way you like. Call us, email us, chat with us, leave a reply .......

Jo, how would we be able to tell if purchases came to our site via mobile or standard? I'd be interested in this app and $175/month wouldnt be a problem if I could realistically track ROI and cancel if ROI = BAD.

Oh, the things we can all do with shared knowledge ........ I'm going to invite Craig, one of our team, to jump in and contribute, because I want you all to know that there is a smart and energetic team behind Dana and I. Craig is almost certainly sleeping this early Sunday morning and besides, he's allowed a weekend every now and again, so forgive us if it's Monday before he replies in detail. While we wait I will tell you that Google Analytics is great and naturally segments mobile traffic out, and provides ecomm tracking on all segments. If you have GA code installed properly (and we can help you with that) then it is the work of moments to glance at your ROI. Anyway, please watch for a further (better!) reply from Craig.

Now that Vortx purchased ASPDNSF is mobile still being enhanced for 9.1 or is that no longer going to be in the release since you have your $175/month solution?

Why is mobile worth $175/mo?

I used v7 and now v8 and have had tons ( not literally thousands ) of iphone/ipad orders. Why is there a need for "mobile" skins?

Chaz.

Originally Posted by jo@vortx.com

I'm fascinated to see your resistance to the price (and , of course, I'm biased). Here'...

Hi Jo -
I'd like to chime in on the above note as it hits a particular concern given the recent changes. I suspect the resistance to price you may be seeing is from the fact that you have ALL KINDS of businesses running ASPDNSF. The reason I bought this software as a *very* small business owner is that it was a set price for a very robust application that would allow me to compete at a higher level.

Now, if you've been following e-commerce for the last couple of years, you know that mobile is the future. The road to 9.0 was a long wait and the native mobile solution is poor. No mobile checkout= no mobile business.

Looking at the bigger future picture, I'm wondering if having mobile is going to be some sort of extra monthly pricing feature on top of the base expense of the store. That would be something of huge concern for me as a small business, enough to quickly make me look for alternate carts. I'm used to getting an upgrade of great functionality 1-2 times a year for the cost of an upgrade package.

In my mind, the monthly charge thing is generally a service based thing since I've been using this platform. For example, I will pay a small monthly fee for Maxmind, Buysafe, SSL, etc. as add in to the existing software, that I originally bought AS A COMPLETE package. For software, 3rd party add-ins are add-ins that command a price, but the concern is that this pricing scheme will be pushed to features even though Vortx is technically now 1st party.

You mentioned analytics, and I agree that the case can be made based on conversion numbers and your mobile analytics numbers. It may be a slam dunk decision if you are a larger company, but not so clear if you're just starting out. And what if the numbers don't work for a small business? Should they automatically forget mobile just because it doesn't cover the $175 a month? That's a hard pill to swallow knowing where things are going and being used to store feature upgrades.

I think this largely boils down to whether or not you believe mobile is an intrinsic part of the base storefront price, or an add-on price. Knowing where mobile is going, that's an easy answer for me.

I appreciate your dialog on this, and take it as a good sign of things to come. I'm hoping there will be something of interest on offer going into the holidays.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by chazandchaz

Why is mobile worth $175/mo?

I used v7 and now v8 and have had tons ( not literally thousands ) of iphone/ipad orders. Why is there a need for "mobile" skins?

Chaz.

On most mobile phones the resolution of a normal page is quite small. Mobile versions (skins) of websites are easier to navigate and browse, which will increase conversion rate, as well as send a signal to your customer that you are current and care.

Hey All,

Jo asked me to chime in and respond to a couple of things.

1) Tracking ROI (ssgumby's question) - Jo hit the nail on the head with her answer. Most analytics software can segment users by browser and/or OS and track conversions.

We do a lot of work with Google Analytics and they've even added a handy "mobile" section to their visitor segmentation.

In the mobile section, if you have ecommerce tracking setup, you can track conversions from mobile devices. From there you can compare results before and after installing the mobile cart to see if the ROI is there.

2) Why use a mobile friendly cart? (chazandchaz's question) - It's awesome you're already getting tons of sales from mobile users.

In ecommerce, there's usually tweaking, changing value props., modifying product inventory, and trying different designs before store owners can reach a point where they're generating a profit.

What's important is to test new things and see how they impact your bottom line. The mobile cart is another opportunity for you to try and serve your users needs.

The mobile cart makes it easier for mobile users to view and interact with your products (smaller screens, and fingers as input devices rather than a mouse pointer). If you're already getting a lot of traffic from users on mobile devices, it follows a cart designed for their UI needs will likely increase your conversion rates for those users. Take a look at your site on a mobile device, what would you change?

If it works, awesome! If not, like Jo said, we'd be glad to help you find something that does.

3) v9.1, and more (jmarshallsea, jjdunkel, ohmydude_ML) - We're currently working on evaluating the existing AspDotNetStorefront product roadmap and soliciting owner feedback. We'll likely have a product roadmap to share with the community in a couple of weeks.

Hope that does it, if there's something I missed, let me know.

- Craig

Here's my objection of $175/month with simple math. A comparison of cost over time for two versions of the main flagship product versus the addon.

A couple definitions first:
ML/64 = The current price of the product with the annual maintenance. 2nd year will include the $400 annual maintenance fee(recently increased from $300).
ML/64/Source = The current price of the product with source and the annual maintenance. 2nd year will include the $400 annual maintenance fee(recently increased from $300).
Vortx Mobile = The installation($300) and monthly($175) fee in first month followed by only the monthly fee.

Code:

Product              Year 1             Year 2
ML/64                $1,844             $2,244
ML/64/Source         $2,839             $3,239
Vortx Mobile         $2,400             $4,500

The mobile solution which is FAR less complex of a website and handles a fraction of the traffic...eclipses the cost of the flagship ML/64 product. It's not a matter of if orders generated by the 6% of my visitors that use mobile devices to visit my page is enough to pay the $175.

Thanks for the input Craig, its greatly appreciated.

I can see in GA that I get roughly 500 mobile visitors per month (heavily skewed to iPhone). I cannot determine how many of my ecomm conversions are from mobile though. Can I get some insight on where I can see that? I do have it setup and on, I can see all my conversions and funnel tracking.

jjdunkel ..... thanks, this is great for us all to share. Here's my counter.

1) Are you telling me that ML/64 just works out of the box? no investment in design / skinning / populating / SSL / hosting / SEO ....? Most people we know spend very much more , in both hours and time, than the $1844 you quote in year one. Your mobile cart will just work. While it is possible to spend money on custom work, it will almost certainly be cheaper than customizing the webstore.

and .... probably even more powerful ...

2) If you find, three months after buying ML/64 (and designing, skinning, populating, configuring, hosting it) that it isn't working for you, how much money will it have cost in that first year?? Turn a mobile cart on for a month or two and find it doesn't work for you ..... and it will have cost significantly less to find out. This is not a lifetime commitment, unless of course, you find that it works so well that you long for it to be a lifetime commitment !!

Please, keep me on my toes. You are asking really smart questions.

The mobile interface is something I would design and set up. Why would I want a monthly fee? I'm not using your server or bandwidth so a monthly fee makes no sense. I also don't want any pinging for licenses.

Originally Posted by ssgumby

Thanks for the input Craig, its greatly appreciated.

I can see in GA that I get roughly 500 mobile visitors per month (heavily skewed to iPhone). I cannot determine how many of my ecomm conversions are from mobile though. Can I get some insight on where I can see that? I do have it setup and on, I can see all my conversions and funnel tracking.

If you have ecommerce tracking on, you should be able to look under "Visitors" then down to "Mobile" then "Mobile Devices" and there should be an ecommerce tab.

Let me know if that works for you.

-Craig

Thanks Craig, I was looking down under the regular ecommerce section thinking there would be a filter there. I see it now and its very interesting.

I may give the Vortx solution a try for a few months to see if that number increases. The conversion rate for mobile is well less than half for the main site. All conversion were from ipad, iphone, ipod .. gotta love iWhatever!

Originally Posted by jo@vortx.com

1) Are you telling me that ML/64 just works out of the box? no investment in design / skinning / populating / SSL / hosting / SEO ....? Most people we know spend very much more , in both hours and time, than the $1844 you quote in year one. Your mobile cart will just work. While it is possible to spend money on custom work, it will almost certainly be cheaper than customizing the webstore.

I'd like to comment on this, I think tons of users expect it to work perfect out the box with no additional development, ssgumby is a perfect example of this where he feels cheated that v9 is worse than the 200 dollar carts he has seen. I can see where he is getting frustrated and he has a point. The cart should work out of the box...

Now, having been developing for storefront for almost 4.5 years now, We understand that the license is only 10% of the cost of a product site and looking at this side of the picture it is expected to customize the storefront to your needs, so in the whole grand scheme of things it is not such a bad deal, but your spedning around 10k or so for a good solid site. So $175.00/month is not bad.


Basically I go back to what I stated earlier, I really think ASPDNSF should be a PARTNER BASED system where you can only purcahse licesnes from VARS. This would give customers an OUT of the box system that works for them and would cut down on the "well It was supposed to have this but now it doesn't and I feel jipped" It puts everything into prespective and lets people know what they expect to pay over the course of the year.

my $.02 if you don't agree I respect that you don't need to call me out on anything folks

Originally Posted by Alkaline

I'd like to comment on this, I think tons of users expect it to work perfect out the box with no additional development, ssgumby is a perfect example of this where he feels cheated that v9 is worse than the 200 dollar carts he has seen. I can see where he is getting frustrated and he has a point. The cart should work out of the box...

Now, having been developing for storefront for almost 4.5 years now, We understand that the license is only 10% of the cost of a product site and looking at this side of the picture it is expected to customize the storefront to your needs, so in the whole grand scheme of things it is not such a bad deal, but your spedning around 10k or so for a good solid site. So $175.00/month is not bad.


Basically I go back to what I stated earlier, I really think ASPDNSF should be a PARTNER BASED system where you can only purcahse licesnes from VARS. This would give customers an OUT of the box system that works for them and would cut down on the "well It was supposed to have this but now it doesn't and I feel jipped" It puts everything into prespective and lets people know what they expect to pay over the course of the year.

my $.02 if you don't agree I respect that you don't need to call me out on anything folks

I will end this here, but since you called me out I have to say something. You are correct, I expect it to "work" out of the box .. no question there. Do I expect it to function with all my needs out of the box? Absolutely not! Combined I would estimate I have 10-15k in my 8.0.1.2 cart with all modifications done.

I agree with what others have said here about you, you always seem to be angling for dollars thrown your way. Of course you would be one of these partner supplying folks wouldnt you?

If you don't want to be called out, then don't call me out by name.

Peace

Wow this thread is getting interesting. Everyone is sharing there opinion of how the mobile skin should be offered.

Here's my two cents... If I could make a sale to someone using an "iWhatever" device in v7 and v8 without a mobile skin, then I would expect, at least, to be able to do the same thing in v9. If the mobile skin was unable to process a checkout then why release v9 with it enabled by default? v9 will have a lower conversion rate out of the box than v8 because of this.

Now my question is how do I disable the mobile skin in v9 so that mobile devices will use the primary skin?

Chaz.

Originally Posted by chazandchaz

Wow this thread is getting interesting. Everyone is sharing there opinion of how the mobile skin should be offered.

Here's my two cents... If I could make a sale to someone using an "iWhatever" device in v7 and v8 without a mobile skin, then I would expect, at least, to be able to do the same thing in v9. If the mobile skin was unable to process a checkout then why release v9 with it enabled by default? v9 will have a lower conversion rate out of the box than v8 because of this.

Now my question is how do I disable the mobile skin in v9 so that mobile devices will use the primary skin?

Chaz.

I think this will work ... lets say you are currently using Skin_2 as your main store skin. Try duplicating that and rename it to MobileSkin_2 .... I think then your main skin will show for all mobile users.

Originally Posted by chazandchaz

Wow this thread is getting interesting. Everyone is sharing there opinion of how the mobile skin should be offered.

Here's my two cents... If I could make a sale to someone using an "iWhatever" device in v7 and v8 without a mobile skin, then I would expect, at least, to be able to do the same thing in v9. If the mobile skin was unable to process a checkout then why release v9 with it enabled by default? v9 will have a lower conversion rate out of the box than v8 because of this.

Now my question is how do I disable the mobile skin in v9 so that mobile devices will use the primary skin?

Chaz.

Originally Posted by ssgumby

I think this will work ... lets say you are currently using Skin_2 as your main store skin. Try duplicating that and rename it to MobileSkin_2 .... I think then your main skin will show for all mobile users.

Just changing skins won't work because once it switches to mobile it calls completely different routines in the background. The only really easy way to disable mobile skins is to remove all the browser tags(User Agents) from the MobileDevice table in the database for v9. All traffic will then go to your normal skin.

You can always re-add these browser tags back into the table later if you want to re-enable the mobile skins. If you forget to save them, you can always find them in the "Create AspDotNetStorefront Database.sql" file that comes with your product download.

I figured I would mention that you can also selectively remove browser tags to make certain devices like iphone, ipad and android devices use the regular skin and still have others use the mobile skin. The table is just a list of devices that will get routed to the mobile skin.

jj & ss thanks for the reply. You guys really make this a great online community.

I think I will play with both options. Maybe the mobile skin "routines" are something I can mod myself to get it working. Changing/deleting user agent strings sounds like a good "fix" until mobile skinning is fixed/working.

Albeit not a terribly big deal but for the conversion obsessed storefront owners like myself it is still disappointing the product was released with a truly lower conversion rate then previous versions.

I actually agree with Alkaline with the VARS. However, I think VARS should be required to have pricing just like ASPDNSF. One time price for purchase, source code option at a price, and optional charge for support. This SaaS and 175/mo for an addon is for the birds.

Chaz.

Originally Posted by ssgumby

I will end this here...., I agree with what others have said here about you, you always seem to be angling for dollars thrown your way. Of course you would be one of these partner supplying folks wouldnt you?

Obvioulsy you didn't

The so called "others" are either direct competitors that are seriously annoyed when we try to give something out for free, or wanna-be developers that can't stand when someone more experienced doesn't have to deal with the same issue/problem (or has already solved it) that they are encountering and whining about it (hint hint! Note: no names being called here).

Fact is we have given out MORE free stuff than the “others” and I don’t see any dollars, just thank you emails…If you can point me to the dollars that would be wonderful I could surely use them.

Now, their seems to be a big issue with the mobile site, FACT vortx did create this, vortx did not get anything form Aspdotnetstorefront; had Aspdotnetstorefront not been bought by vortx everyone would still be waiting for a mobile site.

2nd of all, we have looked at the requirement for a mobile site and it’s essentially an entire re-write of the front-end. It’s just not a template so calling it a “skin” is completely inaccurate. You have to re-write account, register, checkout, search, advsearch, ratings and more.

Going back to Money, if the demand is high enough (Which I don’t think it is) other vendors will create a mobile site. But honestly, on my iphone4 I rather look at sites in their native format then a mobile version; as technology is improving I really don’t see the need of a mobile site when mobile phones can display the full site perfectly.

Since the mobile site only works on v8, I have to ask Jo if they would mind if we created a mobile version for v9 (IT WILL BE FREE so no dollars my way )
But trying to get In touch with Jo has been very difficult.

Alkaline, let me point you to dollars ..... your so called "free" app that states "Aspdnsf Commander is a FREE APPLICATION! with annual support (via email, phone and support tickets) starting at $99.99/year. " ... that is angling for dollars among other ways. Of course your pushing it all over this site so you can soak up those support dollars eh?


wanna-be developer? No, I AM a developer. Trust me, I have 20 years experience starting with Pascal, Delphi, C, C++, Java, PHP, Xml, Xslt, Web Services and slowly C#. I have enough experience to be employed at a high level with a very large gobal corporation. My ASPDNSF experience is as support for a family business. Honestly, my preference would be to NOT be a developer but to be kicked back on a beach with a cold Corona.

All I try to be here is helpful, I want NOTHING in return. I just enjoy helping other people save a few bucks so they don't have to throw it away ... hint hint

Originally Posted by ssgumby

Alkaline, let me point you to dollars ..... your so called "free" app that states "Aspdnsf Commander is a FREE APPLICATION! with annual support (via email, phone and support tickets) starting at $99.99/year. "

That's fishing for dollars? out of the 150 keys given out 2 people have signed up for support, I tell you what give me your cell phone no. and I will post it saying free support from ssgumby call him

Originally Posted by ssgumby

I want NOTHING in return

But you have nothing to offer but your complaints, and requests for keys from us.

Originally Posted by ssgumby

Alkaline, let me point you to dollars ..... your so called "free" app that states "Aspdnsf Commander is a FREE APPLICATION! with annual support (via email, phone and support tickets) starting at $99.99/year. " ... that is angling for dollars among other ways. Of course your pushing it all over this site so you can soak up those support dollars eh?

I just went here http://www.simrun.com/AspDotNetStore...Commander.aspx to check out what you're griping about. It appears to me like the support contract is Optional, so in my humble opinion this argument is getting kind of petty.

Back on topic please.

If Vortx allows for v9:

1, We can release a MOBILE CART site (not skin) this will work on v9.x only.
The charge will be $0.00 We played around with our cart in master pages you will need to have about 10 extra .aspx pages for the mobile cart to work.

2, We will not release it for v8, because Vortx Solution works properly on v8

3, Why don't we release it now, honestly the demand seemed low.

4, What is the minimum res for it: it will require 640 Width (this is because most phones by the end of 2010 will have the ability to display this width).


Jo, What do you think about this.

Originally Posted by Alkaline

But you have nothing to offer but your complaints, and requests for keys from us.

Im sure many here would disagree, i've helped many, many folks and will continue to do so.

You can revoke my "key" which frankly doesnt work anyway. Your site says Windows 7, but alas that is incorrect (at this time).

I agree to get back on topic ... PM me if you have anything further to say.

Jo will be holding a webinar this Thursday to discuss the product roadmap for AspDotNetStorefront, see this post to reserve your seat: http://forums.aspdotnetstorefront.co...ad.php?p=92229