I have been looking at various eCommerce options for a small startup and must say I'm impressed with Vendr!
And your product (and demo) actually works unlike UCommerce!
If you're interested in catering for small shops it might be worth looking at some tiered/alternative pricing. For example Snipcart, which integrates well with Umbraco would be £8/month (or 2% of orders), so a small shop could use that for about 15 years before they get to your price break. More importantly once they go with an alternative, they are unlikely to come back to you.
Shops on Etsy which want to move away will probably go for something like Shopify rather than fork out 1.5K + development costs + hosting etc.
Just one other point I would mention is that you can delete orders. Not sure if that's just the demo, but in all the systems I've worked on it's set in stone that you can never alter the audit trail by actually deleting data using the back office.
Thanks for the feedback, it is really appreciated.
RE pricing, I completely understand and a monthly payment option is something we are looking at, however it's not that easy to implement, especially for installed solutions like Vendr. We have a lot of the mechanisms in place, but we've been currently prioritizing getting any early issues resolved for those that are already using it.
Regarding other platforms, unfortunately we will never be able to compete at the price levels of things like snipcart as there model is based on volume, and the reality is, the Umbraco audience just isn't that big. If we brought our pricing down to that kind of level, it would make the project commercially nonviable. We do hope however that the more integrated nature of Vendr brings other benefits that hosted SaaS solutions can't, such as owning your own data, a smoother workflow, and better customization.
We hope to get the subscription model launched as soon as possible, but thank's for the feedback in the meantime.
It's a nice example, but I think the £1000 per day is rather arbitrary. I think the reality is that folks needing small-webshop pricing are looking at much smaller daily order values so you'd be closer to £100 than £1000.
Also, I doubt that things would be so linear, so it's unlikely that they will make that £100 every day of the year, so when you add it all together, I think you'd be lucky to make £400 to £600 per anum.
If people are making £1000 per day though, I think that personally is a better argument for the one off pricing model as it would take the store owner 1.5 days to cover the cost of the license and never have to pay again, saving them £5,800.
I do understand the need of spreading the cost though and so this is why we are looking at subscription pricing (which we are getting pretty close to having something available) but I do stand by the statement that we won't be able to go as low as services like Snipcart as the Umbraco market just isn't big enough.
SNIPCART suggest they have 20,000 active customers. So if each of their "subscriber" stores are making £1 a day - Then the numbers stack up. (Dollar Sign Smilely Face)
Then again, SNIPCART, have FULL responsibility of maintaining the checkout process, hosting / bandwidth, and a heap of other "transaction critical" components to keep alive. These things won't be cheap, even when scaled up.
The advantage, you (vendr) have with your current model, is that the hosting environment and any contingencies are beyond your remit.
It can work, in your favour - as I have a couple of clients paying subscription/transaction fees, and are now slowly coming round to why a single fixed fee "upfront" would have been a better option.
Pricing for Small Shops
Hi Matt
I have been looking at various eCommerce options for a small startup and must say I'm impressed with Vendr!
And your product (and demo) actually works unlike UCommerce!
If you're interested in catering for small shops it might be worth looking at some tiered/alternative pricing. For example Snipcart, which integrates well with Umbraco would be £8/month (or 2% of orders), so a small shop could use that for about 15 years before they get to your price break. More importantly once they go with an alternative, they are unlikely to come back to you.
Shops on Etsy which want to move away will probably go for something like Shopify rather than fork out 1.5K + development costs + hosting etc.
Just one other point I would mention is that you can delete orders. Not sure if that's just the demo, but in all the systems I've worked on it's set in stone that you can never alter the audit trail by actually deleting data using the back office.
Cheers Mark
Hi Mark
Thanks for the feedback, it is really appreciated.
RE pricing, I completely understand and a monthly payment option is something we are looking at, however it's not that easy to implement, especially for installed solutions like Vendr. We have a lot of the mechanisms in place, but we've been currently prioritizing getting any early issues resolved for those that are already using it.
Regarding other platforms, unfortunately we will never be able to compete at the price levels of things like snipcart as there model is based on volume, and the reality is, the Umbraco audience just isn't that big. If we brought our pricing down to that kind of level, it would make the project commercially nonviable. We do hope however that the more integrated nature of Vendr brings other benefits that hosted SaaS solutions can't, such as owning your own data, a smoother workflow, and better customization.
We hope to get the subscription model launched as soon as possible, but thank's for the feedback in the meantime.
/Matt
Snipcart takes 2% of each sales transaction
For a store making £1000 in sales each day. That’s £20 per day in commission to snipcart
20 * 365 = £7300 per annum.
Sounds like a tasty proposition to me :)
It's a nice example, but I think the £1000 per day is rather arbitrary. I think the reality is that folks needing small-webshop pricing are looking at much smaller daily order values so you'd be closer to £100 than £1000.
Also, I doubt that things would be so linear, so it's unlikely that they will make that £100 every day of the year, so when you add it all together, I think you'd be lucky to make £400 to £600 per anum.
If people are making £1000 per day though, I think that personally is a better argument for the one off pricing model as it would take the store owner 1.5 days to cover the cost of the license and never have to pay again, saving them £5,800.
I do understand the need of spreading the cost though and so this is why we are looking at subscription pricing (which we are getting pretty close to having something available) but I do stand by the statement that we won't be able to go as low as services like Snipcart as the Umbraco market just isn't big enough.
Matt
Agreed - it's a tricky one.
SNIPCART suggest they have 20,000 active customers. So if each of their "subscriber" stores are making £1 a day - Then the numbers stack up. (Dollar Sign Smilely Face)
Then again, SNIPCART, have FULL responsibility of maintaining the checkout process, hosting / bandwidth, and a heap of other "transaction critical" components to keep alive. These things won't be cheap, even when scaled up.
The advantage, you (vendr) have with your current model, is that the hosting environment and any contingencies are beyond your remit.
It can work, in your favour - as I have a couple of clients paying subscription/transaction fees, and are now slowly coming round to why a single fixed fee "upfront" would have been a better option.
is working on a reply...