Likelihood to Recommend The service provision is good the accounts customer service is poor so I would struggle to give BC a better than average review, if only they could offer customers a better accounts service then the value would be much higher.
Read full review ShipperHQ is almost too heavy-handed for our use case. We are only a single-origin shipper so we don't need the advanced functionality of multi-origin or drop-shipping. It is suited much better for organizations that have multiple origins or that use drop-ship facilities, or even a company managing multiple different eCommerce websites. We opted to go with it because of its great reviews, combined with less than stellar reviews of the competition.
Read full review Pros Probably one of the easiest e-commerce platforms to work in, it does take setup, but compared to a lot of other e-commerce solutions, this is probably the best one that I have seen that can be designed and implemented custom. Their template system works very well and allows you to create and re-use templates across Adobe Business Catalyst. Their pre-built modules are great, giving people a great way to use common web elements without having to use a plug-in or find some solution, it is simply built in and generally works exactly as you would expect. Adobe Business Catalyst is more of an all-around solution, providing elements that most smaller companies would have a hard time figuring out, since it includes the ability to build websites, send and track e-mails, analytics. It really is a powerful tool that would typically require a fair amount of coding knowledge and expertise but with the system already built, it can be easily modified and edited by those with limited or no coding knowledge at all. Read full review It is easy to batch process orders. It quickly calculates rates to compare. It is easy to keep track of orders for future review. Read full review Cons Multi Client Management: The dashboard for managing multiple clients as a reseller is a little difficult to get to. There is also no very easy way for me to manage multiple clients at once. I have to log into and out of individual client accounts to do billing or management. Lack of Server support: There are certain server protocols and languages that are not supported using BC. For example I cannot build a custom php database and upload to BC. I am required to use their tools. Read full review The user interface is a little tricky. It is not as easy to navigate as other shipping apps. I wish that ShipperHQ had the functionality to print shipping labels and manage shipments. We currently have to use a different third-party app for shipment management. I would also like to see the option for adding shipping rules if shipping management was integrated. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Actually with Business Catalyst there is no renewal; once you are a partner, you are a partner for as long as you like. It is an investment in your business not simply a product you purchase...and as an investment in partnership with Adobe, both are committed to each other's success.
Read full review I give ShipperHQ a 10/10 because the software does exactly what it says, and has a rock-solid support team to help get everything set up. The features are pretty easy to use and implement.
Read full review Usability Overall it is a "plug and play" interface. The majority of the work is done in other software interfaces. Managing billing, user roles and custom reports are all that you need to manage in the actual BC user interface. For my business this is an incredible benefit as I have to leave my preferred software less.
Read full review I'm not giving a 10/10 because I did need a little hand-holding to get through the initial setup. Overall, it's not that difficult to use once you understand how to apply custom dimensional rules.
Read full review Reliability and Availability very few issues with availability
Read full review Performance Very few issues
Read full review Support Rating The support provided by Adobe is excellent. Though the knowledge base, forums, blogs and online chat questions most all answers can be found. In the event that you are unable to find an answer or you have a unique situation simply post a question to the forums. These forums are regularly monitored by Adobe and its users.
Read full review Their support is the primary reason I elected to purchase a premium. They helped a lot with the initial set up.
Read full review Online Training bcgurus.com kiyuco
Read full review Implementation Rating Pretty easy to do
Read full review Alternatives Considered As far as the CMS for BC goes, there is none out there that compares. In the past we have utilized Joomla, Wordpress, Mambo, Drupal, Concrete 5 and others. None of them were as easy to use and train on that Adobe's Business Catalyst. Our alternative to BC is WordPress when our clients want a less expensive solution. For the most part that works OK but we have had issues with plugin incompatibility among other issues. We lost at least two clients because of similar issues. The other great part about BC's solution is that we can still work with our favorite site creation tool - Dreamweaver. The whole process continues to be more and more simplified with added features to the system. No other solution (that we've found) offers such an easy way to create custom web sites that are easily editable by our clients.
Read full review USPS only allows you to use their services (obviously). It was sluggish and often offline. The shipsaver insurance saves us money. We had to guess shipping costs for items instead of entering their weights and sizes ahead of time. It integrates with our e-commerce site. Glad we have it now.
Read full review Scalability It's easy to build small sites or large sites and there is lots of templating.
Read full review Return on Investment As someone who uses it on behalf of other clients, our ROI with BC is definitely positive. We needed a mid-range CMS without huge licensing costs to satisfy mid-range clients who have some dynamic needs but doesn't need the expense or liability of enterprise level products. Without it we would have lost possible customers or taken bigger hits on projects because of the costs involved with satisfying their mid-level needs Our clients are all usually very positive about the BC platform and are able to use it themselves which lessens our Support time/cost. To use the Web App element,. which we do on almost every site, you need to pay for the highest plan. This brings along with it many features most of our clients would never use. A more basic plan with that Web App capability would be a big improvement on our costs. Read full review ShipperHQ is reliable and requires little to no maintenance, which for a small crew like ours is invaluable. ShipperHQ also offers the option to display either retail shipping rates or our discounted rates to our customers. This is handy because we can display those discounted rates, which results in higher conversion and fewer abandoned carts due to high shipping costs. One negative, however, is that since ShipperHQ lacks the ability to manage shipments, we have had to use another third party app which increases overhead. Read full review ScreenShots