TicketDesk Pro v1.2

Hi Charles,

You're right about leading by example, and of course the more I use SmartDD, then the more I'll want bits and pieces added to it (sorry Paul).

It's bugged me for a long time now that I wasn't using SmartDD to sell SmartDD if you know what I mean. But I needed a membership script to handle it, or at least thought I did.

Now v3 is here, I don't believe I need to stick with the BM script any longer, and when the membership side of SmartDD is complete there'll be a slug of work to migrate everything over. There are also lots of little tweaks needed to make it easier to use.

For instance, SmartDD supports SMTP, but you have to change the config file to activate it – that should be in the system menu. And the free sign up template system is a bit rough and can be difficult to understand – that should be menu driven I think.

SmartDD now has a simple affiliate system built in which uses the 7DS method of appending ?=PayPalEmailAddress to the end of the domain and rotating payment between you and the affiliate, or of course you can use ClickBank.

When we introduce memberships, we'll also introduce subscriptions too, and you'll be be able to set up remote membership sites controlled PROPERLY by PHP log in, and not "basic auth" like JVM does.

Yeah I'm excited about it.

-Frank

Hi Donna,

I didn't mention Fantasos, the product I'd tried out was JV Manager. As a techy, I found it to be over-complicated and inflexible. Fantasos may be much better, but once bitten…

SmartDD can be used with all your minisites from a central location and will shortly be able to handle subscriptions and true membership functionality, remotely or otherwise. We have a prototype working now on the Vendiva.com site handling subscriptions to the price comparison service.

SmartDD has full Kunaki support.

SmartDD has flexible autoresponder integration and will POST data off to services like Aweber rather than send an email which is how I found JVM does it. Maybe Fantasos does it differently. Paul tells me that 99% of the autoresponder code required is there in SDD, it just needs a front end.

SmartDD has support for PayPal and ClickBank, and the code has been written for World Pay too although we haven't enabled it yet. Google Checkout will be in the next release. Paul tells me that adding payment processors is no big deal, but then we've never been asked for any other than ClickBank and Google Checkout. I personally would also like to see Moneybookers in there, but then again maybe I'd never use it.

Some of the other things you mention I don't believe get used? Just a finger in the air here, but of all the products I've purchased online, I've never seen a site which has the ability for me to add my products for approval. Similarly with resellers licences etc.

I think the thing to remember here is we offer the most used, most required functionality and have kept the price low so that anyone can afford it.

Free and you can install it as many sites as you personally own. In most cases the free version is all that people will ever need as it has the ability to securely deliver 5 products. If you really want to centralise as we're now doing with SmartDD, you can get the full version for as little as $67, and I'll be doing a WSO soon for an even lower price.

Certainly comparing SmartDD with Fantasos isn't something I'd do as I believe most of the functionality in Fantasos is never used by most people.

And at $3,000 I'd expect Fantasos to be BLOODY good and very easy to use.

But as I said, I found JV Manager to be unwieldy and non-intuitive. Annoyingly, people kept telling me to use RAPS instead, but RAPS doesn't allow you to centralise like SmartDD does.

You might say SmartDD is unintuitive and unwieldy, but I personally find it's a lot easier to use. But then I *would* say that wouldn't I?

-Frank

Hi Donna,

I don't think I did take a pop at JVM. What I said was I saw a huge increase in abandonment in the sales process when I flipped over to it.

That was an observation based on tracking the flow through the TDP site.

The thing is, I suspected that would happen but thought that so many JVM users couldn't be wrong so I must be mistaken. The fact is, asking people to part with their details before the sale is (proven by my own observation) a sales killer.

Mike Filsaime told me that 2 years ago, and I can now confirm his wisdom.

What he told me was when someone is ready to buy, let them. Don't slow them down as they may stop and think and decide not to buy after all.

My own advice is make it easy for a prospect to buy and then ask for their details after the event, or like SmartDD does, get their details from the payment processor in the background.

-Frank Haywood

Arris,

It's nice to see you have an opinion. Can I have one too?

*Without* you getting hot under the collar because our experience and opinions differ?

After spending about 60+ hours with JV Manager and desparately trying to get it to accept payment without people having to register first, plus enlisting the hep of two other long time JVM users (hi Mike, hi Anand) to set up the TDP site, I gave up.

It doesn't do what I want it to do in the way that I want. I found it inflexible and confusing. I may be in the minority in terms of numbers, but that's my experience.

All I wanted to do was to centralise my sales and take payment for products, and somewhere along the way get a customer to sign up to a mailing list so I could let them know about updates.

Experience (and Mike) told me that the best way to make a sale was to let people pay and gather data afterwards. If you're giving a freebie away, then it's fine to get people to register first as that's the "payment". (Personally I don't like squeeze pages either, but that's just my opinion.)

I know that there's 3 things you don't talk about in public unless that's your niche as it causes people to get upset.

Sex.

Politics.

Religion.

I avoid all three. I unsubscribe from mailing lists that go anywhere near them.

Which of those in your opinion do you think JVM comes under?

To answer your question, I won't be apologising for an opinion and a statement of what I found to be *fact* because it doesn't sit well with you.

Nowhere in this post have I attacked JVM, Fantasos or John Delavera – that's just NOT the kind of thing I do. As I'm sure you know, there are more than enough REAL targets out there (not JVM, Fantasos or John Delavera) who would benefit from a product or character assasination, but that's NOT something I do anyway.

I have merely stated my opinion based on my experience.

-Frank Haywood

Hi Donna,

I agree that some of Mike's products are buggy. However, his marketing acumen is untouchable.

Yes I understand why JVM (and I guess Fantasos) works the way it does – I just don't agree with the logic based on my own findings.

Bans based on email address are easy to get round too – just use a different email address. I personally have about 50 email addresses for different sites etc. I often don't buy things with the same email address as I tend to compartmentalise things.

From a SmartDD perspective what we'll be doing is to ban customers based on two things (in the next release).

#1 – Their PayPal ID – everyone gets one of those and it's unique and we store that data.
#2 – Their email address.

As we add other payment processors, we'll see if there isn't some unique identifier like the PayPal one as that's really the best way to apply a ban.

We'll apply the bans simply by not delivering the product after the sale.

If it's a genuine mistake, then you can rectify it after the event. If it's a true application of the ban, then you can rectify it at your leisure while the serial refunder stews at the fact that she hasn't managed to get the product while already having had to part with the money.

I personally think that's a far more satisfying way of getting "revenge" on an offending buyer.

Yes eventually you'll have to refund them, but while doing so, you get the opportunity to flag the offending buyer at the payment processor. If enough people do this, then eventually the payment processor will flag that person as a bad buyer and no longer accept any kind of payment from them.

This is a far better method of applying the ban than doing it before the sale goes through as you often get to have your say to the payment processor.

I'm sure you'll agree with that logic. Or not.

SmartDD already identifies customers by email address, and you can easily view your list of customers and what orders they've made. You can also easily create orders manually for a customer if you wish, just by clicking a couple of buttons – I never found an easy way to do that with JVM, maybe Fantasos has fixed that.

You can then send them an email you've associated with the saleable item to let them know, with another couple of button clicks. This is a NICE way to easily reward your individual customers, and a simple way of giving products to your JV partners as you can quickly and easily add a new customer manually.

When we finally get round to releasing Site Flow Manager, you'll get everything that SmartDD does and a lot of the little niceties like points and discount coupons. It's not that far away – a few weeks maybe.

And it won't break your bank account either…

-Frank