E-Commerce — frustrations with Network Solutions and Monster Commerce September 22, 2008
Posted by zzsutton in E-Commerce, Shopping Cart.Tags: E-Commerce, Monster Commerce, Network Solutions, Pro E-Commerce
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We have had several years of experience running a store (Baby Mine Store) powered by E-Commerce software from Monster Commerce (now Network Solutions). Recently, Network Solutions has decided to “upgrade” all of its customers (including ourselves) to a new version of the software (called Network Solutions Pro E-Commerce).
Briefly, it appears that Network Solutions has failed its customers in this “upgrade.” I worked in software development, development management, and general management of large software projects/products for many years at Hewlett-Packard and other companies large and small, mature and start-up. During all of those years, we would never have released a new version of an existing software package that functionally was incapable of supporting existing customers and was significantly more difficult (and less productive) to use in many areas.
Yet this is precisely what Network Solutions has done.
For example, our E-Commerce store deals with about 150 manufacturers. The older package easily dealt with these manufactures, including having an automated method for sending customer orders to the manufacturers with the orders correctly parsed into the products only for that manufacturer and not showing the selling price. Network Solutions’ Pro E-Commerce software does not allow dealing with manufacturers in the same way at all, forcing us to treat them as warehouses. Worse, there is a hard limit of 25 warehouses, so we simply cannot use Network Solutions’ Pro E-Commerce package unless we manually process (and split) each order and manually transmit the correct subset to the manufacturers–which would significantly reduce productivity and increase the chance of erroneous orders (most of our products are large items which ship directly from the manufacturer).
As another example, the older package allows easily entering multiple variants (such as size, color, finish) per product. So, for example, one might have a chair which comes in 5 finishes (Cherry, Oak, etc.) with 5 cushion colors (Beige, Blue, etc.). The old software required that we make 10 simple entries—one each for each finish and each cushion color.
The newer Pro E-Commerce software requires us to make 25 much more complex entries, one for each of the 25 possible combinations of finish and color. Further, it forces incorrect assumptions on the store owner—for example, that cushions cannot be interchanged among the chairs.
Without dwelling on the specific issues, which are numerous and serious, I am much more concerned about what this indicates about future product design and support that we would see.
We were never consulted during the design process of Pro E-Commerce.
We were given virtually no information about Pro E-Commerce prior to our forced migration. (Our migration, like many others, was abruptly put on hold until next year some time.)
When we discovered these critical functional and usability defects in Pro E-Commerce and reported them, the response was underwhelming. When we finally pressed for a commitment to correct at least the problem preventing us from supporting our existing manufacturers (which is a total show-stopper), we were told Network Solutions had no intention of fixing that problem.
To quote Network Solutions management:
“This means we offer one software package to meet the business needs of all of our ecommerce customers. This also means that we do not expect our customers to be 100% satisfied with every feature of our shopping cart software, but that they will find enough value in the overall package to be a satisfied customer.
This also means that over time, our turn-key application may no longer meet the needs of individual customers. !”
So, even though our customer needs had not changed at all, Network Solutions sees no problem that their application no longer meets our needs because they reduced the functionality (and usability and productivity) of their application.
The issue, of course, in addition to what this says about Network Solutions’ commitment to its customers, is that the very high expense of moving our store, which has about 4,000 products in a design tightly tied to Network Solutions’ product design and structure, is of no concern at all to Network Solutions.
It would not seem wise to buy into an E-Commerce solution like Network Solutions’ Pro E-Commerce in the face of such convincing evidence that Network Solutions will abandon you in a moment for their own convenience (or, in this case, just because they didn’t want to take the trouble to design a quality product). Further, it is clear that they have no commitment to continuing to support existing features or data structures.
Footnote: I did end up getting a voice mail from a support supervisor who said he wanted to speak with me. I called back a couple of days ago and got his voice mail. He’s not called back since. Past experience suggests that Network Solutions Customer Support simply is not structured to have any power to really facilitate any product change or defect repair to Pro E-Commerce.
I had also contacted Network Solutions Executive Escalation Center a couple of weeks ago. I was hoping that either their executives would better understand (and change) their decision and the implications for customer loyalty or that they would better support exporting the components of our store so that we could move to a different environment more supportive of our needs. I’ve just gotten a response that they do not intend on fixing this defect. They’ve responded that, “I am very sorry, but the new package [Network Solutions Pro-ECommerce]…will not work for you.”
Further footnote: I sent an email essentially reflecting what is in this post back to the Executive Support group; I also copied the CEO of Network Solutions (lucky guess on the email address). That resulted in a contact from the head of the Executive Support group, a call from Network Solution’s Director of Customer Support, and, finally, a call from the product manager for Network Solutions Pro-ECommerce.
The Director of Customer Support fundamentally confirmed that ECommerce CSRs (Customer Support Representatives) do not have the power to declare a defect a bug; instead, virtually all defects are classed as “enhancement requests.” So, there is no motivation to repair serious and critical defects–they are all simply enhancements.
I do appreciate all of these responses, although I wish Network Solutions had initiated them at a more appropriate time in the design cycle. I still have no commitments that any of the issues we have will be addressed, but at least they are being discussed again. I was informed that we will not be forced off the current version of the software, but Network Solutions will discontinue all support of the current version. Since the current verson of Network Solutions Pro-ECommerce we are on is already at least 2X overpriced, we would then still be paying way too much each month for a totally unsupported package.
I’m not sure what is happening next (if anything). We still feel compelled to be looking at other ECommerce solutions and the concomitant expense of moving to a different platform unless and until we can get a commitment to add our required features to Pro-ECommerce.
I’ve gotten several interesting comments; you might want to take a minute to browse the comments.
If you need a professional online store solution, Miva Merchant 5 is your answer. Keith Sales
i’ve had nothing but massive problems & mickey mouse tech support from network solutions. i have also been with monster commerce for several years. although monster commerce left much to be desired, they at least made an effort to keep our website storefront & email system up & functional.
i too was a victim of the new “upgrade” & migration which was obviously created by those without basic logic or business sense. fortunately, after a few weeks i managed to have our website returned to the old monster commerce version 4.0. but suddenly this weekend, without forewarning, was supposedly moved to a new server & re-migrated (is there such a word??) to the new & nonfunctional network solution version 7.0 again. as a result, i have lost several thousand dollars in lost sales & cannot even receive emails from customers or business asociates. they have no answers to questions or solutions to the problems. they are totally unconcerned with the problems & monetary loses. they royally suck big time!!!
to go into detail regarding what i’ve been through would give me a stroke so i’m not going there. but these guys royally suck & i would never refer them to anyone!!
we have built a successful small business based on consistently superior quality & service. these guys are making us look very,very bad!
HI:
I have signed up with Newtork Solutions for about a year now and I cannot even begin to explain my disappointment. The problem is I am still new to Ecommerce but I would love to see my business grow online. How and/or who can I switch to as a host and software to run my Ecommerce site.
HELP!
Thanks,
We’re having terrible troubles with our store which was moved from Monster Commerce to Network Solutions a couple months ago with little warning – it’s horrible. The move was a nightmare alone. Now Network Solutions is having problems with variables, UPS shipping, domain name transfers, lack of detail in sales reports, outages and constant reminders to do this or that which only seem to make things worse. It is an absolute nightmare, we’re losing thousands and we’re getting out as soon as we can find a new storefront! I highly recommend avoiding Network Solutions storefront – it’s the Windows Vista of the e-commerce world.
I work at Network Solutions, formerly Monster Commerce, as a tech support rep. I did not work for MonsterCommerce when it was MonsterCommerce, but am very close to someone who has been through the MC side and now on the Network Solutions side. Things are not the same.
We constantly have servers going down because we put too many sites on them and the servers can’t handle the load. We are not trained in resolving problems, but taught to pacify the client and apologize. It makes my job frustrating. I work overnights and the call volume has gone up at night with people experiencing server down time and loss of functionality. Our admins are short tempered when we call with problems and act like they don’t want to be bothered.
We migrated clients to a newer version with very little planning. It was a disaster. Site designs were corrupted and information deleted from the servers. We told people they had no chance except to migrate and then after our calls almost tripled from angry clients they stopped migration.
Now we have down sites, messed up security certificates, messed up dns…… Network Solutions has ruined the MonsterCommerce reputation that many people used to trust.
I have access to some inside information through someone I am very close to higher in the organization and I can honestly say that the whole atmosphere has degraded to that of a call center where you just listen and apologize.
I haven’t been here long enough to know the MonsterCommerce part of it but I know that they used to care about the customer. Now it is just cover your butt and make excused. I could not recommend our product to anyone and be comfortable about it.
As long as we keep our call times in the ranges set by management and use our scripts we are doing our job. We are supposed to help people not put them off.
I dread going to work anymore and know that tomorrow I will have to listen to more angry and frustrated people that I am not able to help.
My version 4.6 site was not migrated and keeps going down. I am not sure what to do. I don’t want to have to redesign the site and forward all of the urls and redo everything from scratch. What a pain right before Xmas. I am going to start planning for the worst though. My site has been down about 12 hours over the last 24 hours. It is http://www.barstoolsandchairs.com. If you have any suggestions of an eccommerce solution that will work for us, please email me. My site has been down for periods of time almost every day for three weeks.
Itrix Technologies contacted me, and, after walking through the operations of our store in some detail, offered to build a custom store to replace the Network Solutions E-Commerce Pro store for a one-time cost of $9800. That’s about a year of monthly fees with Network Solutions E-Commerce. I’ll have to think about this a bit, as they are untested (to me). They apparently have built other E-Commerce stores, which I have visited. The other risk that I perceive is that not being built on a “standard” platform may make maintenance by less sophisticated owners more problematic.
A bit more thought is needed.
Well Guys thanks for the input, I am on the older Monster commerce version: http://www.wholealetarp.net and it is likely I stay on it.
I have heard just about enough in different forums. I have had my own horrible experiences with tech support and the site being down for hours at the time http://www.tarps1.com was down more than up last November for a while. If they stop supporting us so be it, they don’t support us much now anyway.
I sell tarps which are simple products and only bout 200 skews, but even with such a simple product like a tarp I have had my share of troubles. Even on the old one variable s like case quantities are trouble. I would not recommend this outfit for anyone.I stopped calling support unless I absolutely have to, I rather call friends with more experience who can help me. Unless it is a excess issue they have no clue anyway.
Seams like a typo on my first tarp site above so I am compelled to correct it. It is http://www.wholesaletarp.net
thanks again.
Well Jim Sutton, what is your verdict update as of now? I too am an old monster customer and still with netsol. I lost lots of money last year and my migration was a freakin’ mess. Anyway, things seem to be going better. But I am ready to build another website and I am debating on whether to use NS for it. Anyone have any ideas. Is there a better software platform? Should I go back to Yahoo Store, which I think is so much harder to use.
Valerie
I think the jury is still out, although Network Solutions/Monster Commerce has made some steps in the right direction under new management for their E-commerce product line.
I am told that they will no longer force version 4 users to migrate to version 7. Migrations are to version 7 will begin again soon, but, again, I’m told they will not be forced this time. Of course, this issue is that version 4 is quite dated, user unfriendly, and too expensive–so there would be reason to move to version 7, if they could ever fix the functional deficiencies.
The management team (and support) now state that they are again making bug fixes in Version 4 (something they had stopped doing for the last 2-3 years); that, at least, indicates a favorable attitude change.
As mentioned above, it appears Network Solutions E-commerce package is about 3 times more expensive than comparable packages (like ProStores). I’ve also had a new store built based on an open systems platform. The building was quick and cheap and looks much more modern than the Network Solutions E-commerce package. To compare, visit http://www.babyminestore.com and http://www.babybeddingboutique.com. The latter site only has a few products on it, because we were just trying to validate the open systems (osCommerce) approach.
Guys,
I am running an ecommerce store and I will definitely recommend http://www.itrixtechnologies.com. They are well experienced with ecommerce store. Moreover, dont miss to check there internet marketing tool in the website called “123Liveonpage”.