Jim Sutton’s Weblog

nsCommerceSpace – an update to our experiences August 25, 2010

It’s been a while since I’ve posted what’s been going on, so I thought I would give an update on our experiences with our eCommerce website and our (forced) migration to Network Solutions new eCommerce package, which apparently goes by the name nsCommerceSpace.

There is both good and bad news.

The good news: we did eventually migrate, and there are now work-arounds for the major deficiencies we saw in the newer version of nsCommerceSpace.  Also, the cost of the new version is lower so that it is not so uncompetitive in the market.  Generally, the user interface is better (although very inconsistent across different back-end functions).

The bad news: far and away the worst news is the drop in our Page Rank.  Under the old version, our PR was 4, under the new version our PR is O.  Of course, we cannot be positive the migration is the cause, but we cannot see any other reason for the drop, as the site remains much the same except for specific products being added or deleted.  Also, the timing of the PR drop corresponded exactly to the migration.  There was a concomitant significant drop in orders.

I’m still quite frustrated that Network Solutions refuses to admit that fundamental design issues or usability issues are defects (bugs), which need to be fixed.  Their view is that the product is fine so long as it is working as designed, even if the as-designed functionality or interface is deficient or actively does not meet the needs of their customers.  Without going into great detail, the obvious examples have been mentioned before (and remain unrepaired).  We are a drop-ship seller, and nsCommerceSpace inappropriately forces us to bastardized the manufacturer and warehouse entities in the system to accomplish what used to be available simply within manufacturers.  Similarly, eliminating simple variants (like color: red, blue, or green) and forcing a MUCH more complex form of variants or the use of functionally incomplete personalizations on us has significantly and negatively impacted our productivity.

So, we’ve stuck with Network Solutions’ nsCommerceSpace, primarily because of the prohibitive cost of moving our site to another platform.  While that choice did not shut us down instantly, which we had feared for a while,  the drop in PR and traffic will likely have that effect in the longer term.

If you are looking for a new eCommerce package, I would suggest choosing a different package than Network Solutions’ nsCommerceSpace.