bluevoda to soholaunch

[Will]

Hi. My name is Will from thepokerpost.ca. I have started to create a web site with bluevoda and I would like to know if I will loose my work if I switch to soholaunch. Thank you for any insite. Will.

[Vasili]

Re: bluevoda to soholaunch

You can maintain your BV created pages as a "front-end" to your Soholaunch site, if you consider it to be your "cart," but they will be completely different in look and layout.....

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? (Gaming, selling, etc.)

[Will]

Re: bluevoda to soholaunch

Thank you for your response. I would like the site to look uniform, so if I need to use soholaunch I will sacrafice the small amount of work done so far. My web site will be a gaming products sales site. Mainly custom poker chip sets, tables and accessories. Do you recommend soholaunch for an ecommerce type site. Thanks again. Will.

[Vasili]

Re: bluevoda to soholaunch

Yes....now that I have an idea of what you're steering for....

Soho will suit you fine as a "webuilder" along the ease of use of BV, but certain idiosyncracies remain: Do you have one single SKU, for instance, that might require more than 6 sub-categories (color, sizes, options, etc.)?? If so, then Soho is not for you, as it limits sub-categories to 6, as shown in their tutorial and unless you are willing to custom-write a script to get around this, nada....
Soho, with the unlimited inventory, however, can work just fine still, if you are willing to create a unique single line inventory or limit your sub's to 6 or less....**the easiest way is to re-work your SKU scheme, right? As a web-builder and commerce solution, Soho can't be beat.

If you want the unlimited inventory, unlimited category, and unlimited sub-category features "out-of-the-box" then you should look carefully into OsCommerce....the other open-source shopping cart that is the backbone of many online giants, also Free with every VH account. It has literally thousands of customized modifications (MOD's) that you can elect to include in your setup. Their Support Forum is also quite well attended and offer a quicker turnaround for solutions, similar to VodaHost. BUT...it is a much larger scope of commerce solution, and requires the proportionate amount of dedicated focus and effort to implement. Once it is set up, however, then it is reliable and easy to maintain and update indefinitely.

For both Soho and OsC, I would recommend a customized Template, rather than opt for the traditional Free templates available either from VodaHost or their respective Providers. Rather affordable ($40-200), they allow you to have your cart reflect the look and feel you envisioned, and will stand out amongst the others. It is also the definitive means to have certain pre-planned MOD's installed for you at the same time, relieveing you of the frustration of blowing your board and having to reset! Again, this indicates a suggested tight schematic of your website being actually penciled before you begin......

If you have the time and feel up to it, you might wish to load Soholaunch in your account to experiment with as you demonstrate your emerging needs and requirements. (Archive your BV web pages first, however, as loading Soho wipes your directory...you can always reload them precisely as you see fit later).

[Will]

Re: bluevoda to soholaunch

Well I've printed off a copy of your reply as I find it very insightful, and I thank you. I think I will toy with soholaunch to get an idea. I may have problems, as you stated, with a specific SKU having to cover up to 8 different colour choices for a specific poker chip. I fear that a stronger builder like Osc might be a bit too overwhelming for me. At least I have the luxury of time on my side. Can you tell me how to archive my BV pages. Thanks again for your help.

[das1989]

Re: bluevoda to soholaunch

A similar question...my site is http://www.weatherwest.com. I'm not actually trying to sell anything at this point, but I still think the uniformity of Soholaunch might be better. I'm not sure. If I do decide to switch, how do I wipe the directory/archive the old BV pages?

[Vasili]

Re: bluevoda to soholaunch

If you already have published pages in BV, your Bv Folder (complete with images) in My Documents will remain on your HD. If you have additional files "published" such as Forms, .txt or other files, they may need to be copied from the server into a newly spefcified folder on your HD, as they are probably not in your main BV folder presently.

The installation process of Soho and other carts automatically cleans the public_html directory of your account, which means you will need to simply re-publish your previously created BV pages via BV and upload your Forms files separately also > thus, the process of "archiving" means to examine and preserve the contents of your public_html directory.

[Vasili]

Re: bluevoda to soholaunch

Well I've printed off a copy of your reply as I find it very insightful, and I thank you. I think I will toy with soholaunch to get an idea. I may have problems, as you stated, with a specific SKU having to cover up to 8 different colour choices for a specific poker chip. I fear that a stronger builder like Osc might be a bit too overwhelming for me. At least I have the luxury of time on my side. Can you tell me how to archive my BV pages. Thanks again for your help.

I am glad I have been of some help......

The simplest solution is to devise another inventory numbering system rather than retain vendor provided styles and sub's. Since there is no limit to the number of items, it may just be as simple for you to assign a single number for a single product regardless of whether it is a variation of a style or series. This certainly makes it much easier to take out of the lineup as well.

I had come up with a neat way to use an inventory numbering system that would serve multiple purposes while still "defaulting" to the single-line inventory setup:
1. My SKU string would be a "series" of coded info strings
2. I could identify department, vendor, cat 1, cat2, style, etc. beyond the original parameters
3. It would still be scanable and integrated into say, Quickbooks Pro

This is how I set it up:
0123456789123 = 0123-456789-123
0123 = Department and Vendor: Dept 01 Vendor 23
456789 = specific SKU (mine) assigned to vendor-supplied info - note the ability to have a very large number of items here
123 = Category 1, Sub-Category 2, Sub-Sub-Category 3
>> PS You can substitute a letter instead of being restricted to 10 numbers in any single inventory "place" : 12A3C0014ZZ

I think you get the idea....you can literally "code-in" your info using a simple single-line unique inventory system such as this....and updates and maintenence is super easy using this method.

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