Matt and Joe,

I've struggled with the same math. Some examples,

Shipping Rate Rule Providers for BVC5, hours to develop: ~500, copies sold: 30 @ $300 (the price changed over time), income: ~$18/hour
- Overbuilt for the market.

DHL Shipping Rate Providers for BVC5, hours to develop: 50, copies sold: 2 @ $200, income: ~$8/hour
- No hope of more sales at any price.

Canada Post Shipping Rate Provider for BVC5, hours to develop: 50, copies sold: 2 @ $200, income: ~$8/hour
- Raised the price after a year when I realized I would only sell a handful.

Shipper 1 for BVC2004 and BVC5, hours to develop: ~1000, copies sold: 10 @ $350, Income: ~$3.50/hour
- I don't know why the BV crowd ignored this product.

In other words, I make quite a bit less than a school bus driver from BV merchants.

That does not count the time I spend handing out free advice (I've posted a little over 2000 times to this forum and some of you know that I posted almost 10,000 times on another forum and newsgroup).

In general BV Commerce has not been a good market for me. I can only guess that the same is true for the few others, since I seem to be the only active add-on vendor left. If I could live on love alone, I'd be rich...BV merchants are very nice. But, like you, I have bills to pay and kids that want to go to college.

I want to say this in the most practical way I can think of--if you want choices, then you have to get out your wallet and pay for them. Probably more than you want to pay. The other outcome is no choice. No one can live on $8/hour in this country.

Andy,
I'm glad that we were able to contribute to 50% of your DHL Shipping Provider business! :)

That's been the crux of my business since the beginning. An analogy:


When you put an addition on your house, you watch the walls get torn down, the plastic go up. The footers dug, reinforced and poured. The framing, the exterior, the subfloor, the electrical, the plumbing, the insulation, the drywall, the plaster, the paint, the tile, the hardwood, the finish, the trim.



All five senses are stimulated. You hear it, you smell it, you watch the progress, you taste the dust, you walk on it.



You don't see any of this on the web. Normally, all you see is the finished product.



Assuming the contractor isn't a moron, when you go to hang your flat screen in your new addition, you can place a tape measure to the corner and with confidence mark it 64" and know you're exact center on a stud. This because the footers are in the right spot, the framing in the right spot...etc..



You hit save on your product admin page and don't realize that 64 little actions are taking place behind to scene to save it. Because it happens in milliseconds, but all of it needs to be carefully planned, mapped, coordinated and synchronized exactly like a good addition is built.

But one does have to wonder why so many people develop so many plug-ins for something like Wordpress. Thousands of free plugins all for a free application. Or that other purple-color sounding open-source e-commerce platform.

I had hoped that moving to the BV5 platform with the advertised "plug-in" architecture and "themes" would have made it more Wordpress like. It doesn't seem to have. That's kind of a bummer.

You guys are both right. I hijacked this puppy...LOL..

I'll call it like it is as long as everybody understands that this is business,

$99 does not go very far. $100 - $499 doesn't cut it either. Not when you compare the user base between BV and any venture funded company that is brought up as a comparison.

Oh boy there are so many... but there lies the problem. Each plug-in may be unique to only a few people. It just doesn't equal out. On top of that, we have to remember what we payed for and what we got. I think we are all just a bit spoiled with it (hint hint marcus) ;) If there are some more common things that can be low cost, make money for the developer and for the business owner, fire away!

I know earlier in this post i've tried to accomplish something close to this what you are looking for... but it doesn't answer your question and its not a plug-in. I know this can be done with some code changes though...

Hi, Wallace....

Before committing to anything too labor-intensive, check with Marcus. He's working on BVC6 and it'd be a shame to offer something that we'll get later on anyway. The BVC6 wish-list is a long one. Perhaps you could see what looks do-able and let us know.

These come to mind: (could be rolled into a robust "Merchants' Helper" mod)



A more informative orders page in admin (more columns across the top of the page).

Better Cross Sells control.. random, random within a category, weighted towards season, manufacturer, food group, etc. Also, a way to see what products are Cross-Sells on other products. Unless we look at each product in the store we're blind and my memory only goes back so far.

A "Season" tag on products for dynamic category placement (Valentines, X-Mas, etc. and cross sells placement above) This is not product type, this is a marketing tool.

Shared choices/modifiers - list of products which use the particular choice/modifier.

Wildcard order... Create a text described product while on the phone for one-off products or product edits where it'd be too time consuming to make a new product and SKU on the catalog.

Allow <this product> to be 'active' until <date> for short-run and seasonal items, in-season foods, etc. Fruitcake in July?

Separate emails for shopper/purchaser and recipient of the shipment. Order confirm to purchasing, cc email to receiving
cc gift email filled in by shopper. Gifts to far-off grandchildren f'rinstance.

Add to cart button grayed out until all required choices have been made - gets rid of "Field missing" notices. Simple, HUH? DUH. Perhaps admin selectable in the event one really needs to show a shopper the message and asterisk.

Below minimum order (Quant or $$) handling charge. This isn't in any way shape or form a volume discount.

Create date, latest modify date on products (a column on the product list page) to keep track of changes, easily spot the one that didn't get edited. (Not everything can be edited via bulk editor).

Access to a list of wish-listed products/users to tickle sales.

Automatic email notice to wish-listers when a list is aged X <time>. As-is, we're blind.


Drum-roll.....
Volume discounts. I'll take this one ala carte:
Shared volume discount schemes with "% off" calculations. Just like modifiers, assignable to products. Placement to products via bulk edit a must. If this can't be done as an add-on to BVC5, do it for BVC6 and sell it to Marcus.



It's getting late....

Andy -- to your point about Shipper and BV -- I think the built-in UPS shipping (though woefully inadequate) had most vendors just choose UPS and stick with it, even if they coudl have improved services and lowered costs by using FedEx or DHL -- I found there is no cost comparison between FE and UPS when you do any kind of volume, and when you do volume, you NEED Shipper. I think you should partner with FedEx and push your product with any number of Ecommerce platforms. BV+Shipper 3+ShipRush+FedEx is an unbeatable combination -- it's nice to have the USPS as well -- and I balked at Shipper 3, but nothing is easier.