Actinic Catalog - Business Reviews

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Latest Reviews

“Disgusting customer service and a complete rip off”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Kanev438 on 13/01/2017

Actinic are the world's leading Ecommerce providers - Right? You really are sucked in initially, this fab e-commerce site, all the bells and whistles. You think it's great value for money and so advanced you are bound to have an amazing site in no time - that's what they lead you to believe. The designs are basic and you pay near on a grand for the pleasure - basically a template, the same as any other except it has your logo and contact details on, oh and your brand colours! They are obsessed with upselling ad ons to your site to get their commission. They have a tier system and trust me if you have a fair amount of products to add you fly through these levels and before you know it you're paying in excess of £150 a month just to host the website. They then try and sell you their other services e.g. SEO but when you really get to the nitty gritty that £320 a month for 10 months (silver package) optimises 4 pages of your website only, most of which you have to do yourself! They are complete rip off merchants and when you are not happy then don't expect a response for days! They advised us to get SAGE to integrate with our system only to find out it doesn't actually work!! 3 months we've been nearly waiting - haven't been able to do any accounts in the meantime whatsoever and every time you chase you are fobbed off with I have a meeting with my manager next week. They literally want you money and that's that. This is no service at all. They suck you in and then once your hands are tied make your life hell. I would defo look at my options in more detail in the future and have a much more flexible system. Oh and unless you are extremely computer literate do not bother because it's a very complex system and heavens forbid you have a question to put to telephone support because they'll huff and puff like it's the end of the world even though you are supposed to have unlimited support!

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“Actinic Catalog - dreadful programmers”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 11/03/2013

Terrible customer service and a website full of glitches and problems! The programmers Actinic now work with in France are unhelpful and do not seem to have a clue about programming. You have to be extremly proficient when using computers to have any chance of using your own website. One of the biggest problems was the programmers asking what you want in your website and then delivering something completely different, and then try to charge you if you ask them to actually make your site look like it was susposed to look. I would not recommend Actinic to anyone.

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“Please don't make the mistake we did!”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 12/05/2012

After 5 years of using Actinic I have to say this has to be the most glitch ridden program I've ever used. You can't go a day without something going wrong with it, it really has been problem after problem which never seems to end. If you're setting up an online store please avoid it at all costs, I wish we had.

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“Actinic has to be the worst \"shop in a box\" out...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 13/04/2011

Actinic has to be the worst \"shop in a box\" out there. It is absolutely horrible. The price is a total rip off for what you get. It crashes and hangs regularly. There are basic features (that you would expect from any online shop) missing. It is expensive to customise (just get a price) and has severe limitations due to it's static nature. It is almost like a relic given today's web standards and software. Obviously there are benefits to a static system but I find them far outweighed by the negatives. It uses a clunky old database system. To top it all off Actinic see fit to charge a heap load of money for it when there are far better (arguably) alternatives out there which are faster, more reliable and easier to use. I cannot recommend this software to anyone. And yes I am an (ex) user of the software. Can't stand it. Can't recommend it. Summary below:


NEGATIVES
Static (Means no online database)
No feature for customer's to be able to see order history etc.
Can be very difficult to use.
Expensive and limited customisation (Static limitations)
Unstable at times
Total rip off for what you actually get
Old technology

POSITIVES
Easy to move servers because the store is kept on local computer
Security advantages due to the store been offline

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“Actinic is a pretty appalling offering as an ecommerce...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 24/01/2011

Actinic is a pretty appalling offering as an ecommerce system. It's based on a very old engine which is several years out of date. Feature-wise, most of the leading open source systems such as OSCommerce, ZenCart etc... leave it for dead. The only thing it had going for it was Sage integration but this is no longer the case as most of the other systems have Sage plugins or contributions available.

The layout templates look like a 1990s \"son of a friend's uncle\" designed them.

Having implemented many ecommerce systems over the years, this is the worst value for money product I have ever come across.

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“I thought I was alone with my experinces with Actinic...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by smileeej on 13/07/2010

I thought I was alone with my experinces with Actinic having used it since version 4.

I inherited it from a previous business partner and at that time it seemed like a safe choice.
Since that time my experience and knowledge of online retail has risen exponentially but unfortunately Actinic has stayed stil. Well almost, when thet brought out version 9 (I use Business Plus version 9, not cheep!!) it has been an absolute nightmare.
If it crashes 4 times a day it's a good day.
Interesting to hear that the software is written by outside people, but it explains alot about the totally useless support.
Compact your database and check your web settings is their only answer, which of course never actually solves anything.
I currently have one shop that I cannot update and another I have had to move to another domain as it refuses to uploaad to that domain, which is on the same server and has identical settings, just Actinic doesn't like it. I say that because as Actinic seems to have a mind of it's own which Actinic itself cannot explain I assume it is its own being!!!

Yes I agree it is time to move on as Actinic seem to be living in the past.

The MD doesn't care about his customers so I suppose if the MD doesn't care why should anyone that works there!!

Cheers

Jerry

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“Hi Everyone, ”

★★☆☆☆

written by on 29/06/2010

Hi Everyone,

Just thought i'd leave my honest opinion of Actinic, we have been using it since V8 unlike the poor bloke on V3 and were ready to throw it in the bin.

I think the software is great for anyone with limited web experience, its easy to use and pretty basic for the small web builder. However if you have aspirations of being a powerhouse online - then look elsewhere and don't waste your money.

Usability - doesn't seem to exist - multi user crashers constantly and support are use nor ornament. Also once your site reaches a good size, Actinic seems to get so so slow. You can't do simple tasks such as moving pages when more then one user is on Actinic and it is very frustrating that it can take upto an hour to upload leaving you twiddling your thumbs.(hence this review)

Support - Is really poor, i think the person who said 'have you compacted the databases' was spot on. That seems to be the general advice available. You also have to pay a lot of money for yearly support even after paying for the software.

Cost - Expensive - especially if you have multi user, there are so many platforms which are free and perform far better. OS commerce and Magento are just two examples, you could have someone build your site in these platforms for the money it costs just to buy actinic.

Conclusion - the best thing to come out of Actinic is Mole End plugins which have made the software more managable. Still this software is outdated, your website is never up to date because its not a live system. The access database simply isn't good enough to have a good site. Also layouts can be difficult as you end up with too many web pages all in one clumsy 'acatalog' folder.

Actinic has helped us grow our business but it's definitely time to move on.

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“Hi, ”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 09/03/2010

Hi,
I have been using Actinic software since V3, so I feel I can comment!
As I work for a company that insist on using it I have no choice, but it has been a nightmare, poor support which consists of 'have you compacted the database?'
The software is written by outside workers so no direct support from the the developers, this means that any problems can go on for ages before being resolved, if at all, if your store only has a few hundred items and you want a 'boxed' product then fine, if you want to run a growing business with a rock solid foundation in my personal opinion look elsewhere.
This software has put the company I work for years behind the competitors, the only reason for sticking with it was to keep our SEO.
It is a 'static' system so is much more diffecult to provide dynamic up to the second content than modern systems.

I actually dread many days at work now just because of Actinic.

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