Thanks for the reply Matt. We live in a world that is changing pretty fast right now. UPS and FedEx really did a number on small business with this change (and dramatically increased their profits). Everybody knew this was coming since the middle of last year. Shipping has traditionally been a very weak area of ProductCart in my opinion, and it is going to have to be addressed soon or people will have to seek other alternatives purely out of a need to find a solution. There just isn't enough granularity in the product details to cope with the various shipping problems that have arrived and will arrive. And it is not a solution to suggest that a person go to a free shipping model.
But that is not my reason for this post. My point is that traditionally there has not be a lot of open dialog between ProductCart and the users. Emphasis on open. This is not to say that there hasn't been a lot of trouble tickets filed and addressed in a timely manner. But it is not open. There is a broad range of companies using Product Cart, and if there was more open dialog between the company and the users, I honestly believe that the exchange of ideas and how people are using the product and how it could be improved would greatly increase your installed base. There are some applications I use that have a constant flow of discussion happening and the applications are better for it. Sometimes developers find out that what they thought was important is taking them away from what a silent majority of users really need.
I tend to disagree with you on the forum not being well suited for talking about these things. That is actually what forums were created for, open dialogue. The underlying message you send to end-users, which I am one, is that you don't want to discuss your product openly with people and that you want to keep your support issues private so that nobody else knows what anybody else is experiencing. Writing an article is great if you want to let people know more about where you are at, but it doesn't solve the problem of open dialogue.
I used to work at WordPrefect as a human factors specialist during the peak of its day in the software world. I can tell you that the more time we spent up front on end-user collaboration and functional specification development, the greater success we had and the more end-users we attracted. Then one day the lead developer said he wouldn't be caught dead developing software that worked with a little arrow on the screen that is moved with your hand. He stopped listening to end users and we all know where WordPerfect went from there.
Anyway, this post is too long already, but I sure wish that this product and your company had more of a culture of frequent, open dialogue. I love ProductCart and have stuck with it for a long time now. But it could be so much better and attract so many more end users.
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