Thread: Blue Voda vs. Soholaunch

Hi, my doman is giftbaskets2love.com, email jg724@cox.net.

I started out building a home page in BlueVoda - really love the software, so easy to use! But then I read somewhere that if you need a shopping cart and are doing an Ecommerce site you have to use Soholaunch.

I don't like it nearly as well as BlueVoda for building pages, so I have these questions:
1) Is there not any way to get a merchant account/shopping cart interface with products in Blue Voda, other than PayPal?
2) If the answer to (1) is "no", is there any way to load the page I've already built in Voda into Soholaunch? Because I like the design I've already done, and I'm having a real hard time trying to reproduce it in Soho.

Thanks,
Basketseller

OMG!!!! I'm having the EXACT SAME dilemna! I've contacted product support and, unfortunately, did not receive a very helpful response. Frankly, I'm a little lost. I've built some cool pages in Blue Voda, too and can't seem to manage to do anything in SohoLaunch. And, like you, I want to have an e-commerce site and transfer my Blue Voda pages over but it's my understanding that it can't be done. I'm even haivng problems with publishing my page(s). And, to add salt to my wounds, when I search my domain name I never get a return on my query.

So, at least you're not in this boat alone. I promise if I figure this one out I'll definately keep you posted! Good luck.
-Signed, New User Too

Originally Posted by Basketseller

1) Is there not any way to get a merchant account/shopping cart interface with products in Blue Voda, other than PayPal?
2) If the answer to (1) is "no", is there any way to load the page I've already built in Voda into Soholaunch? Because I like the design I've already done, and I'm having a real hard time trying to reproduce it in Soho. Thanks, Basketseller

1. There a very few cart systems that are "insertable" into a BV created website, and actually the only other means I can remember is MALS and FreeCart (neither of which are actually "free" BTW). PayPal is by far the simplest, the least intrusive, and actually more recognized by consumers than you think. The only advantage of using another is the possibility of a quasi-Search function to be included, but since they are not true php-type foundations, they do not perform all that well anyway.

2. No, there is no way to "insert" differently created/coded pages from one foundation to another. Your best bet is to have a real pro *******te the exact look-and-feel directly into a customized Soho template.....it's really not that expensive (about 1/2 of what you might pay for a single OSC template, for instance), and is the only way I know of to get what you want without farting around until you give up in disgust!

Ask for "Ben" at www.templatezapper.com ......he's the best I have found! He did exactly that for me here, even though I am slow to tweak the navigation and load the thing! LOL

There is also cart manager that will set up with most merchant accounts and are similar to setting up paypal buttons. Mals also has a PAID version for a better quality cart than the freebie one.. and there is also Roman Cart. All of these will integrate with bv.

There is NO such thing as a totally free cart as you always pay transaction fees.. even with paypal. Keep in mind when paying for these carts you also do away with needing an ssl and dedicated ip for transactions and having multiple accounts if you choose to go that way. Investigate ALL possibilites and then do what works best for you.

Karen

Not fully relevant but,

I haven't published my pages yet.But I've built them all in BlueVoda.Is there any possibility that I can't publish my pages?Or I can't upload my pages to Soholaunch?I'm really confused...

Originally Posted by feyza

Not fully relevant but,

I haven't published my pages yet.But I've built them all in BlueVoda.Is there any possibility that I can't publish my pages?Or I can't upload my pages to Soholaunch?I'm really confused...

You really shouldn't interrupt a thread with vaporous posts like this, you know.....

Yes it IS relevant...(despite the interruption)....inasmuch it appears you have yet to decide how to accomplish your website, and the information given herein applies to you!

You need to pay attention to the concepts in front of you, and to do your homework by reading many threads in each specific sub-forum so you grasp things first. Then you need to seriously review the tutorials to see how those concepts actually work, so you can decide which direction is best for you.

>> You still do not get that Blue Voda and Soholaunch are two completely different utilities, and as such, they are not compatible, and each requires a different "toolbox" to use properly.

Originally Posted by Vasili

You really shouldn't interrupt a thread with vaporous posts like this, you know.....

Yes it IS relevant...(despite the interruption)....inasmuch it appears you have yet to decide how to accomplish your website, and the information given herein applies to you!

You need to pay attention to the concepts in front of you, and to do your homework by reading many threads in each specific sub-forum so you grasp things first. Then you need to seriously review the tutorials to see how those concepts actually work, so you can decide which direction is best for you.

>> You still do not get that Blue Voda and Soholaunch are two completely different utilities, and as such, they are not compatible, and each requires a different "toolbox" to use properly.

Thanks and sorry about the interruption.That was the first time I used the forum...

Thanks for the suggestions. So . . . if I went with PayPal, I could build my pages in Blue Voda and use PayPal for the merchant account/shopping cart interface? I've about decided to go with PayPal anyhow. I'm already signed up with them, and wouldn't have to pay a set-up fee with them, either. I know their transaction fees are pretty high, and a set-up fee with another provider might be an option later, but I'm an SOL refugee and already paying them a ton of money for one website that I got published which has yet to make a single sale, I might add. I had another site in development on SOL, but haven't worked on it since I signed up with Voda. But the SOL drain doesn't leave me any money to work with elsewhere.

Of course in the meantime, I've entered all my 300+ products into SohoLaunch. That part of their program works pretty well, by the way. It's the page design part I hate. You can't really tell anything about what the page will actually look like by what you're putting on the design page, and the "preview" function in Soho simply doesn't work--so the only way to see what it's actually doing is to go back and forth between the actual web page and the SohoLaunch design page, which wastes a lot of time. Maybe I'll take another look at Blue Voda and see if I can export my products as a .csv file and import them into BV without having to hand-enter half the stuff. Again, thanks for your help.