Thread: What s the difference between Soho Launch and Voda host + Blue Voda ?

Hi!

What s the difference between
Soho Launch and
Voda host + Blue Voda ?

If I already have a voda host,
do i still pay another time to
get the Soho Launch Features?

thank you.

VodaHost is your hosting account. Both Blue Voda and Soho are different softwares you can use to build websites. Soho is for ecommerce (mainly) websites. BV is a general builder. BV you can use as many instances as you want with one VH account. Soho only allows one instance per VH account - but the one is free.

The decision as to how you build a website - whether BV or Soho or some other software is up to you. VH can host it no matter the software (in most cases.)

Bethers

I thought I understood the difference and I had decided to use Soho. We have two stores now with SOL and want to change to VH. Are you saying we can only use soho on one computer to build one site? We would like to use our two computers (linked on an home network) to work on our two stores. Is that not possible with soho?

Also we are using Optimal (ECI) here in Canada. Does that pose a problem? We are thinking also of a different processor.

Vstarvic & Judy

Soho, is an online store builder so you both could log in and work on it, even from different places. You look in soho shopping icon and see the processors there it works with. If its authorize.net compatable, you might be able to run it thru that way, if not you might have to have it integrated if its not on the list of processors. Im not logged in right now so I cant say. Also if you visit the soho addon site there are several more gateways like proteX that you can install to your soho and I think they may be one that works with optimal in Canada.

Karen

Karen,
Sorry to re-ask this question, but I previously and mistakenly posted my question to a wrong thread! Let me just say in advance that I'm appreciative of your time and help! Does there exist anywhere a comparison chart showing the differences and features between Soho Launch and Blue Voda? I'd like to be able to make an educated decision on which to use. It sounds as though Soho Launch is initially easier, but the impression I'm getting (thru reading all the info) is that ultimately it may become a hassle (or gets a bit convaluted) if you need to add in certain other applications.....
I'm initially starting with just one e-commerce website with approximately 50 or so products. Somwhere down the road, however, I'd like to add 1-2 other e-commerce sites....
Is it not, then, better to just start out with Blue Voda? FYI, I'm also an AutoCad user and do 3D architectural graphics, so I think I can handle Blue Voda, but I'm open to your expertise and recommendations. Thanks so much again for any advice and help you can offer.

Yankee

It depends on what you want and how you want to do it. Soholaunch is much easier to manipulate, learn, and manage than say oscommerce, zencart, etc. It leans more tword a windows type point and click result. You also need to decide how you want to accept online payments, merchant account or paypal? The only limitation with soho is that there is only ONE free per account and if you use a merchant account, you will need dedicated ip and ssl. You will need these for any store that u wish to take on site payments for, and you can only have one per account.

Now if you want to use a shared cart, with a merchant account, you can use cartmanager, roman cart, mals ecart. You copy and paste their code to your site. This can get tedious on large stores.. but some people prefer this, and they provide the checkout, ssl, and dedicated ip.. you share theirs.

Pros and cons to each side of the story. I currently do my own ssl etc. And then my other stores are paypal driven, or hook up to my payment processor directly.

Both are free to try, however, soho is an online builder, so you have to install it to your account to play with it. Its pretty simple to modify templates, upload products via csv file and have a HUGE store running in about I dunno 6 hours or so. I did one with around 3000 products in about 4 hours. So.. it depends on what you want, what you can live with, etc.

BV does give you more design options and so on, but you are adding each product manually. I do both ways, built both ways, both for myself and other people. Honestly speaking tho.. neither one offer me everything i want and I actually prefer working with a dreamweaver cart system.

This is whats great about voda.. you can install your own products to your own specs. XCART store builder is another excellent choice to build ecommerce in. As I said.. it all boils down to your preferences and what you think you can handle. I see successful sites and stores using all of them. Its really personal choice, what you want to learn, etc

Any time you start adding third party solutions to a specific product, it gets convuluted. Thats why they build things called ADDONS or MODS to do these specs, soho included. If you check out any catalog solution, they generally have a population of needs outside the box, so modules or addons are created.

Ill be glad to cuss and discuss more with you, just email me. I dunno that the whole forum is interested in this topic carrying on, but either is fine with me. Here or email.

Karen

Karen,
Thanks for all your helpful info. In your response you mention a "csv" file. I'm hoping it's a table file that I can create on Excel -- you have a product graphic in one column and the prod desc in the next column and I can upload all the products at once? That would be a time saver! If you can kindly elaborate for this newbie here..!

Yankee

Yes, thats comma seperated value, and its an excel file. Sometimes tab delimited is used for like google feeds etc, but its just the extension properties that change. Each builder has different column requirements, but basically yes, you can populate a whole site full of products with a few tweaks here and there, in a few hours.

Karen