Stephanie Roberts: I Prefer the SaaS Solution

Stephanie Roberts is a web developer who has designed and maintains websites for over 150 clients. Many of these are eCommerce sites. Today she shares with us her experience with Avactis.

Emily: You have several stores built using Avactis software. What do you like best about Avactis?

Stephanie: I love many things about Avactis, but the two things I love most are:

1. How easy it is for me to set up. I can easily edit the site design to suit my clients, import their data, and have a store up and running in just a few hours.

2. How easy it is for the client to learn to manage the back end. Everything is very neat and organized, with everything pertaining to a particular product right there on the product pop-up window, and conveniently tabbed so it’s easy to find.

Emily: You host some of your stores on your own server, and some on the Avactis server. Do you notice any difference in website performance?
Stephanie: The sites I host on dedicated servers, with initial server tweaking provided by the Avactis support team, run very well. The ones I host in a shared hosting environment do not. Recently I tried Avactis hosting and it seems to run very well. It is more economical than dedicated hosting, and any upgrades are done by the Avactis team.

Emily: Why did you decide to try Avactis hosting?

Stephanie: In this particular instance, the cost of a dedicated server was outside the client’s budget, but the Avactis shopping cart features were a perfect fit. So I suggested we use the Avactis hosting.

Emily: What is your opinion of SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions? Do you think they could become more popular than downloadable software?

Stephanie: I LOVE software as a service. I use it in different forms every day. When you consider the man hours and potential downtime incurred by software and hardware upgrades, failures, incompatibilities and other things that can occur, you’ll appreciate the “set it and forget it” service SaaS provides. It lets me concentrate on gaining new business, rather than running my business.

Emily: What kind of software do you prefer, downloadable or SaaS? Why?

Stephanie: Honestly, it depends on the type of software. For mission critical software, I prefer the SaaS solution. It’s reliable and secure, and that’s what matters if your business depends on it to run. If the software is not mission critical, then I prefer the economy of owning it.
That’s what’s great about Avactis…you have the option to choose!

Emily: What are your plans for the future in eCommerce?

Stephanie: I will add Avactis Hosting to my list of solutions. I think my clients will feel secure knowing their website is in the hands of the very people that designed the software. That will give me less to worry about, so I can go out and sell more sites!

Emily: Here are some examples of the web sites created by Stephanie: , http://www.fortsmithsurgicalsupply.com/index.php