| EROL
Business Edition 3.0 
|
Dreamteam
Products |
 |
[pc]
Build
a single shopping cart with unlimited products
that can be hosted on any commercial web space.
With integrated store search, live currency,
live stock updating and location specific shipping
provide Net Shoppers with an easy to use yet
flexible e-commerce experience. |
Website: www.erolonline.co.uk
System
Requirements
PC
Recommended System Requirements
Pentium II or III 400Mhz PC
Windows® 95/98/2000/ME/NT4/XP
Internet access
128MB of RAM
Disk space: Minimum Installation 80 MB; Full Installation
140 MB
Host Requirements
There are two main types of Operating Systems for
Web Servers in common use, these are: Sun/Unix/Linux
based; Windows NT/Windows 2000 based
EROL can be published to any standard commercial web
space. If your store requires search and/or live currency
you will need to ensure that the web space has PERL
5 installed.
Browser Compatibility
Once you have built your online store and published
it to the web you want to ensure that as many browser
combinations as possible can access it. The following
list of browsers have all been fully tested by the
EROL Development Team.
PC
Netscape 4.x and above (inc. NS6.2 but not NS6.0/NS6.1)
IE 4.x and above
Mozilla 1 and above
Mac
Netscape 4.7 and above
IE 4.5 and above
Detailed
Description
Manufacturer's Description
EROL 3.0 combines exceptional design control with
all the features needed to build, maintain and manage
a successful, secure multi-level online store.
EROL shopping cart software has no limitations
on store layout and does not require knowledge
of complex
coding. Once your store is live, EROL will take
care of day-to-day store management tasks such
as processing
orders, printing invoices, sorting and filtering
orders & accessing customer details. Browse
the feature list for more details.
Unrivalled Pixel-Perfect
Design Control: EROL allows for your
store pages to have a look and feel of their own -
by not imposing (but still enabling) a store-wide
template approach, as it is the case in other e-commerce
packages.
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Integration: EROL's Export to Dreamweaver
makes the task of customising your Item Templates
a lot easier. Export the selected Template, move
the
EROL Placeholders around the page with a single
click and drag… an image here, a font tag
there.
Unlimited Products:
The EROL Build Manager uses a Tree
View structure, similar to MS Windows Explorer, providing
a visual structure that allows quick and effective
access to pages and items within your store. This
approach means that stores containing large numbers
of products can be maintained with great ease.
Live Currency Rate:
Plugging your store into EROL's free
live currency rate feed will provide your visitors
with the option to shop in their own currency at an
up-to-the-minute rate of exchange. You can also set
fixed rates for any currency if you wish.
EU & International
Tax Options: As an online vendor it
is important to operate within the current tax laws.
EROL's powerful tax options accommodate a number of
national and international tax variations, including
USA tax, VAT, discounted tax groups, tax-free products
and tax exemption.
E-mail Individual/Multiple
Customers: This feature allows you
to: Send emails to customers notifying them of their
order status; Send bulk mail outs for sales promotions
to targeted customers, or let them know of their special
status with a personalised message.
Automatic Secure Online
Order Retrieval: Set EROL to work
while you are away from your desk. Turn on the Automatic
Order Retrieval and EROL will download your orders
directly into the Order Manager. Set EROL to check
for new orders every 5 minutes.
Create Customer Profiles
and assign personalised discounts/privileges:
Customers can be grouped together and various privileges
can be given on login to the store, e.g: free delivery,
discounts and access to restricted areas.
Print reports and
charts based on sales & customer info: Stay
informed about the performance of your sales with
reports based on best selling products and customer
buying habits.
Print invoices, delivery
notes, address labels and pick lists:
Print documents as required - manually, or turn on
EROL's Auto Tasking to enable print and email jobs
to be assigned at every stage of the order process.
Virtual Live Stock control:
Maintain 'Virtual Live Stock' on your
shopping cart by automating the download of orders
and activating the 'Auto Tasks'.
Secure Orders via EROL
/ SSL: Download orders directly into
the Order Manager from EROL / SSL.
7 Supported Payment
Service Providers: EROL e-commerce
software supports the following payment service providers:
Barclaycard, Datacash, Protx, Netbanx, Securetrading,
Secpay and Worldpay.
Hosting on standard
commercial web space: EROL can be
published to any standard commercial web space. If
your store requires search and/or live currency, you
will need to ensure your chosen web space has PERL
5 installed.
Fast, efficient and
expert Technical Support: The best
way to judge the quality of support is to hear what
customers have to say about it. We let facts speak
for themselves ... read user testimonials from some
existing satisfied customers on our website.
Simple Secure One Stop
Checkout: The EROL shopping cart has
the simplest secure checkout procedure of all available
off-the-shelf ecommerce software on the market.
Dreamteam Products
AbleStable® Review
This review is based on customer feedback, media and
Internet industry site reviews, and our own assessment
of the features and functionality of EROL Business
Edition 3.
EROL Business Edition 3 is a well respected ecommerce
solution for building and maintaining online stores.
EROL 3 was a Future UK Internet Awards Finalist that
was only preceded by Macromedia's Flash MX and Dreamweaver
MX (November 2002).
EROL 3 comes in three editions: The Small Store Edition
allows you to build a single store with ten products,
The Business Edition provides an unlimited product
range, and the Developer Edition provides support
for unlimited stores and products. This review focuses
upon the Business Edition of EROL 3.
EROL uses a tree structure to deliver the many elements
that make up each store page. In common with Dreamweaver
and other web design packages, each element has its
own property dialog that allows fine tuning of each
page element (HTML, Javascript, Cascading Style Sheets,
and Visual Basic script elements can all be edited
by the user). This complete flexibility in allowing
full control over the look and feel of the store is
EROL's greatest strength as compared with other ecommerce
packages.
EROL also provides the ability to create and use Templates
which makes the process of generating a high volume
of similar pages a quick and simple affair. EROL 3
offers a comprehensive set of ecommerce functions
much like Actinic
Business or ShopFactory.
In addition EROL 3 offers 30 days support as part
of the package, and the opportunity to attend in-depth
training sessions devoted to using EROL (an additional
payment is required for the training sessions).
As the emphasis in using EROL is firmly placed upon
the level of customisation of the store that can be
achieved, EROL might therefore be considered a designers
package as developing an effective store requires
significant time and effort as decisions are made
concerning each page element.
Stores developed with EROL 3 can therefore be as unique
as the site that they serve, but for some, the feature-set
may at first seem intimidating as compared with a
purely pre-defined template design offered by a different
store development package like ShopFactory (ShopFactory
also ships as a Developers Edition allowing complete
control of the design elements of the store, although
it is more expensive than EROL).
One feature that many of the storefront development
tools lack, and this includes EROL 3, is the ability
to send the user to a specified and unique download
page so customers can download the software, e-book,
art work file (eg Flash source) they have paid for.
From the context of creative people developing an
effective ecommerce solution this is an important
omission. Even static html pages using JavaScript
and cookies that recognised specific products that
have been paid for could be used to deliver this functionality
and I'm surprised by the failure of so many store
software developers in implementing this.
In the future lets hope there's a Mac version of EROL
that would make the software accessible to more creative
people, and that a product download option is provided
after payment confirmation that further expands EROL's
well rounded feature set.
My own experience in dealing with Dreamteam Products,
the company that designs EROL, has not been good.
I approached the company with the view of offering
AbleStable users a 10% discount on EROL. I'm afraid
to say they did not conduct business in a prompt professional
manner. Their general response to emails was very
slow, and at times required additional reminders before
I received replies. I eventually became so disenchanted
with their slothfulness I withdrew our offer of association.
Users
of EROL report CSV files are not reliably
imported for versions 3 and 4 which means
that managing products that change might be a
real
problem.
My
recommendation is that you ensure you use the
trial to ensure EROL
meets your requirements.
Mike de Sousa, Director, AbleStable
(the link above opens a new browser window)
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