If you use Skooks Kart or PickPic, would you share your experience? What do you sell on it? How long it took to install? Why did you choose it? Did you compare it to the other? If so, why did you bought one instead of the other? etc. Thanks.

see this thread

and more importantly, this blog post from david jay.

I don't use either, so I can't say for myself.

I sent in the order for my PickPic store around July 20, and it was totally up and running within a month. Considering all the delays that were on MY end -- like I had to set up the SSL certificate and get a new web site for hosting and other stuff that took ME time to do -- I was totally and completely happy with how it all went. Plus, Rebecca and Troy are wonderful to work with. I had a million noobie questions and they were all answered quickly and thoroughly.When my questions got to be too much for e-mail, Rebecca picked up the phone and called me to walk me through stuff.

Honestly, if I had to do it all over again, and the wait list for PickPic was 6 months, I'd wait. I needed a lot of hand-holding, so working with PickPic was perfect for me.

My clients seem to like the ease of my store. It all seems to work properly, and money is being deposited into my account, and that's a good thing.

Yay for PickPic!

STAY AWAY FROM SKOOKS! I have one and once the installation process was finished, he dropped off the face of the earth...if you do inquire about one and he actually emails or calls you back, tell him to return my emails!

Thanks... I have forgotten about that post. Bad memory, I'll guess.

This is a lesson on how not to do buiness and the cost of a bad reputation.

Skooks Kart design is pretty slick and has good features. But he has allowed a bad reputation to build to a point that it will be very hard to recover from it.

The reason I have been researching Skooks is due to the endorsement by Joe Photo and Jeff Ascough in Skooks website. Could it be that his is trying to change the public opinion by using this two excellent photographers? The few "testimonials' in his website has to do with the product and not about customer service.

The problem is that even if he has changed, who can trust him now?

A important lesson... a bad reputation is almost impossible to erase.

I am so sorry for him.

Our installation time for PickPic had nothing to do with how installations are going now. We got on the waiting list right after they quit doing installations on version 1. We knew that it would be a while when we signed up at that point, since he was just working on the latest version. We had to wait about a year, but that is only because they weren't actually doing installations at that time.

We sell lots of prints, as well as albums on PickPic. We are very happy with it. I love that we can offer so much more, including framing to our customers through PickPic. We were already set up to accept credit cards, so we didn't have to change anything with that end of things.

I second what Jules wrote about Troy and Rebecca being incredibly helpful! We have emailed them questions and gotten very fast replys and Adam has talked on the phone with both of them and gotten even more help. They have walked us through things as we were getting stuff set up and been wonderful. Very helpful to have that support after the cart was up!

I didn't look at Skooks Kart because we had heard some pretty bad stuff about them. We chose to switch to having our own cart because we wanted to keep more of the profit ourselves and we wanted to be able to offer more through our cart than we could elsewhere.

We are very happy with PickPic and glad we bought it.

David,

We've been using PickPic for almost three years after fleeing another online service. We recently had our upgrade installed and we could not be happier. We love it, our clients love it and we have total control over the quality of the product that is delivered to our clients. PLUS, we don't have to pay bignormous fees to anyone anymore.

And, Troy and Rebecca are wonderful to work with, outstanding customer service. Quick, thorough, friendly responses to any questions we might have.

I do have Skooks Kart. But I won't recommend it to anyone else because of customer service. Before I got it I was asking many people from the long list on skooks kart about their experience. They all gave good feedback. PickPic had a long waiting list and I needed the shopping cart system in specific time frame. Skooks Kart was cheaper. So, I got it. The installation was fast. He even was responding to my emails and supporting the system, but then he dissapeared and many people were complaining and were ready to drop him. I even wrote a letter to him litteraly saying that he sucks with his customer support.
Now his is trying to get a new upgrade with new features. So, features like submiting images to the lab automaticaly after the order is placed (hands free) and support for google check out should be available soon. But who knows...

Skooks kart looks good outside. I like its interface, but inside it is customized Pinnacel Kart system which was not designed to sell images but products. The admin page still has many holes left from customization. As software engeneer I have to tell you that it is not the best way to develop the product in a long run. It is very hard to support and grow it.

I seriously hope you learned your lesson!

I learned the hard way myself. I've had the skooks kart for about a year now and yes he too was very responsive and I had a great working system. Until i payed for an upgrade. The upgrade was flawed and offered by little. At first it wouldn't accept credit cards and this was during the Holiday Season so i was getting phone calls up the ying yang. I immediately emailed other users and they had the same issue. it got fixed, but there are still a lot of bugs that are hurting my busuiness.

Now that we're getting close to the Holiday season brian is coming up with an upgrade, of course he needs the income for the season but it's not even complete. So, why would anyone pay upfront for an upgrade that doesn't exist. He's been promising a bridal registry for years a long with video tutorials and e-mail marketing. He still hasn't even fixed the bugs and won't because he can't figure it out.

Don't be another ginny pig. I would atleast wait to see what others experiences are and even then I wouldn't do it.

-Jesse

PhotoCart at http://www.picturespro.com/ took us minutes to set up, cost under $300, has a nice interface that my clients are happy with, and offers a bridal registry. There is also an additional plugin option for under $100 to allow you to sell a variety of other items such as jewelry, frames, etc.

Maybe I'll move up to PickPic someday, but for now my clients are happy -- and I have a lot more money in the bank!

Christine

I LOVE my picpick. Troy and Rebecca were great to work with. Lots of hand holding with SSLs and merchant set ups, which I very much needed.

I hate to hear that other people are having the same problems, but at the same time I am glad that I am not alone! Has anyone filed with the BBB about his bad service? I haven't done anything, but I will be the first to tell people to not buy into his crap! He talks big, but produces little.

http://www.ma5en.com/blog/

check out masens blog, he has gallery samples for pickpic. it's awesome!

I have a PickPic Cart. I highly recommend. They are great to work with and have a fantastic product. It has worked extremely well for us. I use it for my Portrait clients exclusively, because I just switched back to Pictage for my wedding prints (4x6 to 8x10 at least).

It is a great design and very easy to use. My clients love it.

Photocart for me! I have no experience with any of the others, BUT, my experience with Photocart is excellent. I was recommended to go there by an OSP member (she knows who she is :-) )

If you have a question about this app, it is answered by email very quickly, the guy even has his cell number posted, so call him if you have an urgent issue. (Tim is his name)

Many times I have said to my wife "I love this application", usually after digging around in the many places that can be customized.

The download after purchase is instant, I was up and running within the hour, and I have been able to make it match my site pretty well.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Hugh

We recently got our PickPic Cart and we love it. We have found our print sales have gone up so much higher than when we had Pictage b/c our clients feel like they are shopping on our actual site (b/c it looks like a part of our site) where on Pictage it looked completely different.

It's super easy to set up and navigate and our clients have loved it.

I would high recommend Pick-Pic.

Hope this helps.

Ben