Technical Support and Software Updates Policy: FAQ's

Frequently asked questions about our technical support & updates policy

Back to the Support Policy

So, let's recap: how does it all work? What support do I get and how?

Sure, here is a recap.

New users of ProductCart

Existing users of ProductCart

Customers that purchased ProductCart from a ProductCart Reseller

  • You can continue receiving technical support services from the reseller.
  • You do not have to purchase the Technical Support & Updates Plan
  • However, You will have to make your ProductCart license eligible for software updates.
    Contact your ProductCart reseller for more information.

Can you give me an example of what's NOT included in your technical support policy?

Sure, not all support requests are covered by our Technical Support Policy. You should submit a support ticket when:

  • A feature is not working as documented (and the ProductCart source code has not been modified)
  • A feature is not documented in the ProductCart documentation and you are unsure on what to do
  • You receive an error (and the ProductCart source code has not been modified)

On the other hand, the following is NOT covered by our Technical Support Plan:

What if I submit more than 24 tickets a year?

That number is very high. Most customers never get close to it, according to our experience. We introduced it simply to prevent any abuse. Support tickets after the 24th ticket will be paid on a per-incident basis at a cost of $45 per incident.

So, when an upgrade is released, can I upgrade free of charge?

Yes, as long as you subscribe to the yearly ProductCart Technical Support & Updates Plan, all software updates AND upgrades are free. So if you subtract from the cost of the plan the typical price of a software upgrade (e.g. $200), you will see that the price of the annual support and updates plan is very low.

Will the ProductCart v4 Upgrade be free?

Yes. Any license for which you purchase the plan is eligible for a free upgrade to ProductCart v4.

Do I have to buy the support plan or can I run my store without it?

You can run your ProductCart-powered store without it. You are not required to subscribe to the ProductCart Technical Support & Updates Plan. However, you will need to subscribe before you can update your software to a new version of ProductCart, and before being able to submit a support ticket.

I bought ProductCart from a reseller. Do I still need to buy the plan?

You are receiving technical support from the reseller that you are working with, so you do not need a Support Plan. However, you do need to make your ProductCart license eligible for updates & upgrades. For that, you will need to subscribe to an "Updates" plan. Your reseller may have already made your ProductCart license eligible for updates as part of the services that they provide to you. Please contact them for more information.

 

 

About the change from free to paid support

We switched from free to paid support in the summer of 2009. Here are some answers to common questions.

I purchased ProductCart when support was free. Why should I pay for it now?

Our developers need to use their skills to make ProductCart a better and better e-commerce application, rather than handling support tickets. Years of experience have shown us that free support meant slower development, which is not a good outcome.

Legally speaking, the End User License Agreement that you agreed to when you installed and began using ProductCart was very clear on the fact that we might not be able to provide free technical support indefinitely. We included that provision in the Agreement years ago, in plain English, knowing that providing free support was going to be hard (*).

Why did you change your free support policy?

For over 7 years we provided free technical support to our customers. Over time, it became more and more clear to us that this approach was not effective: a large portion of ProductCart license sales were spent on providing customer service instead of being primarily devoted to additional software development. The only way to break this cycle was to make customer service "pay for itself", at least partially.

So now you charge for a license AND you charge for support. Are you just greedy?

Nope. No one's getting rich over here, unfortunately. But we do need to run the company more efficiently.

As for the cost of running a ProductCart-powered store... ProductCart is still priced way below most of its competitors. And if you want support on an open source product (where the license is free), you typically pay fees that are much higher that the total cost of using ProductCart. An open source ecommerce application that is comparable to ProductCart, for example, recently started charging over $9,000 a year for support and additional features (most of which are included in ProductCart).

 

 

(*) We are referring to the following clause in the ProductCart End User License Agreement.

2.1 Technical Support

Technical support documents and answers to frequently asked questions related to the use of the Software are available free of charge to all licensed users of the Software on Early Impact’s Web site located at: http://www.earlyimpact.com/productcart/support. On Software purchased directly from Early Impact, technical support is provided by Early Impact via e-mail on a ‘best effort’ basis. Currently, Early Impact does not charge for technical support. However, by accepting this End User License Agreement, Licensee acknowledges that Early Impact may not be able to or wish to continue offering technical support free of charge, and might start charging a fee for this service. In addition, Early Impact does not provide free telephone support on the Software and Early Impact does not provide free technical support for Software purchased through a reseller. Early Impact does not provide any technical support on any feature of the Software that Licensee has either directly modified, or whose operation is in any way affected by such modifications.

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