View Full Version : Backward v3 to v2 compatibility?
Hi all,
I've finally finished my site and am just waiting for AW to sign it off as Live. I have been working on v3, integrating it in to my site.
What I am wondering is, if I don't achieve the threshold in order to keep v3 (don't want to open a can of worms about that! :mad: ), how easy is it for me to revert to v2? Is it a matter of just switching a few API variables or will I need to download v2 from AW and customise everything again?
Thanks,
M
Hello vesper,
As the v2 software is now outdated it is not available from Affiliate Window.
Please also see the release publication for v3 (http://www.shopwindowforum.com/showthread.php?t=1296) which states that the bandwidth allowances for v2 and v1 will be throttled back.
Regards
Are you saying that if we don't reach the £65 threshold, we cannot use shopwindow at all?
In which case I feel I may have just wasted God knows how many hours of my life.
Whilst £65 might be an easy target for some, it's unrealistic for others. To me that says AW only want to deal with the 'big players'. Based on 5% commission that's £1300 of sales. For people like me who are new to this, who do this outside of their normal job, who don't have the funds for marketing, that isn't easy.
You said this to Amoochi, '... what would be the alternative? That ShopWindow lets users run rampant on our servers for no ROI? This would drive ShopWindow into the ground and is simply not cost effective for us as a business.'
I would have thought the investment comes from the fee the merchants pay AW for their service? Surely opening the service up to everyone would increase sales more than limiting it to those who generate more than £65 of commission?
Due to the way my site works i'm going to have to remove the shop with immediate affect, otherwise my users are going to be left with a whole bunch of dead links.
Great work, AW!
Helo vesper,
In the past (SW v1 and v2) there was an open policy on the ShopWindow software where users could simply take the portal and SW would not be invovled in policing (unless where necessary and clear breaches of conduct were apparent).
This led to a lot of SW installs being thrown up onto the net and forgotten about. This meant that Google indexed all of these sites and this caused detrimental effects to those users that were intending to make money from SW.
SW hold steering committees to collate ideas and knowledge from its users. Off the back of the last meeting (prior to v3 launch) this was something that was discussed and action was taken.
Seeing that you have been a member since 2007 you had every chance to get involved and give us your opinion baring in mind these ideas were first mentioned to the community back in March :)
The thresholds that we have in place are not for "profit" reasons to keep the "big players". Each person who operates a ShopWindow install costs us money. If that person is not covering that cost then we are allowing that person to operate at a loss to the business. We are a business, just like you, and breaking even is paramount to our business models and continuation of the platform.
What would you have us do? Continue to allow five thousand ShopWindow users operate at a loss to us of (let's say for arguments sake) £65 per month? Each year that user costs us £780 and when multiplied by 5,000 users you can see how the sums are starting to add up to serious amounts of monetary loss?
I would have thought the investment comes from the fee the merchants pay AW for their service?
Please understand that ShopWindow and Affiliate Window are two separate entities. ShopWindow is a department that funds itself within Affiliate Window and measures need to taken to ensure its survival.
Surely opening the service up to everyone would increase sales more than limiting it to those who generate more than £65 of commission?
Not if those users were consistently making less money than it costs us to run the platform. Also, as pointed out earlier, having a user base where installs multiply like rabbits has detrimental effects on the core user base.
How does your shop work if its aim is not to make commission?
Regards
How does your shop work if its aim is not to make commission?
I didn't say the aim isn't to make commission. Why would you ask me a question like that? :confused:
Ignoring that part of your question: the shop allowed users to add products to their wishlist directly from the shop (as well as purchase straight away). This meant that the links using goto.php would have been stored in the database. As soon as AW decide to switch off my shop the links would, I assume, stop working. That would mean I could potentially have several users with several items in their wishlist that have broken links. The only way to avoid that is to not use the shop at all as I can't guarantee I'll reach the commission threshold - as nice as it would be to do so.
It just feel like it's a carrot, you're saying here's a tool that could help you earn more commission, but you need to earn more commission to be able to use it.
C'est la vie.