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bogus
Starting Member
41 Posts |
 Posted - 2007-05-31 : 12:25:22
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anyone know what a good one is? I am doing some work related research on one. The one thing I have found is that most are attached to e-commerce products, and my company has no interest in e-commerce (we are in the bio-labs biz, so e-commerce doesn't really work).But we do want to be able to allow potential customers to drill through our catalog...any thoughts?Thanks!!!! |
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spirit1
Cybernetic Yak Master
11752 Posts |
Posted - 2007-05-31 : 12:46:36
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well if you're putting your catalog online then it's e-commerce  _______________________________________________Causing trouble since 1980blog: http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2007-05-31 : 13:09:32
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| What's a "web configurator" ??Are you talking a Content Management System so you can have control over your site, and plug in functions like News, Surveys, Articles, Feedback and so on?Or just an "online catalogue"?(We build eCommerce systems and have clients who have NO checkout, but the Products have PDF files of Technical info, and all that sort of stuff)Kristen |
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bogus
Starting Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 2007-05-31 : 13:13:43
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| Kristen,You are much closer to what we are trying to do. It's not e-commerce in the direct sense of the phrase. It's more like e-commerce information. An ability to drill through our catalog and allow a customer to either reference the catalog during a sales call or research in advance of one. A "configurator" is much like this: www.cars.com - it allows the user to select the make, then it populates the next list with the model, and then the final list, trim level or price. |
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JimL
SQL Slinging Yak Ranger
1537 Posts |
Posted - 2007-05-31 : 13:22:41
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quote:
we are in the bio-labs biz
Custom bacteria or plastic beakers? JimUsers <> Logic |
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bogus
Starting Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 2007-05-31 : 13:29:06
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| stuff like beakers and things. |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2007-06-01 : 03:22:44
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"it allows the user to select the make, then it populates the next list with the model, and then the final list, trim level or price"Oh, OK. In our eCommerce product we call that a configurator too  Sorry, I just didn't read that into your question!I don't know the answer to your question, except that eCommerce systems are likely to have that ability.There are some Catalogue tools out there - that let you choose, and preview, a Fabric for your Chair etc.I have some experience with Scene7, and their stuff is pretty impressive, but at its core its just image manipulation, and that may not be quite what you are after.http://www.scene7.com/solutions/product_configurators.aspKristen |
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bogus
Starting Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 2007-06-01 : 13:41:25
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| Kristen, thanks!! I will add that link to my list. That is about what we are looking for. The interesting thing, many of the products I have found include some level of consultancy to do the install/configuration. one firm was quoting upwards of $250k USD, to install their product!!! It seems a bit excessive to me.It seems the vendors for these tools don't just want to sell us something, they want to become our IT department for just this product... perpetual licenses, annual renewals... gee... they are really milking this.as a bit of a molypropism, I have taking to referring to the configurator as a confabulator... mostly, because we had a consultant come in and not do anything for a month... and he was a bit of a, uh, embellisher... but that's another story for another time. then again, I wonder how much was due to poor specs.... again, a story for another time. |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2007-06-01 : 17:17:36
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Much better to budget some money, have them lend a hand, but also plan to milk as much out of it as YOU can.The alternative is that you spend your time hanging out in Internet forums trying to work out how the things works ...  Plan A will take less time than Plan B, unless your troops don;t bother to make any effort, of course, in which case you are doomed with either plan ...Kristen |
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bogus
Starting Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 2007-06-04 : 13:37:17
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| Kristen,You speak truth... if buy-in hasn't been successfully performed, no amount of money will make it work.And if things are done on too small a budget, there might not be enough knowledge to make it happen. Either way, the project crashes and burns.I have turned in my list of vendors... it's not gonna be easy... Apparently, we have one that was designed in-house... but they are not all that warm to using it. I donno. |
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bogus
Starting Member
41 Posts |
Posted - 2007-06-11 : 11:18:03
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| After some more research, we have determined that something called Early Impact looks really good.They have a piece called ProductCart Build to Order that seems like a great product for a very great price. It's open source, all classic ASP, hitting SQL Server dbs. In this case, .NET isn't mandatory at all.thanks for all the feedback, I wanted to let everyone know what we selected! |
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A question about web configurators...