A few people have emailed me lately asking questions about how much time we spend running our store on a day to day basis and I completely understand why. Economy-x-Talk releases Salery 1.1.3, easy-to-use on-line web store management softare. This version is free for current license holders.
Overview This review covers Spark Pay’s online sales platform. We have a separate review for Spark Pay’s mobile processing app, which you can find. Founded in 2005, AmeriCommerce began as an innovative shopping cart platform: the first to offer multiple store management, product embedding on other sites, and single page checkout. In 2014, Capital One took notice and acquired AmeriCommerce, bringing the platform under the Spark Pay umbrella. To avoid confusion, throughout this review, we will refer to the eCommerce platform solely as Spark Pay (though you should know that in doing so we’re crediting Spark Pay with some of AmeriCommerce’s accomplishments). Founded by Ed Stuffock, Charlie Cooper, and Stefan Barlow, Spark Pay has grown over the past eleven years to host over 5000 sites. Collectively, Spark Pay sellers generate over half a billion dollars in transactions each year.
Current clients include,, and. Although Spark Pay has a significantly smaller customer base than most popular eCommerce platforms, it still makes waves in the eCommerce industry. The company has earned two notable recognitions: the 2010 CODiE Award for Best in Class eCommerce Software and Inc.
Magazine’s 5000 list in 2012. Merchants choose Spark Pay for its intuitive admin, multiple store capabilities, and drag-and-drop theme editor. With Spark Pay, it’s easy to operate several sites from the same user-friendly admin. One word of caution: Because Spark Pay has limited international selling features and support hours, it’s really best for US merchants who plan on selling in the US. If you are based outside of the US or you plan on reaching international customers, you should consider another platform (you might take a look at or ). Otherwise, keep reading to find out if Spark Pay has the features to fit your store’s needs. Table of Contents • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Pricing Spark Pay offers five pricing tiers.
All plans are billed monthly and have no setup or cancellation fees. You don’t need to sign a contract to get started with Spark Pay, and you won’t have to pay any transaction fees. If you’re just looking to try out Spark Pay, there is a you can use to explore the platform and begin setting up a store. When you register for a trial, you’ll have to enter some personal information and a few details about your store, but you do not have to hand over a credit card number. Here’s the pricing structure. Steel: $24.95/month • 100 products • 2 GB bandwidth • 250 MB storage space Bronze: $39/month • 500 products • 3 GB bandwidth • 1 GB storage space Silver: $99/month • 5,000 products • 15 GB bandwidth • 1 GB storage space. Gold: $149/month • 10,000 products • 25 GB bandwidth • 2 GB storage space Platinum: $299/month • Unlimited products • 50 GB bandwidth • 5 GB storage space Enterprise-level plans are also available.
Spark Pay’s multi-store functionality is one of its best features. You can build additional stores on any plan at just $39/month. Keep in mind that while Spark Pay does not charge transaction fees, they do charge bandwidth overage fees at $10/GB per month. Try to choose a plan that accurately fits your projected bandwidth usage. Web-Hosted or Licensed Web-hosted. Spark Pay outsources their web hosting to; they boast a 99.9% uptime. Hardware and Software Requirements None.
You only need a computer, a strong internet connection, and a current web browser. Ease of Use Spark Pay offers a, so you can test out the platform for yourself, no credit card required. You just need to enter some basic contact information and a bit of information about your business. You’ll be automatically directed to the admin panel of your new store. Once there, a setup wizard will guide you through entering a store name, choosing a theme, and adding your first product (not to worry, you can change everything later).
A screen overlay with pop-up bubbles shows how to find a few features that might not be obvious at first. I really think Spark Pay could do a better job with its beginner’s tutorial, but fortunately, for the most part, the platform isn’t too difficult to figure out by yourself.
I started the process by adding a few products of my own. I was a little confused at first. It seemed like I could only add a few details about each product. I discovered later that you first have to add the product to your catalog before you can create the full range of shipping and tax details. Spark Pay has filed away their more advanced features under the “Power Features” bar.
To access those features, you must click to activate them. It doesn’t cost any extra to use Power Features. They’re only listed in a separate category because Spark Pay presumably doesn’t want to overwhelm new users with too many features. Overall, I found Spark Pay’s dashboard reasonably easy to learn. If you need a little extra help, there’s a and a few available to get you moving. Features Spark Pay has enough features to meet the needs of most merchants. More advanced functionality is available in the form of add-ons.
The following are a few of the features I deem most important. Head over to the Spark Pay website for the. Store Management • Multiple storefronts: This is, without a doubt, Spark Pay’s most attractive feature. Spark Pay lets you operate multiple stores (dozens, really) from the same admin. • Automatic shipping rates: Calculate shipping rates from major carriers like UPS, USPS, and FedEx. • Drop shipping: The drop shipping feature is available as a “Power Feature.” It’s an advanced feature that you can enable in your admin, free of additional charges.
• Taxes calculator: Calculate taxes accurately and automatically. • User roles: Assign your employees different logins and permissions. • Bulk import: Make migration a little easier. Products • Buy buttons: Embed buy buttons in your blogs, Facebook page, and other social media sites. • Unlimited variables: List an unlimited number of sizes, colors, styles and other features that your products may have. • Digital products: Sell both physical and digital products on the same site. • Inventory management: Track your inventory, including different product options and variants.
• Product videos: Let customers see your products from all sides (but keep in mind that product videos use a lot of bandwidth and can slow down your site). • Enable product reviews: Find out what your customer like and don’t like about your products and inspire confidence in other shoppers. • Shopping portals: Distribute your products across comparison engines like Amazon, Google, and Yahoo Shopping. • Wish lists: Allow customers to return to the items they’re considering.
Orders and Shopping • Top sellers, suggested items, and related items: Take advantage of cross-sells and up-sells. • Phone orders: Accept orders via the phone. You can create orders easily from the admin. • Built-in payment types: Accept partial payment, split payments, gift cards, and customer loyalty points. • Customer accounts and guest checkout: Customers who aren’t ready to commit to your brand yet can still purchase from you. Marketing and SEO • Email automation: Automate your email marketing campaign and send drip series emails. • SEO tools: Utilize permalinks, page titles, H1, meta tags, alt tags, and an auto-generated sitemap.xml.
• Blogs: Build your brand, increase SEO, and increase organic traffic through consistent blogging. • Free Facebook store: Sell your products where your customers are. • Social media integration: Link your store to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Reports • Google Analytics: Integrate with Google’s free software. • Traffic and referral reports: Find out where your customers are coming from. • PPC keyword reporting: Discover the keywords you aren’t bidding on yet. • Abandoned cart reports: Find out more about customers who don’t purchase.
Although Spark Pay’s feature set is not the most expansive, it is complete. Most merchants will find they have nearly all the features they need out-of-the-box. And, like I mentioned above, features that don’t come built-in can always be added on as integrations. Web Design Spark Pay’s collection of pre-made includes 63 options. Of these themes, only about half (36) are fully mobile responsive. Most themes are free, though there are seven premium options, which are all priced at $95.
As far as looks go, Spark Pay’s themes are hit and miss. There are a few truly stunning designs. Unfortunately, not all of the themes are this elegant. About half of Spark Pay’s options already look fairly dated (the theme below, for example). Furthermore, Spark Pay’s selection is fairly slim in terms of diversity.
A few themes are just variations of the same design in different colors. Fortunately, there are a few theme editors you can use to customize your site. There are WYSIWYG editors and a available for your storefront. For those a little more tech savvy, there are HTML5 and CSS3 editors in the backend. If you do decide to go the custom theme route, Spark Pay has available to you.
They are not cheap, however. Plans begin at $3999 and go up to $7999 for non-responsive themes. Plans for responsive themes cost one grand more on average ($4999 to $8999). (Quick tip: No matter what, choose a responsive theme. These days is done on a mobile device. You don’t want to miss out on that traffic.) On the other hand, if you just need help tweaking a few aspects of your theme, you should look into Spark Pay’s, which allow you to make changes to your pre-made Spark Pay theme for $750–$2999.
Integrations and Add-Ons Spark Pay’sis on the smaller side, with 74 available integrations. You can expect to find common integrations there, most of which are available at “third-party pricing.” Here are a few of my favorite integrations: •. Email marketing.
3 rd Party Pricing. • Automated Shipping Refunds. 3 rd Party Pricing. Automatic tax calculation. 3 rd Party Pricing.
Accounting software. • Email marketing. 3 rd Party Pricing. There’s also a available, so you can hire developers to create a connection to any app you choose. Payment Processing Spark Pay stores integrate with about.
Spark Pay specifically recommends,, and. Additionally, Spark Pay offers their own for in-person payment solutions. Customer Service and Technical Support Spark Pay’s customer service is reportedly good when it’s available. Phone support hours are limited to M-F, 8 a.m.–6 p.m. CST (Sat 9 a.m.–5 p.m. This makes accessing live customer support a challenge, especially for merchants in different time zones. Here’s how you can access Spark Pay’s support.
• Phone (online store support): 1-800-936-9006 • Phone (mobile payments support): 1-877-231-7547 • Email: •. Requires login. Recommended for general questions, sales, and non-urgent technical inquiries. • • • • • Negative Reviews and Complaints There aren’t very many customer reviews online about Spark Pay’s shopping cart (though there are LOTS about the mobile processing app). In general, Spark Pay customers are satisfied with their online platform, but they do have a few complaints.
Negative comments tend to address: • Poor Customer Support: Spark Pay’s limited support hours are customers’ number one frustration. As one customer on Facebook pointed out, “The internet doesn’t stop.” Spark Pay support, however, does. Customers also mention delayed responses to their inquiries. Note: As you research this platform, you might notice a lot of complaints mentioning credit card devices.
That’s a part of Spark Pay’s POS system; we’ve discussed it in. • Lack of International Payment Options: Spark Pay works best for US merchants who plan on selling in the US. Nevertheless, there are a few international payment gateways available: eWay, BeanStream, Planet Payment, and PayPal. • Extra Fees: If you don’t choose a plan that can handle your store’s bandwidth usage, you can expect some bandwidth overage fees. Some customers feel they’re being nickled and dimed. • Lack of Variety in Themes: I agree with this particular gripe. Spark Pay could really step it up a notch with their web design.
We’ve seen that they can create elegant web design, now we’re just waiting for more of those options. Positive Reviews and Testimonials Here’s what Spark Pay customers like most about their platform.
• Multiple Store Management: This is what everyone loves most. You can manage dozens of stores from the same admin. • Dependable: Spark Pay’s servers have a 99.9% uptime track record, and they’ll update your software regularly so everything keeps running smoothly. • Customizable: Using Spark Pay’s “Power Features” you can easily adjust your dashboard to be as simple or as robust as you’d like. • Free Facebook Store: Sell your products directly on your business’s Facebook page. Customers also list Spark Pay’s pricing, quick setup, and expansive features as reasons to choose the platform. Security Spark Pay is PCI compliant and offers each merchant a free 128-bit shared SSL certificate.
In order to benefit from that shared SSL, you’ll have to use Spark Pay’s subdomain for checkout. If you’d prefer to have your checkout page on your own domain, you’ll have to. Additionally, Spark Pay’s servers use enterprise quality Cisco firewalls. Spark Pay also offers their merchants DDoS mitigation services. Final Verdict I don’t have a particularly strong opinion of Spark Pay, either positive or negative. It isn’t the most exciting eCommerce platform I’ve ever seen, nor is it the worst.
Spark Pay seems to adequately cover all of the bases required of a user-friendly shopping cart and manages to offer a few additional features as well. The software’s most attractive feature is certainly the ability to operate multiple sites from the same admin–the low cost of each additional store is equally attractive.
That isn’t to say that Spark Pay is without fault. This cart is by Americans and for Americans, so if you’re looking to sell internationally, Spark Pay is not the best route. You should also be wary of the company’s limited customer service hours. If you aren’t comfortable handling problems on your own, you might consider looking elsewhere. Whatever the case, I always recommend that you try out the platform before you commit. Sign up for a free trial, test the customer service, and see if Spark Pay can fit your business’s needs.
We were with Americart for our shopping cart for many years and were very happy with the product and support team. The cart integrated seamlessly with our ecommerce site and was user-friendly to navigate and use, particularly since we are a mom and pop site without extensive IT experience and support. When SparkPay took over, we ran into several problems, mainly with getting the same shipping options to work with our site. However, the main problem was and remains the inability to have a drop-down list indicating whether UPS shipments are to a commercial or residential address (we were told by SparkPay that we had to choose one or the other, which is ludricrous; any ecommerce site that ships to both residential and business customers would agree with that); at a later date, we received an email saying that to have that shipping choice available on our site, it would cost extra. Also, we recently had a complaint from one of our business customers that at least twice she had a problem with getting the cart to accept an address she wanted a product shipped to. As she pointed out, if she is having a problem, there are probably other customers having the same problem, and we may be losing business because of it.We were very happy with Americart and wish it were still available.
Unless the above issues are not satisfactorily corrected by SparkPay in the near future, it is highly likely that we will seek a new shopping cart provider. I have a fix that I use, to solve the Residential/Commercial issue. Yes, stupid that this simple offering isn’t a standard option. Simply create a Fedex account online, and use that information. So, you have your regular UPS Ground (rename it UPS Ground Residential) and also use Fedex Home Delivery (rename it UPS Ground Commercial, and set-up with the Fedex account info that you received). You’ll need to of course find the right modification for this Fedex Home Delivery rate (since it’s not the actual commercial rate), so that it somewhat matches your UPS Ground Commercial Rates (I’ve found a -33% reduction, from this Fedex Home Delivery online rate, works pretty close for me). Be sure you modify the Fedex Home Delivery rate, and make that shipping option visible, as when I did this, what initially threw me, was that some of the other Fedex options, even though should have been visible, didn’t work/show in the cart.
Hope that helps. This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated. I moved from Bigcommerce to Sparkpay at the beginning of the year.
So far it has been a positive experience and the best fit for my high volume business. Support has been very helpful to me so perhaps that has improved since the previous comments were left, but for me it has been much better than what I received with BC. There was a bit of a leaning curve going to this platform but in the long run their greater number of tools and functions should be a good value. There are a few really good platforms out there and for our needs Sparkpay fit the bill better than others. Sparkpay is also striving at helping those migrating (fleeing) Bigcommerce after BC raised rates 500%. I appreciated the built-in import tools designed to move my site content, orders, and customers. There were times I got stuck or needed help and their support came through for me.
Granted they are only available Monday-Friday for general support but that wasn’t a big deal to me, compared to Bigcommerce who would routinely ignore requests. Overall I give Spark Pay 4.5 stars.
No platform is perfect but this one so far has been stepping up to the plate for my company. Just an update after using this platform for a few months. So far it has been very good. The pros include: + Excellent uptime+ Responsive to support tickets and questions+ Easy to use once you get use to their UICons:- Buggy interface with shipping provider (ShipStation) when dealing with multiple microstores, but they are working on this.
– Bandwidth issues (more about this below)- Lack of any user community to share tips or suggestions. They have a forum but few post and almost no one replies, so its a virtual ghost town. FIn regards to the bandwidth issue, this is something that can catch you off guard if not careful.
I thought I was doing pretty good when suddenly my monthly totals spiked and I ended up with a small bandwidth overage charge. Turns out that some out of control spiders and crawlers were eating up bandwidth by scanning every image and page on an hourly basis. SparkPay does not filter or restrict any of these so it is up to you to monitor and block them. Luckily they have a tool to block by the IP or user agent, but some still find their way in. One such bandwidth abuser was Alltop.com (user agent Alltop/1) who is a site that is nothing more than an article farm of scanned content pulled from blogs and sites.
They blatantly ignore your Robots.txt file directives so don’t even bother with that. I had to file a complaint with their host to finally rid them of the scans which were hammering my site every few minutes. Other offenders include the Chinese and Russian bots that had to be blocked, and I still find new ones once a week.
My store falls into a slot where the Silver plan is more than enough of everything except the bandwidth which I border on every month. Overall, good platform for those wanting something all inclusive, or all of those who had to flee BigCommerce after they showed such disrespect for small/mid sized businesses. Bandwidth billing is deceptive.I started with the lowest plan. After a few months I started getting billed for extra bandwidth each month. (The billing is very sneaky. They won’t tell you how much bandwidth you used, but just bill you $40) So, I switched to a higher bandwidth plan because it’s less expensive to pay for bandwidth up front. Now I had more bandwidth then I had ever used before.
The very next month? More bandwidth charges!
Mysteriously, my bandwidth use had doubled in the next month even though my page views for those 2 months were only up slightly.My site hasn’t changed at all in this time. Zero edits.I have the same traffic patterns among pages.Over 8 months, my page views have doubled, but for some reason I’m paying for 4x the bandwidth. While you have done a good job of describing the features that AmeriCommerce offers, I don’t think you have given sufficient weight to the EXTREMELY POOR SUPPORT.
I spent 10 months waiting for them to port a shopping cart over from AmeriCart. Communication from them was non-existent.
Promises were made that were never kept. That client eventually gave up and went with a different solution. Now I’m on hold again with my very last AmeriCommerce client. The shopping cart isn’t working correctly because of a screw up on their part and its been a week and with feedback. If you have months to wait, you may eventually get something done.
I don’t have that kind of time. I’ve been using Americommerce since 2008 and have seen it constantly being enhanced throughout the years.
I’ve been beta testing the new admin and comparing it to the previous 2 iterations, I can honestly say it is “amazing”. The time to perform administrative tasks in the admin is reduced significantly by virtue of the new ‘flow’ as well as the speed in which the new interface loads.I agree with your statements about the included free themes which may be an initial setback, however they offer a solid foundation to further customize/refine instead of starting from scratch.Hopefully we will see some premium themes offered in the future. Hi Amad and Merchant Maverick team, Thanks for such a complete and thoughtful review of AmeriCommerce. I think you did an excellent job touching on all the points (both good and bad) and you’re readers should find it helpful. I thought I’d offer a few points of feedback and clarity. – Authorize.net is indeed a partner but we also have our own AmeriCommerce Merchant Services which is less expensive and typically a good fit for many of our merchants. We support more than 50 payment gateways so it’s not usually an issue supporting the processor of your choice.
And, I think your site offers tons of helpful information on merchants. – You’re right, our Admin can be hard on the eyes and some people have found it confusing since we offer a lot of tools and settings for multiplestores and advanced options (unlike shopify and others). – The Admin is being redesigned for a better and more intuitive user experience.
It is NOT hard on the eyes and much easier to move around. Plus it’s designed to be responsive for tablets and mobile devices. The new admin will be available by Summer 2013. – Our themes are dated and utilitarian in nature. Historically, we have always attracted power users, mature internet retailers which tend to have the resources and budget to theme their sites with a custom look and feel. This is an area we want to address with more themes.
We offer affordable custom web design too, but understand it’s helpful to have more theme options than we currently do. – Customer Service.
What can I say here Yes. We’ve got to increase our window of availability for international users and even weekend warriors trying to work on their sites during non-business hours. All I can say is that we thank all our customers for their patience as we are growing and continuing to improve. Extended hours and weekend support is coming and we are continually improving our support systems and response times. We are very serious about improving the customer experience with our company and expect to see big changes here over time.
For what it’s worth, I must admit we tend to be an awesome fit for mature retailers who have specific needs and are already online. We help a lot of people re-platform to us from the smaller simple stores because they end up needing advanced capabilities and tooling they just didn’t know they needed when they first started.
This does put completely new store owners at a disadvantage and we hope to be able to improve their experience to get started selling online. Thanks again for your review of AmeriCommerce. And awesome job managing this site – it’s a great service to people trying to navigate how ecommerce works and get helpful and honest feedback.
Justin McCullough AmeriCommerce @mccJustin This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated. Justin, Thank you for the kind words and the extra details about AmeriCommerce. We were hesitant about publishing the review initially because we knew that you’re planning on rolling out a new version of AmeriCommerce in the Summer. We ultimately decided to run with it, but we’re definitely keeping an eye out for the new software.
Once it’s live, we’ll revisit AmeriCommerce and update the review accordingly. Thanks again Justin.
Best of luck to you and AmeriCommerce. Let’s keep in touch. -Amad This comment refers to an earlier version of this review and may be outdated.
I have been trying since weeks to get my first extension into the Chrome Web Store, but unfortunately my cards (as well as those of my partner) are not getting accepted. I tried 4 different cards dozens of times. I also have a Visa card defined as standard in my Google payment center, with which I can make payments e.g. In Google play store, yet this same payment method does not get accepted for paying the 5$ 1-time developer registration fee. The Google support pages are terrible and just send me in circles (while I haven't found any answers to my issue).
Yet I cannot find any option to contact someone from the Web Store or from Google who could help me out here and look into my issue. In the Chrome help forum in some similar cases, the answers suggested to contact this forum here. I did the latter and actually received a reply from a real person, but just to let me know they are not responsible but only for the Google Play Store, and forwarded me once again to the infinite loops of the Google Help pages. Thus I am asking here if anyone knows how to get in touch with someone who is responsible for the registration fee payments or who can help me to finally get my registration fee paid.