A few questions

[SeanW]

Hey Peter and ilancers!

First of all, I really like the demo, site design etc. and I'm really excited to partner with you guys. Just have a few Q's before hand - I'm doing this on behalf of my boss, and he's requiring me to research it to death. Also, I have zero technical expertise :) I'm sure you've had most of these questions before so forgive me if I'm being redundant.


How many sites do you currently power? i understand if youre not comfortable releasing that exactly, but a general idea of it would be cool.
Whats the average amount of time people maintain usage of ilance? Do people transfer off when they're big enough?
Why do you think people fail or succeed when they use ilance? Any 'secret sauce' besides good marketing/ good niche?
How much coding experience/ knowledge will we need to create the site?
How much tech support/ training do you offer?
Peter - I did see that ppl have asked a lot for demos of successful sites, and you've had a confidentiality issue. Has this been resolved? i.e. Can I see a demo besides DMS? It would be great to get a sense of how customizable ilance can be.Thanks for your help!

Sean

[Peter]

Hi Sean :)


How many sites do you currently power? i understand if youre not comfortable releasing that exactly, but a general idea of it would be cool


ILance formed in 2000 and sold our first license in 2002. We are a private company and these numbers are not publically available at this time.


Whats the average amount of time people maintain usage of ilance? Do people transfer off when they're big enough?


We have ILancers from day one of our Forum launch a few years back. We provide a suite of services which provide all clients with upgrade paths from one version to the next. So if a business purchased version 1.0 three years back, there would be upgrade scripts for 1.0 => 1.1 and 1.1 => 1.2, etc. This approach provides a complete start to finish solution as the ILance project is always being optimized through the use of latest technology, development and design with each update offering a major advantage than the last. We actively encourage our clients to upgrade to the latest available versions when released. Because of this we see many returning loyal customers due to Team ILance constantly improving the software.

As per example, ILance 3.1.7 is the latest version of ILance currently released. This version focused on a tightly integrated search engine complete with custom item specific logic along with fulltext smart search functionality. See here (http://demo.ilance.com/search.php?cmd=help).

ILance 3.1.8 will be available in the coming months which will offer one new major feature : The ability for sellers to promote videos within auction listings among some other very importantant marketing features, functionality and SEO optimization.


Why do you think people fail or succeed when they use ilance? Any 'secret sauce' besides good marketing/ good niche?


Check DMS on Youtube as per example. Also, do a query for "Bid Wars Live". This was another client who was an overnight success because they made themselves available. That's all it takes. If you do check out the bid wars live video I believe that run on Fox News lured in roughly 1100 users within an hour after the clip ran. If you do just 5 shows in a single quarter consider the amount of viral marketing that could promote.

Another thing you'll want is a tight design. Notice how DMS looks completely different than our demo? If you look close, most templates are redone but when you understand ILance, you'll know that in the templates it uses {variables}. There is no messy PHP code and because of this, all you really need to do is move those {variables} around anywhere you want in your own design :) That's how simple it is for the designer.


How much coding experience/ knowledge will we need to create the site?


In all honestly, that question is too vague. If I told you zero, I wouldn't be lying because ILance was built so it can be installed, configured and run in a production environment via nicely configured panels, switches, options and control you as the admin can control from the Admin Control Panel. In fact Sean, even our Add-on products are installable using an Interface where you just upload the plugin through your web browser. It's real simple.

On the other hand, if you told me you needed to re-design the Flash Applet for Bid Plotting or if you needed to change the HTML for your headers or footers or if you needed to change the method in which a javascript popup's or functions then I'd have to tell you in order to make ILance work for you and your boss it'd be nice to have some knowledge of :

HTML .. if you wanted to change the layout of ILance
CSS .. if you wanted to produce nice shiny fonts, colors and styles
Javascript .. if you wanted to add or remove some client-side browser functionality

If you needed to dig in and change the logic of the functionality of the core code I'd tell you that you should know "PHP". You may need to alter a few queries so you can load some other information into the ILance database, in this case I'd suggest to know your basic UPDATE, SELECT, DELETE and/or JOIN statements for MySQL.

You see? depending on what you guys need, you may just need to edit some HTML templates into dreamweaver and be done without any major customization. It's pretty easy stuff.


How much tech support/ training do you offer?


You just come to the forum and ask your questions. If we have an answer you'll hear from us. If we don't, you'll still hear from us :)

Before purchase an ILance agent will provide assistance such as walkthrough and other info as to what you need to know in order to get things rolling.


Peter - I did see that ppl have asked a lot for demos of successful sites, and you've had a confidentiality issue. Has this been resolved? i.e. Can I see a demo besides DMS? It would be great to get a sense of how customizable ilance can be.


I'll show you a new unique design I'm recently very fond of. This layout if very unique but not only this - it's in Russian (http://www.bimbim.ru/). This example will give you a clear view of how customizable ILance is no matter what the language or layout.

Just to be clear : it's not an issue per-se, it simply protects our clients from being showcased where they do not give permission to do so. Why? You and your boss spend months on a site similar to DMS. You get some irate ILance customer trying to rip off your design because we're showcasing your marketplace without your permission. Now some guy who has no intentions of marketing like you is now running a clone design of your 4-month web design facelift (for example).

This privacy policy helps balance that. Remember, ILance is in the business of software licensing. We want everyone to enjoy ILance as much as we do (without any drama in-between).

Thanks Sean :)

Regards,
Peter

[kfrierson]

Hey Peter,

I finally purchased the license, and currently having my site developed. I was wondering about the SEO that ILance offers. Could you provide details, and is it robust enough that we would not need to have this individually done on our sites?

Thanks for such a great product!

Kenneth

[wterpilo]

Hi
to enable SEO just goto AdminCP->Distribution->Auctions->Settings
and there you should have "Enable search engine friendly (SEF) URLs?". Set it to YES and your marketplace links will become search engines friendly :)
What you need to have installed on your server is mod_rewrite. It's PHP extension which handle SEF.

Wojtek

[kfrierson]

Thanks a lot Wojtek!