Thread: Pre Sales Qs

Pre Sales Qs

Hi guys,

We were looking into buying ClassiPress but we think that Vantage would better suite our needs. We currently have a directory of wedding photographers on www.findatog.com and we're using DirectoryPress. Basically they have been terrible with their support and customer service and basically their live sales team promised us loads of things that turned out to be BS. We're told that the code is open source in one breath and told not to edit files in the next.

So my questions are...

1) Can we fully edit what files we want with the developer licence?

2) I notice that subscriptions arent built yet, can I add a +1 to the feature request?

3) Can we have the search results page to display the featured listings at the top and in different colours like it does on the home page? - One thing we were promised from DirectoryPress which turned out "was never supposed to do that, nor will it ever do that" - We'd like it not to show the most relevant first, instead showing featured listings first.

4) Can I add a +1 to the feature request of searcheable taxonomies which are set by the user. Our search works on three drop down menu's 'Style', 'Region' and 'Price Range.'

5) Can you explain to me how the 'near' search works? Does it just look for text in the address field of the listing? - We'd be leaving the good maps API out as we dont use this. If we didnt use the address field would that mean that they wont show in searches? We'd ideal like to use a list of towns or counties which a photographer covers. Is this possible?

6) Are tags searcheable?

7) Can users pay extra to be featured?

8) is there anyway of having different levels of listing? For example: Gold - Everything / Silver - 10 images, facebook, twitter, / Free - Post 4 images, no facebook, no twitter.

9) COUPONS! We really like the coupons option in ClassiPress where you can get discount on listing fees. Is there any chance of this being added to Vantage? We'd like to offer photographers discount cards when we meet them at shows etc.

10) Have I asked too many questions? :p

Thanks guys,

Really looking forward to your responses. We're ready to leave crappy old DirectoryPress and go go go with AppThemes!!

Hi There! Whilst we're not happy to hear you're had some bad experiences with another company (ok, maybe just a little bit ;)), we're certainly pleased to be able to have the opportunity to let you know more about our products :)

1) Yes, you can customize the theme to suit your needs, and this can be done with both the standard and developer licenses (although only the developer license includes the Photoshop .psd files). We recommend the use of a child theme when modifying the default theme files, as this will prevent you losing all your hard work in the process of an update.

2) We are more than happy for our community to vote on features they would like to see implemented into our themes, and this is encouraged in the AppThemes Ideas exchange, where customers can submit and vote for feature requests which our development team can review and consider for a future release. Not every single idea is implemented, but we certainly take notice of the most popular requests, as well as other good ideas ;)

3) You can see here from the Vantage admin demo that the option is there to allow listings to be featured on the homepage as well as in the category, however this does not extend to the search results. I'm afraid even with our great product, this would require some modification of the default theme in order to have those featured ads listings at the top of that as well.

4) As per answer #2, yes you can vote for this! Custom fields created by the admin are not searchable at this time.

5) Users type in general terms (city, state, country) and the system will auto generate a default radius for the general area of the location term used. You can also see from the Vantage demo that when a location is searched, you'll also get a "Refine Search" option in the right hand sidebar which will allow you to sort, increase the distance radius, and narrow down categories. Vantage uses the Google maps API.

6) Yes, tags are searchable.

7) Yes, see the link in answer #3 for where you can set the price and duration.

8) You can set plans in Vantage, however the the addons at this time only extend to featuring the ad (not image related options). Here is the plan screen from the Vantage admin demo so you can see what the settings are.

9) Coupons are not a feature included in Vantage, however there is a coupon plugin available in the AppThemes marketplace which will allow you to add this functionality if you wish.

10) The more questions you ask the better! If you're going to spend your hard earned money on a product, it's definitely a good idea to find out as much as you can about it before you fork out the cash ;)

We hope this information helps, and if you do have more questions, feel free to ask :)

Thank you, you have been very helpful indeed!

You're welcome :)