So... EROL have gone bust
- Thread starter mrhitchin
- Start date
C
Chunkford
I use Actinic practically everyday, and had no problems with it
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Not happy, this came out of the blue to me, did have a sneaky idea it could happen when i saw the one platform pop up on the website as it generates more money for them and less work, but thats what i get for keeping my eggs in one basket, its a shame cause the actual guys from Erol are really nice people,
I am not sure what Erol are going to do now, would be helpful if they continue secure central for Erol customers because surely they have the knowledge to do this or add some coding to make it possible for customers to transfer to other secure servers elsewhere and continue trading unbroken,
only options left if not are Actinic or the new one platform but at £7k or £8k per year for the one platform that comes from Erol who have just let us down who says this will not fail also in a few years or months and thats a lot of money to gamble with.
I am not sure what Erol are going to do now, would be helpful if they continue secure central for Erol customers because surely they have the knowledge to do this or add some coding to make it possible for customers to transfer to other secure servers elsewhere and continue trading unbroken,
only options left if not are Actinic or the new one platform but at £7k or £8k per year for the one platform that comes from Erol who have just let us down who says this will not fail also in a few years or months and thats a lot of money to gamble with.
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- Original Poster
- #12
Just out of curiosity, I tried to buy software from Brightscape Solutions/Erol's website and it took me straight to the payment page. So EROL, you are in administration, but still are willing to take money off people for a product that could possibly disappear? Maybe Malcolm Duffit is trying to fund his great 'One' Platform? Surly that cant be legal? The company is in administration.
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- Original Poster
- #13
Same as you. I had my suspicions about 3 weeks ago when they banged the support up a £999. I done some research and ultimately contacted Erol and was assured there was nothing to worry about. Whatever you do, DONT give them anymore of your hard earned cash!
I have platform, payment and hosting with them..... Lesson learnt!
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i dont know much about when in admin and how it works, but its prob legal and to drum up interest for a potential buyer to show this is a product that sells and worth investing in,
I have just read Actinic had same problems back in 2002, but they pulled through, my only thought is with what you just said with regards to the One platform,
can they really be bothered with Erol against the One Platform, the money from Erol is peanuts to what they can get from One Plat. providing they can get interest, and running Erol is prob hard work compared to One, tricky!!!
Just hope they do the right thing and get Erol running right again, after all it was Erol that put these people where they are today so it must be a product people like compared to One plat. which is very expensive.
if not it will be happy days for Actinic as many people are already considering moving with this news, thats the ones that can afford to,
chin up and stay focused on your business to all those that cannot, you will come up with something
I have just read Actinic had same problems back in 2002, but they pulled through, my only thought is with what you just said with regards to the One platform,
can they really be bothered with Erol against the One Platform, the money from Erol is peanuts to what they can get from One Plat. providing they can get interest, and running Erol is prob hard work compared to One, tricky!!!
Just hope they do the right thing and get Erol running right again, after all it was Erol that put these people where they are today so it must be a product people like compared to One plat. which is very expensive.
if not it will be happy days for Actinic as many people are already considering moving with this news, thats the ones that can afford to,
chin up and stay focused on your business to all those that cannot, you will come up with something
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- Original Poster
- #15
Update:
Malcolm Duffitt has been kind enough to contact me this morning regarding the state of the Erol secure server. He is aware of the importance that this stays active for Erol customers. I have been advised that should there be no resolution with the continuation of Erol, that 'Anya' are working on their own secure server to make sure that all Erol stores can continue to receive their orders. If this does happen, we will contacted with what steps need to taken to action this.
We also discussed the lock on the Erol forums. I raised my concerns that that this can be a vital tool for us and that there is a lot of people that still need to post new questions. Another Erol customer suggested that they put a locked room forum on there for us. I asked about this and he has said that it may happen but not in the immediate future.
With regards to the hosting, I have told him that I am moving it from Erol to protect my business if the worst does happen. At least then the website will still be active but not able to take orders.
I feel a little more at ease about the whole thing and hope that he is a man of his word.
Hopefully I have managed to make other Erol customers a little more at ease with the fact that we shouldn't be droped like hot potatoes!
Time will tell.
Malcolm Duffitt has been kind enough to contact me this morning regarding the state of the Erol secure server. He is aware of the importance that this stays active for Erol customers. I have been advised that should there be no resolution with the continuation of Erol, that 'Anya' are working on their own secure server to make sure that all Erol stores can continue to receive their orders. If this does happen, we will contacted with what steps need to taken to action this.
We also discussed the lock on the Erol forums. I raised my concerns that that this can be a vital tool for us and that there is a lot of people that still need to post new questions. Another Erol customer suggested that they put a locked room forum on there for us. I asked about this and he has said that it may happen but not in the immediate future.
With regards to the hosting, I have told him that I am moving it from Erol to protect my business if the worst does happen. At least then the website will still be active but not able to take orders.
I feel a little more at ease about the whole thing and hope that he is a man of his word.
Hopefully I have managed to make other Erol customers a little more at ease with the fact that we shouldn't be droped like hot potatoes!
Time will tell.
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Looking at the news announcement on their forum, it doesn't seem to be the case that they've gone bust in traditional sense (going broke), but they have chosen to put a company into voluntary liquidation due to other reasons (personalities, one shareholder, politics, legals etc)
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I have setup a forum on our webserver for EROL based discussions. Just to reiterate, I am in no way linked to Brightscape or Anya. But have put this forum together to allow EROL users to discuss their issues and come up with a way to resolve this through community discussion.
http://www.zone1creative.co.uk/erol-users-forum/
You will need to register to post on the forum.
there is only one post at present but will try and give you more info over the weekend.
http://www.zone1creative.co.uk/erol-users-forum/
You will need to register to post on the forum.
there is only one post at present but will try and give you more info over the weekend.
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I have just noticed that erol is still shown on brightscape solutions website. They are definately in liquidation and even saying people have to move hosting. What about the hosting money lost?!!! They seem to be doing this just to promote their one platform. Talk about a bad way to promote their new e-commerce solution. Malcolm Duffitt should be ashamed. Why do they not seem to care about their existing customers.
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- Original Poster
- #21
So
I have received the email today about secure central. It appears that it will be around for 3 months and then £100 for another 3 months or so payable to actinic. What I found quite strange the email was signed off Malcolm Duffitt, Robert Friston and Chris Barling of Actinic.
I am wondering if Robert Friston is a relation to Dave Friston of Zone 1 Creative. These are the guys who setup the new Erol Forum.
It appears Malcolm Duffitt is not a man of his word as he told me that Anya was taking over the secure central server.
My advice is not to migrate to Actinic as they all seem to be in bed with each other. Will Actinic be around in 2 years?? There seems to be a lot of secret handshakes going on with these three companies. Perhaps the plan all along was to ensure his friends companies and their customers make money off the demise of the Erol Platform. I hope Malcolm Duffitt of Brightscape Solutions and their new one ecommerce platform falls flat on its face.
I am wondering if Robert Friston is a relation to Dave Friston of Zone 1 Creative. These are the guys who setup the new Erol Forum.
It appears Malcolm Duffitt is not a man of his word as he told me that Anya was taking over the secure central server.
My advice is not to migrate to Actinic as they all seem to be in bed with each other. Will Actinic be around in 2 years?? There seems to be a lot of secret handshakes going on with these three companies. Perhaps the plan all along was to ensure his friends companies and their customers make money off the demise of the Erol Platform. I hope Malcolm Duffitt of Brightscape Solutions and their new one ecommerce platform falls flat on its face.
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It now appears that Robert Friston is the one who was made redundant and took legal action (as noted by a registered creditor)
So we have someone signing off the erol announcement that was the person that took them down.
I was going to move to Actinic but now I can see they all seem to be in bed together I am going to choose another platform.
I hope they are happy after they have lined their own pockets and potentially damaged so many of their clients livelihoods.
These people need to be looked into....
A disgruntle Erol Customer
So we have someone signing off the erol announcement that was the person that took them down.
I was going to move to Actinic but now I can see they all seem to be in bed together I am going to choose another platform.
I hope they are happy after they have lined their own pockets and potentially damaged so many of their clients livelihoods.
These people need to be looked into....
A disgruntle Erol Customer
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Interesting comments ...
As one of the people mentioned, maybe I can explain things from my perspective.
A few weeks ago, and after the Brightscape announcement of liquidation, I was approached by Robert Friston who was very concerned about the future of Erol stores. There was uncertainty about the exact nature and time period of the support that Anya might provide for the "Secure Central" servers and Robert's view appeared to be that it would be a huge shame for a whole raft of businesses to potentially go bust, which is what would certainly happen to some of them if they suddenly lost this service.
I could see Robert's point of view, although as a long time competitor of Erol's we were primarily interested in the opportunity to grow our own business. I imagine that would be most business people's concern if a competitor went into liquidation.
At first, we weren't particularly interested in the Secure Central issue as we didn't want to get caught in the cross fire between the liquidator, and Messrs Friston and Duffitt. However, like a lot of other ecommerce vendors we decided to contact Erol users and offer them help.
Subsequent to this we were contacted by Malcolm Duffitt and after also speaking to the liquidator, it seemed that on their side they all wanted some certainty for the Erol users. In the light of co-operation from everyone, it seemed like providing a service for a finite period might be practical.
After some technical investigation, that's what we decided to do. While it's good for the ecommerce industry generally that a group of stores don't suddenly stop trading, the decision was primarily because we hoped we would pick up some extra business. The only thing that was certain was cost and hassle, the hope is some sales, including those of Secure Central after the first 3 months. Like most business decisions, in other words.
At no point have there been any payments between the parties, other than we have agreed to co-fund, with Anya, a month of contiuning service for Erol hosting customers, for which we will receive nothing.
I am therefore slightly perplexed at the critical tone on this thread. I haven't investigated the tensions between Malcolm Duffitt and Robert Friston, nor their personal financial circumstances. I would be pretty certain though that they've had a rough time. Despite this, as far as I can see everyone has behaved with integrity.
We've moved to a position where the Secure Central service is being run by a company with a 15 year track record in ecommerce, with clear dates when payment will be needed and service terminated. I don't see how that is worse than not knowing if the service will cease tomorrow.
Chris Barling
CEO, Actinic
As one of the people mentioned, maybe I can explain things from my perspective.
A few weeks ago, and after the Brightscape announcement of liquidation, I was approached by Robert Friston who was very concerned about the future of Erol stores. There was uncertainty about the exact nature and time period of the support that Anya might provide for the "Secure Central" servers and Robert's view appeared to be that it would be a huge shame for a whole raft of businesses to potentially go bust, which is what would certainly happen to some of them if they suddenly lost this service.
I could see Robert's point of view, although as a long time competitor of Erol's we were primarily interested in the opportunity to grow our own business. I imagine that would be most business people's concern if a competitor went into liquidation.
At first, we weren't particularly interested in the Secure Central issue as we didn't want to get caught in the cross fire between the liquidator, and Messrs Friston and Duffitt. However, like a lot of other ecommerce vendors we decided to contact Erol users and offer them help.
Subsequent to this we were contacted by Malcolm Duffitt and after also speaking to the liquidator, it seemed that on their side they all wanted some certainty for the Erol users. In the light of co-operation from everyone, it seemed like providing a service for a finite period might be practical.
After some technical investigation, that's what we decided to do. While it's good for the ecommerce industry generally that a group of stores don't suddenly stop trading, the decision was primarily because we hoped we would pick up some extra business. The only thing that was certain was cost and hassle, the hope is some sales, including those of Secure Central after the first 3 months. Like most business decisions, in other words.
At no point have there been any payments between the parties, other than we have agreed to co-fund, with Anya, a month of contiuning service for Erol hosting customers, for which we will receive nothing.
I am therefore slightly perplexed at the critical tone on this thread. I haven't investigated the tensions between Malcolm Duffitt and Robert Friston, nor their personal financial circumstances. I would be pretty certain though that they've had a rough time. Despite this, as far as I can see everyone has behaved with integrity.
We've moved to a position where the Secure Central service is being run by a company with a 15 year track record in ecommerce, with clear dates when payment will be needed and service terminated. I don't see how that is worse than not knowing if the service will cease tomorrow.
Chris Barling
CEO, Actinic
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- Original Poster
- #24
That is fair enough. Many would do the same. However there seems to be some winners here and a hell of alot of losers. I sadly recommended 'Erol Developer' to a friend of mine 9 months ago. He paid about 5k for two sites and now has to do it again.
So, I'm sorry if you do not like my comments but all I have had is lies from Malcolm Duffitt and Erol staff. It appears that I am not the only one. 3 of Erols customers have contacted me and were fed the same line as I was 'There is nothing to worry about' when the support price went up. Now we are all left with huge bills to move to a new platform.
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I understand your frustration. It's one of those things that's very hard to predict.
The thing that's different about Actinic versus Erol and hosted carts is that if Actinic were to cease to exist for any reason, Actinic users would be able to carry on regardless. Actinic can run on lot's of different hosting packages and there's no equivalent of Secure Central.
Chris
The thing that's different about Actinic versus Erol and hosted carts is that if Actinic were to cease to exist for any reason, Actinic users would be able to carry on regardless. Actinic can run on lot's of different hosting packages and there's no equivalent of Secure Central.
Chris
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pity it's all third hand, you never seem to quite get the full story, are you saying he tried to get a discount on what was offered, why was he expecting one, all I understand was that Actinic was assisting by offering to keep things going at their cost whilst erol customers sorted themselves out
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T
tomsk
No my client just asked the reasoning for 1st 3 months are free - second free months are £100
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As I have been led to understand the first 3 months (probably 2 months left now) are FOC because actinic as a gesture of good will and obviously for marketing purposes have paid the hosting required for Erol to operate. After this they will be charging.
Please bear in mind this will eventually stop possibly in 6 months time. Actinic were under no obligation to do this. They could have let EROL customers sink.
EROL is unique in that all of the orders are processed by a server (secure central) this is what Actinic is charging for after the 3 month free period.
Your client will have to move to another platform as after this orders will not be processed.
I can not stress this enough they need to start moving platform now!!!!
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Hi All.
I'm Ant from Footprint and this is my first post here and apart from being a blatant 'plug' for my business, it's also hopefully offering some advice.
Some people here know me already but for those who don't here's a bit of background... We (Footprint) are a web design company and have been an Erol reseller for many years, going way back to Erol 2. We were at one stage Erol's largest reseller and worked closely with Erol. We've created many, many Erol sites over the years and as such have good experience on it's pros and cons. So feel we're qualified in 'chipping in' on the Forum (albeit at this late stage). For the past few years we've steered away from Erol however and have no affiliation to them. We're totally independant!
Firstly, we'd like to offer any advice if we can help with Erol for anyone who is still using it for the next few months. Please get in touch if you have any issues or questions and don't know where to go now.
For anyone looking to upgrade and still using Erol we'd recommend you consider Interspire. Over the past few years we've steered away from Erol and favoured Interspire. To date we've created scores of sites in Interspire and haven't had any negative feedback from any one of them!
If you think Interspire may be for you we'd be happy assist, the process from Erol to Interspire is quite straightforward and already we've upgraded lots of ex-Erol clients. Compared to the £5k cost banded around we are looking more between £1500 - £3000 depending on complexity and level of licence needed (this cost includes the Interspire licence too). Please get in touch, happy to have a chat.
We have a few case studies and recommendations from ex Erol clinets too.
All the best.
Ant Parker
I'm Ant from Footprint and this is my first post here and apart from being a blatant 'plug' for my business, it's also hopefully offering some advice.
Some people here know me already but for those who don't here's a bit of background... We (Footprint) are a web design company and have been an Erol reseller for many years, going way back to Erol 2. We were at one stage Erol's largest reseller and worked closely with Erol. We've created many, many Erol sites over the years and as such have good experience on it's pros and cons. So feel we're qualified in 'chipping in' on the Forum (albeit at this late stage). For the past few years we've steered away from Erol however and have no affiliation to them. We're totally independant!
Firstly, we'd like to offer any advice if we can help with Erol for anyone who is still using it for the next few months. Please get in touch if you have any issues or questions and don't know where to go now.
For anyone looking to upgrade and still using Erol we'd recommend you consider Interspire. Over the past few years we've steered away from Erol and favoured Interspire. To date we've created scores of sites in Interspire and haven't had any negative feedback from any one of them!
If you think Interspire may be for you we'd be happy assist, the process from Erol to Interspire is quite straightforward and already we've upgraded lots of ex-Erol clients. Compared to the £5k cost banded around we are looking more between £1500 - £3000 depending on complexity and level of licence needed (this cost includes the Interspire licence too). Please get in touch, happy to have a chat.
We have a few case studies and recommendations from ex Erol clinets too.
All the best.
Ant Parker
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