Shopping Cart Community

I opened a store on the BigCommerce site when it was in beta and gave the tires a kick...

I remember that the pricing was that you could have a store free if it was under 20? products... I even have it showing as "Big Commerce - Free Plan" in the Control panel...

Anyway, just had an email with the line:

You are currently on day 1 of your 15 day free trial with BigCommerce..

So, it seems that the whole pricing has been changed... oh well... shutting that then...

Weird. Confusing. Concerning.

Possible reasons:

1) The policy changed and the free (<20 items) store is no longer offered.
2) The free store is still offered, but script that generates email messages hasn't been updated with info on the policy.
2a) ... or the text for the email messages simply has outdated information.
3) The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing (and vice-versa).

Just a personal observation: Interspire policies seem to be so fluid that the word "policy" really doesn't apply. A more apt word would be "whim".

I can see why they might change things as it was in beta after all, but it does strike me that this is one of those "shoot self in foot" decisions.

Why, get all those customers in, get them to test the system out for you, help you fix any issues and then, without so much as a thankyou drop the bombshell of "we're going to make you pay actually"... Ok, so you have all those wonderful positive reviews from people that they can use but I suspect those may not continue onwards.

It does seem to indicate that they learned absolutely nothing from the whole update/upgrade "surprise!" debacle... Ah well, I've wasted enough time so back to work... Figured I'd at least highlight it for other beta users so they don't get caught short.

Martin wrote: get them to test the system out for you, help you fix any issues and then, without so much as a thankyou drop the bombshell of "we're going to make you pay actually

If it was anyone other than Interspire, I'd be inclined to give the benefit-of-the-doubt... but your quick analysis (above) is probably closer to the truth than any thing else.

ChrisB has responded to this point here:
http://www.interspire.com/forum/showthr ... 238&page=2

..with this bit being the most relevant.

How it was done? I'm not sure what's meant by that. We simply added a new 15 day trial plan.

Existing customers who signed up for the free plan still have free accounts that do not expire, they receive full support, and will continue to do so for the lifetime of their BigCommerce store.