FreeMerchant Reviewer's Comments
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FreeMerchant Bronze from Digital River Inc. has a reasonable starter package for ecommerce. This service allows you to sell unlimited products—necessary if you have an inventory with variety. FreeMerchant provides you with a basic website builder, a shopping cart, and hosts your site for you.
But you have limited choices for credit card processing. FreeMerchant partners with Optimal Payments; this is the only credit card service we know of that is compatible with FreeMerchant.
FreeMerchant is incompatible with most other web tools, too. For example, you must use FreeMerchant's website building tools to make your site because no other programming tools are compatible with their web hosting service. We found these compatibility limits frustrating. Learn how to start your eCommerce site here.
Feature Set:
FreeMerchant Bronze provides you with an inventory manager that records stock quantity and helps prevent backorders. Another feature is their "New Product" graphic button; this highlights new merchandise so your customers will take notice. FreeMerchant also offers banner exchange so you can swap banner ads with other websites.
We liked the customer management tools. You can view a list of all customers and rate them based on your experience: Good, Bad, or Fraud. You can also save notes and keep track of messages you have sent to a customer.
FreeMerchant has some limits. Your online store must be designed with their store builder. You can add your own graphics and backgrounds, but you cannot upload sites or pages created in other programs. Another limitation—you can't offer variations of the same product. For example, if you wanted to sell two different shirt sizes at two different prices, you'd have to list them as two different products. Options with different prices must be created as separate products.
Ease of Use:
FreeMerchant is simple to use. The program has a tutorial that will walk you through setting up your store. Building your website is easy with the helpful toolbar that lets you add categories and products right from the website builder.
Ease of Setup:
FreeMerchant Bronze doesn't need to be installed; simply select a template online and within minutes you will have your site running.
Help/Documentation:
FreeMerchant Bronze offers online chat help—our favorite form of help. You can ask questions directly to support staff and get instant answers. They also have FAQs, email support, and an online help with general descriptions and suggestions for using merchant tools. They also have an informative tutorial walkthrough that helps you, one step at a time.
FreeMerchant offers email support Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM Eastern Standard time. Your email inquiries will be answered within 24 business hours. FreeMerchant also provide FAQs, and an online tutorial.
Fraud Protection:
Click here to learn how credit card fraud affects you.
FreeMerchant uses a secure https server for your transactions as well as requiring customers to enter the CVV2 value on the back of most credit cards. This helps ensure the customer has the card and the number is valid. Optimal Payments verifies your customers' addresses as well as other fraud-reduction, detection, and containment programs.
Summary:
FreeMerchant Bronze is an easy way to get your ecommerce site up and running, and you'll have room to grow.
A complete list of features and side-by-side comparisons are available on the eCommerce Software Review HomePage.
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