13 replies to this topic

[noblenull]

The company I work for is thinking about purchasing MOM. I would like to get a few user opinions before we make our decision. Please let me know what you think.

1. Do you feel that MOM is a good value?

2. Are you satisfied with Dynacomps support? How about their SiteLink support?

3. What other software packages did you consider before going with MOM?

4. Are you using SiteLink or an Alternative E-commerce suite? Do you host it yourself?

5. Do you integrate MOM with UPS WorldShip? Successfully?

Thank you in advance for all who answer.

[interwoven]

The company I work for is thinking about purchasing MOM.  I would like to get a few user opinions before we make our decision.  Please let me know what you think.

1. Do you feel that MOM is a good value?

2. Are you satisfied with Dynacomps support?  How about their SiteLink support?

3. What other software packages did you consider before going with MOM?

4. Are you using SiteLink or an Alternative E-commerce suite?  Do you host it yourself?

5. Do you integrate MOM with UPS WorldShip?  Successfully?

Thank you in advance for all who answer.

We have been using MOM for almost a year now. My thoughts on MOM after this time:
1. MOM is inexpensive Mail Order software compared to alot of companies out there. I feel for the price it is a good value. Is there better software out there? I feel there is but wasn't ready to spend $25,000 at our present level. For the price I think you get a very good value.

2. Support. Overall I am happy with the attitutde of the support staff. I have never been treated rudely or badly and I was on the phone daily in the beginning. I do have two issues with support. I logged my hold times for a couple of months and I feel they are a little long. If they supplied a toll free number I feel I could not complain about the hold times. You can email them and they will call you back which is what I do on non-urgent issues but if you have a customer at the counter and need help that is no good.
Also they advertise Friday hours as 9:00-4:45 which is not true. They have a meeting on Friday mornings and I have gotten the "support is in a meeting message as late as noon". I feel they should have their meetings earlier or advertise support hours on Friday to reflect the times you actually can get ahold of them.

3. I loked at Mailware & Cam Commerce Retail Star. I needed a POS module so that eliminated Mailware and Retail Star was much more money and more of a straight POS system then Mail Order Software.

4. I do not use Sitelink and will refrain from commenting on this as I only know what I have read. Our site is hosted on a third party server and we use a third party cart software.

5. Did not integrate MOM with World Ship and use the MOM shipping module. It eliminated worldship for us and I feel is the best way to go. All shipping is handled thru MOM and it really works well. Also if you do credit cards the gateway with Authorize Net works very well. Being able to approve cards while the customer is on the phone with you is great. Very happy with that also. You do need DSL or Cable internet connection. We just use them as a gateway to our actual card processor as we have brick & mortar stores also. The setup fee is high though.

At any rate good luck with your search. Overall MOM has worked well for us and although there are many things I would like to see in the software I know they can only do so much.

Take Care,
Brian

[malexios]

I am still setting MOM up and have used it for less than four months, but:


2. Are you satisfied with Dynacomps support? How about their SiteLink support?

Datacom support... They are friendly, but useless.

Some questions I have had for them:
Q. Unable to run the client as a user other than Administrator.
Dydacomp's answer: Don't know. Your server must be set up wrong.
Actual answer: Modify permissions on c:\winnt\system32\foxuser.*

Q. When I access MOM in terminal services typed text doesn't appear
Dydacomp's answer: Don't know. Check Technet.
Actual answer: I'm SOL, guess I'll use TightVNC

Q. Can I use MOM over a VPN?
Dydacomp's answer: Yes
Actual anwer: No. You have to use terminal emulation

Can I customize a report? Change a value? How do I do XXXX?
Dydacomp's Answer: Call MOMHelpers for custom programming.

There is never any mention of opening a ticket or researching a problem. If you push the issue they will ask whoever else happens to be there.

Our needs are a bit different than many mail order companies, and if we stick with MOM we are going to end up giving MOMhelpers several times the cost of the software to get it working the way we need it to.

Has anyone used Mailware? http://www.core-tech.com/

[jwurunner]

Hi,
We have been using M.O.M. since 2000 and overall have been quite satisfied with the system.

1. For the price I believe M.O.M. is the best system for most small (under $20 million) mail order companies. Back in 1999 we tested a half dozen program that were 3 times the cost with less features.

2. Dydacomp's support is decent but not great. They have been able to solve most of our issues within 1 or 2 calls. Some smaller issues have gone unresolved(i.e. we are the only one having this problem) We do not use sitelink.

3. We looked at MAS 90, Ecometry and a few others that I can't remember (5yrs ago)

4. We have a custom design Cold Fusion driven website that we have on a dedicated hosting plan. Our system exports order to to M.O.M. without issues.

5. This is Dydacomp's biggest weak point. We use Fedex exclusively thus have no good shipping system. We are running clippership with some custom work that allows for the address to be pulled from M.O.M. We scan the tracking numbers back in as the labels print. If they integrated Fedex like they do UPS we would be happier.


If we were looking for software now with the same budget as before, chances are we would still go with M.O.M.

[jim bennett]

We have been using MOM since 1998. Generally, MOM has been a good investment for my business. I do like the packer�s workstation and bar coding of items being packed. This feature has saved us money, improved productivity and reduced errors considerably.

MOM support
Generally good. There are some support personnel that will research my problems and follow up. I learned their names, kept notes, and always email the specific person about my issue, asking them to contact me. There are other tech support individuals, who when they pickup my call, I know it would be better to just hang up, dial again and wait on hold, sometimes for quite awhile, hoping one of the really good techs takes my call the second time.

Sitelink
There are better and less expensive alternatives

UPS Compatible Interface
Works flawless. No complaints at all.

FedEx Shipping
Awful, non-existent, a joke. I even purchased HarveySoft and MOM's USI in order to ship via FedEx. It was a waste of money and time. Printing an invoice at the packing stage using MOM and Harvey is impossible, plus numerous other problems.

Drop Shipping
MOM handles drop shipping generally well. Drop shipping is the only way, other than competitive shipping companies (FedEx and DHL) to control our shipping costs. MOM should invest considerable resources to enhancing drop shipping. For example: we need the option to make "Drop Ship" items to be a "Composite" item. We could then drop ship a full case of product in a variety of colors, instead of jut a single color. This feature would dramatically increase sales and make money for my company

Problems on the horizon
DHL shipping is not even being discussed. As a Mail order company, we are at the mercy of UPS. We pay what ever they demand. Excessive fees for address corrections, OS boxes, and on and on. The only way we have to control our shipping costs is to have alternative shipping companies (FedEx and DHL) in order to get UPS to the bargaining table.

Good Luck

[WHI]

We have a love/hate relationship with our MOM Most of this is learning curve and our curve is on its six year. I don't think you can find better for the money. Support when we need it is pretty good for database problems but I think you will do better just by asking questions on this board for day to day use questions. We are not using sitelink. Works great with world ship. Defiantly use authorise.net this was by far the best change the last few years. We are running version 4.3

[rrinker]

Our company been using MOM (I unwillingly since the first day) for a few years.  As far as I can tell, the first person to set it up must have thought that spam email was the only way to find out about software, because I can only imagine that's how someone could be fooled into using MOM. 

From the very first time I saw the program, I thought "My God, I hope we don't actually use that!".  Unfortunately, we do, and I have been struggling to keep up with the data corruption and inconsistencies.  Sitelink was bad, so we moved our website away from that (stupid people had a hand in that too, so it didn't help much) but MOM has been the one of the worst nighmares we have dealt with in our 7 years of business. 

I would recommend you do NOT ever get yourself stuck in the rut that this program will certainly get you in. Your best bet would be to find someone who understands the Linux and open-source community, and who will find software which will suit your particular needs.

We cancelled our service contract because they refused to help us once when we had a problem, and they still try to send us bills.  That makes me laugh.  Some/one of the SiteLINK servers got hacked once (that I know of) and five of their sites, including ours, were defaced for about a day with something about the U.S. being terrorists, so that was fun.

I honestly don't know if the service has improved, but Foxpro (the underlying code upon which the MOM application is based) has a very poor API, so you are going to learn that it does not operate the way you are used to Windows working most of the time, and the rest of the time, does not work at all.  If you are going to try to do any Windows API automation using tools such as UNISYN's Automate software, forget it.  The Foxpro API does not have any recognizable handles which can be effectively used this way.

MOM has repeatedly proven unreliable and inconsistent for just about everything it is trusted to do, so if you're looking for a hellish nightmare which will certainly make you wish you had never tried to use it to run a business, then I say "Go for it".  Otherwise, you'd better look elsewhere.

If I were you, I would also stay away from anything built around Windows web servers too, such as the DotNET architecture.

Microsoft software is only trouble, as eBay has finally decided to admit: http://www.ecommerce...ory/39325.html) and it is what MOM and SiteLINK are built on.

If you're serious about saving money and getting some serious, reliable software/hardware handling your data, then search the Gentoo forums for someone who knows Linux, Open Source, and e-commerce.  Someone there should be able to help you find what you need.

Please. Visual Foxpro is probably the last truly good development package Microsoft has. No matter WHAT the application is written in, if the underlying database design is bad, the application will be bad.

[Videoflicks2004]

Hey,

Sorry it took soo long to give you my two cents...

1. Do you feel that MOM is a good value?

MOM software is excellent value in my opinion for the dollar. I've been using mom for over 5 years and I have researched the alternatives. For a small to medium sized business, MOM is the way to go. The program is modular, which lets you add on pieces you need as your business and investment capital grow.

We have not used SITELINK in over 2 years so I will not comment on the current version. We were not impressed with SITELINK back then and dropped it quick in exchange for custom "in house" development.

2. Are you satisfied with Dynacomps support? How about their SiteLink support?

We dropped Dydacomp's support 8 months ago. The long waits on the phone (on my dime) were horrible. Their support team were often rude and talked down to you. They would refer any useful work to MOM HELPERS. MOM Helpers wanted an arm and a leg to make the simplist of requests happen. To renew support would cost us $3000.00 USD. The only problem we have had in the last 8 months has been a start up issue that was quickly resolved by copying a start.sav file from a backup.



3. What other software packages did you consider before going with MOM?

MOM was already in use for a year when I joined my company.

4. Are you using SiteLink or an Alternative E-commerce suite? Do you host it yourself?

We use in house software written in SQL to host our websites. www.videoflicks.com www.videoflicks.ca www.cvsinc.ca www.videowholesale.ca

5. Do you integrate MOM with UPS WorldShip? Successfully?

UPS in CANADA does not yet integrate entirely with MOM.


Regards,

David

[john]

The company I work for is thinking about purchasing MOM.  I would like to get a few user opinions before we make our decision.  Please let me know what you think.

>>my company has used it for a year.  we are generally satisfied.  parts of the application are great, some are average, and parts are sub-par. but it is not too expensive, and you'll get a lot of productivity from the order entry part.

1. Do you feel that MOM is a good value?

all and all.  yes.

2. Are you satisfied with Dynacomps support?  How about their SiteLink support?

it is only okay.  when you get to finance and accounting issues, they will not be able to help.

my real complaint is that they don't have a certified third party consultant network.

3. What other software packages did you consider before going with MOM?

all the mid-range apps.  either way too expensive, did not fit well, or just wet-paint at this point.  i would look at four seasons software in the future.

4. Are you using SiteLink or an Alternative E-commerce suite?  Do you host it yourself?

ablecommerce app - so far so good.

5. Do you integrate MOM with UPS WorldShip?  Successfully?

yes.  wrote our own tool in RR to map to worldship - works great.

Thank you in advance for all who answer.

[George]

You may have already made a decision, but here's my 2 cents:

I've been using MOM for 2.5 years, and it's great for out-of-the-box order fulfillment, and the price was nice at the time. Looking back, I wish we had ponied up for a SQL-based system. My #2 candidate was InOrder software by Morse Data: http://www.morsedata.com

1) I believe that MOM is a good value. However, you may have to alter your business policies to fit MOM, rather than altering MOM to fit your business. Certainly, you can pay the MOMHelpers to customize the program, but they are pricey, and pretty much the only game in town.

2) Dydacomp's support and SiteLink's support are OK, just like the other posts mention. I've often given their techies the answer after researching it myself. If you press them, they will get a programmer involved, but not if you're being a jerk about it. SiteLink's support tries to please, but remember that they are limited by the fuctions of their programs.

3) We considered:
* InOrder, which finished #2 (link is listed above)
* Everest, http://www.icode.com/ (too many Indian techies, couldn't understand them, and the system was just OK)
* Colinear, http://www.colinear.com - (I fixed this on 5/18, having mixed up the company names) These people were very friendly. but didn't have an ecommerce option. Recently, they've partnered up with commercev3.com, and now have an integrated package. I would have seriously considered using them, since we are considering using commercev3 for our online site, and importing orders into MOM.
* Oracle had a solution, but it was very pricey.
* avexxis.com, dmasales.com, imssoft.com, rev2.com, rigden.com, terno.com, and zirconsoftware.com were all ones that I reviewed, but rejected.

One guy has a web site devoted to catalog management software, but he charges $90 for the guide. I simply printed off the list of ones he reviewed and contacted them myself. He's gotten smarter, and removed the list. http://www.schell.com/guide/

4) We took SiteLink right up to implementation, and pulled the plug before launching, because it would have been a major step backwards. They have made a lot of improvements to their offerings since then, though.

5) We don't use the integration tool with WorldShip, due to a few problems. MOM exports the daily shipping info to a table that WorldShip uses to pull information from (name, address, etc). However, you have to enter all of the shipments into WorldShip and print all of the labels before sending any more packages from MOM. Why? Because the new info from MOM will overwrite the old info from your earlier process. We use a 3rd party software from HarveySoft, which manages the data by appending the old transfer, rather than overwriting it. HarveySoft cost us about $1700, plus implementation, and ongoing tech support.

I think you should discount the advice from the Microsoft-basher, since he/she doesn't provide you with a viable and cost-effective alternative. I'm in favor of open-source software, but there simply aren't good choices with robust support and teams of personnel working on potential problems.