I have been using Actinic as a platform for developing ecommerce sites since version 7, and it has definitely come a long way since then. Actinic is a different platform to many of its competitors because its database is housed locally, whereas most other ecommerce platforms are housed online. This has perhaps hampered some of Actinic’s functionality in the past such as online stock levels and order tracking where not possible with an offline database. However that has all changed with Actinic Version 11, new features in the software include
- Online Accounts
- Order Tracking
- Single Use Coupons
- and much, much more.
Actinic has always been one of my favourite ecommerce platforms to design in, basically because of its awesome design interface, it is sort of a min Dreamweaver (HTML Editor). In the design tab you have an editor where you can point and click on the design preview to see the relevant snippet of code (layout).
Actinic’s structure of coding layouts is one of my favourites; it has a hierarchical structure which makes it so easy to use and the update code.
Another bonus feature with Actinic is the ability to have multiple sites (with the Business Plus version), this means that you can have as many ecommerce website as you like within the one platform which all operate independently of each other.
Finally, in the past I have heard other web developers criticise Actinic’s SEO power, but I believe that this is simply because they did not understand how the Actinic program works (being a local program, not online), it is fantastic for Search Engine Optimisation, because each page is HTML and generated offline and then uploaded. Each page has the option for optimising Meta data, page titles etc., and with a CSS design you have the best opportunity to rank well with the search engines.
In conclusion, Actinic Version 11, is a great improvement on its predecessors and puts it back onto a level playing field with its competitors.
Does your Actinic site need a new design? Get in touch with Bee Web Design, for your free no obligation quote.