About Software and Vendors (continued)

Basic Software Features are similar from one program to another: customer, employee & inventory records and management, reports, labels, bar codes, receipt printer/cash drawer, networking, discounting, sales processing, settlements, checks and thermal printing.

So how is it BCSS net cost can be as low as $100 and other programs can cost over $10,000?

Software Pricing and Marketing are unregulated. No salesman is going to get punished for misleading you and taking more of your money than you were lead to believe prior to purchase.

The providers imposing big fees after purchase go to great lengths to gloss over long-term cost. They make ridiculous claims on their home pages ("won't be undersold" - "lowest price"). They design websites to hide fees and attempt to give the appearance of being 'price and product competitive'.

Make no mistake. Their objective is to get you locked into their program initially then take a considerable amount of your money in subsequent years, and you will gain nothing more by paying a lot more.

Price & Policy Manipulations:

Stripping - Remove common and/or essential features from a high-end program. Sell the stripped-down version at a 'come-on price'. Charge big fees to add the stripped features back.

Software Policies - Hide adverse ownership provisions in a 'disclaimer' or on an sub-sub webpage or don't disclose them at all. For example, 'Consignpro' can only be resold if the buyer of your software buys your consignment business and uses the same name, same location, same address and same telephone number. True, that should prevent 99.9% of users from reselling the software and for a real challenge, see if you can find where this important fact is disclosed.

Trapping - Vendors hoping to cash in after the first year trap users with a variety of schemes:

• They fail to emphasis cost equally with 'benefits'.
• They charge separate additional fees (in addition to annual services fees) for specific services like printer or scanner support, data storage (free in most places), data conversion, label customization, printer drivers, etc.
• They 'make deals' up front knowing their big pay day is after purchase.
• They charge big fees for things you may not think about until later, like $300 for each network license. (This will apply to you as your business grows and needs more computers.)
• 'Per incident fees' lay in wait for those who opt out of paid annual service plans - as much as $120 PER HOUR with an open-ended disclaimer that such quotes are only starting prices and total fees charged for any service will be at the discretion of the vendor - a virtual blank check.

Software Design may not be your thing but you need to know what your software is made of. There are significant differences in software 'construction'. To use an analogy:

Houses built in earthquake zones have deeper foundations and reinforced walls to protect the occupants. Consignment software has an occupant - your precious data.

Data-based software is an 'earthquake zone' in that consignment software is actually a software program plus a separate database. The software program stores data in and extracts data from the database.

Like poorly-constructed houses, whimpy software programs and databases fail under pressure. The more data stored in the database, the more likely inferior programs will fail (crash, lose data, corrupt data, lock up...) You'll spend a lot of time just messing with cleaning up the mess.

In 2008 BCSS was upgraded to Microsoft's 9.0 FoxPro Database Technology - the same software used by the Dept. of Defense and the Euro Tunnel Project. This took many months and much money but it clearly puts BCSS on solid footing.

One-Legged Software

Most consignment software depends primarily if not exclusively upon one individual for programming, updates, upgrades, bug fixes, research and development, customer support, special situations, administration, advertising and marketing, communications, public relations, website development, maintenance and promotion.

A programmer might claim that speaking directly to him is an added advantage, when in fact nothing is gained. You may be speaking to the programmer simply because he is the only one in the 'company', and that does add something: significant unnecessary risks:

1. Longevity - Will he be around next year? He might get a job offer, cave in to competition, become disabled or deceased. Should you gamble $500-$1000 that he won't?
2. Product Quality may suffer because sufficient time and money are not available for thorough product development.
3. Service - When you need something done and our Jack of All Trades is at his day job or too busy trying to make another sale, your business takes a back seat. Leave a message on the answering machine. Wait for a response. Plan your business around his schedule.

Fees - Most software companies are in the business of selling software. You pay once to purchase and you might pay later for a major upgrade. Some software vendors, like Liberty and Consignpro are in the business of selling software support. Between them they have a list of 26 fees:

This table is the only consolidated disclosure of consignment software fees: