Actinic Express is an extremely useful tool for young entrepreneurs who have passed the first stage in planning out what is going to be sold on the site and have a domain name already set up, all paid for in advance. Now, all online entrepreneurs want to have a solid, well designed site in their hands. However, I personally think that as much as the design matters, the payment refinement system so that the customer can feel safe when ordering the specified product, which is just one of the features that the Actinic Express package contains.

Surprisingly enough,  Actinic Express authorizes you to use the package through a normal web browser, via the online portal that is provided meaning  you can manage all the product payments and be in contact with clients from anywhere in the world.

Easy to use start up menu with many useful features to be found.

Actinic Express supplies a website address but the down side is that it includes “actinicexpress.com” so it would be a good idea to have a domain name set up already with another company such as Hostgator.

There are many options that you can customzide inside in the package, though Actinic Express have made them smaller. An example of some of the options included are the site design ( there are many themes available so it is just a matter of choosing the right one for your specified product) , product info and buisness details like terms and conditions, payment options.

One clear drawback is the stock/inventory control meaning you have to make each product on your own and so if you do not have one product in stock you will have to delete it manually.

Payments

Actinic Express costs £49.99 initially and then £19.99 per month from then. For the ease of use, it is not a bad price as you are receiving many new and improved features in comparison to other packages. However, the £19.99 subscription does not include the payment processing. Actinic Payments is usually is used to cover the £20 start fee and £100 yearly but this does cover 800 transactions which is worth it to be honest.

When customers come to pay for a product, Actinic Express allows a lot of widely known/used payment methods. Actinic can use Paypal, Google Checkout, Secpay, Protx as well as its own Actinic Payments.

Upgrades

If this makes your business a success almost straight away, there are two more packages that you can upgrade that will offer more advanced features. These are Actinic Catalogue (£399) and Actinic Business (£799.)

Advantages

-Lots of payment options i.e not just one payment method.

-Easy to use.

-Can manage in just a web browser.

-Flexible online Catalogue.

Disadvantages

-Expensive especially over long term payments.

-No free domain.

-HTML difficulties.

-Range of templates poor.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think if you are willing to pay money up front and monthly, in order to make your online store a success, this is the product for you which contains many easy to use features which will contribute in making a brilliant site. However, if you are quite weary of the payments, there are other packages out there you can use but most of them do not offer as many features as this does. In addition, Actinic Express is a great piece of software which allows you to make an online shop successfully with minimal fuss.