I would like to announce my resignation from the Doba + Shopify experiment for one of the following reasons:
a. I want to spend more time with my family.
b. I want to spend more time hiking the Appalachian trail.
c. I want to spend more time with my Argentinian mistress.
d. I really, really need to focus and this Doba + Shopify experiment is at the bottom of my list.
I guess it’s a combination of a + d. Since the beginning of the year I’ve come to realize more clearly than ever that there are only so many things I can focus on, and that focusing on too many things means I don’t do anything well. While I would like to continue this experiment, I don’t see it as being a high enough priority to justify the time required to make it work, and in the meantime it’s costing me about $200/month for which I’m getting no return.
What I’ve Learned
1. There’s no way to make this truly easy. It’s not that it was that hard to get everything set up, but no matter how easy Doba and Shopify were to make things, there’s no way to make it run itself. At a minimum you’re looking at a few hours per week, if not 10-15 hours per week, and I didn’t have that kind of time. As I mentioned above, I’ve got other things I need to focus on. If you had a 9 to 5 and were looking to start something online that might take the place of your 9 to 5, then great. But if you’re like me and you’re training for an Ironman, have a new baby, and are running a business with three divisions then that’s another story.
2. Doba/Shopify integration would be really, really nice. If there was one technical hiccup it was this one. Without Shopify being able to truly integrate with Doba, it meant manually entering product information in a way that’s just way too time consuming. Hopefully someone will work this out soon, but until they do, I would recommend using another ecommerce system with Doba.
3. There are too many moving parts. Doba, Shopify, Authorize.net, PayPal, McAfee, website design, coding, etc. After a while I started dreading working on this experiment, and I lost sight of any benefit at the end. Well, not that I lost sight of it, but whatever potential benefit there was at the end was obscured by the amount of minutiae required to get there.
And so the fun begins of canceling all the accounts I set up to get this running. Shopify was a piece of cake; log in, go to “account”, click “cancel”, confirm, and you’re done. Doba made me call in (I hate it when companies make me call in to cancel). Now the real fun begins canceling my merchant accounts. I’ve had nightmares with those before, but hopefully this time it will go more smoothly.
Well, hopefully some part of this experiment is helpful to someone. It was educational, if not financially profitable, for me.
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There’s nothing worse than requiring a call in to opt out of a service. That didn’t make me very happy when I tried to cancel my Doba membership either. I guess it’s kind of a smart move on their part though. They probably get at least an extra month out of everyone that wants to cancel their membership just because they dread calling in.
Regarding canceling other services, a few notes:
1. Cybersource and Authorize.net are two separate entities when it comes to canceling. Don’t assume that because you have closed one account that you’ve closed both of them.
2. Discover and Amex accounts must be closed separately from Cybersource/Authorize.net accounts.
Canceling each account was straightforward and easy (although you have to call), but make sure you have all your information in a folder somewhere.
You’re somewhat lucky you’re not stuck with the Zenprint timeline… It’s been about 4 months and still no store front that we can go live with.