Actinic Express 2 in Software

Setting up a website may not be a major undertaking anymore - any old Tom, Dick or Harry can start a blog these days in a matter of minutes - but getting your business on the web with the ability to process orders isn't quite so straightforward. Actinic Express, now into its second version, aims to make this process as easy as possible, by wrapping up hosting, design, setup, order and payment processing in one convenient, monthly package.

Actinic has years of experience in this area, and it shows in the setup procedure. Express is entirely hosted online - so no local software to install - and it's extremely easy to set up, with no limitation to the number of products and a simple wizard to follow to configure all the important-but-boring business details.

The design of your final website is limited to one of 12 themes, although you can customise colours, fonts and text sizes.

Actinic lists some 184 improvements over the first version, and performance has been improved too, but we'd have liked to have seen a more modern website.

There's no Web 2.0 here: all of the pages are based on HTML forms with a submit button and, while perfectly usable and easy to understand, it's an approach that makes it look old-fashioned.

The system supports a variety of payment systems and payment providers, among which is the highly versatile Actinic Payments system, plus PayPal and Google checkout, so getting set up is simple.

Support for others such as SecPay (now PayPoint) is limited, however, and doesn't include the now compulsory extra security measures, so you need to check with your Internet Payment Provider before you commit. We're mildly disappointed, too, that it still cannot handle stock.

Overall, though, Actinic Express 2 is much improved and stands up well against the competition. It's easy to setup and run, with full order processing, and the monthly costs are reasonable at £20 exc VAT. If you're prepared to work around the few limitations then it might be just the product to get you selling on the internet.

Author: Mark Newton