Product selection and purchasing - some feedback

[justposted]

Not sure where to put this in the forum, so please move it if inappropriate ...

Let me start by saying that I love PDF XChange. I use it at home, plus Acrobat and Bluebeam at work, and whilst it doesn't do everything that Bluebeam does (fair enough given that it is about a third of the price), it is better than Acrobat by a long way in terms of usability and function. The functions that most people actually use, that is, not the complicated professional printing stuff which presumably very few people need. Just try pasting an image onto a PDF using Acrobat Pro X - it takes about 20 steps! Can't wait for v3 of the Viewer.

Okay, having said all of that, I assume that with your new products being launched around now you are going to be trying to pull people to your website. At the moment I have to say that the complexity of the options presented may lose you a few customers, as they will give up trying to work it out. I am very clear about what I need from my PDF software and about computers in general, but it took me absolutely ages to work out that I needed PDF Tools (which I have just bought, by the way).

Can I make a few suggestions from my product and purchasing experience? Clearly this is all my personal opinion, so feel free to disagree.

1) The coloured dots in the matrix are deeply confusing. For example, if Viewer Pro can scan directly to PDF and so can PDF Tools then each gets a dot. Fine. But if both can also convert images/text directly to PDF, then why does the PDF Tools column also get a black dot, which seems to imply (and I could be wrong here) that a PDF Tools license can do it because it also buys you Viewer Pro? But then under OCR, it looks like Tools can't do it at all, except via Viewer Pro (black dot). I give up at that point.

2) On the top left of the matrix page, there is a note on software bundles. The Pro bundle description makes sense ("it is a suite that contains these things") but the Tools one makes it sound like you get Tools when you buy Pro (which is cheaper), but it means the opposite. Maybe change it to something like: "When you buy a PDF-Tools license, you also get a Viewer Pro license but not a Lite license".

3) As an alternative to 1 and 2, maybe a flowchart of options would help. I had a go with the attached PDF, which is how I understand the different products. Any clearer to anybody? It is trying to show that you start with the basic product, then either go down the printing/converting or manipulation route, but if you need both then you buy Pro. The Lite license (comes with Viewer Pro but not Tools) is the main thing that makes it unclear, I think. Your descriptions on the Download page are relatively clear, but that is about the third thing you try, after the wizard and matrix, and it still wasn't obvious to me what I should buy. The downloads page is great, by the way - I love having all the bits and pieces nicely laid out.

4) When you see the prices, it is not clear that they exclude VAT. An extra 20% on the final payment screen was an unwelcome surprise. Fair enough, you still got my purchase, but I felt a bit like I had been 'done'. The add-VAT-at-the-last-minute thing almost never happens when buying stuff on the internet any more, probably because it annoys people, even if it does make your product look cheaper to begin with. XChange is still loads cheaper than the opposition so personally I think it can afford to be upfront about it. For example, even with a massive corporate deal, Acrobat/Bluebeam are somewhere around 90 quid, and they are significantly more for an individual buyer. Things like Foxit/Nitro are surprisingly expensive/weak once you finally work out what they offer and for how much. This is all in my opinion, of course, so I assume I am okay to write about your competitors here (if not I can edit out).

5) Your 'in the cloud' thing is nice. Worth pointing out that carrying the portable version of the Viewer around would be easier for most people though, especially as it is only 8Mb versus a 28Mb plug-in download for the cloud version. Speaking of which, you should make more of that portable version. I bet most people don't know what it means, but would love to have their PDF software with them all the time.

I'll stop there. Became a bit of an essay! Hope you take all that in the spirit that it is intended. Your software is both affordable and powerful, with really excellent support via this forum, so it deserves to get as many users as it can. I just think that at the moment it is a bit hard for users to see all that it can do and at what price.

[Chris - PDF-XChange]

Hi justposted,

Thank you for your kind words and suggestions for improving visiting and purchasing experience. I will review your PDF and look at the points you make and see what we can do to improve things for the next content revision of the site. You feedback is appreciated and points valid.

Best,
Chris