We are currently running a membership site that has several hundred active members (with about 5000 inactive members).   This site is popular and has grown over the past 10 years.  Starting as a simple webpage, it wasn’t until 2000 that we decided to setup some online classes.  These basically consisted of some HTML pages and a forum system (at that time we used UBB - Ultimate Bulletin Board).  We started using a very basic cgi shopping cart.

In about 2003, we switched over to phpBB2 forum system.  We utilized Ashop Software for our shopping cart.  Being that both were writen in PHP, it was easier to integrate them.  Ashop has been a great system for us and we have nothing but praise for them.  If you are looking for a good shopping cart only, use Ashop Software.   We switched over from HTML webpages for our membership information to using PDF downloads.  So ultimately, a user would purchase a PDF and get access to the group forum.

We were still using HTML pages for our main site.  This became quite tedious to update them each time there was a change, so we added Wordpress as a system to manage the more static pages.  Later we added a photo gallery using the Gallery software.   And of course, we needed a mass email system, so we used List Mail Pro.  This is a great mailing list program that does a lot.  Plus it is a one time purchase as compared to a Constant Contact or similar.

So how many programs is that?  Five at last count.  That is five times the amount of administration that we would like.  So the kicker is that due to the fact that phpBB is a couple versions behind and was hacked by porn spammers, we have decided to move forward to a single platform.   We forgot to mention that we are paying for webhosting as well.

So the goals are as follows:

A hosted solution
A single administration tool
Ability to sell both e-products and subscriptions
A reputable host that will be there as we grow

So far having looked at several options, including upgrading what we have, the solution that seems to be ideal is iGroops.

At this point, that looks like the solution, but the final decision has not been made.  We will post additional notes as we move forward.

We welcome any comments you may have that will make this easier for us.