nopCommerce as 'approved partner'

During the last weeks we made some analysis of the available .NET shop systems on the market. For us the result is obvious: nopCommerce is the way to go. We are many years now in this market and are mainly .NET-developers, but it's the first time we can focusing also in the Webshop area on .NET. So it's an exciting time for us.

We established some demo shops and are now looking forward to get the first orders for nopCommerce shops within the next days. As we can see, there are some real good reasons for nopCommerce, especially:
- Leading edge technology
- Well structured architecture, now even improving to MVC
- A powerful young solution with driving community

BUT: our actual main lead has found a major drawback - and he is taking this very serious:
nopCommerce is not listed in any directory as 'approved partner' or 'pre-certified'

For example please have a look to:
Trusted Shops: http://www.trustedshops.com/news/50-shop-software-solutions-with-trusted-shops-pre-certification
Moneybookers: http://www.moneybookers.com/ads/merchant-account/ecommerce-payment-system
PayPal: https://www.paypal-marketing.com/emarketing/partner/directory/directory.page

This issue can be a show stopper for our activities. So I would kindly request any statement of you guys regarding this situation. What can I tell our customers to convince them?

Many thanks in advance for your support,
Andreas

nopCommerce is listed in microsoft's web app gallery and has ( 202,952 downloads ) it's only via web platform.
http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/categories.aspx?sorting=highestrated

is that not enough trusted platform?

I visit those links as you posted and I was surprised as I never Trusted hear and seen Trusted Shops: (http://www.trustedshops.com/news/50-shop-software-solutions-with-trusted-shops-pre-certification) website before.

So what's the reason to pay for some companies to be listed in their websites?

The point is not to pay for anything, but to be 'pre-certified' as trusted eCommerce platform. With this the customer can be confident, that his shop will meet the requirements.

The listed platforms (PayPal, MoneyBookers, Trusted Shops) are important in our market (more or less a must for professional shops).

I did a quick read of some of their pages.  It does not look like pre-certification is required, and you still need to get your own certification.  Pre-cert just means you would just get your certification faster and for less $:

  http://www.trustedshops.com/shopping/static2_EN.php
  "The huge advantage for an Internet merchant using the ePages software are a much faster certification process along with a discounted membership fee.

I can understand you or your customer may not want to take the risk of spending time and money, and then not havng it pass.  Maybe you can create a small proof of concept site, and have it certified.


(BTW, regarding "never heard of...", it looks like TrustedShops is a European thing)

You are right, pre-certification by the major quality seals is not required as a must, but
* as a merchant you get a much faster certification process for your shop
* it costs less money
* in the presales process you can be sure to purchase an eCommerce platform with proven quality

So there are some good reasons, why our customers are interested in these certifications. And we have to give them the right answers.

Therefore I'm interested to get some information, if nopCommerce is supporting such certifications, if there are already existing pre-certs or if there are any obstacles to get certifications from PayPal, MoneyBookers or Trusted Shops (In Europe, Trusted Shops is a major quality seal for eCommerce).

I'm quite sure, that nopCommerce has no technical problem to get these certifications. But any more detailed information would help us to convince our customers to go on with nopCommerce.

New York wrote:

As I said before no reason to do anything with this Trusted shops or any other similar companies.

I can create website and name it "BEST CERTIFIED PLATFORMS" make huge advertisement campaign and charge ($199 - £999 p/a) developers for the listing their platforms in my website so they are trusted?!

REMEMBER those websites like Trusted platforms gives you absolutely NOTHING!

@wxDevelopment

Sorry, but I don't want to discuss the business model of Trusted Shops. The only thing about them to say is, that Trusted Shops as well as PayPal or MoneyBookers are important players in our market and even more important partners for our customers.

Other shops like Magento are able to show their compliance without any technical discussion. We cannot. This is a serious problem in the presales. So it would be very helpful to get some information about the status and maybe the steps of nopCommerce to get listed.

With over 12 years experience in the Australian industry we find customers and shop owners general knowledge of the ecommerce associations, certification, memberships and web development in general is very little.

They also care very little to educate themselves. Why would they, it's not their core business, they pay us to be the experts.

I personally and professionaly believe the responsiblity of gaining a clients trust is for your company to demonstrate, not NOPCommerce. Which in my opinion is a very trusted platform simply for being in Microsoft Web App Galllery anyhow.

For example we are development/solution partners with the following and many more -

PayPal
eWay
NOPCommerce
MYOB
Microsoft
Dell
Australian Web Industry Association (AWIA)
Web Industry Professional Association (WIPA)
etc etc

You get the picture. Your company should gaining your clients trust. Make this your goal and accomplish that during presales with clients and you'll find far more success in the marketplace that some trusted ecommerce platform badge.

I think this is a much better credential for NC:
https://www.nopcommerce.com/boards/t/9877/nopcommerce-among-top-5-web-apps-on-microsofts-web-app-gallery.aspx