Why do I need a mailing service?

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richard96816

Member
Okay, I'm new at this. (Though not to networks/computers/etc.) Perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe this is a dumb question.

Why do I need a mailing service? I could understand if I had a huge amount of email, etc. But I don't. (Yet.)

My hosting service (siteground) provides me with unlimited email addresses and the ability to send and receive email with lots of storage space. Seems to work fine.

So why do I need a mailing service?

Thanks.
 
Victoria Kudryashova

Victoria Kudryashova

Administrator
richard96816 said:
Okay, I'm new at this. (Though not to networks/computers/etc.) Perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe this is a dumb question.

Why do I need a mailing service? I could understand if I had a huge amount of email, etc. But I don't. (Yet.)

My hosting service (siteground) provides me with unlimited email addresses and the ability to send and receive email with lots of storage space. Seems to work fine.

So why do I need a mailing service?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Hello , please have a look at this article: https://alidropship.com/codex/email-notifications-setup/
You need to set up this to get an automatical notifications about purchase, shipping and contact form.
 
R

richard96816

Member
Yes, that article is why I posted this question. My website hosting account can send and receive (and even auto-respond to) email. Other parts of AliDropship can send email without additional services. Why do notifications of purchase, shipping and contact require yet another separate service? What advantages do they provide for those functions?
If I don't register a mailing service in AliDropship's 'Notifications' section what happens to the notifications? Do they not get sent. Is there an error generated somewhere?

Just trying to understand how things work. And trying to tend towards simplicity where possible. The more pieces you connect together the more there are to break and the more support departments to contend with.

Thanks.
 
Victoria Kudryashova

Victoria Kudryashova

Administrator
richard96816 said:
Yes, that article is why I posted this question. My website hosting account can send and receive (and even auto-respond to) email. Other parts of AliDropship can send email without additional services. Why do notifications of purchase, shipping and contact require yet another separate service? What advantages do they provide for those functions?
If I don't register a mailing service in AliDropship's 'Notifications' section what happens to the notifications? Do they not get sent. Is there an error generated somewhere?

Just trying to understand how things work. And trying to tend towards simplicity where possible. The more pieces you connect together the more there are to break and the more support departments to contend with.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
With these email services we make a process automatical. It will not be automatical on your hosting account - that' s a difference.
 
R

richard96816

Member
Victoria Kudryashova said:
With these email services we make a process automatical. It will not be automatical on your hosting account - that' s a difference.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response, Victoria.

Purchase Notification, Contact Us and Order Shipped are all simple synchronous operations. No automation required. Simple sending of email.
I've been doing more research. For lower volumes of email one of the simple SMTP plug-ins sounds like it would be much better, simpler, more secure and much easier to setup and free. And no email service company logos on my emails. Yikes! And it keeps my emails under my control.

Allowing for use of one of the SMTP plug-ins would be most appreciated if your developers find the time.

Here's a helpful article on five of the available plug-ins:

http://webcraft.tools/simple-smtp-plugins-for-wordpress/

Some people choose the external email services because of occasional problems with the built-in Wordpress (php) email function. The SMTP plug-ins apparently now do a better job, without the problems of the services.
You folks have done a wonderful job dealing with all the complexities of Ecommerce sites. Having the option to handle email locally would seem to reinforce those efforts.

Thanks!
 
Real Residual

Real Residual

Active Member
richard96816 said:
Thanks for your response, Victoria.

Purchase Notification, Contact Us and Order Shipped are all simple synchronous operations. No automation required. Simple sending of email.
I've been doing more research. For lower volumes of email one of the simple SMTP plug-ins sounds like it would be much better, simpler, more secure and much easier to setup and free. And no email service company logos on my emails. Yikes! And it keeps my emails under my control.

Allowing for use of one of the SMTP plug-ins would be most appreciated if your developers find the time.

Here's a helpful article on five of the available plug-ins:

http://webcraft.tools/simple-smtp-plugins-for-wordpress/

Some people choose the external email services because of occasional problems with the built-in Wordpress (php) email function. The SMTP plug-ins apparently now do a better job, without the problems of the services.
You folks have done a wonderful job dealing with all the complexities of Ecommerce sites. Having the option to handle email locally would seem to reinforce those efforts.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I think you got the wrong idea. Email services will not leave a "logo" on your email or anything of the sort. Their primary purpose is deliverability.
Especially when you are starting out, your emails will be blocked or end up in the spam box. This is the sad truth and why we use a "Free" email service such as spark post (15K per month free) to deliver transactional emails.

If you use a plugin to deliver emails, rest assured you will be blocked as a spam mailer since it won't have SPF, DKIM, and almost no reputation. If you just get reported once, you will end up in a black-list somewhere by Spamhaus and you can kiss goodbye to sending emails from your domain. The only exception is if you have the same IP as your mail server and you are using your mail server to deliver emails (not some web-based plugin), and your mail server has been properly set up, along with a valid PTR record. If you have no idea about PTR, DNS, DKIM, SPF, then you are probably not set up correctly.

This is why I use email services, I want my invoices, shipping notifications, and delivery notifications delivered. I have another service for email marketing, which is a different story.

If you set up your DNS accordingly and configure your SPF, DKIM records, but you use a shared hosting service, you are still in danger of losing your email deliverability due to someone else who might violate sending rules. So the easiest solution is to set up an email service for free and let Alidropship plugin use its API. It's a no-brainer.
 
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richard96816

Member
Thanks for your response.

I got into this email service provider stuff because the AliDropship Notification setup requires a choice of services. So I checked the reviews and found that the whole email service segment is a bit messy, with various levels of service, companies coming and going, varying levels of support, etc.
I've started to setup for Mailgun, waiting for DNS propogation, etc. What a mess.

If you check you will find that various of the services do indeed put their own logos on YOUR emails with their free accounts. Check Sendinblue's pricing page:

https://www.sendinblue.com/pricing/

Notice that you have to pay at least $39 per month to have them remove their logo from your email!
Sendinblue was looking like the best choice until I saw that. :-(
I don't know if Mailgun puts their logo on or not. It's too damn hard to get through to some of these guys. I don't have the time for it. Just want to get my site setup.
I think you are correct about mail security, DKIM, etc., being the main reason people tend to think the services are the best way to go. DMARC, DKIM, SPF are moving targets. Not everyone uses them yet.
In my opinion the email services offer free accounts because they know we don't really need them. They need to get us hooked before we do need them due to increased traffic or whatever. Their free accounts are not free.

I just checked and both my hosting services handle DMARC, DKIM and SPF. It's really a DNS thing, not a magical email service thing.

If you go to cPanel -> Email Authentication you'll see the setup for these security features. DMARC requires some additions to the DNS table settings. It's all accessible via cPanel.

I found a setup tutorial for this stuff by googling 'hostgator dkim'. Replace 'hostgator' with your provider, worked for both of mine.

I don't fault AliDropship for punting on this. They have a huge job integrating the whole world of Ecommerce into a single plug-in. And it looks like they've done a pretty good job. But I think it would be nice if they were to support the WordPress default email channel. Most likely easier than handing all those services and their APIs.

WordPress also has a bunch of free SMTP plug-ins to improve on the default php mailer. Some with over half a million active installs. Good support. There are even free plug-ins to do newsletters and stuff. I suspect many folks that use email services don't really need them, and would be better off without them. Email is just not that hard. And services that charge according to the number of messages you send should have a very narrow appeal.

I'd much rather pay my hosting provider for increased capacity than pay a magical email service that makes my whole email system more convoluted, less accessible and less secure.

Thanks.
 
Victoria Kudryashova

Victoria Kudryashova

Administrator
richard96816 said:
Thanks for your response.

I got into this email service provider stuff because the AliDropship Notification setup requires a choice of services. So I checked the reviews and found that the whole email service segment is a bit messy, with various levels of service, companies coming and going, varying levels of support, etc.
I've started to setup for Mailgun, waiting for DNS propogation, etc. What a mess.

If you check you will find that various of the services do indeed put their own logos on YOUR emails with their free accounts. Check Sendinblue's pricing page:

https://www.sendinblue.com/pricing/

Notice that you have to pay at least $39 per month to have them remove their logo from your email!
Sendinblue was looking like the best choice until I saw that. :-(
I don't know if Mailgun puts their logo on or not. It's too damn hard to get through to some of these guys. I don't have the time for it. Just want to get my site setup.
I think you are correct about mail security, DKIM, etc., being the main reason people tend to think the services are the best way to go. DMARC, DKIM, SPF are moving targets. Not everyone uses them yet.
In my opinion the email services offer free accounts because they know we don't really need them. They need to get us hooked before we do need them due to increased traffic or whatever. Their free accounts are not free.

I just checked and both my hosting services handle DMARC, DKIM and SPF. It's really a DNS thing, not a magical email service thing.

If you go to cPanel -> Email Authentication you'll see the setup for these security features. DMARC requires some additions to the DNS table settings. It's all accessible via cPanel.

I found a setup tutorial for this stuff by googling 'hostgator dkim'. Replace 'hostgator' with your provider, worked for both of mine.

I don't fault AliDropship for punting on this. They have a huge job integrating the whole world of Ecommerce into a single plug-in. And it looks like they've done a pretty good job. But I think it would be nice if they were to support the WordPress default email channel. Most likely easier than handing all those services and their APIs.

WordPress also has a bunch of free SMTP plug-ins to improve on the default php mailer. Some with over half a million active installs. Good support. There are even free plug-ins to do newsletters and stuff. I suspect many folks that use email services don't really need them, and would be better off without them. Email is just not that hard. And services that charge according to the number of messages you send should have a very narrow appeal.

I'd much rather pay my hosting provider for increased capacity than pay a magical email service that makes my whole email system more convoluted, less accessible and less secure.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
We will implement sending notifications with SMTP in future.
 
R

richard96816

Member
mushrukh said:
You can choose pepipost email service it gives u 25k emails free per month.. and it is already integerated with Alidropship plugin..
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll give them a try. Mailgun hasn't worked. And their support has been nonexistent. Six choices, one of them must be trustworthy. :)

Thanks.
 
Direct Webstore

Direct Webstore

Well-Known Member
Victoria Kudryashova said:
With these email services we make a process automatical. It will not be automatical on your hosting account - that' s a difference.
Click to expand...

It's automatic with the Woo plugin with no extra mailing services required ... so it COULD be done with the original plugin. I think the option of using 3rd party services or your own host account email functions should be implemented in the original plugin. I see no reason why it couldn't be.

EDIT
Victoria Kudryashova said:
We will implement sending notifications with SMTP in future.
Click to expand...

Great! :)
 
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richard96816

Member
Good to know. Thanks.

Just checked Hostgator and Siteground.
Hostgator says their cheap accounts are limited to 500 emails per hour!
Suggesting a move to VPS if you need to send more.
I could find no limit on Siteground.

How many weeks would it set me back to switch to the Woo plug-in? What would I give up?

Thanks.
 
Direct Webstore

Direct Webstore

Well-Known Member
Victoria Kudryashova said:
We will implement sending notifications with SMTP in future.
Click to expand...
richard96816 said:
How many weeks would it set me back to switch to the Woo plug-in? What would I give up?
Click to expand...

You would have to start from scratch and re-import all your products and re-edit all the descriptions. So if it took you 5 weeks before ... it will take you 5 weeks again (Plus the time to basically setup Woo)

I wouldn't bother if I was you. Just use one of the services for now and change to SMPT if you want later, when it's implemented.

richard96816 said:
What would I give up?
Click to expand...
I have tried both the original and Woo plugins. The order processing in the original plugin is MUCH better and streamlined ... in my opinion. Also, the original plugin is always at the head of the line regarding development, updates and extra's. That's what you'd be giving up.
 
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RobynM

Member
Richard,
Hi,
I too, am a newbie at the ecom stuff, and was baulking at the use of an email notification service. I have read through your thread here and would love to know which SMTP plugin you were alluding to, and instructions for setup. I'm sure it's simple, but I've been at this for days now (with a migraine) and I just can't think straight at them moment.

Victoria,
Also can we have instructions in the Knowledge Base please?
 
Yaros

Yaros

Moderator
Staff member
RobynM said:
Richard,
Hi,
I too, am a newbie at the ecom stuff, and was baulking at the use of an email notification service. I have read through your thread here and would love to know which SMTP plugin you were alluding to, and instructions for setup. I'm sure it's simple, but I've been at this for days now (with a migraine) and I just can't think straight at them moment.

Victoria,
Also can we have instructions in the Knowledge Base please?
Click to expand...
Instructions: https://alidropship.com/codex/email-notifications-setup/
 
R

richard96816

Member
They were nice enough to add SMTP. No sense relying on yet another company and support group when SMTP is easy. And Wordpress plugins are available for all the other features, should you need them.

Unfortunately, the Subscribe form on Davinci still only works with Aweber :-(
A bit of an oversight there.
 
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