Choosing showroom software
Honest criteria for choosing showroom software: your data and your exit, the demo on your own mess, adoption reality, full cost, and when not to buy.
A software buying checklist from a vendor — read it accordingly
This page is written by a software company, so hold it to the obvious standard: every criterion below must be one you could turn against us at a demo.
That is the intention. A buyer armed with hard questions is our favourite kind, because the checks that eliminate bad software are the ones good software survives.
The demo on your own mess, not their sample data
A rehearsed demo proves the vendor can demo.
The test that proves anything runs on your reality: your ugliest supplier price list, your messiest phone order, your longest-running enquiry. Bring them, and watch whether the software eats them or chokes politely.
Run the same test on every vendor — same inputs, same questions — or the comparison measures presentation, not product.
Your data, and your exit
Two questions expose more than any feature tour.
Whose data is it, and how does it leave?
You want your records exportable in usable form, stated plainly. Software you cannot leave is software you rent your own history from.
What happens when we stop paying?
The honest vendor has a boring answer. Any fog on either question is a finding.
Any fog on either question is a finding.
Adoption reality, not feature count
The feature list wins the comparison sheet; adoption wins the business.
A modest tool your team uses beats a rich one they route around — the failed purchase in your past almost certainly died here.
The comparison sheet- Counts features — and the richest list wins it
- Says nothing about Tuesday — when the counter is three deep
The adoption test- How many taps — the commonest action costs
- A side-effect of work — or a second job of reporting it
- A modest tool they use — beats a rich one they route around
The full cost, asked out loud
The licence
What it covers, and what a per-user addition costs on top of it.
Getting started
Implementation, data loading and training — the part that never appears on the headline.
The long tail
Support after the first month, and the customisations your trade will inevitably want. A low headline with a long tail is the oldest shape in the industry.
A low headline with a long tail is the industry's oldest shape; the honest quote is the complete one.
When the answer is not yet
Software multiplies a process; it does not create one.
A counter that has never kept any record, a team of one, an owner mid-crisis — these are reasons to wait, and a vendor who says so is telling you something about every other claim he makes.
We keep a page that says exactly this in our own voice, and it stands whether or not you ever return:
Bring this checklist to any vendor's demo — including ours.
Ask for a demo