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My Thumbs up - Shopster.com
ADDENDUM: As I mentioned in the comments below, in the spirit of full disclosure, Shopster is a client of Amswo, who is a partner of Partnercentric where I work. When I wrote this post I did not have that information. I did not intend for this to be self promotional, this is a sincere overview of my own experience with this software.
What an amazingly fun time I have been having with Shopster.com, you simply sign up (Currently they are giving you 7 free days) and your online store is ready in a matter of moments. The ease of setting up your online store invites you to explore the potential for niche marketing. Simply choose the products you want to sell and add the products of your choice to your storefront. Customizing your store is easy and fast, you can create a custom design to be applied to your store or simply change one of the templates supplied to you. However the best part is not just the simplicity in which you can create your online store, choose the products you would like to sell and establish margins. The best part of www.shopster.com is the data feeds you can generate for eBay.com, Bizrate.com, and Shopping.com.
Data feeds from Shopster.com, Simple and Sweet
The online storefront has an easily accessible consumer user interface design, the images are large, and the cart is a little long in steps to checkout however consumer friendly, but the most fun for gaining consumer sales comes from the data feeds you can create with over 700,000 products to choose from. You can create data feeds and set margins (these are customizable and can be edited at any time) to fit within your commissionable needs or niche market pricing demand. I have checked out the feeds for my experimental storefront and find that they are clean, and contain all needed data to start marketing products immediately. Being able to change the product pricing and establish custom margins helps you to gain an immediate foothold in your market place as well as establish a commission you can live with.
Establishing Margins with Shopster.com
The potential for commission is unlimited; however I do suggest that you research your niche market to determine an optimal selling price. The products you choose will also show you the suppliers cost, you set your products pricing at any margin of your choice and establish your commission through your margin set. Setting sustainable margins will help you compete in the search directories and the comparison engines, establishing a strong brand presence will also help you stand out in these channels. I recommend going as niche as possible!
Strong Storefront Editable Features
With shopster.com I was concerned about the ability to create custom pages and create custom hierarchical navigational structure as well as category pages. However after spending a few days working around the store interface I found customizing the storefront is simple and many points of consideration for consumer click path enhancement have been thought of and remedied. Shopster.com even has the ability for you to choose online chat which they supply for a minimal fee for your online store. The reporting does not allow specific date sets, but you can add pixels in your sales confirmation page that after testing I was able to see 3 sales within 2 days of my store being online. These sales came from shopping.com. You are also able to apply your own HTML to many of the pages, and if one has access to code and one knows what one is doing then, bonsai!
Shopster.com does it all
Shopster.com supplies the products; they handle customer care, as well as ensure a strong inventory for you to choose from all for $29.95 per month. The clean multiple product data feeds are worth more then that to me and after listing one of my feeds in eBay I have a few people interested in a high ticket item.
My Thumbs up to Shopster.com, this is an amazingly fun tool, an excellent way for someone to get a storefront up quickly and start selling valuable high demand products through data feeds directly to consumers who are searching for them.
I was able to get my Shopster.com fees paid within 2 days of my store being up; here are a few tips if you are interested in making money fast with Shopster.com
My Shopster.com Selling Tips
1) Get as niche as you possibly can, instead of selling Jewelry as an example sell only Necklaces, or Rings. Target, target, target. (This will also allow you to compete in Google, or Overture, MSN, paid search engines in a smaller competitive environment and at a lower CPC)
2) I am still testing the SEO, but I have had the index page listed and the naming conventions of the navigation are being read by the engines. Use keywords throughout your site as well as throughout your navigation; rename featured products to “KeyWord(s)” etc. You can also include custom pages and add Meta content to your Shopster.com store.
3) MySpace - I set up a niche appealing MySpace page and within 3 days had over 698 visitors to the page and over 108 from those went to the site. Create an appealing MySpace page and direct traffic to your site (Hey it’s FREE). Request to be friends with high profile persons who allow you to post HTML ads to their space. (Great also for incoming links)
4) Get those data feeds out! Look them over and ensure your category numbers are accurate; you can edit your feeds to have category numbers that are unsaturated for your product type. Research which categories have a low incidence of competition and include your products in those categories. Right now Gifts and gift pricing searches are hot categories.
5) Do not get greedy with your margins; I turned into Jekyll and Hyde when I saw I could establish my own pricing. The greed bug will kill your sales; research your market first then beat out the competition with a coupon or 3 day sale.
6) After setting your margins remember to calculate in the ability to put them on Sale, placing your products on sale automatically populates the products with the sale price and it shows the percentage the consumer will save purchasing from your store. Giving them more incentive to purchase
7) Do not forget about the offline marketing potential with your Shopster.com store, you will have a viable online enterprise with Shopster.com treat it as such!
incorporate your entity and list yourself in the directories, yellow pages, and anywhere else you can encourage traffic to your site.
9) Press releases are an excellent tool for generating high PR incoming links as well as traffic. www.prleap.com will allow you to post a press release for free.
10) Have Fun!
Information on http://www.Shopster.com
- Customizable E-Commerce storefront.
- Over 700,000 products available.
- We ship your customer’s orders directly to your customers.
- Instantly accept Visa, M/C and PayPal.
- Complete control over price and profits.
- All fraud and dispute resolution included.
- A selling community to help you succeed.
- Data feeds included and sell on EBay, BizRate.com and Shopping.com.
- Profits paid monthly.
Hi, Heather…
I had the pleasure of interviewing Shopster’s CEO, Sarath Samarasekera here.
A transcript and podcast/streaming audio program are also available.
Aren’t they a client of PartnerCentric??
I do hope they are not clients of PartnerCentric any more.
Otherwise this is a spam post trying to ruin Revenews brand as a reliable source.
She had to mention she was giving thumbs up to her own clients.
:: Hello ::
This is not one of my clients, this is a client of AMWSO which I was not aware, AMWSO is a partner of partnercentric. I did not intend for this to be self promotional, this is a sincere overview of my own experience with this software.
Heather
Speaking of who and where Shopster is a client, I believe they are (or were) a client of Molander.
I thought he wasn’t into the Pay Per Post thing.
LOL - this is all so rich.
That’s correct, Wayne. Shopster has not paid anyone, to my knowledge, to post or conduct interviews. Companies are invited to be interviewed on ThoughtShapers based on my personal belief that they’re a next generation platform — someone worth paying attention to. That’s what our readers expect; much like Revenews readers have their own expectations.
I have invited JellyFish.com and a variety of others who are considering granting an interview. I’m pleased to have conducted an interview with Leadpoint.com last week as well.
Candidly, I appreciate the implication that my, or my company’s, integrity is within question as it amplifies the lack of integrity or continuity here at Revenews and furthers the perception that the name Molander carries some weight. Based on the Fly’s comment it seems that bloggers continue to believe that Revenews readers are drive-by in nature… only reading short quips like this one; that they are not able to walk away with a genuine perception of what Revenews is… a perception based on their own larger experience outside a single post. Revenews readers are smarter than you may think. Insult your readers intelligence at your own risk.
“Otherwise this is a spam post trying to ruin Revenews brand as a reliable source.”
Don’t know anything about this blog but it’s what I felt when 2 other bloggers blogged about Like.com and then the third blog from someone associated with the company. But I’ve been told I’m imagining things and there isn’t any buddy promotion or self promotion here.
Revenews is an unique media outlet in that those who make the news are often here to report the news as well. It appears difficult to limit these bloggers to self promotion. Yet in the interest of coverage, I appreciate posts just like these…
ThisNext, Riya, and Shopster are significant names in our industry right now, and I would like to continue to follow their development. While self-promotion should be restricted, I do not mind hearing about these brands directly from the mouths of their makers.
I tried them out a few months back. Nice looking service but the base prices were far too high for me to be competitve.
Andrew
Mike:
Your perspective is golden… dead-on. I think the confusion lies in the loose and rather flexible definition of the relationship/contract Revenews endeavors to have with readers.
From the get-go, as an example, TechCrunch has laid out and followed-through on its promise to readers (hence, place in the market). It earns integrity in doing so. I offer this less in criticism of Revenews and more in hopes to shed light on the dynamics involved.
Hi all,
This is James Nardell from AMWSO. I’m the Affiliate Manager for Shopster. I can confirm what Heather and Jeff both write. Shopster absolutely did not pay for this review. In fact no one from the Shopster team was even aware that Heather was writing an article about Shopster. I only found out a few hours ago when I got a message from one of my partners. (Big thanks go to Heather for the review by the way).
I have been expecting someone to blog in ReveNews on Shopster here for a while now. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for something to show up.
Shopster has huge potential and the model really can/does work for retailers as Heather highlights.
There are a few high level partnerships on the horizon, and I think that you’ll be hearing a lot more about Shopster in the near future.
If you’ve got any questions on Shopster feel free to drop me a line at either: James.Nardell [AT] AMWSO.com or James [AT] Shopster.com.
We have two issues under discussion in this thread:
1) Heather writes good stuff. It’s the totality of her body of work on RN which I look at before I decide if it’s worth my valuable time to read the article. I’m more than willing to accept an honest mistake and Heather has clearly started this article with her ADDENDUM/disclaimer which is ideally placed and bolded at the top of this article. Keep up the great work Heather.
2) The larger issue of “self promotion blogs” across RN is a very tricky issue and one that I myself strugled with for numerous years. As RN continues to grow, Brothers Jim and Wayne will strugle with the very gray nature of this issue and it’s frequency will (not if) increase. I can only offer a little bit of guidence and I appolagize in advance if I’m taking the thread off topic:
a. Their are a small number of RN Bloggers who not only DON’T participate in their own blogs threads but the majority of their “body of work” is self promotional. These folks waste my time and should be politely asked to either revise or leave!
The golden rule in Communities is somewhat crude: A mature Community like RN will continue to prosper if a few authors leave. WE are all expendable and YOU (management) WILL be tested
b. If a RN Blogger wishes to write about their own company and or any other issue which they have a “relationship” with, then I would like to see a clearly worded disclaimer AT THE TOP of the entry. It’s quite dangerous to assume that a guest of RN understands Community dynamics and more over, the reader can decide from the get go if they wish to read further.
c. Droping your OWN link/description inside an entry on an issue which you have no relationship with is frankly a waste of my time and taints your image. We can all read your bio for gosh sakes.
d. Naturally, any revisions to the “editorial guidelines” must be written down for all to read and pointed out to your authors.
Continued best wishes to all
:: Hello::
Hey thanks everyone for commenting, I appreciate all of the comments and emails from those of you who know and support me and understand I have no relationship with Shopster.com they are not a client of mine or the company I work for, I have not taken or gained anything from this company or others based on my writing. My writing is based on my own experience with this software. Occasionally I find something that I believe can benefit other persons in generating revenue etc and I comment on it based on my experience. I do notice that it appears to me that anyone who has a good experience or nice comments about any company seems to come into question as far as their motives. I find these innuendos sad and ludicrous but do understand that conspiracies and doubt often creep in our minds.
I will say this, those of you who know me, know I am direct and extremely open. My words are not minced; my words are not for sale and my OPINION is not easily swayed nor should it be misconstrued as being biased.
Again thank you for the interesting comments, this is a free form communicational board where our opportunity to express our thoughts should be maintained. Freedom of speech is an amazing thing!
Hi All
I’d like to also add that Heather certainly was not paid, asked or influenced by anyone to write this review. We certainly appreciate that she has because it is a great review. But if anyone has any issues then I welcome you to contac me directly.
Cheers
Chris
Community Growth, Collaboration and What Next?
Thanks to Steve Shubitz for his usual level head. I posted a comment last night regarding Heather’s post, but for some reason it did not take- but I feel Steve is right- as a community grows and as an industry changes it tests everyone’s mettle. I have…
“ThisNext, Riya, and Shopster are significant names in our industry right now, and I would like to continue to follow their development.
While self-promotion should be restricted, I do not mind hearing about these brands directly from the mouths of their makers.”
Posted by: Mike Payne
They aren’t significant. The only thing they get is major cross blogging from interested parties.
You blog about my great site, I will blog about yours. They hired good PR firms. I found most of those quite boring and nothing really that consumers will get that excited about.
There may be a lot of buzz in the industry about them, or in articles the PR firms put out there, but in reality the “people” could care less.
Revenews is clearly becoming an advertising outlet for it’s bloggers interests.
@enough… indeed, enough.
This thread is done. Heather’s integrity in my opinion has not been compromised, she did nothing wrong. I ask you to move on.
Heather was more than gracious, offering to remove the blog, by adding that addendum at the top of her entry and leaving comments here in the thread (being extemely transparent), when she really didn’t need to do in my opinion.
Thanks for your class in all of this Heather.
Conspiracy theorists need to move on. There is no secret cabal trying to trick you by promoting each others products.
Great post!
Also wanted to add that if you offer quality content frequently, and that could be articles OR tools, that your customers can often show their appreciation
Great Article! I’m more than eager to try Shopster for myself in the upcoming New Year.
Since joining Shopster a week ago, I have found their prices to be too high to be competitive, my potential profits too low, and I’d feel like I was overcharging a customer if someone bought anything, which hasn’t happened yet. I’ve sent several emails to them, on several occasions, only to have them returned as being undeliverable. Potential customers have told me they can’t get my Rshop web pages to load, so they moved on to other sites, and I, too, often have to wait about 30 seconds before they’ll load, and I have high speed DSL. Their Live Help could offer no explanation for it, and I feel like I’ve thrown away $99.
“Since joining Shopster a week ago, I have found their prices to be too high to be competitive”
You can change the pricing structure in your management interface, YOU choose the pricing strategy.. Choose another vertical if you can not compete in your chosen one, some merchants or drop shippers get better shipping and wholesale pricing depending on the vertical..
Hi Starfire,
I’m surprised it’s taking so long for RShop pages to open up from where you are. Are you based in the US/Canada?
FYI I’m currently in Bangkok, Thailand where the telecoms/internet infrastructure is extremely poor compared to western countries. I can get Shopster RShops to load in no more than 10 seconds.
To contact Shopster, please use the form on this page: http://www.shopster.com/contact.aspx. You will get a reply within 48 hours.
I really don’t want to go into price again, but Shopster is competitive in the majority of niches. Some niches like electronics etc are extrmely difficult to compete in though, so I advise you to choose you niche carefully. I can tell you unequivocally that many retailers are making very decent profits through Shopster. (As are many affiliates).
I am in southern California. Aside from product prices, I am concerned that Rshop web pages may not be accepted by some of the more popular search engines. Although the product content may vary, the Meta Tags and headers are all the same, since they were created by Shopster. Search engines often reject pages that are very similar to others, in that respect, as well as those associated with Affiliates. They also reject “doorway” pages that ultimately link to these pages. Shopster.com does enjoy a good rating, however, as can be seen here: SHOPSTER.COM RATING. My Rshop is MY RSHOP, perhaps you can see how fast, or slow, it loads
When testing the links I included in my last post, I noticed that Shopster.com is ranked very low on McAfee’s “Popularity” scale. This could be a result of too much “sameness”, as referenced in my previous post. The criteria I stated applies to any web sites that are created by a parent company having wide distribution, not just Shopster.com. Your web pages have to be unique with reference to headers, meta tags, and content, to be widely accepted by search engines and directories. A massive exchange of “links” is also frowned upon, especially if you are linking with web pages having content which is disimilar to yours. I’m sure you are aware of these facts, but many of your readers may not be.
BTW … Despite any concerns I might have, I think the creators and staff of Shopster.com have done an outstanding job. It’s very apparent that they have put a lot of time, energy and effort into the creation of their system, and it is among the best that I have been associated with. It reflects professionalism, creativity and has very strong visual appeal.
I signed up for shopster about 6 months ago. My main reason for not sticking with it was the pricing. I sell movies and found that I was able to negotiate better pricing myself. I tried asking if shopster marks up their products or if they make the money only on the monthly fees. If they do not mark up the products then then really need to hire someone to do a better job negotiating.
One additional comment. I feel it is in poor taste to require the credit card for the free trial. This is a DOBA.com trick, it gives you a bad name because the person forgets to cancel in 7 days and then cant get their money back. Personally I wish this practice where outlawed. It is very deceptive.
Shopster has potential, but it is resorting to some of the tricks of the usual internet shysters like DOBA. It is best for you to stay above board.
Ok, it’s time to do the math! A few days ago, I set up my first Rshop, loading it with almost 4,000 products. It looked great - I was finally in business. That bubble bursted the following day when I clicked on Shopster’s Catalog tab, followed by a click on Products-Advanced. I copied all of the data, page by page, into Excel, and did a sort, using Profit as my primary sort.
I quickly discovered that with a 6% profit margin, only 720 items I had selected produced a profit of $5 or more. Most of the remaining 3,300 items would have generated only “pennies” for a profit. The profit for many products I had chosen was less than $1.
Using simple math, I discovered that $5 is 6% of $83.33. That means, if you want to make at least a $5 profit on each item in your Rshop, you shouldn’t sell anything for less than $83.33. Assumimg you want to earn just $500 a month in profits, you’d have to sell $8,333 worth of merchandise! So, if you plan to sell small-priced items, you’re going to have to sell an awful lot of them each month to make any decent money.
In my case, I deleted the entire Rshop and started all over again, but this time I loaded it mainly with products selling for $85 or more. Many of these products can be purchased elsewhere for less money, sometimes hundreds of dollars less.
In my opinion, like many companies of this type, Shopster is profiting in several ways, and they are the ones making the dollars while you are making the pennies. They did all the work, and certainly deserve to make the larger profits, but if they’re going charge monthly, I think they can be more generous in the percentage of profit they pay their members.
Personally, I feel that Shopster’s greatest benefit lies in the image of “success” it creates in the minds of potential buyers. They equate imaginary success with credibility. It’s like selecting someone from your telephone company’s Yellow Pages. Do you pick the guy with just his name and phone number listed, or the guy with the half-page ad? Creating a professional-looking image goes a long way in the business world. That’s my opinion, anyway.
People who don’t know anything about Website building should fall prey to Shopster’s program - very friendly but ever noticed the prices and oh yeah they whack a 3.5% of the profit you make besides paying almost $330 dollars a year. If a Search Engine Optimizer who rented Shopster’s store had to read this article, he would have torn the author to bits and pieces.
And one more thing, sites such as Shopster will be considered as affiliate sites in the eyes of Google and even if they make it to the top, they won’t remain there for long because the quality raters will bring it down by voting it as an affiliate site only.
In short, Shopster works honestly but it is very limited with an average support system and last but not the least, those meaningless URLs with numbers in them will get their site nowhere. That way, Mr. Rat’s Amazon Store scripts and control of content was more customizable.
Try showing this article to the big folks at Digital Point or Webmaster World and see.
My Credentials
I have used Shopster, Mr Rat’s Scripts and more important, I have been a part-timer for a leading search engine.
I am soooooooooooo thrilled with shopster! They are the GREATEST dropshipping program you will EVER find! I’m not going to say that it’s easy because making money online takes a lot of HARD work - with or without shopster. However, with a lot of hard work and marketing skills shopster is the way to go. I currently have 5 shopster stores and I’m loving every minute of it - sometimes too much as I spend hours on shopster per day.
With shopster you only have one major job - to bring in traffic and lots of it!
I have sold online for many years now and I must say that pricing really has little to do with who a shopper decides to purchase from. Trust is one major factor with any website including a shopster store. Without building a trusting relationship with your customers you will never have a successful online store.
If you have a shopster store and you aren’t making sales then don’t blame shopster because there are many of us out there that are making sales. You can only blame yourself for not having better marketing skills. There are a TON of places online that offer free emarketing help. You should learn some marketing skills before ever trying to startup an online business.
Thank you to the last few posts who just saved me a bunch of money and time with Shopster. I applaud your common sence and it all makes sence comments. Cheers
For those of you who might be interested:
In the Shopster forums, I went by the name Sportguy.
I never wanted it to come to this but I was treated poorly by Shopster.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff246214.htm
I am in my second month of membership with Shopster (and possibly my last). I dropped out for a few days, and then decided to give it another month. In Shopster’s Forum, many members have asked when they can expect to see some sales. They are asked to be patient - saying it takes about a year - before you see any real sales activity!
During that year, members are paying $99 for the startup fee, $29 a month for continued membership, plus optional extra charges to acquire their own domain name, purchase more stores or products, etc. That’s quite a bit of money to spend, considering the fact that you might not make any sales. Why? One reason is that the prices Shopster charges its members, makes it very difficult to make a sale.
They say they have 800,000 products in their warehouse. Unfortunately, many thousands of these products generate profits that are less than $1! True, they have products that can generate much higher profits, but you have to sift through 800,000 products to find them, which is not an easy task - it’s very time-consuming!
Yesterday, May 7, 2007, I created a post in Shopster’s Forum, in which I expressed some of these concerns. Namely, I asked to hear from some of the members who have been with Shopster for a year or more, to tell us about their success or failure during that time. This was the second time in two months that I had asked that question. It seemed like an appropriate question to ask, since they’re asking that you pay out a MININUM of $399.00, and possibly wait as long as a year before realizing sales on a any positive results.
Guess what? During the past two months only a couple of members said they were making sales. And, more importantly, my post was deleted within a few hours after I posted it. To add insult to injury, they made it look like I deleted it, as evidenced by the following:
Forum topic: If you’ve made a sale, come in, tell us and ring the bell
Partial content of my post they deleted:
It’s great that some of you have made some sales recently, but, not trying to sound like ”Mr. Gloom & Doom”, did the profits you earned for each item sold, exceed $5? From what I’ve been seeing and reading, some of you have invested quite a bit of money trying to get your store(s) up and running - paying the monthly membership fee, paying …
Posted to Deleted Posts (Forum) by Starfire on May 7, 2007
Believe me, I wasn’t the one who deleted it! Their removal of my post, strongly suggests to me, that they don’t want me to influence other members concerning the honesty, trustworthiness and credibility of the Company. I’m not saying anything bad about Shopster - it has some very good things going for it - and they certainly haven’t done me any harm, as yet. I just think people should be made aware of what life in Shopster is like - BEFORE they invest their money. I have to admit, though, that if I had known how high their prices are, I never would have joined. In my opinion, a one week trial period is not long enough to learn and do everything that needs to be done, especially when you’re trying to select 4,000 products ( I think it’s 1,000 now) that can earn you a decent profit. Oh, BTW … Sheldon … I don’t appreciate having my posts deleted!
As luck would have it, someone just made a sale. Here’s what he posted:
“I’ve made my first real sale today! I’ve got this email this morning:
“Hi there, We thought you’d like to know that you just made a sale on your RShop. The order total was $123.64 and you made $2.24 profit! Keep up the great work! Shopster.com http://www.shopster.com“
As you can see, I don’t know what I’ve been selling. Do I have to do something now? What?”
He only has to sell 12 more this month to offset his monthly membership fee!
Starfire, I know how you feel. go to http://shopsterisdeceptive.blogspot.com/
Something to think about
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff246214.htm
http://www.zlio.com
it is is free- and a teen can make one.
http://www.teentechgear.com/
regards,
Wayne
I left Shopster after only 2 months. Randy is right. Their prices are not competitive.
Thanks for the support. Starfire, thanks for helping prove my point at
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff246214.htm
More info at
http://shopsterisdeceptive.blogspot.com/
Thank you Randy, I was about to sign up. Good thing I saw your posts.
The rip-off report on Shopster is very entertaining.
For those who have just decided to wake up, help spread the word.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff246214.htm
More info at
http://shopsterisdeceptive.blogspot.com/
Call or fax Shopster and ask if their 700,000 are wholesale like they advertise.
Telephone: (403) 802-0201
Fax: (403) 802-0294
If you get a busy signal, keep trying.
Shopster is just another affiliate marketing scheme. Some aspects seem almost pyramidesque. Their prices are outrageously high and not worth the time and energy spent.
Win a date with Sheldon Cooke. First 700,000 people to respond.
E-mail: Supportster-shel@shopster.com
Telephone: (403) 802-0201
Fax: (403) 802-0294
I use Shopster, and I have found nothing wrong with it like many others. I own 4 Shopster stores and plan on 3 more.
People need to understand their market, wholesale purchasing versus drop ship wholesale purchasing. Having online business take a lot of work, you just don’t slap up and website with a wing and a prayer and hope it makes you big bucks.
I had a week like everyone else to read the website and check the prices against other prices. The prices I have checked are very reasonable and you can compete with other sites.
I also understand the terminology of Drop Ship Wholesale and Wholesale. These are very different. I also know that when a site has straight wholesale prices to the trade they do not charge tax and one would need to provide a tax #.
People here are stating that products are to have a 6% margin, while all my stores I set above that and they are mostly 20% to 35% margin profit rate. Not only that I have sold items at the 35% profit margin rate.
I am happy with Shopster, and I don’t need to spam blogs and other places to show my happiness. Same if I was upset, I don’t need to spam and slander people or the company.
Stacey, but you are spamming. You’re doing exactly the same thing as I’m doing. Only, I’m saying the opposite.
All 138 documents that Shopster doesn’t want you to see will be published on May 20th at 5PM. I will also list Shopster affiliates (including rshops)to the public. This will be damaging and Shopster will be troubled. The only way to prevent these documents to be seen by thousands of public eyes is for Shopster to email me and resolve the issue.
Disregard the above post. I was at a state of extreem anger when I wrote about posting documents that would hurt Shopster and posting a list of rshops. The people who own the rshops do not deserve to be in the middle of the war between myself and Shopster. No documents will be posted on May 20th. I will save them for a more appropriate time in different forum.
Look what I found when I searched “Shopster is deceptive” under consumer reports
shopster is deceptive
This Blog Made Page 1
Wow! Over 600 hits. If you goole “Shopster rip off report” my blog made page 1. This blog will go…
Tags : - This - Blog - Made - Page - 1
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Shopster unavailable for Support
Here is a recent Shopster forum post from our favorite stepford leader Sheldon Cooke. How was I able to get this? Wasn’t I kicked out of the forums?…
Tags : - Shopster - unavailable - for - Support
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Call Shopster and let them know just how you feel!
If you feel you’ve been ripped off by Shopster E-Commerce, Inc. then call, fax or e-mail them and let them know just how you feel. Some of you have…
Tags : - Call - Shopster - and - let - them - know - just - how - you - feel
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Shopster Breached Contract
When Shopster advertises “Wholesale prices on Over 700,000 products” and doesn’t deliver “Wholesale prices on Over 700,000 products” then they’ve…
Tags : - Shopster - Breached - Contract
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Shopster is Deceptive
I’m a stay home dad. I recently searched the internet for drop shipping companies to sell products online. I like the idea of using a drop shipping…
Tags : - Shopster - is - Deceptive
Shopster owes me $429.00
Instead of joining Shopster, you can buy 194 Big Macs…and 2 orders of small fries.
Trying to make a sale with Shopster is like watching the astro turf grow.
Stacey wrote:
“I use Shopster, and I have found nothing wrong with it like many others. I own 4 Shopster stores and plan on 3 more.
People need to understand their market, wholesale purchasing versus drop ship wholesale purchasing. Having online business take a lot of work, you just don’t slap up and website with a wing and a prayer and hope it makes you big bucks.
I had a week like everyone else to read the website and check the prices against other prices. The prices I have checked are very reasonable and you can compete with other sites.
I also understand the terminology of Drop Ship Wholesale and Wholesale. These are very different. I also know that when a site has straight wholesale prices to the trade they do not charge tax and one would need to provide a tax #.
People here are stating that products are to have a 6% margin, while all my stores I set above that and they are mostly 20% to 35% margin profit rate. Not only that I have sold items at the 35% profit margin rate.
I am happy with Shopster, and I don’t need to spam blogs and other places to show my happiness.”
Stacey, take up knitting, your time would be better spent.
Your report and blog are pretty funny! Not because of what they say, but because you are a small ridiculous man randy.
I’ve been in retailing before and in e-commerce for over 10 years. Have you? Have you ever had to buy 1000 TVs, pay for them upfront and store them in your basement and hope to sell them? That’s a tough business - a lot of risk, and a lot of unknowns.
When you sign up for Shopster you get a e-commerce store and access to an inventory of 700,000 products to sell - for what $129 bucks? That’s cheaper than 1 TV.
I also saw that with Shopster you get a whole week (FREE) to check out their system and get to see the prices of products to decide if you want to stay on as a customer. So why didn’t you just cancel?
Let’s talk about price - have you ever noticed that every store in the world is NOT a Wal-Mart? what a crazy concept- other stores exist? And they sell for more than Wal-Mart? If i were to use your.
I see you like to use examples so i did a quick search for “Canon DR-2580C Pass-Through Scanner”
Top 10 results on Shopping.com
Scantastic - $664
Fax - $316
PCNation - $653
NewEgg - $662
SuperWarehouse - $759
PCRush.com - $752
Buy.com - $333
Amazon.com - $361
PCConnection - $729
Dell - $789
WOW! What a range - 300 - 800 bucks for the same scanner. And these aren’t ripoff companies, is Dell a ’scam’ or how about PC connection - a fortune 1000 company? I guarantee you a company like PC connection sell its scanners - or they wouldn’t carry them and wouldn’t advertise them.
My point here is that in retailing price varies. A retailers job is to find a market/customer that will buy.
Of course you want the cheapest price, its only natural. But THINK - If you can get products cheaper and you think buying your own inventory, and shipping it out and being responsible for fraud, and for returns and for customer service and taxes and all the other BS in retailing, then go do it yourself.
After reading all your whining its obvious that your real complaint is that you didn’t do your homework, didn’t know your customers, didn’t understand who you were selling to and ultimately failed - what kind of ridiculous store did you have that sold baseballs and earrings? What you thought you could compete with Amazon head on and sell everything? Successful elling isn’t random, its planned, its strategic and thoughtful.
The obvious truth is that you didn’t do your due diligence and want to complain. No one did you wrong. If you called my staff names and harassed them i would kick you out too.
You are a ridiculous little man randy, anyone with even a modicum of intelligence can see that you are just a petulant child. Grow up!
Jason, when a company advertises 700,000 products “Wholesale” and you find that their wholesale prices are higher than the average retail price then it really isn’t “Wholesale” now is it? Even a narrow minded schmuck like you should be capeable of seeing that. You wouldn’t go to Best Buy, purchase 1000 items retail and expect to turn a profit by trying to sell them on a website, would you?
My complaint is that when a company like Shopster claims to have 700,000 products wholesale and then when joining you find out the products offered are higher than your local retail store, you feel ripped off.
It’s deceptive advertising. Had Shopster been honest about their price structure I would not haved joined.
Jason, the reason your head can fit inside your butt is because it’s so small.
Oh.. for anyone who is following randy’s spamming of the internet - sportguy/randy and several other ‘handles’ are all the same person.
He does it so people will think that more people actually agree with him - but its just him talking to himself.
LOL!! Good on you Jason! Yes he is doing that. Also I had a great read from your posting. Yes most of us that knew Randy are trying to tell him that it is his fault. Plus, he actually says I am spamming and he just did 6 posts in a row after mine.
lol I’m sybil. people know I’m sportguy and the only reason I used anonymous was because this blog sometimes blocks my posts. but heck, I like talking to myself…Shut up!…No, you shut up! I’m Randy…No, you’re Sportguy!
Shopster should cut me a check for all the people that I brought to their site. Now the world knows my true marketing talents.
Randy, I will air your message about Shopster on my show. Thanks for calling
Shopster is a third party drop shipping company that has no access to the products shipped. 700,000 is just an arbitrary number they pulled out of their bottom. The fact is, Shopster has no control over their suppliers inventory. Products being offered by Shopster’s suppliers are Not exclusive to Shopster; therefore once an item sells out due to other companies selling the same items offered, the Rshops are S.O.L. (Sh*t out of luck)
Shopster claims they drop suppliers that don’t ship out what they offer but is that how you want your third party drop shipper to due business? If Shopster can’t arrange for a certain number of same item products to be held exclusively for Shopster then the Rshop owner is taking a tremendous risk. For the amount of time and effort the Rshop owner puts into his/her shop each day, they need to know that if Shopster’s warehouse claims to have 100 of a specific product, the product will be available when a customer purchases that product.
I’ve received an email from Shopster 2 days after a product was sold on my rshop stating that the product had been discontinued. The very next day the product was still listed in Shopster’s warehouse saying there were twelve of that item still remaining. Needless to say, the sale failed to go through and I didn’t make my $1.18 profit.
Shopster needs to have more control over their suppliers inventory. If not,this sort of thing will put Shopster out of business. How can you trust a company that doesn’t provide the service that you as an rshop owner are paying for?
More about Shopster: http://shopsterisdeceptive.blogspot.com/
Shopster’s 7 Day Free Trial is NOT Free!
In order to get the 7 day trial, you must hand over your credit card info. By doing this, you allow Shopster access to your account. Legally Shopster can withdraw funds from your credit card since you agree to the terms and policies. Legally Shopster can take funds from your credit card BEFORE the 7 day trial ends. If you try to have your money refunded past the 7 day period, you will fail. Shopster’s policies state “NO REFUNDS!”
Are you sure you want to join Shopster? It takes more than 7 days to build a website, and you can ONLY sell the crap that Shopster offers. You cannot sell your own products.
If a customer happens to purchase something from your site, will your customer receive the product ordered? Mine didn’t. Shopster failed to provide service for my customer. I received an email stating the product was discontinued, yet, the very next day the Shopster warehouse still indicated there were 12 of that item left for purchase. Hmmm. Does Shopster REALLY have 700,000 products?
Do yourself a big favor, save your money. There are companies out there that really allow you to make “Unlimited profits”, Shopster isn’t one of them.
http://shopstersucks.blogspot.com/
SportGuy, Randy, and whatever other names you choose to call yourself [probably back door and bunker D] this issue has been covered ad nauseum in the Shopster ABW forum: http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=85694&page=1&pp=25.
You are posting absolute nonsense above. Additionally, the trial is exactly what it says - A TRIAL! The point is not to build an entire store in the time-frame but to use the system and see if it offers what you are looking for. It takes much longer than 7 days to build any sort of successful online business…If you don’t like it and you cancel your subscription [one click through the Shopster software] that’s it. You pay NOTHING. There are no tricks like you wrongly insinuate.
Shopster’s products are far from crap. In fact a lot of the inventory are brand name items…
If you spent as much time building a business as you do attacking Shopster I’m sure you would be a happier [and richer] person.
Randy, I’m very sorry for Sheldon’s remarks. I will personally break open my piggy bank and refund your money. I will even offer you a position as President of Marketing. You have proven yourself as a marketing guru. Your negative posts have made Shopster over 1.5 million dollars in the past month. Thank you Randy.
I have become tired of Randy using this board as a personal vendetta against a company that he is for whatever reason not happy with.
The following Names of posters above have all posted with Randy’s IP address: Please be aware that this is one person posting under multiple Identities and his comments concerning Shopster should be taken for what they are, Emotionally charged and illogical.
Funny thing is, I don’t Knit and I do not plan to take up knitting.. See ya soon:)
First, I want to thank everyone who contributed by way of responding. The more you respond, the more you feed. Second, I think Heather should do a Playboy spread. I think she’s wasting her time with the company she’s with. It’s time for her to cash in while she still can. Third, Sarath is a girls name. I think he should change it to Fred. Fourth, James Nardell is worthless.
Heather,
We all knew Randy was taking up other names and such. Good thing you came out and posted that in fact it is all his IPs. I kind of figured the one’s you mentioned. He is a liar and this only proves it.
Randy move on. I don’t knit, I crochet, and trust me I still take up time crocheting, web marketing, and what ever else I do. Your time should be trying to find another way to fight off your anger, you have lost and trust me there are still many people coming to Shopster. There are plenty of happy customers.
Heather writes: “I have become tired of Randy using this board as a personal vendetta against a company that he is for whatever reason not happy with.
The following Names of posters above have all posted with Randy’s IP address: Please be aware that this is one person posting under multiple Identities and his comments concerning Shopster should be taken for what they are, Emotionally charged and illogical.
Funny thing is, I don’t Knit and I do not plan to take up knitting.. See ya soon:)”
Wow Heather, thanks for clearing that up for the stupid people.
I read an article about shopster and it said that i can make some money. please tellme are these article true about shopster or false because i dont need to waste my money on a bad company. please email me with the correct info and be truthful to me. Question, am i getting product at a sellable price with a good profit,am i going to have products in stock for customers when they buy,is there a return policy in effect,are you going to take care of the customer ,how much of a markup on products,is jewelry a good selling item in your product line,is the store front easy to setup,is it best to specialize in one catagory, i must believe in a company trust and loyalty before i can join a company.i was about to join until i read articles.please email me shopster.thanks, willie
More people have filed complaints with the BBB about Shopster. The BBB is now having Shopster modify their advertising claim “Unlimited Profits”. Click the BBB button on the bottom of Shopster’s website.
Shopster is definitely a scam. I was with them for 8 months. I sold and they pocketed the margins. You set up your own margins. Say…10%…20%, but after everything is sold, Shopster makes their calculations, and you realize that you only got maybe 5% if you are lucky.
They sell their products at a very high price to start with anyway, so it’s hard to compete. Plus the fixed costs (website, advertising, their monthly charge) are such as you lose money no matter what. Don’t believe their employees posing as business people trying to convince you of the contrary. You can’t break even.
They ignore your emails when you tell them about it.
Now, at the end of the month, they send you a check…say for $12 for your efforts…Now surprise!!! The check is on a Canadian bank, and US banks take fees for every check ($5 or more). So basically, you end up realizing that your worked for Shopster and your bank for free (well, almost).
Shopster is definitely a scam. I was with them for 8 months. I sold and they pocketed the margins. You set up your own margins. Say…10%…20%, but after everything is sold, Shopster makes their calculations, and you realize that you only got maybe 5% if you are lucky.
They sell their products at a very high price to start with anyway, so it’s hard to compete. Plus the fixed costs (website, advertising, their monthly charge) are such as you lose money no matter what. Don’t believe their employees posing as business people trying to convince you of the contrary. You can’t break even.
They ignore your emails when you tell them about it.
Now, at the end of the month, they send you a check…say for $12 for your efforts…Now surprise!!! The check is on a Canadian bank, and US banks take fees for every check ($5 or more). So basically, you end up realizing that your worked for Shopster and your bank for free (well, almost).
I unfortunately have to agree with the criticisms of this business. Shopster is a good concept but its company doesn’t execute this business plan well for its sellers. The main problem with Shopster is that it’s not search engine friendly so you will have a very hard time getting customers. They make it difficult to optimize the webpages (by meta tags, titlepage, url, or descriptions) for the products! Shopster also marks up the “wholesale” price of the products so much that you hardly earn a profilt when you do sell something (1-5% profit). Yes, you can control the selling price but if you go higher, you will never sell anything due to competition. You also have to pay a monthly fee to keep the store open so if you sell nothing you still have to pay! Also their inventory is not always correct so you lose the sale! And you pay a $99 non refundable set up fee just to open the store! So after all the expenses, you can make more money working hourly at McDonalds!
Shopster uses very deceitful tactics. The “wholesale pricing” they offer to you in their marketing is 100% unattainable. Once you pay to sign up, you discover they jack up your “wholesale price” by 3.9%. But they tell you that you get to keep all of your profit, until you discover they are keeping 3.5% of YOUR PROFIT for themselves. It won’t take you too long to find out how much of YOUR PROFIT is being siphoned off by Shopster; unfortunately, it won’t be after they’ve collected your non-refundable payment.
If you used Shopster in the past and want the 3.5% they took from your profits, just simply petition the BBB of Calgary, http://www.betterbusinessbureau.ca. Tell them Shopster’s agreement said that NO FEES would be taken from your profit and that they kept 3.5% of your profits. After I filed my complaint, (case 1150176) Shopster admitted that their Agreement was missing “overlooked discrepancies” and sent me my refund. Funny how those overlooked discrepancies can translate into up to 75% of your profit being kept by Shopster.
Other problems:
–Shopster does NOT own any items they offer to you to sell. THEY ARE A MIDDLEMAN SERVICE, NOT A WHOLESALER! Since they don’t own the items….
–Their inventory numbers are completely whacked, what has hundreds in stock one day is discontinued the next. What costs $9 in shipping one day, costs $158 the next. When you auction an item on EBay and it winds up not in stock, guess who gets stuck with the fees and the negative feedback?
–Shopster gave a customer of mine a bad shipping price and when Shopster discovered the bad price, they just cancelled the order on him citing a “bad shipping addess”. When the customer re-ordered with the correct shipping price, Shopster said the bad address suddenly was good and delivered to that very same address that they said was bad.
–SEO Optimization on Shopster sites doesn’t work, don’t waste your time trying to optimize it.
–They censor their support board to stifle member communication about problems with Shopster.
–They brag about how awesome they and their clients are doing, but when pressed for proof, they come up with none. A person once posted on Shospter’s board asking anyone who had made a profit with Shopster to reply and guess how many people replied saying they did? NONE. What else do you need to know?
Caveat Emptor
Don’t bother with Shopster. The base prices are outrageously high, forcing retailers into little to no profit margin, their shipping charges are astronomical and constantly fluctuating which drives business away, and their customer service is beyond horrible. I am a retailer with Shopster, and will soon be switching to another wholesaler. Shopster does not provide listings for Google because Google refuses to work with Shopster. Therefore, the largest search engine in the world is off limits to everything you sell through your online store (rshop). They host an internal chat room, allowing shopster retailers the opportunity to discuss their online stores. Anything negative posted about Shopster is promptly removed by Johnny K, and you are sent an e-mail. Any questioning of pricing on the forum is removed as well, including any complaints regarding anything at all really. Believe me — don’t waste your money and especially your time walking through this process. The few website templates they offer are as bland as they come, and a readily identifiable by everyone who has ever set one of these things up. So should you decide to continue on and sign up for Shopster, to you I say “You have been warned!”
SHRKB8,
I remember JohnnyK and Zach as being very unprofessional with me as well. I used to have the Live Chat enabled on my store but when I realized it was JohnnyK and Zach that my customers were chatting to, I cancelled the Live Chat.
Zach and JohnnyK also told me flat out lies about how badly they MIS-handled a very important order that would’ve made me over $250 profit. Shopster unilaterally cancelled the order because the shipping price was incorrect. (Shopster is the one who sets the shipping price by the way) They told me it was cancelled because the customer gave a “Bad Shipping Address”. But the DAY AFTER Shopster cancelled the order on me they changed the shipping price on the item from $9 to $215!! That’s right, from $9 to $215! They swore up and down that they told my customer about the increase but my customer insisted he was never contacted. Support said it was a Live Chat they had with him; my customer said no way. So I asked Support for the transcript of the chat (since they said they keep all of them). Guess what? That one single chat I had with them somehow got “lost” and could never be recovered. Yeah, right. Then they said, “Oh it was actually a phone call we had with him”, again my customer said he never ever heard from anyone at Shopster. So I asked Shopster for any phone record to back it up. They couldn’t find that either. Complete BS. Liars, pathetic liars and even when they were caught in their lies and knew they were caught, they kept right on lying.
At any rate, I wanted to get this order out to the customer at the original price he ordered it because that is the right thing to do, but Shopster would have NOTHING to do with “making things right” with my customer, and I personally had to eat the difference just so that the customer would get what he ordered from my store at the price he ordered it at. Oh and the 2nd time he put in his order, that “Bad Shipping Address” was the EXACT SAME address that they ultimately delivered the order to!
When I posted a comment on the Shopster board asking if this shipping price problem had happened to anyone else…just like SHRKB8 noted, JohnnyK deleted my post and told me not to discuss support matters with others. I’ve probably had 4-5 posts deleted by support, and all were very important matters that other Shopster clients needed to be aware of, but that is Shopster’s way of keeping things buried. Lie and delete, then tell the sheep all is fine.
I defy anyone from Shopster to come in here and post a different account of this matter, those two kids Zach and JohnnyK both know it’s true.
As a current shopster retailer, there are more than a few things you should know prior to joining the shopster community. First and foremost, don’t believe much of anything Shopster advertises. While that should be common sense, they have a very effective marketing department whose sole aim is to attract new retailers to create new rshops, thus making Shopster money. The online retail business is tough. Actually it’s not tough, it’s almost near impossible!!! Profit margins are quite low, and advertising is difficult without shelling out more than a few bucks. Shopster does offer many ideas as to how to market your business, but truthfully, very few of them make sense if you are looking to make money to live on, or even go out for an evening or two per month! In addition to the marketing aspect, you have to deal with Shopster’s rather high wholesale pricing. Shopster does in deed have many products which are far below normal retail pricing, but those are also the products most likely to sit in your store and not be sold. The most popular items are at best at current retail price or above. In a nutshell, this means you are attempting to sell the most popular products being sold online for more than almost everyone else. When your business model depends on price, Shopster is no help. Assuming you finally make a sale, a company called secure2u conducts the transaction, and without your attention or effort, the sale is put through and you collect profit. Shopster, not one to miss out on an opportunity to cash in on your effort, removes 3.75% of your profit. So basically should you sell 1 product for the month for $100, and the profit is $10, you will see a check in the mail to you in the amount of $6.25. Doesn’t sound too bad right? Well take the previous comment about high wholesale pricing into account, coupled with the ridiculous 3.75% surcharge and your profit margins become very very small indeed in addition to the monthly charge Shopster charges you to keep your store online and active. I am not bashing shopster since I have in fact made money from my shop, but, there is very real and distinct feeling that I could be making more money elsewhere.
As for others who comment about postings on the internal Shopster blogs which are critical of Shopster in anyway — it is 100% accurate. A guy whose screen name is Johnny K will remove any comment which is deemed to be somewhat negative towards Shopster. For instance, I found identical products which were offered cheaper through another retailer’s site (not even a wholesaler, but a retailer), posted it on the board and asked why pricing couldn’t be better. A terse response and a locked message board was what followed. Any comment questioning why pricing can’t be better, why better contracting with the wholesalers can not result in better pricing is immediately removed and you are subsequently forwarded a stock e-mail indicating you must play nice with Shopster’s delicate sensibilities.
As for Sarath’s comments, Shopster is not unique. There are dozens upon dozens of online dropshippers who all compete for your business. Shopster is unique in that they charge higher wholesale prices and extract a precentage of your profits, but otherwise, they are just a run of the mill dropshipping company.
In addition, prior to signing up with Shopster, it would be wise to check with the Canadian Better Business Bureau (Shopster is based in Canada). They have more than a few Shopster complaints filed.
-Jim