Storenvy

First off, I want to say that I found this site while searching for reliability of Storenvy to retailers. While the reviews are of concern, I am not sure how there could really be scam stores as described above (because PayPal handles billing and they are reputable).

I have a shop for USA made Christmas cards on both Storenvy and Etsy. I chose to have stores on both sites for several reasons:

1. Etsy is fairly well known and came highly recommended but Storenvy is their clear competition.
2. Etsy charges me a listing fee plus a selling fee for every sold item. Storenvy does not charge fees.
3. Etsy has many stores so I am crowded where Storenvy has fewer stores so it is easier to stand out (without paying for Etsy's internal advertising which doesn't get me ads on Google.
4. I planned to test and compare, then eventually go with only one store.

I've had the two shops open for a few weeks now but there are many reasons to like Storenvy better...but the above reviews and the two outages. On black Friday the site was down due to high traffic, and the following Friday it was down for maintenance at 5 pm. For this reason I am considering moving all my efforts to Etsy but I will likely still keep my Storenvy shop open. They have a lot of potential but they have a long way to go. I'd keep them, but they aren't ready to be the go-to ecommerce mall.

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

Personally, I would recommend Storenvy as a buyer. However, being that there are independent shops, a buyer should be aware of the shop and verify the shop. Use the shop if they have an eCommerce Store, Amazon Store, eBay, etc.

If the shop sells on Amazon, eBay, or Sears, normally the shop is legit. Amazon and eBay are very strict. If the seller sells on any of these platforms listed, it's more than likely that they are dependable.

If you are not sure, then email the seller and ask questions to see if they sell on either of the above platforms and how long they have been on there, as well as their own eCommerce site.

There are great products and great sellers. However, with all things, there will be crocks in every industry. They are out there. Just educate yourself prior to purchasing on any eCommerce site.

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

I've had my Storenvy account for 5, maybe 6 years now. I mostly go on there to browse but have made a few purchases. Most were good experiences, being given what I ordered in good timing and in good condition. There was one purchase where I received an email from the seller saying they don't use the site anymore and that they were canceling the order. The problem being lack of refund.

Overall, it's just like any other marketplace site, you have to be careful who you buy from.

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

Reading these reviews i must say that although i understand and agree people have had a bad experience it isn't really Storenvy's fault. The business is merely a hub for stores. Ultimately the burden lies upon the store owner for all fault. Having said that Storenvy should be taking steps to ensure that bad merchants are shut down. This is where places like Ebay are better because of their internal structure to do this adequately. Its not to say there are no scams from eBay either but they don't last long + because they own Paypal, there is better resolution available.

I am currently in the middle of setting up a store myself. To make a review on Storenvy specifically (not any individual seller), I would say its average.

The positives are its free and has a nice look to your store even at default. You have a general level of customization that anyone can do and it's user friendly.

The negatives, shipping is a PITA! There is very minimal play with how you structure shipping rates which will be a deterrent to many buyers. Also the structure limitations on how you can display your stock, a few extra basic feature are required. There are also a few bugs that need to be worked out, for example, transparency of images doesn't work in certain areas although it says it will.

Overall its a case of "you get what you pay for" which is nothing!

Personally I can't justify spending much if anything on other sites of the like. Plus others charge on a per sale basis just like ebay, where it cuts into your profit considerably. Clients expect free shipping now days and with selling low cost merchandise and being a small store without a ton of stock, make it even harder, at least its free to give it a try.

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

I ordered 3 items all of them reached me but only one had a tracking number which wasn't even connected to a package. One package came 5 days after ordering it and the other two came 18 days after I ordered them. So two packages were a bit late and either no tracking number or a wrong one. But there's so many interesting things on here that it makes up for some of the stores faults.

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

I use Storenvy to sell various electronics projects that I make. In short, you get what you pay for. If you're in a position like mine, where you expect all of your traffic to come from direct links, the only fees you'll end up paying will be the credit card transaction fees through Swipe, which are comparable to any other online venue I've used. If you're planning on making items searchable through their marketplace, they take a 10% commission on all sales, which can be pretty painful compared to a site like Etsy.

The reason for the two stars is the lack of features and poor support.

Features:

There's no way to set a weight for an item, which gets irritating if you're shipping orders in quantities of 50+ (no weight means no automated shipping label creation). Also, it's not possible to calculate shipping on the fly. You instead have to create a class of items (big vs small), then destination groups (domestic vs international). This means that if you're planning on shipping international, you have to manually calculate the shipping cost for every country and make a separate group for that country, or just charge a flat rate for all international orders.

There's also no way of mass communicating to people who are interested in your store. Storenvy provides a social network style option to "envy" or "follow" a store, but currently they don't provide a way to do things like automatically update your followers when you get a new product. It sounds like they're trying to implement that, but only for products that you make available in their market (which they take a 10% commission for).

They've recently started using ShippingEasy for their shipping plugin, which is a really great tool. Integration on the Storenvy side needs work though: as mentioned before, you can't specify a weight for the item, which neuters a decent bit of ShippingEasy's automation. Also, ShippingEasy will automatically update the storenvy order to be marked as shipped and provide a tracking number, but Storenvy doesn't provide an option to have this tracking number automatically emailed to customers.

Support:

There's no direct support line, it's all done through email, and turnaround times tend to be 2-4 days. The level of support has (in my experience) been pretty poor, which requires making a followup ticket on requests, which takes another 2-4 days to get a response. It would be really nice if there was an actual number to call or messenger style chat option to get live support.

Overall, if you're selling under 50 items a month, and your traffic is likely to come from direct links, Storenvy's a good option. If you're selling more than that, you'll hit headaches, but it's still manageable.

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

Unless you have everything in control and no questions, contacting anyone on the website will be extremely difficult if not impossible.

I ordered a necklace from a small shop less than a week ago and it has not arrived. I do not suspect the shop owner to be a scammer but I'm having difficulties tracking my package. I'm going to be traveling soon and I would like to be able to. After purchasing my necklace, I realized I needed to create an account to track my order, so I tried. Storenvy denies the email I used when purchasing my necklace, it says that there is already an account. There isn't, I even tried using the "I forgot my password", but I get an error page because there is no account. I created an account with my other email, because that seems to be the only way I can contact Storenvy. I emailed them 3 days ago and yet to get back a response. I asked the shop owner for a tracking number but she seems to be offline as well.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

The support started out okay although it has never been possible to actually talk to someone. They did, at least, respond to emails to support and the case form system worked. Now, all the sudden, they do not respond to emails directly to support other than to direct one to the system of filling out a case form. However, the cases get wiped out with no resolution. This is the worst support I've ever seen.

Other than support, it is a good place to sell. However,, when does one decide that if they can't get their support issues fixed they need to move on?

Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend

I never received my order. I contacted them via email and they never responded. I will have to report them to get my money back.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I ordered something through Storenvy in mid November that was supposed to be a Christmas present. The item hadn't shipped as of two weeks later and I contacted the store and they told me that they would ship it out and it would be here by Christmas. The holiday came and went. Now I am being told that because it was through PayPal (as all their orders are) they can't give a refund due to the fact that it is past 45 days. Complete waste of time and money, and poor customer service. Never using this site again!

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend

I order a pair of $30 for a concert and it's been two weeks and I never even got an email saying that it's shipped. I've wrote them at least four times and haven't got a single response.

Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend