| OVERLOOKED DISCREPANCIES | MORE RESOURCES | TOP 10 | HONEST ANALYSIS |
OVERLOOKED DISCREPANCIES
My online store used to be inventoried from a service called Shopster.com.
I would like to explain to you how this company treated their own customers.
In short, they deceived us. Shopster.com admitted to the BBB of Calgary that they had "overlooked
some discrepancies" that were conveniently left off of their contract with
me
(and everyone else who has signed up with Shopster). What Shopster had left off
of their contract was that Shopster will be keeping a nice chunk of OUR profit for THEMSELVES.
I found it convenient of Shopster to forget to mention this, don't you?
Ultimately, I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau of Calgary to get Shopster to live up to the terms of their contract with me and send me my rightfully earned profits. After I filed my complaint with the BBB, I got my refund check, and Shopster then decided I had broken the terms of their Agreement and stopped providing me services. I asked Shopster.com in four separate emails to clearly identify exactly what part I broke and they have yet to get back to me. Four times, one simple request, silence. This is as of December 10th, 2010.
| Here is what Shopster sent to the Better Business Bureau about me: | "Since responding to this complaint to the BBB, and despite our best efforts to work with him, it has been brought to our attention that he has been contacting our clients in such a way that may have the effect of damaging the goodwill of Shopster." |
Interested to know how I was damaging the "goodwill" of Shopster? After Shopster.com informed the BBB of what they were doing and sent me my refund check, I contacted my fellow Shopster clients to tell them how to get their wrongfully kept profits back.
| Here is what I wrote to the BBB about Shopster's "goodwill" |
To state that I may have the effect of damaging their
goodwill is ludicrous. All I did was inform my colleagues that they were not
getting the profit Shopster agreed to pay them. I explained the route I took
to force Shopster to pay me my rightfully earned profit. I contacted my colleagues because I have morals and it was the ethical thing to do in this matter. If Shopster had morals and ethics (or the goodwill it claims to have) it would be unilaterally refunding the thousands of dollars they are keeping from their clients. But they have not and they will not. I saw my colleagues being mistreated by Shopster and I informed them of that. If Shopster says that wasn't nice, well neither is Shopster for keeping the thousands of dollars of wrongfully kept profits instead of correctly paying it out in accordance with their Agreement. |
If you use(d) the Shopster service and Shopster
refuses to give you your money back,
you can contact
the BBB of Calgary:
http://www.betterbusinessbureau.ca.
Inform the BBB in your complaint that the Shopster agreement stated that they
would not take out any fees and that Shopster did take out 3.5% in fees.
AN HONEST ANALYSIS OF A SHOPSTER
RETAILER TRANSACTION
Below is an example of what you can expect when you work with Shopster.
This is exactly how it went in my experience with Shopster. Let's say you're going to try and sell a Nintendo Wii video game, (which was one
of the most popular items in my Shopster store.)
|
Item |
A Nintendo Wii Zelda Video Game |
|
$389.49 |
|
|
$404.66 |
THIS is what actually becomes the "wholesale price" when a client tries to
sell it. It is also the actual price Shopster should be marketing clearly
as the “wholesale price” because this is the absolute minimum price any
Shopster client can sell this unit at. In their Agreements and marketing
material a
person is led to believe it’s the above price of $389.49. After you
sign up and Shopster gets your non-refundable deposit, the $389.49 price disappears. |
|
3.9% |
This is the percent Shopster marks up your "wholesale price" AFTER they have your non-refundable fee. |
|
|
Let's say this is what you sell the game for |
|
|
|
|
3.5% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
SUMMARY |
|
Unlimited |
This is what Shopster tells you beforehand what your “potential profit” for this item is, a ridiculous claim that the BBB told them they should stop using, but they still do. |
|
|
This is what Shopster marketed as my profit BEFORE I signed up ($408.90-$389.49) |
|
|
This is what I would actually get paid selling at $408.90 (($408.9-$404.66) - 3.5%) |
|
ripped off |
This is how you'll be feeling after realizing Shopster wasn't exactly honest with their Agreement. That person was me. Don't let it be you! |
WANT MORE ABOUT SHOPSTER.COM? READ ON...
SHOPSTER "SUCCESS" STORY??
A Shopster written article (that appears on their testimonials page) about a person Shopster once hyped on their front page as "the Shopster success story" brags about how much he sold, $200,000 IN SALES in one month!! Sounds too good to be true, right? No one could ever get him to explain to other Shopster users how much PROFIT he made on that $200,000 in SALES. Despite being pressed on the support boards, he never said that he made even a penny in PROFIT despite those simply magnificent sales numbers.
Shopster was pressed by myself and by other members on their support boards to release supporting details of the claims they made in their story, but Shopster refused and insisted that we just had to believe it was all true.
OK, SO HOW MUCH PROFIT DID HE MAKE?
As I said, the article (which was written by Shopster) NEVER mentions profit, the person NEVER mentioned
profit, Shopster REFUSED to mention profit. What does that tell you?
What would you rather hear about, the sales that make Shopster money or profit
that would make YOU money?
My personal belief is that he probably lost money on that $200,000 in sales.
It should also be noted that this person has shut down their Shopster store!
As it turned out, whenever I pressed Shopster for proof of any of their claims in their advertising materials or other marketing materials, I never got it. Not once, not ever. They just expect you to believe what they claim is true, no matter how ridiculous the claim. My suggestion to you is to question them often and I guarantee that you will be met with the same stone wall and deaf ears that I got.
Whenever I brought these issues up on their support boards, the threads were immediately DELETED by their support staff and they would email me telling me NOT to discuss those things on the support board.
Here are some other links that detail what other Shopster users have gone through:
http://shopsterisdeceptive.blogspot.com/
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/246/RipOff0246214.htm
http://shopstersucks.blogspot.com/
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8461205297330519946&postID=8973782341929508978&page=1
http://journeytocreatewealth.com/2008/04/17/muse-idea-using-shopster/
http://www.auctionsoftwarereview.com/software/shopster.asp
http://www.revenews.com/heatherpaulson/my-thumbs-up-dh-shopstercom/
You should also know that Shopster is not selling you anything at a TRUE wholesale price because it would be ILLEGAL to do so unless you held the proper wholesaling credentials. Their use of the word wholesale means "your base price".
Shopster is NOT a drop-shipper either. I discovered, while using their service, that they don't own any of the items and they do not ship any items, either. Shopster always kept the suppliers hidden from the clients. I never knew who I was actually "getting stuff" from, who was shipping it, where it was coming from, all I did know was that it wasn't from Shopster.
If any of you Shopster.com employs are reading this and care to refute a single word of it, I'm all ears.
If you want to add a link to your site or share your thoughts, I'm all ears, too.
Questions, comments, reactions? I'm all ears!