Don't Get A ProStore
With ProStores offering something for free to some sellers (in response to Vendio's new Stores, I think), some clients are asking me if they should just get a ProStore. Some are thinking about shutting of their other eCommerce sites to get a ProStore. I think I need to say something out loud here. Sorry if anybody's offended, but you know me. :)
Don't get a ProStore. Just don't. They're not ready for eBay sellers. If you do NOT sell on eBay, a ProStore may be fine. If you sell on eBay, a ProStore is not what you probably think it is.
- ProStores won't list to other marketplaces. If you are looking for a multi-channel solution that will take your items, list them to eBay, put them on an eCommerce site, and list them to other marketplaces, that's unlikely to be a ProStore any time soon. When do YOU think eBay will build in the feature of listing your items to Amazon? :) So if you're looking for multi-channel, as most sellers are right now, ProStores won't be your solution.
- ProStores can't take custom HTML templates for eBay listings. Yes, you can design a ProStore, but you cannot take an item in your ProStore, and send it to eBay with one of our templates wrapped around it. Many of our clients are used to doing this with their Vendio, Inkfrog, ChannelAdvisor, Marketworks, Kyozou, Auctiva, Infopia, Blackthorne, etc... ProStores does NOT do templates for eBay, so if you are our client, there is no good way to deal with our HTML templates inside ProStores.
- Last I heard, eBay thinks you should list with Blackthorne, manage things with Selling Manager Pro, and then also use ProStores. So eBay suggests three tools where I suggest ONE tool (like Vendio, Inkfrog, ChannelAdvisor's Marketplace Advisor Premium). I think that the more tools you use, the more likely you are to work inefficiently.
- ProStores is not an eBay listing tool. It's just really not. 3 years ago, ProStores was a company called Kurant who build their eCommerce system. eBay bought it, renamed it ProStores, and has confused people ever since. eBay never built this to seamlessly integrate with all that is eBay. They've been adding these features over time, though don't get too excited by the word "adding" since I haven't seen that much added in 3 years.
- ProStores says hey, don't worry. We'll import your items from eBay, and you won't have to work too hard putting in your inventory. I say hey, don't totally believe that. Yes, they can import from eBay, but your items will come in from eBay EXACTLY as they look now. If you use a listing border, that will come in. If you use one of our templates, that will come in. If your listing has links to your eBay Store, About Me, or other areas of eBay, that will come in too. That means someone shopping your ProStore might see a designed listing dropped inside a designed eCommerce site (ugh) with links OFF your eCommerce site back to eBay. I'm going to call that not a good idea!
- Don't rush to shut off another site. What many sellers don't realise is that each eCommerce site is a different experience for your shopper. Some are awesome, easy, and more likely to make sales. Some are clunky. Some eCommerce systems go REALLY well and naturally into search engines like Google, helping your items show up more and higher. Some eCommerce systems stink at this. Don't just go by the price of a system. There is more to think about when it comes to a successful shopping cart website. Best to let multiple systems run at the same time, and test them. When you searched Google, what came up higher? Which had people staying on the site longer? Which had people making more sales or higher $ of sales? These are the sites to keep. :)
Sorry I'm not towing the eBay line on this one, but I just can't in good conscience recommend this tool for anybody who sells on eBay or is looking to do the multi-channel thing. If you are looking for JUST a website with NO other marketplaces, maybe ProStores could be a solution for you. I'd still want you to compare it to BuyItSellIt.com, Vendio, epages, etailcomplete, and maybe a few others.
But if you sell on eBay and especially if you sell on multiple marketplaces, a ProStore is just not the right solution, even for free.
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I agree - I played around with ProStores once with their free trial and it scared the hell out of me - didn't seem to be user friendly at all - that was just my experience of course!
Posted by: The Evenger | Friday, 20 March 2009 at 04:41 AM
This is a Good review from one who knows! Thanks Deb!
Posted by: Renagade | Friday, 20 March 2009 at 04:48 AM
Good review Debbie. One more negative that I believe you missed. I tried ProStores in November. I got rid of it in less than 24 hours. That was because although it imported my eBay items, it did NOT import my custom categories.
I have almost 8,000 items in about 200 different categories. I would have had to create the categories, and individually move the items into those categories, which would have taken forever.
Further, the main reason I decided to sign up for Prostores is that they touted a Pay per Action advertising campaign. they said they would advertise, and you would only pay for a click-through if the customer made a purchase. I assumed the advertising would be in Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. I found out after I signed up that they were only advertising on eBay. I felt like they misled me, and were snake oil salesmen. By the way, they have since discontinued that program.
So while everything you said is accurate Debbie, signing up with Prostores is actually a worse move than you indicated.
Posted by: Larry Phillips | Friday, 20 March 2009 at 06:01 AM
Thanks, Larry. I didn't know that detail about categories.
I do know that some of my clients who call up and talk to ProStores people end up unhappy with that conversation. Many feel mislead about what the system does or doesn't do.
I still want to see eBay get rid of outside advertising. I don't know another site that does that. It's not on Amazon. I can't think of a good reason to take eBay shoppers away from eBay!
Posted by: Debbie Levitt | Friday, 20 March 2009 at 06:05 AM
I have a ProStores web site. I am making it work for me... but I agree with you. It is not for most eBay sellers. It is eBay AND seller unfriendly.
They refuse to implement Google checkout despite many requests (of course, eBay owns them and PayPal)... and yet they also refuse to completely integrate with eBay and PayPal.
And, just like the parent company, trying to talk to any one in charge is an exercise in futility... just like the parent company they are an arrogant, anti-seller, "we know more than you silly sellers" bunch. You can't get them to communicate, admit any problems, talk about any shortcoming, or take any suggestions. Sounds like eBay management, doesn't it?
I can not abandon two years of work at my ProStores site, but I can also NOT recommend them.
Posted by: Yep! | Friday, 20 March 2009 at 09:28 AM
You guys are just figuring this out? I was the first one to say Prostores SUCKS three years ago!
Posted by: Gary | Friday, 20 March 2009 at 11:33 AM
Pro-stores are not intuitive, not easy to set up and not "visible" without major marketing work and expenditure on the part of the store owner. For what they charge, they should be ashamed for their product.
I got a free trial last April and fiddled with it for 6 mos. And gave up the day they started charging - not one sale.. Listen to Debbie - DON'T DO IT!
Posted by: Beth Cherkowsky | Saturday, 21 March 2009 at 02:51 PM
Hi all -
Would like to address some of the comments here.
First, I have to admit that we have an opportunity to build a better integration with eBay. I do think though that the updates to the auto-import on sign-up - which does include custom categories (not sure what happened with your import Larry - perhaps a bug that we have since fixed or that you encountered on that particular day) - make ProStores a viable way for eBay sellers to launch their own Web store.
To address Deb's point 5 above, we have a number of things that are coming out this summer and fall that will remove some of the formatting in eBay item descriptions - including javascript, flash, css (optional), images and links.
Also, we recently introduced a tabbed product detail page that only reveals the long description (where we put the eBay item description) when that specific tab is clicked - giving you some leeway/time to edit that on the ProStores side - once edited we will not update based on changes you make on the eBay side.
These are not 100% perfect solutions - but an indication that we are working on making ProStores easier to use for eBay sellers.
On PayPal integration, if you sign up for PayPal Website Payments Pro from within ProStores it will automatically provision the account - I think we're one of the few store solutions that offers this. Are there other PayPal integrations you're looking for? Or aspects of our PayPal integration you find lacking?
On the cost-per-action marketing tool - we encountered more challenges than we anticipated with the open beta so we went to a closed beta in December to continue to work towards making it work for as many sellers as possible. We are making an honest effort on that - and we do indeed advertise on channels other than eBay at this point for merchants in the closed beta.
In sum, we are not anti-seller. In fact, I advocate constantly for a more seamless integration between ProStores, eBay, and other seller tools. And I would ask that you consider that there are actual, hard-working, honest people behind this product who work hard every day to make ProStores better.
If anyone would like to talk to me personally - feel free to email me: lin@prostores.com.
Thank you -
Lin
Sr Manager - ProStores Marketing and Sales
Posted by: Lin | Monday, 23 March 2009 at 08:55 AM
Oh come on now. This was too harsh Deb. ProStores is not a bad platform at all. They have introduced the tabbed interface which "hides" the messy eBay template, and you are right about not a good listing tool. We have worked with ProStores to try to resolve this by getting just one tiny custom field added for header. Sort of like the display store setting in eBay, I'll keep pushing it, and thanks for your article I think it makes my point perfectly.
But in the overall, ProStores is Good for SEO, it's good for ease of use and it does interface in some respects with eBay. Try doing that with another ecom. and let me know if you find one out there that does any of it at all.
Posted by: aGenius | Friday, 27 March 2009 at 03:41 PM
We can do ProStores too, but they're just not right for our clients.
It doesn't make sense for me to take someone's money to design a ProStore when there are SO MANY other great options out there for people.
I do know of other eCom systems that interface with eBay, some better than others. Vendio, ChannelAdvisor, etailcomplete, epages, and a bunch I am just starting to learn about.
Posted by: Debbie Levitt | Friday, 27 March 2009 at 05:01 PM
Thank you for the insight. I currently sell through eBay, ProStores, Etsy and ArtFire. Is there a program that you would suggest for someone looking for an efficient way to upload listings to these and possibly other ecommerce sites? Thank you.
Posted by: Cindy | Wednesday, 08 April 2009 at 08:30 AM
Hi, Cindy. I have to admit that I have not yet heard of one tool that'll handle all of these.
I think that Etsy is JUST now opening up to software developers, so I hope that tools will soon list to them.
But as far as I know, only ProStores lists to ProStores, or you can import from eBay. You have lots of options for eBay. I don't think you have any options yet for Etsy. And I've never heard of ArtFire!
:)
Posted by: Debbie Levitt | Wednesday, 08 April 2009 at 09:51 AM
Unfortunately, we went with Prostores, and it has been one nightmare after another.
Aside from the fact that the store admin interface is completely buggy and that their servers are obviously way overtaxed right now, nothing is working the way it's supposed to.
I am a .NET programmer, and have been coding in various languages for almost 2 decades now, and I am appalled that this solution is being offered to anyone in production. The coding is terrible, and it doesn't appear to have been QA'd. Ever. Even the support guy that we call in our issues to has admitted to us that it's awful.
We've had a case open for 2 months now with no resolution, and we have customers who cannot make a purchase on our store because of buggy code. I'm not even going to go into the supposed ebay feed that never works and the fact that what the support team recommends is that you double list all of your items. (Ha??)
I'm at wits end - my rec is if you are selling more than 100 items in your store and expect good integration with ebay, don't use Prostores. In fact, my rec would be to never use Prostores for anything.
At this point I am seriously considering coding my own storefront using ecommerce, even though I didn't want to have to code my store.
So much time and energy wasted on an inferior product. I'm going to go eat some chocolate now.
Thanks for this post.
Posted by: Dawn Laciak | Monday, 27 April 2009 at 12:41 PM
p.s. your items WILL come in from ebay, over and over and over again. It adds relists as new items.
Currently, my stock of about 400 items is in the thousands.
And, it ends things listed in ebay that customers have put in their cart BEFORE they are paid for.
And, it doesn't always end auctions on ebay that have been purchased in Prostores. I've had to refund purchases on about 4 things just this month that people have purchased on Prostores of items that were already sold on ebay.
DOH.
Posted by: Dawn Laciak | Monday, 27 April 2009 at 12:44 PM
I am looking something that will go with my thousands of products that I run on eBay motors. eBay motors is not really looked as into, or wasn't at one time, as the rest of the categories.
I want something I can intergrate with eBay as well as quickbooks. I was looking into prostores and got the go ahead to start it. But I build websites and know what hard work it is. I don't want to do all this hard work for nothing.
Also, if I HAVE to put all the subcategories and categories in myself, I can use ecommerce or zencart for free.
Any suggestions?
I can provide ebay store if needbe.
Posted by: Michelle | Monday, 27 April 2009 at 01:29 PM
I know I'm a little late for chiming in here, but I just found this "discussion".
_____________________________
I have an eBay Store (6 years now) and have a ProStores Store (2nd year)....
...I will agree with all of you, and that the things listed in this thread also bug me about Prostores.
I have too much time invested in Prostores to just throw it away. I am constantly broadening my computer intelligence with regards to tweaking the system.
I keep running into problems as I go along, but I have gotten most of them figured out.
It took quite a few months for me too see my first sale, but now I'm doing OK. I say "OK" because it's not great. I am making a few sales to pay for the ProStores account every month, and maybe a little more.
ProStores is moving their location right now, but up until then, when I eMailed them, they got back to me within 48 hours. Now, I'm lucky to get an eMail back at all. Hopefully this will correct itself when they get back to normal.
They seem to change things all the time and not let the sellers know they did, so it screws up some of the code (when you use a Custom Home Page)....then they say it has always been like that. Yeah right!
I pretty much have my Site like I want it, but it was a lot of hard work. I also did extensive research on SEO, and I think that has paid off tremendously. There is a lot of information on SEO for free on the internet....I haven't paid a penny for it! The SEO does make a difference.
Just some thoughts.
Posted by: Billy | Thursday, 02 July 2009 at 02:48 AM
BIG MISTAKE. I signed up to Prostore for their "free" subscription, and after two days of sheer frustration. Decided to cancel this. They give you 15 minutes to sign on or you have to re sign on. Well the little clock keeps whirlling aroung where they click you off before you can do anything. I cancels this like 5 times. They ignore the cancellation.
Then, upon cancelling this these creeps keep on billing me. Stealing money from my bank account. In which they recieved information from my paypal who says that they know i cancelled. I am putting on every thing I have not to subscribe to anything prostores on every site I go to, if my money is not returned.
They have no e-mail address evidently that even works.
Do not waste your money or even subscribe to any thing "free" because they will bill you anyway.
Looking for a lawyer in a class action suit against paypal giving out bank information to the corrupt Prostores.
STAY SAFE AND FAR AWAY FROM PROSTORES.
Posted by: MARY | Friday, 08 January 2010 at 05:51 AM
I have most of the same frustrations. I went with Prostores because of the ebay integration, but found I would be better off listing on Ebay manually.
Prostores is buggy and it wastes a lot of my time. I'm looking into paying more money to get a better ecommerce host. Any suggestions would be helpful.
Posted by: Mike | Tuesday, 20 April 2010 at 11:07 AM
Prostores still sucks - listing an item to ebay is a chore and after you get it to list to ebay you have to go to ebay to correct it. Ebay changes with updates and prostores is never in sync. My personal nightmare.
Posted by: Ron Giesin | Wednesday, 29 September 2010 at 05:03 AM
Bad mistake to go with Prostores. I have had one problem after another. Although I have shipping set up for each product with carrier, weight and dimensions it keeps listing my products with free shipping. Not only was it listed incorrectly in Google Shopping but most recently did not calculate any shipping for my products when purchased at my store. My profit went to pay for shipping when I don't offer free shipping. I have contacted the help desk and done online help tickets. They never fix the problem. The answer they give does not even make sense and then they are quick to close the ticket. This has been one of the worst experiences I have had and there is enough to focus on without worrying about if your paid for website is functioning properly. Stay away from Prostores. They charge a monthly fee and also get 5% of purchase price on each item you sale.
Posted by: Belinda Scimeca | Sunday, 07 November 2010 at 09:46 PM