Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

This post contains a Referal Code for 30% off your first month of List Perfectly! I do get a small percentage if you choose to use my code!

I wrote a blog post a while back about what I thought at the time to be a great tool for resellers looking to sell on multiple platforms. Vendoo had helped me grow my business in a much faster way than I thought possible, but soon the honeymoon phase came to an end and the MAJOR issues (for me anyways) started coming to light. From technical errors to poor customer service, the problems just didn't seem to end. Luckily, there was someone waiting in the wings, ready to swoop in and save the day.

I started with Vendoo at the beginning of COVID at the recommendation of a few other resellers. It seemed like a great way to easily cross-list my items and execute my relisting strategy. I signed up for a membership that cost me around $25-30 each month and set off on my journey into third-party cross-listing/re-listing services.

At first, everything was great. Vendoo was saving me time and increasing my sales. I had one or two technical issues in the first couple of weeks where I experienced problems with my listings duplicating within the platform after being saved. I reached out to them and didn't hear anything in response for about a month. By the time they did finally reach out about that issue, I had honestly forgotten about it. They did reimburse me for the month that I experienced the issues during and apologized for the problem, but the amount of time it took them to respond should have been my first red flag.

About two months into using Vendoo, I started experiencing problems with time out errors. I would try to delist an item, something I had to pay extra for, only to find that the site would glitch and time out, not removing the item. It would take up to 2 minutes for the page to reload after this problem, severely increasing the amount of time I was having to spend relisting each day.

I figured this was an issue with my computer or my internet at first, so I did the typical troubleshooting of clearing all cookies and cache, updating my web browser fully, and reinstalling the Vendoo extension. Unfortunately, none of these seemed to solve the problem, so I decided to reach out to Vendoo for more help.

They responded faster this time, however, they did not seem to really understand the problem. They wanted me to tell them exactly what listings I encountered this with and told me to troubleshoot using the methods I already attempted. I was frustrated because I did not remember what listings this was happening to at that point, and it seemed to be happening to all of my listings at some point each time I tried to relist.

Over the course of the next couple of months, I reached out to Vendoo customer service about the time out errors I was experiencing. Each time their response got vaguer. If I brought up more than one problem I had in one email and included the time out errors, they would ignore the time out issue altogether and only help me with the other problems I mentioned.

It was frustrating and made me feel completely ignored. At the same time, they were adding new platforms, which meant my subscription cost would most likely be going up in the near future. I started to heavily consider whether it was really worth it for me to keep this cost, with the treatment I was receiving from customer service and the technical errors that were hindering me from using the platform as effectively as I hoped to be able to.

Almost as if they sensed my longing for another service that could solve all my problems, I received a message on Instagram from a List Perfectly Affiliate. She offered to set up a phone call with me to go over the features of List Perfectly as well as fill me in on some opportunities to work with the company! I decided to set up the call with her because, well, why not??

After our call I was definitely intrigued by the company and all their features. They already had 10 different platforms that I could list on through them and the company is founded by two badass female resellers. I'm not going to lie, their pricing was intimidating at first. I couldn't see how I could justify the leap from paying $25-30 a month to $49 a month for the plan I needed on List Perfectly. It took me a couple months to decide to make the jump.

I'd been fed up with Vendoo for a while and after one day of every single listing experiencing time out errors when I tried to delist them, I'd had enough. I contacted Vendoo customer service one last time asking if they could give me any insight into why the time out errors were still occurring and received yet another answer that made me feel completely ignored by their team.

I understand that these things can be difficult to pinpoint, and I don't code or build websites from the ground up, so I fully recognize that this could very well be something I was doing incorrectly on my end. But I spent months sending emails asking for help and I'd finally had enough of being ignored. I asked them to terminate my subscription (always put this in writing in case a company keeps charging your card) and decided to just move on. At that point, I didn't want spend any more energy on them so I just signed up for List Perfectly and started transitioning to their services.

The final straw, which is my motivation behind this post, was something that happened on Instagram. On September 22, a week or two after I ended my subscription, Vendoo posted a photo on their IG asking "Has using Vendoo saved you time or improved your reselling business?" I decided to respond to their post with an honest, but polite, comment explaining that I had brought some technical issues up to them only to be ignored repeatedly, so I would no longer be using their service. I never got a response, and forgot about the post.

About a month later, I was curious about what was going on because I saw a couple fellow resellers doing some fun giveaways in partnership with Vendoo, so I decided to check out their feed again. I was scrolling through it when I stumbled on the post asking about our experiences with the service, and decided to see if they had responded to any of the other negative comments (because I wasn't the only one expressing concerns) or if we all had gone without a response.

I quickly realized that not only was my negative comment deleted, but so was every single other comment that had expressed any amount of constructive criticism. Instead of taking the approach most companies do when receiving negative feedback, and asking individuals to DM them or even just flat out ignoring it, Vendoo had gone out of their way to delete the negative feedback in what I can only assume was an effort to prevent potential customers from seeing it.

What matters to me as a small business owner, is feeling that I have respect from the vendors I work with, and that includes any cross-listing/relisting service I decide to invest in. If I'm going to pay you and sign a terms of agreement, I want to know that you are going to uphold your end, since I uphold mine by continuing to pay. Good customer service goes a long way to help you and your customers, and if a business isn't willing to invest in that, then I don't really see the point in continuing to work with them.

Like I said, after I cancelled my subscription, I didn't see the point in dragging myself or them down with any more negative energy, but after seeing that they are actively removing negative feedback from customers that paid for their services, I decided that I couldn't let them silence my voice as a business owner. I hope going forward Vendoo can learn how to listen to the constructive criticism that comes from their customers.

Luckily, List Perfectly was there to be my shoulder to cry on. I was able to try it for my first month at a discount, which made that price jump a little less intimidating. I'm comfortable paying almost twice what I was paying with Vendoo because I know that this is a solid and dependable investment for my business. I've already made sales on platforms I didn't have access to, or would have had to pay extra for to get with Vendoo, and my experiences with their customer service team have been great so far.

It took me a little bit to get my relisting back on track after switching fully to List Perfectly, but now I spend my first hour each morning relating and sharing for the first time, same as I did with Vendoo. I was able to get on to Depop, and I plan to link my Etsy page now that I'm selling on there too! I'm taking it one platform at a time so I don't get overwhelmed and can take the time to really learn the ins and outs of all of them, but I'm so excited to expand to places like Facebook Marketplace and possibly Tradsey in the future!

It has made cross-listing so much easier for me and now that I've gotten my relisting schedule down again, there's no plans of turning back. I've experienced one technical issue (which I realized was actually my own fault) and when I submitted a help ticket, I received a response within 3 hours. Even though I had already figured out what I did wrong, the employee that reached out to me was so helpful and gave me plenty of steps to take to troubleshoot.

After giving it a fair and unbiased shot for a full month, I decided to reach back out about the opportunity they had mentioned to work with them. I know this is a service that I fully believe in and have no plans on parting with any time soon, and I wanted to let everyone I know that sells anything online about it. That's why I'm so excited to say that I've partnered with List Perfectly as part of their Referal Program to give you all a chance to get 30% off your first month!

Use code THEHIPPYEDIT at sign up and get 30% off, no matter what plan you choose! (Codes cannot be applied after sign up so make sure to enter it before you hit submit)

As mentioned, I do receive a small commission if you choose to use my code!

I'm only a little over a month in to my subscription with List Perfectly, but the impact on my business has already been amazing. Just by allowing me to explore new platforms, and giving me an opportunity to work professionally with a brand for the first time, I've become twice as confident in my business and my abilities as an entrepreneur. I'm excited to explore all that they have to offer and find some new ways to grow my business that I didn't think possible!