ChannelAdvisorReviews of channeladvisor.com

After looking to implement a marketplace engine into our business 4 years ago we ran our due diligence across a number of different options and after meeting with CA and understanding their capabilities it was an easy decision for us. Since integration we have seen huge growth internationally as well as now working with a number of new marketplaces that CA has full integrations with. Would have no problem recommending CA to any company that is serious abour growing their marketplace strategy.

Channeladvisor is a system that has definitely help with the management of our products and listing management with our marketplace selling activities. Originally it was getting more difficult to manage our listings because we were getting more products and trying to cope with multiple marketplaces and selling through Europe would take ages for a simple update of a product. You do have to put some work in with the system and its not as simple as click and go but over the years of using has become something valuable to our business. It is recommended to someone who has some use or understanding with listing and selling with ebay/Amazon and with their upload files. Overall, as a business, it has help us with the product and listing management a great deal. I guess the only issues has really been the custoemr management side, although this is continually being updated and becoming much better than it was when we signed up.

Their sales team are the best in business. They will promise you the world. There is nothing they cannot do. When i was contacted, i was very specific that we are not very tech savvy and do not have a dedicated person to implement their software. I was told it needed very little time to get up and running. This is completely FALSE. You need to be very tech savvy - but also require A LOT of effort upfront. We are locked into one year contract. Started in September 2014. Soon realized this was not for us due to the complexity and the time it requires. Looks like we are locked in for ONE entire year - even though we were clearly mis-represented. We have not used their service, dont plan on using it either. IMO, if your monthly revenues are less than $100,000, stay away from them. As far away as possible. Or hope your competitors hire them! That would be ideal. If you are a bigger player and revenues are over that amount, they might work for you. I cant say from experience. So bascially we will end up gifting them close to $15,000 and have not used them at all. Not a single product. I would have felt better burning that money.

Review into my experience with Channel Adviser I am not too sure if they are charlatans’ or just plain incompetent whichever it is I would not recommend anyone going anywhere near these people. I was contacted by their sales person at the end of February who did an excellent pitch and persuaded me to join up. I was due to go away about a week after I agreed to sign up, and I said I did not want to commence until I got back. It was suggested that with some hard word on behalf of the company they could launch within a week, with this assurance I agreed to go ahead. I signed the contract on the 12th of March. A few days later I was instructed to take part in a launch call on Monday the 17th of March. I was given no further instructions. I had my first launch call. You are expected to ring a number insert a code and you get put into a call group automatically. It soon became clear that the group had no idea I was on the line, Nick who was in charge of the launch was complaining I had not done some work. The man in overall charge was complaining that he didn’t want to be there, and Terry who set me up with the contract said “If you don’t want to be here then go he won’t notice”. They started wondering where I was and complaining that I wasn’t there. I then made my presence known to them. It was a very short call as I was told I should have set up my account. This was a bit annoying as they could have sent the required form to me in the preceding week. I filled in the information that evening (Monday) and emailed to check that all was correct. When I heard nothing by Wednesday I emailed again, and got a reply saying it looked ok the next day. I then requested another launch call. I got a reply on the Friday saying that another launch call was set up for Monday. My call was set for 1300 and I called at 1255 eventually at about 1310 my call was answered. I understand people are late for appointments but I had wasted a week so was very annoyed that there was no one there to take my call. On the 27th Nick contacted me asking me to upload my ebay site. I said no I couldn’t do it as I was off on holiday, and would do it when I returned. When I agreed to sign up I understood that the cost was £600 a month, with a set up fee of £1000. I assumed this included vat because no mention of vat was made. All payments were to be taken on the 15th of the month. I was therefore surprised to log in to my online bank on the 2nd of April and find that an attempt made been made to take £1664.52 . I didn’t have the money available in my current account because I was away on holiday and no payments were expected and it was declined I then checked my emails to find another invoice for £720 for the 15Th of the month April. Please bear in mind at this stage they have not published my site or done any work for me except take a couple of phone calls. From the time I left to go on holiday I received no request to upload my ebay site and there was no attempt to contact me. I contacted my lawyer who told me to cancel the contract, as it was within the 30 days notice period. I cancelled my contract on the on 10th April. I got no acknowledgment of my cancelling the contract. At this point I started receiving threatening emails demanding payment although no work had been published. When I signed up was given the impression I would receive help 24/7 . It is an expensive service, you do not expect to get a call or email back a week later particularly when you are on a tight schedule. I would not recommend this service to anyone.

We have been using Channeladvisor now for over 4 years and its the best business decision we have ever made. At first they helped to streamline and centralise our online activities, then helped us expand into new markets as well as introducing us to and assisting in launching into other new markets that we otherwise would never have reached. Recently we decided to expand the range of products we offer, we worked with Kristina Dimitrova who managed the project and not only did we successfully introduce the new products but Kristina also evaluated our business practises and made changes that saved us hours of time each week, Kristina made sure that not only did we change the system to allow us to sell these new products but also took the time to see if our business was getting all the benefits Channeladvisor could offer and that our team were trained to manage the system and to make additional changes if required ourselves. We could not be happier with our progress over the last 4 years and with the results of our recent project, already we are in talks with Channeladvisor about further marketplaces to expand our business into as well as incorporating our new state of the art website into their system also. The future is exciting and there is no better partner to help our company fulfil its potential.

After recruiting the services of Channel Advisor to make managing our Paid Search easier. It quickly became apparent that it did quite the opposite. After falling victim to push selling techniques adopted by the sales team, unfortunately we were talked into signing the contract. We soon discovered that the simplicity of the system was going to be incompatible with our current system infrastructure and was going to require laborious manual processing of all data files. Time of which, we do not have. Instigating discussions with the company, requesting a delay to allow us to update our technology fell on deaf ears. Under legal contract no leeway or temporary deferral was granted. Faced with this result and looking for the opportunity in the face of adversity we worked to find a positive way to move forward. With the implementation of Googles new Trademark policy our already faltering campaign came to a complete standstill. With manual processes and the absence of trademark consent, Channel Advisors platform became stagnant despite receiving invoices every month. With a growing number of broken links and an inability to use the brand names of which we had initially been sold this service, we started receiving warning by Google that links would terminate an already successful Adwords account due to CA broken links. The secondary nail in the coffin to Channel Advisors service was due to Google making the same technology available with a simple click within your Adwords account. Their systems have now been outdated by a single swift move by Google Adwords. Please do your own research and create your own account, It only requires the simple click of a button and provides a greater range of support and reporting opportunities. We have had our service aggressively more so arrogantly refused despite the fact that to continue with the service was never going to occur. We have not received a positive result or even click throughs from the Professional links apart from those received by the CA testing team. We are expected to wear a $10,000+ cost despite the service being ineffective and unmanageable. Again product listing is a terrific idea and one worth consideration, the benefit will be far greater adopting Googles own technology and will save you stress and the most important factor in any business, Money that should be invested in to profitable business ventures. Research Google Dynamic product listings, you wont be sorry. Channel Advisor will provide you with a service. However, comfortably charge you at a premium cost where Google can provide the same service at a sensible pricing level. Despite receiving positive support from the local branch here in Australia. The legal team based both in the US and the UK will make fair trade unattainable. In essence by incorporating a Google Adwords account you can simply and efficiently list all of your products into Googles indexing engines and avoid using the cost ineffective Channel Advisor platform for Paid search assistance. Hope this may help others.

Channel Advisor promised us a 6 week setup time. After 3 months had passed (with each month costing us $1,500) and no end was in sight, we finally had to bail out. You might think that Channel Advisor would have taken responsibility for missing their promise so terribly and offered us some kind of refund for the months we paid for. On the contrary, they sent our case to collections for the remaining 9 months of our contract and we've been battling with them ever since. Channel Advisor would instruct us to do one thing the first week, then instruct us get rid of all we had done and start something new the next. Furthermore, the communication with them was so poor that it took forever to receive instructions from them. Had the instructions been correct from the beginning and the communication been timelier, we might have actually hit the target launch date. Instead, it was a seemingly endless runaround with Channel Advisor never once taking responsibility for any portion of the debacle.

For the CSE module you are way better off with the $149.00/mo feed products (goDataFeed). We feel very misled by Channel Advisor. The price is ridiculous for what you get. Literally worse usability, service and performance than the way cheaper products. If you insist on trying them- add an EARLY OUT clause to your contract, because no matter how UNHAPPY you are, the will NOT let you out. This company focuses on revenue NOT results.