Disclaimer: This is an old review and some of the information isn’t correct anymore. I am working on a new one with accurate information.
I was excited for storenvy when it was released but it has fallen short of what they originally promised.
Here is what the creators had to say when storenvy was released.
“Storenvy doesn’t want to be just another online store system. There are hundreds of them out there already and have some of the same problems. They require you to drive all traffic to your store yourself, they only offer fulfillment, or made for only stores who are well established. On top of that in this day in age the internet is all about being social. Storenvy wanted to fix all of those problems and build the first Social Store Community.”
Storenvy claims to drive traffic to your site but I have seen very little traffic coming from storenvy to my store. Last month I got 65 visitors from storenvy to my sunglasses site http://totallyawesome.storenvy.com/. My sales are pretty bad but somehow I am the 32nd best selling store out of 442 stores in the clothing company section. I am also the 7th best selling store in the trendcore section out of 68 stores. Since I know how much my site sells (less then $100 a month) I know all of the other stores below me are doing worse.
On the bigcartel site they say nothing about driving traffic to your site or making a social store community but they drive more traffic to sites through their directory then storenvy does. A company like miles to go gets around 600 visitors a month through the bigcartel directory. Maybe bigcartel should use the selling point of not requiring you to drive all the traffic to your store or social store community.
Storenvy seemed like they were going to be the etsy for the non craft market. Etsy is awesome for crafters. They do a lot of work driving traffic to their site, you see them at events and online advertisements. It’s something that a lot of people know about and people go to etsy to shop. I haven’t seen much of an effort on behalf of storenvy to do advertising besides a few blog posts here and there. The bottom line is someone doesn’t go to Storenvy to shop like someone going to Etsy. What happens is someone goes to a storenvy store then sees other stores and may leave your store and shop at theirs. So really you the store owners are bringing in all the traffic then possibly losing your customer when they find something else they want. This also works both ways where a customer may find your products after going to another store.
Jud from conversioneering wrote an article about shopping cart usability
Storenvy made some changes after seeing this post but the add to cart button still needs work.
The add to cart button still doesn’t stand out. Make it bigger give it some color, make it noticeable!
You only get a few pages in storenvy.
Storenvy only gives you generic pages plus a contact, store info, and store profile page. If you are a store owner and want to tell your story this just doesn’t cut it and you need more pages.
I thought the comment and like system was pretty cool but that stuff needs to be on the actual product page. As of right now its back in an area that most people go to your site don’t see. Cool idea but again it falls short.
Storenvy isn’t all bad
There are some cool things they offer. One of those things is a facebook app that shows all your products.
The other thing is that it’s free, and you can also install google analytics e-commerce.
Going back to their original statement:
“Storenvy doesn’t want to be just another online store system. There are hundreds of them out there already and have some of the same problems. They require you to drive all traffic to your store yourself, they only offer fulfillment, or made for only stores who are well established. On top of that in this day in age the internet is all about being social. Storenvy wanted to fix all of those problems and build the first Social Store Community.”
In the end they are what they didn’t want to be, just another online store system.
I don’t recommend storenvy as it currently is right now. Bigcartel offers a much better setup at only $10 a month. If you’re worried about the $10 a month you have more important things you should be worrying about.
Why use bigcartel
- has unlimited pages
- e-commerce google analytics
- more traffic with bigcartel directory
- only advertising your store (no one else)
- use your own domain through cnames
- better checkout
If your looking for a bigcartel developer check out my company Double Dragon Studios
Also the company that use to print under the name storenvy still does amazing screen printing and is now called Threadbird. They are still one of the best printers out there. Click here for a special deal on your order.