Whirlpool

Hi!

Just wondering if anyone has used this web dev / des company before?

I have spoken to a few people on their testimonial list and they are happy as punch!

Look forward to any response!

JMN writes...

I have spoken to a few people on their testimonial list and they are happy as punch!

Hrrmm... something smells fishy...

Cheers guys...Appreciate the response!

The site is for a new business and it consists of 7 pages ( Data / pictures to be provided) with a contact us form for customers to fill in and submit.

It will also require design / development of a search box that will link into an my distributors website (Source code provided).

In essence after speaking to a few different companies regarding my requirements I have received proposals ranging from $1.5k to $7k with Sites n Stores comming in at $1.5k.

Sure their work is pretty basic stuff but in essence the main requirements of my site is that it needs to look clean, professional and function without problems.

I have had certain companies basically telling me they do not want to help as what I require is basic and I've been told I should do it myself!

I would appreciate any advice or suggestions!

:)

JMN writes...

Sure their work is pretty basic stuff but in essence the main requirements of my site is that it needs to look clean, professional and function without problems.

If you want a clean and professional look, then IMO the guys you mentioned are pretty borderline, but again it all depends on your budget.

I have had certain companies basically telling me they do not want to help as what I require is basic and I've been told I should do it myself!

Probably these companies just don't deal jobs that small.

DaRKoN_ writes...

If you want a clean and professional look, then IMO the guys you mentioned are pretty borderline, but again it all depends on your budget.

Yeah I know what you mean...Basically you get what you pay for!

Considering what I need I feel a budget of between $3k to $5k seems fair.

What are your guys thoughts? (I know ive been pretty general re my specs)

Probably these companies just don't deal jobs that small.

Isnt a job a job nonetheless?

JMN writes...

Considering what I need I feel a budget of between $3k to $5k seems fair. What are your guys thoughts? (I know ive been pretty general re my specs)

Yep, you'd get a super small agency / freelancer and you should get a reasonable results.

Isnt a job a job nonetheless?

No, there's a lot of overheads to take a job on, for the bigger agencies it's just not worth taking on small jobs like that.

Avoid them like the plague!

Am just dealing with Sites n Stores and it is a nightmare. It’s completely production line, and unless you want a site hosted by them (for $20 a month) using their CMS, on their server, you are up shit creek. Unfortunately, this is not made clear at the start. Probably because the sales guy you talk to knows nothing about web design. He appears to be on a commission and very keen to get you signed up, and will agree to anything you want. However, once you put your money down, you’re on the production line, never talking to the same people and unable to contact anybody – you’ll have to ring the 1300 number and wait for them to get back to you. Which they usually do. Only problem being that the next e-mail you get will be from somebody completely different and completely ignore what you’ve talked about on the phone two hours earlier.

Trust me, these guys are clowns.

Cheers guys...Appreciate the responses!!!

:)

"we just can" hahahaa

As Teu Tonic said, Avoid SitesnStores like the plague!

there seems to be a real problem with communication between their sales guys and their production team, and to makes things worse they dont have a direct number to call them on! but then again, you do get what you pay for so if you want someting CheapnNasty then SitesnStores might be for you!.

yes & i wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole ever again. they were very hard to get in touch with, unprofessional when you did deal with them (they did get back to you, however it was different people all the time and one would tell you different to the other), had hidden hosting/cms cost etc. Thumbs down from me!

...

I too have had first dealings with sitesnstores and I can also confirm that everything stated by Greena and Teu Tonic is spot on. These guys are jokers. The sales guys will answer 'yes' to every question just to get you in the door. Apparently, they don't even use a CRM. It's all paper based and I received calls from different sales guys on the same day following up on the same enquiry, then I would get automated emails and text's saying that I was uncontactable. What the?? Needles to say, after looking at their product and getting these automated harassment messages, I went somewhere else. Sitesnstores cater for the $0 – small money market. Their product is for the client with very little understanding of what a website is and very little money. It's for start up businesses or small ones getting their first website. Sadly, it's a company like Sitesnstores that give good web development companies a bad name. I'd stay well away, save a little extra money and get a good site built. Your business deserves it.

@ragtradet – care to share some URLs?

I have been considering theses guys for my site.
I had been wondering about the hosting of the site and all as it wasn't mentioned anywhere.

Interesting!

gotta love all the first posters

Fist of all i would like to say hi to every one here and now for my story I find my self in the I am not happy with sitesnstores boat,after five weeks they have sent back a template with the banner we originally sent them and some smaller banner which looks very average pasted to a template after a review the sub par work and telling them you are not happy it is several days before you next here from them sometimes a week (oh and don't bother getting to know the guys name you are dealing with as there will be many ) as we have paid half of the money up front I wonder where this now leaves me also as we were doing this on a shoestring budget who else is available at these sort of prices?
Look forward to your replys
warm regards
Simon

That's a shame they don't deliver. I've had a couple potential customers go with Sites N Stores instead of through me. I'll send them over here before they think about signing up with them

I asked them for some quotes, Didn't end up going through with them, But I found the communication quite unorganized I talked to one guy about my site in the morning a different guy rang about the same issue. wtf ?

Thank you for all of your replys well it looks like these guys have come through for us we should be going live within the week and we are actually really happy with the service provided by one of their staff (Duncan) this guy worked tirelessly on pleasing us I had given up on these guys and my wife ended up taking over as it was getting to the point of me exploding and unleashing a tirade of abuse (god i love her :)
Because of his service i really want to recommend them but it is truly because of his service

Warm regards
Simon
This man deserves a raise

Sick of sites n stores....How about posting a link to your new site. Let's see this marvel.

Shark...same here. So unorganised. No wonder it takes so many weeks to pull together a template site that looks like the rest.

I'm so glad I went elsewhere. Seriously, their sales guys are morons, none bigger than their tool of director who I had the displeasure to talk to. When you make a request for an 'instant ballpark quote', it's not instant at all. You just leave your details and one their highly uneducated sales staff calls. It's a get 'em in, sign 'em up and forget about 'em business.

A lot of what people are saying on this thread are similar to my experiences, good and bad…. I have two websites done by them and I wish I learnt my lesson after they finished the first one…. But stupid me, went in for the second factory line, student produced treatment again.

If you just want a basic site up and you don’t care what it looks like and has a basic function, then these guys will be PERFECT. But if your starting a new business and need your site to make your customers impressed knowing they are dealing with a professional company…. Then don’t go with Sites and Stores.

They have made a few charging errors on my two sites. First one… once done which was a medium cost site, I had the second one done at the cheapest level. Guess what? Both exactly the same template, same limited graphic skill work etc. They tried to pass me off as a dummy when I complained and asked to pay less for the second site or polish up the second site more. They vehemently denied it saying that all the extra work was in the backend, I wouldn’t know. Pftt! Also, they charged me $200 to put together a customised form…. Which was just a 9 field, 2 column form, (getting a background colour as like pulling teeth) then, when the designer sent through the first draft of my site to approve, the form was just a basic 4 field contact form…… obviously ignoring my website layout instructions. He then told me, oh its going to cost you $100 for that kind of form….. and yes, and when i complained that having been charged $200 for a $100 job they again came up with another lame excuse.

The second site took 9 weeks to get done. Also, usually after a week of not hearing anything, and I follow up with, 'what’s going on??' The changes get done in the next 5 minutes….

These guys are not professional…

Hosting with the use of the cms is approx $16 per month.

Classic! I don't post often but find I can't help finding out if anyone else is bagging sitesnstores and I'm happy to see they are. I hope the posts make it may to their way to owners so they can see how disgraceful they are. Sitesnstores are a total joke. I've said it before and it again, avoid sitesnstores like the plague.

Ooo roo

Edited at the request of Sites N Stores after being threaten with legal action.

spam

mehhh

Ive removed my earlier post as the issues are currently being rectified and appreciate there efforts in helping me achieve the site that im after.

I always enjoy readying through these kinds of posts and seeing there is always a number of one post wonders that defend the product in question.

Hi all, just a heads up that Sites and Stores contacted me several times today and want me to take down my posts. They have threatened legal action if I don't.

I was contacted by Sites N Stores today as well.

I voluntarily removed my post to prevent any further issues with this company.

lol, sounds like their legal team are going to be busy if their going to threaten everyone who dares complain.

AFX-! writes...

lol, sounds like their legal team are going to be busy if their going to threaten everyone who dares complain.

Agreed,

Dear Sites n Stores, prepare to meet the Streisand Effect. You colossal morons. What you should have done is started up an account and tried to rectify the problems.

You've turned people that were neutral to your business (such as myself), into staunch opponents on one of the largest IT forums in the country. Nice work.

For the record, I have never dealt with Sites N Stores on a professional level. In fact, I had never heard of Sites N Stores before this thread on Whirlpool.

A few days ago I replied to a post in this thread. The post was written by user online71 (#354365). To this day, online71 has only written one post and that post was on the day that online71 signed up to Whirlpool. The post by online71 has been hidden by a Whirlpool mod as they deemed it "viral marketing".

My reply, which has since been edited after I received a threatening phone call from a man claiming to be from Sites N Stores, was not in reply to the thread's original post, but to the post from user online71. In short, the man on the phone threaten me with legal action if I did not retract my reply post to user online71.

My original reply post to user online71's post was "This smells a little fishy...". As it turns out, I was not the only one to think this.

Further, I am not the only one to receive threatening phone calls from the man claiming to be from Sites N Stores. As noted in this thread, there are at least two other Whirlpool users who received phone calls threatening legal action if they do not retract their posts.

In my professional career, I have never been spoken to the way I was yesterday. The man on the phone claiming to be from Sites N Stores, was the single most unprofessional individual I have ever had the misfortune of speaking with.

Hi,

I'll just like to point out that my comments were made while I was just a normal member (under Whirlpool) back in December 09. I was only made a REP early this month which I run Perth Web Hosting.

I have since removed the post as I wrote the post when I was using my old username “networkgeek” which at that time this was my personal opinion and it had nothing to do with the company that I now run.

I am very dissappointed with these people who made contact with me via phone. They were very aggresive towards me which it is not acceptable behaviour.

Wow,

Whoever has been contacting you guys, threatening legal action. Probably hasn't even realise that this thread appears third from the top when searching Sites n Stores in Google.

What a perfect example of how not to treat people who complain about your service.

I'll make sure that I forward this thread onto anyone remotely considering them in the future.

By the why, to anyone being harrassed by them. Theres an address in the sites footer. You can also get their domain name owners details if you look in the right place (whois), as well as an ABN. Don't cop the abuse, do something about it.

If your really unhappy with their service, get their ABN and contact the Department of Fair Trading.

Good luck,
- SyKO

If you have been abused by anyone, call the police, as there is no room for this sort of crap...

If this phone call was indeed from someone at Sites 'N' Stores, I would be very weary ever dealing with them...

Perhaps consider that it's from some freak instead of SitesNStores? I dunno....

They're a $397 website place, they can't afford to give customer service or do anything properly...what do people expect?

So they're dodgy as hell, why is it a suprise?

I just checked back from my post on the 23rd April.... and sounds like these guys are attempting damaging control by using the mafia!

After my post, things have gotten worst... I have learnt my lesson – you get what you pay for.

My biggest problem now is their CMS site. Its riddled with bugs and they are now asking me for more $$ to fix the problems that their CMS site has done to my website. E.g. changing navigational headings and the entire page gets wiped. So i am going backwards when i should be moving forwards with the business!

Oh and i especially 'love' their 'receptionist' which is just a paging call back service. You dont know if the person you need is in, out, busy, away that day – who knows if you will get a call back.

I haven't had a call from sitesnstores mafia and i dont want one. But just in case anyone misread my original post... DONT USE SITESNSTORES!

field4000 writes...

line71's post was "This smells a little fishy...". As it turns out, I was not the only on

and how did they get your phone number?

MigA writes...

and how did they get your phone number?

I had my website's URL on my 'About this user' page. My website has my phone number on it.

field4000 writes...

y website's URL on my 'About this us

ah ok, a few points

- too many first time posters signing up to bitch, i cant take them completely on face value.
- while i cant see how much they charge, but looks like not much, u get what u pay for!!
- they have heaps of examples, so u should of know what ur gona get
- call us their clients
- additional work takes extra cash... its business
- since i suspect it was a cheap price, and thu why turn around time was slow, u havnt been charged much and its a cheap lesson..............

MigA, I think you'll find the reason why there are a few first timers is probably for the same reason as me. Sitesnstores were recommended to me and after contacting them and suffering through their sales process, I Googled sitenstores to see if anyone had heard of them and this chain came up on page 1. I had already decided not to go with them and this thread made me very happy with my decision.

Interesting read this thread. I have a small business website with Sites n' Stores & so far I don't have many complaints. There are a couple of niggling things like the user contact form submit button is not visible unless you scroll down the page!

My biggest frustration is the CMS. It's so user unfriendly I can't change anything on my website without contacting S n S to do it for me. This was a big reason for me signing up with them so I could manage the site content myself but the CMS I find very hard to understand & use (which I can't)

Apart from those things they have been ok. I did design the aesthetics and layout of the website myself so this could have something to do with it – it is very basic.

Anyhow, I am wanting to take the next step and incorporate SEO into the site.
S n' S have an SEO off-shoot called hitmeplease.com.au. They even say they can 'guarantee 100-600 unique hits per month'.

How would this be possible? I don't understand.

For certain niches (Eg location based + specialty service) 100+ hits per month isn't that hard.. From the looks of that hitmeplease site, the more money you pay, the more effort they'll put into off-site SEO stuff like backlinks and directory submission.

lol. People that go for this are throwing their money away.

It begs the question, who's stupid?, site n stores or their customers? And are site n stores bad people for selling to them? There's obviously a market there.

Education is a large part of web dev/internet services I guess. Site N Store's clearly have no interest in that part.

Nacho Regal writes...

lol. People that go for this are throwing their money away.

It begs the question, who's stupid?, site n stores or their customers? And are site n stores bad people for selling to them? There's obviously a market there.

Education is a large part of web dev/internet services I guess. Site N Store's clearly have no interest in that part.

Thanks...I think? Are you suggesting I ditch implementing SEO altogether?

If not, what are you suggesting?

No. Just suggesting that Sites'n'stores isn't the place to go by the look of that website.

The first way to spot a shonky SEO place is guaranteeing a set amount of unique visitors for a set amount of money. That's exactly what that website proposes.

SEO with an effective ROI doesn't work like that and never will. Anyone can get unique visitors. It's easy. Getting targetted traffic is what matters.

I.e. They're either shonky or just going after the market that isn't very cluey. Either way, unless you already know how SEO works you would do well to educate yourself or go to a place that provides honest good education/consulting with their services....Yes, it might appear to cost you more in the short term....but if you are in business everything is about ROI....

Interesting thread, I'm glad I made the decision I did related to this.

Sites n stores have caused us nothing but headaches. Terrible customer service! They don't reply to emails or return phone calls if you need help. We are wondering whether just to cut our losses, and go with another company.
How things are going with you?

Rainier Wolfcastle writes...

Interesting thread, I'm glad I made the decision I did related to this.

Likewise but the decision I made still brought its problems!

:(

Hi
I hope SNS take notice of your comments as they are spot on !!

I hired SNS to build a website for us, oh boy, what a nightmare!

I would not recommend them to anyone.

We had many ongoing issues which are still not resolved, I found their communication pretty good until I handed over the final installment of my money but now it is near impossible to get any action out of them.

We have been left with a website, at this sage that cannot be used. Instructions were not followed, lies were told and all in all we wasted time and money for something that wont be used.

I think if you have never had a website before and have little knowledge of how websites work then they could probably produce something ok but if you know what you want please dont believe the initial person you speak to on the phone as I truly believe they just said yes to everything we wanted just so we would sign up.

I work for an SEO company and these are not able to be optimised. The CMS does not even allow you to change a title tag which is almost the first step in SEO. This is yet another reason why Sitesnstores websites are rank. I have had first hand experience with this and it was embarrassing that we could not do anything tothe site. We had to rely souly on link bulding for rankings and even then, we could not get it up there.

RESOLVED

Ignore Sites N Stores like the absolute plague, you'll be dealing with about 6 people for the smallest requests due to high turnover or bad management. Lots of stealth fees too, in denominations of $36 for the tiniest alterations. Ask the sales guys about the charges for support after the site (eventually) goes live.

They're cheap, sure, but Sites N Stores are an in-and-out the door assembly line with no support. The site admin module is dreadful too, no control whatsoever.

As for the example request above, try http://www.u-make-emsoftplastics.com.au/

haha yuck..

that your 'site' plasticman? sorry if so..

I have a website that was built and is run by Sites N Stores ( www.decorforkids.com.au ) and as of late i have had nothing but problems with it from the site pushing all the way to the right and now my flash image is missing along with the about us and company direction on the home page. i ring them (their paging service) and they are taking upto a week to call me back and the latest call back from them they are asking me to pay $79 per hour just for them to look at the site to see what the problem is. Now they know what the problem is is because it has happen a few times in the past. I think the company has changed hands as i used to get good service from Scott (employee their) but he is no longer there. I want my site fixed. My last message to them was 4 hours ago and still no response. i am happy for anyone to contact me as i am a genuine customer of theirs with genuine problems.

Yes it is true, you get what you pay for. I even threatened the person on the phone from their this morning with a complaint to the Department of Fair Trading.

THIS COMPANY IS A JOKE!

Yep I got hit with that chestnut today too Rusty, 70 dollars upfront to have a question answered with the proviso that "you'll get it back if the issue's our fault."

To recap:

You landed on the best site in the world. How can we say that? Well, we just can.

You have to be really careful as there are a lot of people out there who are want to build your web site for you. It is the FACE of your business and is extremely important in this day and age.

We have talked to thousands and built many, many sites. There is one thing that all clients appear to have in common, you care DEEPLY about your business and you want your site to be the best it can possibly be.

- I can't help reading that in a sneering sarcastic tone!

Its amusing to see that all their customer quotes are roughly 3-4 lines long.

Wow Plastic/Rusty, I really feel for you guys.

Recently, I had a client approach me with a few similar online stores. These stores weren't built by Sites and Stores but they looked and felt the same.

Absolute crap.

Each looked and behaved like something that was built in 1998. Each site was built on a different open source solution (Drupal/UC || Joomla/VM). Each with it's own issues (category menus not working, shipping rates not calculating properly, friendly urls not displaying, etc, etc).

I'm in the process of transferring those online stores to different package. Have cleaned up the templates, enabled most of the features that where missing or not working. A few more weeks and everything should be peachy.

Not sure how Sites and Stores work but you could see whether you can get a quote for the hours required to make any changes/fixes. Find yourselfs a studio or freelancer and see whether you can get those changes through them.

In any case though, good luck and post an update if you guys get anywhere.
- SyKO

I would like to retract my previous comments in regards to this company. As I said before I used to get excellent service from them when dealing with Scott. My latest effort however as per my previous post I think is down to individual rubbing me up the wrong way by asking me to pay money to fix a problem I dont thinhk is mine.

It seems that my faith in this company has been restored as I have received a call from Duncan (Manager) who was very helpful with me and is investigating why the systems seems to be doing what it is doing. He has waived the fee and promises to get my site back to how it was and for hopefully for good.

I will report back on the final outcome once it is resolved.

SyKO writes...

Absolute crap.

Agreed – I certainly ain't impressed with the final quality of some of these sites.

Sorry – wrong thread :)

I have been recently dealing with SitesnStores and it has been an absolute joke to say the least. I already have a website so just wanted to make the site look more professional, clearly explained my requirements to the sales guy and gave them a very detailed list of what I was looking for. After agreeing, they took a 50% deposit and came back within a few hours with a concept, looked nice but it was just a screen shot and asked for another 40%. I sent through all the text, photos logos etc and then the issues started. The phone number is a generic 1300 number and they just take a message, you cannot talk to the correct person, email likewise, it goes through to a generic email address and most of the emails are lost or the end person didnt get them. They changed their mind on what was included in the price even though the examples they sent were what I wanted. No one had any IT experience, knew about emails, hosting, and made a mess of the whole thing. Its taken 7 emails to get a logo changed to the correct logo I sent them in the first place and it still isnt right, but I gave up. If you are after a cheap web site go to www.domainnames.com.au and use their free template for a basic 3 page site.

Hi, I'm also a newbie and found this thread to be very interesting. I have found Sites N Stores to be a complete shambles as well. My site has just gone off line for the second time without any explanation. When I contacted SNS by email, they informed me that they knew about the problem. It's a shame they then didn't inform me!

I've emailed them asking for a rebate on my fees. I bet they don't get back to me in a hurry!!

Therefore, please can anyone offer any good information for a provider that offers CNS as part of their package, alongside the hosting.

Cheers, nickfitz

Resolved

Ha ha. Just saw this thread now, we have a client at work who has their website designed by these guys. I was browsing through their site the other day having a good old chuckle at the ludicrous statements made on the site.

matthewh writes...

Ha ha. Just saw this thread now, we have a client at work who has their website designed by these guys. I was browsing through their site the other day having a good old chuckle at the ludicrous statements made on the site.

McWebsites.....

Businesses like these are bad news for our industry. Most people who require web design or web development have little to no knowledge on the industry, and generally don't have huge amounts of money to spend. They come across these 'budget' web companies with lots of promises, of course most other web designers cannot match their prices, due to most actually taking pride in the quality of their work... the end result, the client is often angry and frustrated at the end result and, left with a bad perception of the industry.

I don't know why people still get professionally designed websites if they are looking for lower end stuff. There are heaps of free web templates: e.g. http://www.freecsstemplates.org/ or open source options – just get a theme or whatever. At least then you know EXACTLY what you are getting, and while someone else may have the same website, you're getting it for 5% of the cost and paying only for hosting and registering your domain.

I think it's only worth getting a professional web designer if you have a big budget.

andrewferr writes...

If you are after a cheap web site go to www.domainnames.com.au and use their free template for a basic 3 page site.

Noir666 writes...

I think it's only worth getting a professional web designer if you have a big budget

Sounds good to me : )

Noir666 writes...

I think it's only worth getting a professional web designer if you have a big budget.

Or if you want your website to generate revenue...

Stereotype writes...

I think it's only worth getting a professional web designer if you have a big budget

Sounds good to me : )

Please tell me this is a poor troll attempt?

A professionally designed website can be pivotal in getting a brand spanking new business off the ground. Not only can a great website off the company another way to increase their advertising from a online shopping cart or even advertising. If a client is after a service / product that you offer and they first come across your site through Google, as a new business you will in most cases have no reputation in the industry hence the client / customer can only go on what they see. You need to not only look professional but you need to look like you've been doing this for one hundred years, a great custom built website can express who your business is, what they stand for, why they are different from others all through the colour scheme, layouts, graphics.

There was a study once that showed that by the first 10 seconds a user enters a site they make their mind up. "It's crap" "It's Good" "It's Amazing and I'm going to buy" pretty much these are the three mind sets. A CSS template is going to get you a "It's Good" at best and usually such a opinion means the user ends up buying from a different company. "It's Amazing" this is what all businesses want even if they are a boring old corporate oil company, no-one wants to be second best and most people won't buy from someone who is.

Saying all this those CSS templates would be perfectly fine if you wanted to use them for your blog etc.

That may be true in most cases but some service industries really don't require all the flashy website stuff. For example, a solicitor I know has the most atrocious looking website on the planet. Her income was 250K plus last year. Why? Most of her clients don't even look at her website. It's a referrals based business for her business type and size. Another guy I know in the same business comes to mind. His website is one page, all text. Nothing fancy.

Another guy, a business consultant type guy has a site up that is basically a css template. He is also referrals based – sole practitioner, all of that...some of his clients are very high profile.

So maybe what you say is true about goods and retail etc – and that's good news for developers...but small businesses in services ... they don't seem to really care that much.

Fair points and perhaps I didn't establish that by no means is a great website the way to a great business. However imagine what a bit of SEO and a professional clean design could do to their business. Such a sole trader could benefit dramatically by adding a personal touch to their page – a professional photo?- clients love to see a face however adding a photo establishes subconsciously a link between that person and their company / brand. So when the client next comes across the company / face they revisit that link – Establishing a brand

I wish i had seen this discussion and found this site before I made the mistake of employing certain services. Having read this entire thread my experience was almost identical to others who have expressed their grievances, perhaps things have even worsened. ( I haven't received any abusive phone calls yet...but this may change). I understood that with a limited budget the result would be a budget website. My frustrations were not about having a budget website but more about being made promises (during the sales pitch) that (with hindsight) would not come to fruition. They were about phone calls not returned, being sent other client's emails in error, having the person I told would be managing my website replaced three times (without explanation) and in one instance, after feeling so frustrated with the amateurish work being presented I made my own logo only to have the exact same file sent back asking me if I was happy with their design?

And ultimately, it was only after the first financial transaction that the benchmark of what could and would be delivered changed and their ' no care ' factor truly became apparent. When I suggested I didn't want to proceed I was told it was too late due to all the work they had put in ( and this was before I had sent any information about my product, profile etc) where the only tangible thing i had was the email I received containing my own design. In some instances the staff were aggressive to me in response to my criticism.

I resented handing over any more money for an end result I knew would be dodgy but also based on the way I had been mislead (lied to). One of the things that makes me smile ( cause I can smile now) is when the " main person" patronisingly told me in the initial stages ( before the money was handed over) that they had fine Arts degrees coupled with years of experience.

What was already a bad situation became worse and at this point i decided to go with my gut instinct. That very night when i typed in " company name" and dodgy" I found this little ripper. I'm just grateful that my abundant misgivings were validated before I handed over more money. Sure, I had business cards printed using the domain name and email addresses they told me they had registered but at the end of the day this would be less expensive than continuing with the nightmare.

So yes, you pay for what you get but this is an altogether different matter. It's different when you pay for something you don't get. Fortunately, I was able to register the domain which they had supposedly registered for me ( so the business cards can stay) Another positive is discovering this website which I have found to be useful in making a more informed IT related decision about my future plan. My subsequent interactions with real IT professionals been very positive.

And for any others who have had a similar experience it may be heartening to know, that I will pursue what I think is unfair, surely this is why we have a Trade Practices Act.

" Is this naive? Maybe but we don't care"

McUser writes...

after feeling so frustrated with the amateurish work being presented I made my own logo only to have the exact same file sent back asking me if I was happy with their design?

I find that point alone staggering. ????

Good to hear you 'saw the light' and moved on.

Clearly if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

EDIT: Wow, they must be hating the current google search results here:

sites and stores dodgy

magnetik writes...

EDIT: Wow, they must be hating the current google search results here:

sites and stores dodgy

If you just search for 'sites and stores', this thread is number 3 on the list :)

Yes Sites'n'Stores should be closed down...

McUser writes...

So yes, you pay for what you get but this is an altogether different matter.

Yet I strongly dislike this cliche term. I'm sure I'm going to rouse up some sort of argument here however to me there are a lot of good designers / studios out there that offer a fantastic product for the cheapest price they can afford.

bigt,bigt writes...

there are a lot of good designers / studios out there that offer a fantastic product for the cheapest price they can afford

Who can afford? The designer or the client? Do you have some examples of these "fantastic offers", 'cause I can't find any.

Ivica writes...

Who can afford? The designer or the client? Do you have some examples of these "fantastic offers", 'cause I can't find any.

Yes, designers and developers have reals costs too. Otherwise the industry would be full of people promising the world and not being able to back it up. Professionals in any industry come at a cost. We all do what we can as competitively as we can (well, most anyways)

Yep i too wish i had read this discussion before going with Sites & Stores to develope our online site.
They are soooo unprofessional, the "changes" we requested over the past four weeks are actually errors and requests to correct incredibly shoddy work.

Emails (allow at least a 3 day response time) go back and forward with requests ignored – then a further 3-4 days go by before maybe one of the many errors are corrected. They are an absolute JOKE.

We paid 90% of the contract over 4 weeks ago with nothing to show for it. It may be budget, but that doesn't mean i will accept being totally ripped off.

McUser I will certainly pursue this matter – VCAT looking like an option at this point.

For anyone looking for a website developer give Sites & Stores a huge miss.

magnetik writes...

EDIT: Wow, they must be hating the current google search results here:

sites and stores dodgy

even better:

"sites and stores review" http://yco.me/SnSreview

Yes, and I'm thinking class action may be the way to go. It's weird when a company lodges a VCAT application against someone who has so clearly been wronged.

please check your email

@McUser: even if they registered your domain it's still your domain. You can switch it to a registrar you'd prefer to deal with.

Please, if you value your sanity do not use these people they are terribile...
I have been working on my website since 4/8/10 with them and we are still not done, now nearly 2 months on I still dont have what I asked for or paid for. The sales guys say anything to get you over the line, then dont return your calls....
the website states that give Martin Harrington or Andrew Doolan a call if you are unhappy – well I did many times, and of course they dont return calls either.
Big feature of my site was a video player (media player) a good one and was told that would be no problem – so they put one on I liked it. Then when I needed to upload new videos (as I am paying for CMS) low and behold they hadnt thought that part through, so 2 and a half weeks later they are still trying to figure out how to do the player? they told be they were going to replace it and upgrade the player – what I got was a free downloaded one from the net that wouldnt play anything, their solution to that was for me to reduce the videos to such a low res that it was pointless actually having them on... so this is still going, when we were developing the site, we would make some small amends that would take a week or so to turn around. I have never experienced such a level of crap customer service, lack of communication. They say on their website that they are the BEST but in fact they are the WORST, I work in marketing so I deal with agencies all day long all types and sizes and I still cant get my head around this sweatshop of web developers who do not care about you or your satisfaction. When I get this sorted and have time, I will be contacting fair traing as they are grossly misrepresenting themselves on their website with their claims...

I would strongly recommend that you dont use them

RESOLVED

Hi everyone,
lets cut to the chase. Which company is a reliable host and can transfer a current website including online store?

I want out of Sites and Stores (all of this stuff has happened to us) and I need a reliable and capable website developer/designer/host.

Please help as this is now at desperation point and doing a google search doesn't tell me who I can trust. I am happy to pay for a good job to have a professional site that functions correctly all the time. thanks for your time

rythym writes...

Which company is a reliable host and can transfer a current website including online store?

I want out of Sites and Stores (all of this stuff has happened to us) and I need a reliable and capable website developer/designer/host.

It's not that simple. Site and Stores run their own proprietary shopping cart / cms system. You cannot just lift it up and take it elsewhere (nor would you have permission to do so).

Rhythm, can you link to your website so everyone here can see what you're dealing with?

DaRKoN_ writes...

You cannot just lift it up and take it elsewhere

Hi DaRKoN,
thanks for your reply. Here goes a really dumb question but I need to know how this would function: so does that mean you can't copy all the files and database data and then batch import into another area? thanks

Yes, that's correct. The most someone else can grab (without having FTP access) is the html, css and images (just the presentation layer). There's no way to grab the database or the code.

rythym writes...

Hi DaRKoN,
thanks for your reply. Here goes a really dumb question but I need to know how this would function: so does that mean you can't copy all the files and database data and then batch import into another area? thanks

Hey rythym,

Sent you a quick whim earlier on.

DaRKoNs and SIMB are right about you not being able to carry across the Sites'n'Stores proprietary cart/cms system but there's nothing stopping you from pulling your product listings (images, prices, inventory, descriptions), store theme and setting up on a better platform.

Switching an online store can be a hassle, especially when you try to pull several thousand products piece by piece but it's do-able and it usually requres a lot of Redbull.

You just have to really sit down and figure out how much grief your current online stores causing you and your business. Are your customers able to buy your products or services? If not, how much are you loosing out on? etc, etc.

If it's cool, reply to my whim and send me the URL to your online store. Wouldn't mind having a closer look. Might even be able to suggest a few quick bits and pieces.

Anyways mate, good luck! :)
- SyKO

Yeah to answer the shop-moving query, Shites N Stores essentially rebrand existing frameworks of third-party eCommerce packages such as Eaze Internet alongside one other one (one for online shops & one for non-shop websites.)

So although they'll gladly hand over graphic & text files, you can't 'carry away' the shop functionality. The third-party aspect is one of the reasons issues rise with the websites they build: noone there actually knows how to use the third party products.
Hence the lack of instruction manuals or guides on using the CMS bar a link to the manufacturer's site.

On top of this, the back-end administration side of these things are extremely unintuitive; one accidental click & you can lose whole pages or, worse still, framework layout features like the navigation tabs and shopping cart facilities. Bugger these up and, yep you guessed it, you'll get charged a few hundred to get them back.

Quite scary when you're essentially feeling things out in he dark to figure out how it works.

Simply put ditch these chumps even if you've invested cash in what they've served you up as is. The reason why you speak to someone new every time you call is because the average staff member lifespan is approximately a month.

One last point- What's with their Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne offices list on their site? They're only based in Melbourne. Is this false advertising? 'Cos I can tell you now those other addresses are made up.

PlasticMan123 writes...

One last point- What's with their Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne offices list on their site? They're only based in Melbourne. Is this false advertising? 'Cos I can tell you now those other addresses are made up.

My guess is they are doing this for SEO purposes, specifically for google map listings.

Not sure if it's false advertising, but Google likes to know this sort of thing, as it directly impacts on their users experience if someone actually went to the location which didn't exist.

hankMoody writes...

My guess is they are doing this for SEO purposes, specifically for google map listings.

^^This^^

Wow what a read – sounds like these guys are definitely worth staying away from!

There were some comments made about not being able to take "their" CMS and cart features – not sure what kind of setup each individual has from them, but looking at their portfolio most of these sites were built with what looks like to be osCommerce (http://www.oscommerce.com/) which is (like it's name suggests) OPEN SOURCE ... they do not own the rights to this ...
But like I said each individual may have a different setup.

THEY ARE S%^T!! Different person with no idea of you or your site EVERY TIME!! I'm sooooo angry.... words can't explain.
I have been dealing with them for months and my site is no where near completed.. and.. I have done most of the work myself. Simple tasks are too much to ask for. Broken english replies to most emails are concurrent, and I have no idea whom they are coming from as staff turn over seems to be more frequent that big macs being sold. I am f'd off!! And will be contacting consumer affairs. I f anyone is with me, let me know.

Hi again,
I've read what people have replied since my comment. Thanks for your feedback. Particularly now I realise that SitesnStores uses osCommerce then maybe I should consider finding another business that also does. I do have ftp access so can I copy across more than html, images etc? So far I've found Interactive Focus in Brisbane. Any feedback on them or any other os commerce developers.

I've also been approached by designers for more information on what my website consists of so they can quote me. However, I realise that its more than the design I'm dealing with. Its also the reliability of the service, the backend that ensures the website and store are always online, the speed in fixing any problems and the good communication that lets me know about something before it happens or what is being done about it to fix something...so in other words I'm not looking for a one man operator, I need a professional backend too. Or, am I asking too much from one entity?
thanks

DaRKoN_ writes...

Whirlpool rules basically state that you can't promote yourself on here.

.

BTW, how do those guitars hold tune?

RESOLVED

Given they use oscommerce and you have ftp access, download the entire ftp directory.
Upload it to another webhost and see what works what does not, you may have some issues with passwords to the oscommerce db etc.

Im guessing may be able to move it very easily, given the ftp access.

Hey there.
I'd just quickly like to throw in my two cents to this thread which I came across this evening, just to warn some people who would consider SnS as an option.

I can't give out my background relating to the company, for private reasons but I can certainly advise you to avoid these people like the plague. I've read a lot of posts here regarding people who find it almost impossible to contact the company at all. When calling the general number, you simply go through to a paging service at some call centre which takes your name and number and simply pages or emails someone at SnS asking for a return call. It's all outsourced. Nobody on the phones is actually at the company. Most people will call 3 or even 4 times a day when trying to reach them, out of pure frustration and urgency. It's very rare they receive a call back. In the end, from what I discovered a while ago, most people ring back after the 3rd or 4th time to ask the person on the other end to contact whoever is at SnS, saying they want a refund.

I've spoken to many people who've dealt with the company, and it gets me very uncomfortable to hear what they have to say. I certainly wouldn't put my money there.
Looking at a lot of their "finished" projects, many look generic and borderline, and simply isn't worth that much money. Most people who work for the company have little experience in web development, or business skills, so it's scary for me to think how many people give these people their hard earned cash.

I do not currently work in web design, nor work for any other similar company, I have no reason to post here, other than to warn those who might lose some hard earned dollars. I've seen how the company works and that's just my two cents.

Cheers.

phonic4 writes...

but I can certainly advise you to avoid these people like the plague.

Someone called me for advice last week and mentioned SnS. I expressed my concerns, but she was really wanting me to confirm what she suspected in the first place.

Paraphrasing her words, they are very good on selling their services to you, but that's about it.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for – and sometimes you get a hell of a lot LESS than what you pay for!

Unfortunately I have been duped by sites & stores. Everything that has been said on the posts with regard to bad service etc regarding sites & stores is totally true. I have just been handed over my site with no real instruction & am trying to navigate it on my own. I am totally frustrated & wish I was smart enough to do further research regarding this company. What i'd like to know is – Has anyone that has contacted the fair trading act had any luck or is anyone that has gone with them to just count their loses???

resolved

I too have suffered the same issues as everyone else here. At least I am not getting any special treatment. Class action count me in!

rythym writes...

However, I realise that its more than the design I'm dealing with.

That's really important to understand :)

There is sooo much to a working osCommerce site... I think some of the most important parts are;
domain name (dns, email)
hosting (http, https, ftp, mysql, php )
site design (php, html, javascript, css, graphic design)
marketing (seo, sem)

am I asking too much from one entity?

Perhaps.... Finding a person that understands all the above parts may be hard. It would be normal to have different people within a company taking care of only one or two of these parts (eg: the person who writes the html/php code does not normally also do the dns, email, networking, hardware administration.)... So it can be hard to talk to one person who knows the answer to all your problems/questions.

Hope that makes sense:)

I run a couple of osCommerce based websites, I design and host them myself and it is/was a HUGE amount of work. I have external providers doing my dns and mail hosting.

I am currently looking to move to a external hosting provider (but just finding someone who can meet my hosting requirements within my budget is not that easy ... that's why I have been doing it myself)

Anyway you may find it easiest to go for an approach similar to what I have done. Separate out the different parts required to run your site and letting a different company/person take care of each part.

Need more info/help?... just post or whim me and I will try help :)

Best of luck to you all.

DeXtA writes...

Given they use oscommerce

It shouldn't be too hard to move to another host... but it will take a lot of work... and working out.

<edit> just had a quick look at the source of http://www.u-make-emsoftplastics.com.au/index.php ...looks like they are using an oscommerce offshoot/fork... <meta name="generator" content="CRE Loaded6 v6.2 Pro[13]"> </edit>

Upload it to another webhost and see what works what does not,

You will need to backup old database then setup on new host and populate otherwise nothing will work.

you may have some issues with passwords

passwords will be in the configuration file :)

Im guessing may be able to move it very easily, given the ftp access.

the biggest issues may be with specific configuration of server and software, mySQL version, php version...

Cheers .

steal money
This company will not give you what you ask for, they will direct you towards their price range choices (premade cheap website templates that you cannot view) for the unique look you want. They will tell you that you will get what you request but will only offer to give you their premade website after you have paid a deposit. They will not refund your money after they tell you that you cannot have what you want.
Rip offs on a major scale. DO NOT TRUST THESE PEOPLE!!!!

Edit- Replying to spellcheck:

I have a suspicion that advice isn't going to be of much help to someone who's paid $300 for a website.

The people they fleece help are typically mums & dads requesting hobby shop sites, or small non-tech savvy businesses.

Anyway bump this up, it's dropped one Google listing. Even if it saves one person the frustration of dealing with these chimps it's worth it.

PlasticMan123 writes...

I have a suspicion that advice isn't going to be of much help to someone who's paid $300 for a website.

Hopefully my advice can help these people understand a little more about what is involved with the setup and ongoing hosting of a website :) It may give them a few pointers on what to ask the next website/hosting company.

Advice was mostly directed at rythym

rythym writes...

Which company is a reliable host and can transfer a current website including online store? I need a reliable and capable website developer/designer/host.

Wish I could do more to help.

RESOLVED

resolved

RESOLVED

Resolved

resolved

A friend of mine had a site created by them, she thought it was ok, but being a developer myself I took a closer look and all I can say is this.

The people or person that created her site knows nothing about HTML standards, how to write clean code or even how to use CSS.

Don't get me started on the backend, I don't want to go there but it was the most unbelievable crap I had ever seen.

Resolved

Thank you Whirlpool !!!

I am trying to get a project up and running that will be web based. As it will be my 1st website and that my project is quite unique, i'm quite lost with exactly how and who to use to make my idea a reality. A friend had sent me a link to SnS suggesting that i take a look at them to get an idea of what's required from my end and what it's likely to cost. I visited their site, all seemed pretty professional and ended up completing their on-line enquiry form.
Thankfully, the very next thing i did was to search Whirlpool ! Wow, i'm so glad i did before i shelled out any money with SnS. They sent me an email saying someone would contact me shortly, to which i replied, "after reading some feedback from some of your clients, i have decided i wont be using SnS for my web needs. Please don't bother to contact me".
I feel very sorry for those f you who have suffered at their hands. Websites / hosting need to be seamless for business so that you're free to get on with creating, distributing your products / ideas and keeping pace with your customer needs.
So, i'm no closer to getting my project off the ground or even how best to proceed from concept to reality. But it does seem that i've prevented myself from ending up in a painful and dysfunctional relationship with a web design / host that my project will be totally reliant on.
It seems there's some pretty stringent rules here regarding self promotion ? I would be grateful for any honest advice / recommendations / readings for website creator newbies, that don't contravene the forum's rules.

Cheers,

300pete writes...

It seems there's some pretty stringent rules here regarding self promotion ? I would be grateful for any honest advice / recommendations / readings for website creator newbies, that don't contravene the forum's rules.

Honestly its hard (as you will see by another similar thread).

Most of those of us who are professionals aren't racing off to promote our competition, and many of those who are throwing out a recommendation will have some undisclosed interest (even if its just a mate).

The barriers to entry are so low that any backyarder can call themselves a web devloper, and detailed sites can make small operations seem much larger.

One possible idea, is maybe have a look around the internet at some sites that are similar to your projects, and look at who the developer was (if they have a link in the footer). Then give the client (whose website you like) a call and ask if they have a couple of minutes to talk about their experience with the sites developer.

Then take a look at the developers website. Do they have a physical address listed? Is there a phone number I can call that isn't a mobile? Do they actually answer the phone? When you give the developers a CALL, can they communicate and explain things to you in clear english, without trying to impress/bluff you by throwing fancy jargon words around.

I'd ALWAYS suggest you do a quick company background check using ABR (www.abr.gov.au). (You can find their ABN generally by doing a whois search on the developers website, an easy one to use is http://whois.domaintools.com/)

The ABR register will give you key information including the business' legal structure, how long they have existed for, and how long (if at all) they have been registered for GST for.

For example, a 3 month old sole-trader that isn't registered for GST should set off a massive red warning. In fact any super new (< 12 months) or non-gst registered business should set off some alarm bells. Any business turning over less than 75k a year is either a slow-starting startup, or a backyarder. As a sole trader the barrier to entry compared to incorporating a company is slightly lower, which doesn't look great, and it generally also means a one-man shop.

Also before you engage the developer ensure the business is properly insured for PI/PL up to a sufficent amount. Any business that doesn't have the due diligence for something basic like to keep themselves insured, doesn't have the competence to run a business properly, and exposes you as their client to unnecessary risk.

These tips will help weed out some of the real donkeys. Of course there is still no certainty that you will find a reputable developer even after that, but that applies to any industry.

Best of luck with your project :)

Resolved

I'm currently pursuing this company through small claims court due to them not providing me with a website to the agreed specs. What they delivered was late, poor quality and not as requested to the point where it was completely useless for the purposes I requested it for.

To top it all off, they're impossible to contact once they've got your money and it took over a week each time to get some kind of callback/response from them after sending multiple follow up emails/calls. The sales guys will promise you the world and put the "hard sell" on to lock you into that 50% deposit.... then its game over.

I can only suggest to avoid them at all costs.

Thanks for the reply. Really appreciate it. I'm fast learning just how much work there is between concept and reality !!! I've been sitting on this idea for 9 years now, so for me it's "now or never" and "never" just isn't an option.
Didn't expect there was going to be any "silver bullet" (although doesn't stop me from wishing there was :-)
My next step was to do exactly as you've suggested and go surfing for sites that have the look and feel of what i'm trying to create. Agree that business checks through ABS are a must before parting with any IP or cash.
Thanks again :-)

Resolved

blackcat20 writes...

Is pursuing them expensive?

Depending on the size of your loss, small claims tribunal is an option worth considering.

Resolved

RESOLVED

I was once asked by a client to modify/fix her site which was made by Sites-n-stores.

And... yea I can confirm that it's totally crap. Cloned site, copy & paste code everywhere. I even found other clients' site info in the code... Totally a ripoff

p/s: I also heard a rumour that it's $500/site (or 5k/site – dont remember) and they make about 100 sites/month. Not sure if this is true.

hostie writes...

I have proceeded with a VCAT application after Consumer Affairs told me that they are unable to assist as I am a business complaining about another business.

Strange, this advice seems contrary to their own information:

http://www.vcat.vic.gov.au/CA256DBB0022825D/page/Civil+Disputes-Small+Claims?OpenDocument&1=45-Civil+Disputes-Small+Claims~&2=~&3=~

Who can apply to VCAT?

Anyone can apply to VCAT to resolve a dispute with:

• a supplier or possible supplier; or
• purchaser or possible purchaser

and:

Anyone' includes:

• traders
• companies
• businesses
• consumers
• individuals

and regardless of whether the goods or services are for private or business use.

It may well be that you didn't word the complaint correctly but I'd definitely be getting back to VCAT and getting them to justify their decision based on the above information.

Ma®3k writes...

Strange, this advice seems contrary to their own information

I think you misread the post and you're getting VCAT confused with Consumer Affairs. It was CA who said go to VCAT.

Hostie is now proceeding with VCAT as per the info you linked to, ie you linked to VCAT not CA.

cRx45 writes...

I think you misread the post and you're getting VCAT confused with Consumer Affairs. It was CA who said go to VCAT.

Indeed, my apologies... that's what happens when not enough sleep is combined with too much coffee :)

Resolved

Resolved

blackcat20 writes...

SnS on the ABR, they are listed as "not registered for gst". Seems a bit odd given they are very likely to make over $75k per year...

I did the same thing as was going to post like you, then I did some more digging and discovered that it was lisleading.

They handle their $$$ trade via a trust Trustee for Sites & Stores, or something similar and the trust is actually registered for GST.

Resolved.

resolved

Resolved

wow what a night mare bunch of stories,... its so sad on so so many levels.

RESOLVED

Resolved

reebz writes...

I'm currently pursuing this company through small claims court due to them not providing me with a website to the agreed specs. What they delivered was late, poor quality and not as requested to the point where it was completely useless for the purposes I requested it for.

To top it all off, they're impossible to contact once they've got your money and it took over a week each time to get some kind of callback/response from them after sending multiple follow up emails/calls. The sales guys will promise you the world and put the "hard sell" on to lock you into that 50% deposit.... then its game over.

I can only suggest to avoid them at all costs.

Yesterday, I too received a telephone call from the senior management of the company to finalise the matter.

Similarly to the above poster, after losing a lot of $$$$ and a 5 month battle, I would like to now state that the dispute in the quote above was finally resolved out of court.

Again wishing everyone else good luck and hope we can all move on from this.

Like many others on here my company had the great misfortune to get involved with Sites n Stores (although we called it early on them as it was very quickly evident how dreadful they were) – should have done more background checking on them at the beginning – as the internet seems to be awash with unhappy current and former customers – if we had we would have definitely avoided them like the plague. From what i see here, and from what we experienced, they seem to spend more energy threatening legal action for the "work" they have performed than in running a decent and honest web design company.
Definitely one of those companies that belong on an episode of Sixty Minutes.

resolved

roof54 writes...

!

resolved

Can anyone elaborate on what the outcomes have been?

resolved

Resolved.

DaRKoN_ writes...

Can anyone elaborate on what the outcomes have been?

Gag conditions?? Interesting.

Mr. Ed writes...

Gag conditions?

Yes! it appears so.
The complainants have edited ALL their posts (including their original 'complaint' post) to say "resolved"

SnS must have settled financially with complainants here on WP and as a condition they had to remove ALL their complaints here.

Wow.

<edit> – No! it appears SnS threatened legal action against WP posters!

SIMB Web Design writes...

Hi all, just a heads up that Sites and Stores contacted me several times today and want me to take down my posts. They have threatened legal action if I don't.

Can't see how any of this is helping (what's left of) SnS's reputation – this thread still appears in the Google search results and anyone researching them via this thread can read between the lines posts.
I just hope for the sake of unwary business owners that SnS have modified their business practises so that situations like this won't happen again.

S(h)ites n Stores makes me ...

DR@KE writes...

i think this has been pretty stupid to mark things as resolved

Drake, they got threatened with legal action.
No choice but to do as they (SnS) demanded.

This is an anonymous forum. Remember. They wouldn't know en from a bar of soap, let alone compel them. !

Weak mate.

Seems a bit odd.

How would S&S know who is posting in the first place?

This whole thing seems a bit counterproductive all said and done. Couldn't this have been resolved with them directly seeing as you apparently would remove "traces" of your dissatisfaction with the company from this thread anyway?

I probably am missing something here.

It proves the people posting the complaints are just as bad if not worse the sns for letting them get away with it. Bought off. No respect for them.

*resolved* is now.

i was looking at getting my website done with them, i sent them a quote request, and they spammed my email address to a bunch of other potential clients who had also requested quotes. where are their privacy ethics?

i ended up getting my site done through www.unsquared.com.au a local melbourne webdesign company. cant say better things.

vasquerity writes...

.........a local melbourne webdesign company. cant say better things.

Off topic, but lol @ bouncerate in the image on their homepage?? 68.88% Wow.

HAHA.

Was wondering if anyone else saw that.

Not the best thing to have slapped on the ol' homepage.

:D

RESOLVED

I speak on behalf of the ex employees, and we do feel your pain. The sitesnstores two owners dont really care about your issues and in fact laugh at all these posts. They are loosing business because they are the biggest scam artists you have ever met. They treat there staff so poorly as they do there customers. They will only get whats coming to them and lets pray they just go out of business.

vasquerity writes...

www.unsquared.com.au

I'll just leave this here: http://www.squarespace.com/

Unless they're the same company, somebody has some explaining to do...

field4000 writes...

www.unsquared.com.au

I'll just leave this here: http://www.squarespace.com/

Unless they're the same company, somebody has some explaining to do...

ahahahahahaahha.....

field4000 writes...

Unless they're the same company, somebody has some explaining to do...

DaRKoN_ writes...

ahahahahahaahha.....

Damn, The second one is down to me.

Mr. Ed writes...

Damn, The second one is down to me.

Squarespace is down? Works for me.

Basically Unsquare is a carbon copy, but with a different colour scheme.

DaRKoN_ writes...

Basically Unsquare is a carbon copy, but with a different colour scheme.

Ta

DaRKoN_ writes...

Basically Unsquare is a carbon copy, but with a different colour scheme

Same font rendering. Slightly different copy in the same places, different coloured background, less functionality (at least from the JS I can see).

Ironically, Jan 21 was Unsquared's release of their "new" layout. Much pwnage to be had if done correctly.

What an amazing thread.

I suggest the people who have been shafted by SnS band together and go on the offensive. Approach a law firm who take on "no win, no fee" suits, such as Slater and Gordon, with a view to a class action against SnS. They won't be laughing if S&G get them in their sites, sorry I mean sights ;)

If S&G won't take it on contact A Current Affair or Today Tonight, I think both shows have a web site with a provision to "submit your story".

hostie writes...

QC

yeah, but these guys change $1000 a hour if not more,..

would it really be worth the effort?

It seems shit sites r us , has either bought or silenced them through intimidation so i doubt you'll get the numbers for a class action.

real shame jokers like this can get away with it :(

Resolved

Mr. Ed writes...

Off topic, but lol @ bouncerate in the image on their homepage?? 68.88% Wow.

I also like on this page that they've modified the Google search in the image so it looks like the show for website marketing, when in fact sites, stores, website and design are all bold search terms.

Resolved

You basically get what you pay for, i'm a average web/graphic designer and creating and managing a website is very time consuming and not cheap.

If you want a website that compares to some of the bigger companies great looking sites, expect to pay a lot of money.

My suggestion is find a host, get joomla and virtuemart and build it and learn it yourself.

Changing a website to suit your clients tastes can be very frustrating for a web dev, often reems of code have to be scoured to find relevant code, then there's security and SEO that have to be considered.

For 1500 bucks all you can really expect is a 5 page site with basic functions.

With that 1500 bucks, you can download joomla, virtuemart and some nice themes and plugins from joomlart and get lots of community support as it's all opensource.

I had a friend that paid around $1500 thru SnS to get a site done. Same as what everyone else has been saying, not completed, worst service, no refund when u finally figure out they are ripping you.

Wouldnt touch them with a billion foot pole.

Johnny_Blogs_User writes...

I have spoken to the ACCC and Consumer Affairs and they tell me if enough people put in complaints against SNS, they will be investigated.

This seems like the best way forward – feel sorry for everyone being burnt here, gives web developers like myself a bad name – jump up and down enough and hopefully the ACCC can blow them away into oblivion.

They must still have some cash going – they keep blasting their annoying adverts on Gold FM 104.3 in Melbourne most days....

+ 1 for shopify.com

magnetik writes...

They must still have some cash going – they keep blasting their annoying adverts on Gold FM 104.3 in Melbourne most days....

I listen to AM in the car, and i'm pretty sure they were on SEN 1116. I always laugh when I hear their add, as it reminds me of the threads here on WP.

Hi, I have approached Consumer Affairs and am now heading to VCAT ... Tips?
It's a NIGHTMARE dealing with these guys ...

The following is my personal dealings with sites n stores as well as my personal opinion. It is not meant as slander.

I contacted sites n stores about making me a webpage with the budget of $1500. They sent me some fancy looking templates and told me that they are the quality I will be getting. I spent a week checking out other web design companies and during this time they constantly emailed and phoned me, telling me they are ready to start.

After about 6 instances of contact during the week I said yes. Deposit was 50%. I sent them a full description of what I wanted as well as a few links to examples.
I didn't hear from them for a month so i contacted them. They sent me the preview the next day. It was horrible. Nowhere near the quality they had showed me. They had also just taken the few links i had sent them and just ripped the graphics straight from them for the example. It was basically all the examples mashed together into one design, if you could call it a design.
They asked for more chances but if i refuse my deposit will be forfeit. Someone in another forum knocked me up a design to send to them but i'm afraid they will just copy it and take credit (and the rest of my money) for nothing.

Hi JMN

Before Sites n Stores it was Eaze internet. It was a disaster and the previous posts say it all.

For the suckers ( of which I was one) I took Martin Harrington to VCAT and was successful. It cost me $55.00.

I hope this helps

WAS one of the staff working in this dodgy company before. I felt every single of you guys in this thread. They will contact you no matter what to get business from you and once you have paid the first payment, expect to keep adding extra $ for some stupid easy function which may take them few mins to do it. Even worst after the site has been handover as you will not even able to hear from them anymore. They are just so lazy to build the site purely by photoshop and put them straight into the content management system. I have been working on a few content management system and their one is one of the most hardest system to use. For the money you spend, you may as well get a custom build website from new company and get them to manage it for you.

Can't help but feel a little violated right now.

Issue resolved.

It's sad how people get fooled by dodgy web developers over and over again. This is not only hurting those individuals but the small and medium business community in Australia as a whole, instead of a pat in the back these people get a kick in the back, sometimes quit their business even due to the depression they couldn't even get their business website up.

Someone who's got the authority, if you are reading this, should put an end to this. All the people who posted in this forum post, can't be liars or delusional, this is really happening and seriously obvious. SNS is not a legit business.

I worked for SNS for just over a year, I've seen everything on how not to run a business and not to build a website. Pretty much all designs they create are done under 1 hour and websites are built under 5 hours production time. SNS don't really have proprietary software CMS or otherwise,
they use an older version of http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/ for CMS and an older version of CRELoaded for ecommerce sites. They honestly don't have any resources to build any proprietary CMSs, let alone ecommerce software.

I feel for all of you, wish I wasn't part of SNS I've already removed it from my resume and never mention it to anyone publicly. I think as a community we should stand up for this, and bring these fools to justice.

My issue was resolved after speaking with the owner.

Based on the previous comments here I'd want proof this was the case. We know from all these other posters they've poor communicated with everyone else, and this could just be another deception (lie).

NotStupid writes...

Seems the cause of the misunderstandings were emails going missing in transit

Hmmm...

....

RESOLVED

RESOLVED

RogerW writes...

SNS don't really have proprietary software CMS or otherwise,
they use an older version of http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/ for CMS

Is that what that thing is? I did SEO on a site hosted by SnS and it is the second-most frustrating CMS I've ever used. Just getting Google Analytics onto the site required workarounds. Made a global content block that you don't want any more? Tough luck, you can't delete it using the delete function! Time to go editing the database manually...

I have used them and my experience has been nothing short of frustrating.

Poor communication, rude staff, and customer service that I can only describe as unprofessional. They have moved my site from one server to another without telling me and we were off the air for a week (not bad for a gift site leading into Christmas). It cost us thousands of $ in lost revenue.

Around 6 months later they made so called security updates as they were hacked into (I was told this by one of their employees) and our email (hosted by them) was hacked and spam emails with dangerous links sent to our customers.

Our passwords to the admin area of our site were changed without any notification. We found out when trying to login to advise customers of goods being shipped.

We are currently having yet another issue and I am awaiting a response (shouldn't hold my breath) will be moving to Melbourne IT as our new host very soon.

They get bad feedback from customers because their customer service is so bad! If they could just return calls and work with customers to resolve issues they wouldn't have so many angry people out there.

If they spent just 10% of their marketing budget on retention of customers and customer service many of their problems would disapear!

I noticed that a previous poster took them to VCAT and won. I will be doing the same thing If I don't get a quick resolution to this latest issue!

I worked for them for a brief time, the people are a joke! They treat there workers like slaves, and i feel sorry for the clients, they rip them offf.. please take my advice and stay away from these clowns all they want to do is reach there sales margins and rob innocent customers of there money. I'd rather work with chimps!

I have my website stuck with me as a dump website. site n store's salesman talked to me with the tone you 'll never find after you paid them. They asked me to pay all the monies before anything is done and even promised me that i would be guide all the way till im happy. the website still not completed and they dont reply anymore. last time i did a trick that i want to add some features to my website and wd like a quote, imediately two gentlement replied with calls and emails, what a life!. I understand site and store only considers you as a piority in the beginning and after you paid them you will be a dead deer and they will only look up for the running deer

Trust me there shit, no other word to describe them..

scumless writes...

Trust me there shit, no other word to describe them..

Not defending S n S, but did you get knocked back in a job interview?
/forum-replies.cfm?t=1692269&p=2#r25

PS, I hate it when people do this: but it's "they're" not "there".

Leave the English to me, I lik 2 writ shrt hnd on here.. got it? And no, I worked for them and left a few weeks ago

This thread is doing pretty well in the brand keyword rankings for 'Sites n Stores'.. here in Syd it's about #4 ... :D

Sites n Stores any good? Sites n Stores reviews. Opinion on Sites n Stores. Sites n Stores customer testimonials.

^lulz

Internets-user-09 writes...

This thread is doing pretty well in the brand keyword rankings for 'Sites n Stores'.. here in Syd it's about #4 ... :D

A bad thread on Whirlpool can all but ruin a company. That is not an understatement.

How many front end devs does that company go through? I always see them advertising on seek. Feel sorry for you legends who go to work there lol. But seriously dont you guys just code in tables =p

haha legend filter thats funny.

I know views differ about HTML validation, but I always put a website company's website through the validator to see what comes up. I feel that it demonstrates their professionalism: 71 Errors, 67 warning(s)

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.getarealquote.com.au%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

This is an interesting topic.
perhaps they should consider some of the feedback and see where they can make things better.

(will think about some more constructive things soon)

And they clearly don't customise favicons either. Even funnier is that "their" hosted sites are using hostmonster and other favicons also.

And many of those home pages – dear god. Clearly no discussion with the client about usability. A home page is not about cramming as much as possible into as little space as possible, and some shocking non-blending backgrounds...

Navigation seems to be often sloppy and not-obvious with some odd locations for main and sub menus.

....

....

What's with the excessive use of capitals? We're neither blind, deaf, nor responsible for your situation. Lay off the capitals.

It is to my understanding that they use a custom CMS, I may be wrong on this however from a few people I have spoken to it is not possible to just pickup your site and put it on another host. You may find you have better results in taking a legal route if what you paid for was not delivered.

What contracts were there between you and Sites n Stores?
What written / documented evidence have you regarding what you wanted and what they delivered?

If you read enough of the posts in this thread you will get the idea that they will not refund you, and you are best off seeking qualified legal advice and taking your next steps through such avenues.

maloney writes...

Having your own website is not that difficult nowadays, and it should not be very expensive either.

But it doesn't mean they should be cheap. They should somewhat expensive compared to hosting.

After all, how many sites have you looked at and considered cheap and decided NOT to go there (either their premises or purchase online)? Many (small) business simply don't understand that a website is not enough – it has to make people NEED to buy from them.

....

....

if only
two words that echo in my mind
if only I had researched a little bit more
if only I had searched these pages
I to have just finished with a web site from this company
at first the site was all that i required and no trouble with any of the process
UNTIL
we have an enquiry form with three tick boxes for different enqiries
easy enough until i tested it and surprise surprise it was directed to a private addresses we had been using to deal with them
these addresses are only used for private and confidential data and at no time were we asked to use them
when I contacted them to fix this error I was told that it would be a $98.00(approx)fee
as i have read from the threads here cheap sites built but no customer service
live and learn

further to my issue
The total length of time to program this in is 1.5 hours with our hourly rate of $87+gst ($95.70)

The total for this job is $143.55
this is how much to fix and redirect the enquiry to three email boxes which should have been done right the first time

TWOBRADS writes...

this is how much to fix and redirect the enquiry to three email boxes which should have been done right the first time

Did your initial contract and scope state that each enquiry needed to be directed a different email box? If so, did you sign off that the project was complete before you discovered the issue?

Hi All,

Heard about "Sites and Stores" on Triple M Sydney. I thought it was too good to be true to have a website built from $300 and an e-commerce site from $800... so i Googled them and found this thread...

I run a web design and development company and i know that for that price, you'd probably end up with a copy site from somewhere else. Just a profesional logo design itself these days are a few hundred dollars.

For those looking to get their own website up on a very tight budget, you can get your own website up in a day with for a few hundred bucks.

(note, for larger sites, id recommend finding a good local web developer that you can build a strong working relationship with and who can answer all your calls and questions. Its very important):

1 – Get a domain name and webhosting. I'd recommend www.hostgator.com, or if you prefer australian hosting, i'd recommend www.netregistry.com.au. Both have pretty good customer service. If you are building a location based service (e.g. a travel website for Australia), id recommend getting Australian hosting for SEO reasons.
2 – Go get a nice WordPress theme. You can check out themes from www.monstertemplates.com or use the templates from www.elegantthemes.com. I use elegant themes for my own personal blogs and they're actually quite amazing and very well coded. They are SEO friendly and pages get indexed sometimes in less than 24 hours with Google.)
3 – Once you have the above 2 steps in place, you just need to hook it all up. Its very easy and can be done with just a few clicks. Just install WordPress on your web hoster with one click in the cPanel. Once WP is installed, install the word press theme, again, with just one click. You can find a tonne of information on Google on how to install WP themes.

I hope this has been of use to someone. Let me know if anyone needs helps. I'd be more than happy to assist as i know starting a new start-up can be really stressful.

Cheers,
Roly.

Haz the only way you would ask that is if you worked there
that to one side
i have spoken to site's and stores today and all issue are fixed much appreciated
still as i told them the original reason for my post was more the way i was treated by the staff member over the phone with no consideration at all for customer relations
but after my discussion today i am quite happy to say and let all know that all is well in the land of our web page
thanks for your efforts today Duncan

TWOBRADS writes...

Haz the only way you would ask that is if you worked there

To be fair it's pretty common experience that client's change minds very regularly and you're expected to read their assumptions – without knowing they exist! It's a fair question to ask.

TWOBRADS writes...

Haz the only way you would ask that is if you worked there

Sorry to disappoint you, but I certainly don't work there.

Like Dalehauf said, everyday I see clients who change their mind after signing off everything is 100%. I was merely playing devils advocate, people change their mind it's not something unique to sites'n'stores.

Glad you got it all sorted.

Hi guys,

I wish I read this forum before paying these tards from Sites n Stores $4K to make my website,
they were so quick in the beginning to take my money. but have delivered me with a website I cant even use because there CMS is filled with bugs!!!!!

I have over $7,000 worth of stock sitting here that I cant sell because my site wont work properly.

They are so proud of getting out over 20 completed websites a week, I would love to see the quality of the other sites, (quality not quantity), thats what we pay money for.

Every step of the way I was being rushed.... even the phone calls the production team would talk so fast I had to ask them to slow down because it sounded like they were mumbling.

they never new any of the questions I asked them, they had the same answer every time "thats a great question, i'll get back to you on that one, I have never been asked that before." The question was something like, can I have sub categories!

I have no idea where to go from here. :S

If anyone has been caught out by sites n stores then feel free to whim me – i am happy to give you some free advice on a way forward and look at ways of salvaging something from your project.

Apparently, it will take Sites n Stores 5 hours to do the following:

- add Google Analytics tracking code
- setup Google Webmaster Tools
- sort out the 301 redirect
- setup SEF URLs
- set things up for unique page titles across the site

oh and it'll cost close to $500+gst to do all of this.

What a load of rubbish.

These guys are nothing short of a joke and a dark ugly stain on the web design and development industry.

Avoid Sites n Stores at all costs.

It wouldn't surprise me if the turnaround (from receiving the email) to completion was 5 hours, if your work was slotted in to their schedule, but not 5 hours to do all that... Adding GA code should be as simple as adding your GA key to the site configuration, and setting up GWM tools shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.

As for other stuff, depends exactly what's involved and how many pages need to be configured (of course, assuming there's an easily configurable option).

Edit:
Were you billed $500 after the work, or were you quoted 5 hours at $500 and have yet to proceed?

Resolved

Resolved

I wish I researched this company before accepting a job offer from them.
Long story short, what is being expressed on this forum is what 99% of the phone calls were about.
Example; One lady asked for a FB, twitter and youtube icon on her page in the design process, saw it there, signed off, however the icons were not linked to anything so she asked for this to happen for $87 + 10% GST
There main reason is "we are a small company and like our clients who are also small businesses we need to make money and cannot afford to be giving out free changes".
Last I heard there employee turn over rate was on par to that of a sales outbound call centre which is not something to be proud of at all.
Overall, to all you present SnS customers, next time you call them to talk to there friendly answering machine, please give a special thank you to Directors Andrew Doolan and Martin Harrington for making yours and everyone associated with SnS lives such a pleasant experience.

Any company pumping out 20 sites per week either has 15+ designers and a team of 10+ devs working for them, or theyre a McDonald's.

Based purely on what I've been reading and looking at their work, this is not a web design firm.

They sell a product, which is their cms solution, which just happens to sell website "building" services.

My professional opinion as a web designer for a multinational retailer is this is fast-food design.

They take your order, get it out the door as fast as possible, it never looks like in the photos, and sometimes they stuff your order up giving you the wrong thing or there's something missing.
And finally charge you $8 for something worth about $5. But then McDonald's has always been like that.

I'm going to make the assumption that in order for any company that bases their business on selling Google ad words, seo and their own cms pushing out 20 per week,

Have 1 or 2 designers if that, the rest are devs from overseas like India or about 3-5 locally.

They do very little custom design work, heavily rely on templates, charge massive rates on any custom work needed, and have customer support, sales staff know very little or nothing about website design or development.

Their work is always rushed and it shows in the end result, they can never do anything too creative and the sites are always minimumal effort. There's almost no design work involved as there's no time.

As a designer, I really feel sorry for any designer having to work under those kind of conditions, they are under constant pressure probably expected to do overtime every day for 1-3 hrs, their talents being wasted as they never get to actually do any design, only pump out garbage a teenager could do.

But again, that's based on any fast food design business.

But hey, at least most other fast-food design businesses only charge $500 or less for the same quality of work.

In this case, its not aways, you get what you pay for.

Something else to note, McDonald's isn't about to read this post and threaten to sue like tom cruse.

As for the massive amounts of edited posts here saying resolved or pple being gagged.

You are not Apple.

Any company can fix their reputation simply by taking a good hard look at the way they run things and address their key problems customers have. If customers are complaining about the same things... there's a problem in that area that the business needs to fix.

Work with the customer, don't punish them for expressing their bad experience with your business.

Threatening defamation is only showing weakness and ignorance in addressing serious key issues about how they conduct themselves.

In the end your only dragging your reputation down further.

moofactory writes...

My professional opinion as a web designer for a multinational retailer is this is fast-food design.

They take your order, get it out the door as fast as possible, it never looks like in the photos, and sometimes they stuff your order up giving you the wrong thing or there's something missing.
And finally charge you $8 for something worth about $5. But then McDonald's has always been like that.

Massive +1 to this; couldn't of said it better myself.

From the likes of things with SnS; these are the people giving the digital media industry a bad name. Upon many occasions, I have spoken to clients who have come from SnS who try to weigh up the differences between *our* digital agency & SnS – and to explain to them that their comparing apples with oranges doesn't get very far, however most of them only judge by the final outcome; which in all cases, SnS tends to lose.

Friendly warning to anyone considering using them for web development/ hosting – I've had a really bad experience, lost heaps of money and time and heard too many false promises that I can count.............

Please note the Sites and stores terms and conditions ...

Non-Disparagement

You must not make, disclose or publish orally or in writing any statement or comment which may defame or disparage Site n Stores or any of its employees or business. This obligation survives the termination of the engagement of Sites n Stores

Consider whether you believe this clause to be one which you would want to agree to before you engage sites n stores for any of your work, and whether this has any impact on the comments, or lack thereof made on this forum.

OzzyJohn writes...

This obligation survives the termination of the engagement of Sites n Stores

That seems like a difficult thing to enforce given that the contract has ended, unless you signed an NDA. In any case, posting real experiences is not defamation. In fact you can't defame a company of a certain size anyway (but posting the director's names could be defamation of them).

I woudnt worry too much about the non disparagement clause other than as a general warning to posters to be aware of all current libel laws (which seems to be totally ignored by most posters)

If they have not provided you with a good service then you have every to complain and share your experience.

Highly unlikely that they are going to spend $$ on lawyers given that the client believes that they have not delivered on what they promised. Just trying to scare people.

I'm not too worried, I wanted to do a little more research into non disparagment clauses before I posted any more. Even if the clause isn't enforceable (which, in my case I believe it is not), those are the terms and conditions and the intent of that clause seems clear. Having said that, there are many ways of making one's opinions felt without the use of language that is disparaging in the common sense of the term, even when recent experience has been somewhat disappointing.

Restrictions on the flow of high value information go against the grain for me, and the final clause in that contract is the kind of thing that I feel many other people would take exception to, and I thought it was worth highlighting it for the edification of the whirlpool community.

I've dealt with SitesNStores before, terrible bunch. Ripped off a whole heap of my customers purely because they don't know what they're doing.

As many other people have suggested, stay away from SnS. One of my current customers was threatened with legal action because she moved her site away from SnS's servers, they claimed that her content was their property (Not just the CMS, her photos, etc.) and that they would sue her. A quick call to the ACCC and several other government and 'business' people, and the case was dropped.

NOTE: My comments do not necessarily represent the views of The DEA Group and or it's staff.

Hey with all these horror stories, I don't know why anyone hasn't already started spitensores.com You know like regesterflies.

Basicly a place for people to share their experiences with them and publicly expose the truth about them.

If not I'm sure today tonight would love to hear from a lot of you about them.

Interesting to read that posts on this forum are discussed with S&S over the phone as things are being negotiated.

Anyway I worked for these muppets, they'd have no idea whatsoever who I am as their staff turnover is so high. & I'm not disgruntled in the slightest, I worked there years ago & am now happily employed in a great firm.

But you'd have no idea how that place is run, seriously. Yes, there are a few good apples, but the actual pair that run the company are among the pettiest, borderline deranged people I've ever encountered.

I just noticed too that they have adverts on television too, lord have mercy.

i have worked in sites n stores and all i can say is they are dodgy. i felt sad when i was told to do all those of dodgy stuff. they charge almost everything on top even for something which is purely their own design problem. the sales and the client managers will promise everything but once you are in there is no return. supportting clients in SnS is a pain as their content management system is one of the worst system i have never used. i have an online store myself which is a freeware and they are a lot better than the one SnS is using and they charge heaps for it. always have clients asking for something which this system cannot be done. sad and they are now even on TV. sigh.......

Hey Jenny, were you a designer or a dev?
I'm getting the feeling they treat their staff almost as bad as their clients.

Pay, overtime, overall treatment etc... how was it?

Dodgey how?
Cutting corners?

One thing that I've still not figured out, they state they do about 20 sites per week, I can't fathom how they do this without doing everything in templates.

Otherwise they would need 5-8 designers each doing 2-4 website designs a week.. that's a constant mad rush, which shows in their portfolio examples.

I've seen every site they promote being proud of.. and not a single one is up to standard. Id not pay them $500 for that standard of work. They look rushed and templated.

This is due to 2 things, they don't allocate enough time required to design to the quality standard people expect.

And/or their cms is way too restrictive and out dated to do anything of todays standard.

I work for a retailer and I know how restrictive cms's can be.. I've used magento, fatwire and Shopfront mainly.

And they all have their own restrictive issues.. but nothing nearly as bad as what it looks like sns are using.

Why run the risk of hurting your business. 0bviously they do well in selling to people as they have a large client base so they must be doing some things right, but at what cost long term would be my concern.

Id be real concerned about developing a bad reputation that even now seems to be creeping up on them.. which is so stupid when all they really have to do is identify key employee issues, customer issues, what's costing them time and money or restricting them regarding their cms and or business practices and make improvements accordingly.

Not just repeatedly replace employees and ignore clients repeating the cycle. They will end up driving themselves into the ground.

It's only going to take so many employees and customers having a bad experience with them before they do irreversible damage to themselves. Because once its collectively on the net. The party is over.

I really wish I had read this before signing up with sites n stores. A bunch of cowboys with too many departments. Customer service was non existant and felt like a number. Promises made and not kept and simple changes take upto a WEEK. DO NOT USE SITES N STORES. It has taken over a month to set up what another company quoted a week to do. So cranky. Still not up live yet. They've told me 24 – 48 business hours. That is 6 working days on top of the 35 days it has already taken.

I can field this one.

<Pay, overtime, overall treatment etc... how was it?>

Pay was as you'd expect, & I always got paid on time. So credit where it's due I suppose.
I was barked at to 'stay for as long as it took' to complete ridiculous tasks on quite a few occasions, including work I had no idea how to do due to staff walking out.

Other staff members who "needed the job more" (overseas students etc.) would stay 'til stumps, I'd walk out when I got pissed off.

General treatment was basically bullying tactics. I witnessed the more mentally loose boss chase a staff member out of the building, jeering and calling names as he went. He's a failed actor, an utter drama queen.

<Dodgey how?
Cutting corners?>

Once the job was signed off every single additional phone call would be answered at an $80 cost. A call for anything, pretty much. "Pay into the account & if we're wrong we'll put it back" was the line the phone operators were told to reel off. Yup.

<One thing that I've still not figured out, they state they do about 20 sites per week, I can't fathom how they do this without doing everything in templates.>

They do about that, if not more. All templated off 1 of 2 designs they use (static site or shop site.) I don't think they hide this fact though, it's $300 a site in fairness. They run on a hopeless CMS that can only update certain aspects of the sites. Anything else requires that $80 stealth fee.

They've a choice Richmond location though, & a huge space with a lot of staff, so mathematics suggests they're raking in the dough.

PlasticMan123 writes...

Once the job was signed off every single additional phone call would be answered at an $80 cost. A call for anything, pretty much. "Pay into the account & if we're wrong we'll put it back" was the line the phone operators were told to reel off. Yup.

Wait a min, your saying just for a phone call... regardless of what it was they would add an additional $80 be it for 5mins or 1hr?

Are they charging for the phone call or the assumption that the call is about changes to make after the sign off?

So I call up just to say hi and thanks for the job and they slap me with an additional $80?

As for what you said about one of the bosses chasing out one of the staff.. OMFG.
What a pathetic cowardly piece of shit.
If i was the staff member he'd not need to chase me, he'd be on the floor with a bloody nose. Sounds like the douche needs to be taken down a peg.

PlasticMan123 writes...

They do about that, if not more.

Not bad, but I've seen companies that can pump out 15 sites per week, per designer, on average. Of course the changes to the templates are mostly trivial.

i was a support there and i was told to do all those dodgy things which is nonsense and BS. their sales and client managers are way more than the designers so once u finished with the client manager u done and dun expect to get anything done to it as u will never deal with the client manager u talked to anymore so everything u were promised .... lol and u will then talk to the support which do not know anything about your site.
working there is the worst environment i had in my entire life... only one toilet share with 20 people mate.... come on.....
yes their cms is even worse than the open source cms and becoz the cms they are using is crap you will need to pay extra for anything beyond the cms which is so called adhoc job lol. i felt bad everytime i tried to explain this to the client.
now radio tv... omg the gay people really know how to do business.

Nice rant although i would have put 'ghey' (read: lame, without the sexual connotations) instead of 'gay' as the latter gives those "not that there is anything wrong with it" people a bad wrap. :-)

weeeee

Wow, glad I'm not the only one to think this place is ridiculous.
There is undeniable proof that they take money and don't produce things in an acceptable time frame.

They have 2,200+ websites currently "under construction", and this is only what google has indexed.
Try a google query as stated below.

"Page Under Construction – Website Design by Sites N Stores" -site:sitesnstores.com.au -site:sitesnstores-support.com.au -site:getarealquote.com.au -site:sitesnstoresreviews.com.au -site:sitesnstores.com

Or try this link.

Let's say it is fair to say an average price paid for the "web services" is $650.00, and all of those indexed sites have put down a 50% deposit, does this not mean that they have accepted over $700,000 in client money but are not able to produce low-grade and low quality websites? This place is a SCAM.

If you want a real website, spend that little bit more and get something worthwhile.

Oh and on last note, I am loving their last effort to get this thread out of google's first result for sites n stores review with their "sitesnstoresreviews.com.au" domain.

OMFG Thats just screwed
As far as im concerned, you don't publicly show a domain placeholder for a site that has not launched yet.

If it was my site they would be fired, I don't want some company piggybacking off me for free advertising.

And considering they have +2000 sites in a place holder state.
Its obvious they're only trying to do a mass cash grab. No wonder they cant meet demand.... either that or half of them are fake just to boost google ranking and traffic.

As for sitesnstoresreviews.com.au
Thats exactly what it is, an attempt to de rank this thread off google.
All the reviews look completely made up, about as false as their testimonials.
Note that there's no comments on the posts, this is because they have either restricted them or don't release any that im sure many people have posted.
Their whole operation stinks.

Oh and while im at it, WTF?
http://www.getarealquote.com.au/

Seriously, how many dodgy ways can you try and rank in Google.
http://www.sitesnstores.net/
http://www.sitesnstores.com/
http://www.sitesnstores.org/

They need to clean up there act.

dampeftw writes...

"Page Under Construction – Website Design by Sites N Stores" -site:sitesnstores.com.au -site:sitesnstores-support.com.au -site:getarealquote.com.au -site:sitesnstoresreviews.com.au -site:sitesnstores.com

Or try http://tiny.cc/9ivlq – 4,630 results

in that search result i can see

http://bmtronics.com.au/ <- not "under construction"
http://adecals.snspreview.com.au/ <- subdomain
http://125.214.71.115/~ogurucom <- server link
http://ns1.sns.smartdns.com.au <- Nameserver for a dedicated server with a script to automatically generate the domain name on the page.

<div id='domain_name' class='domain-name'>Domain Name</div>

<script language='javascript' type='text/javascript'>document.getElementById('domain_name').innerHTML = location.host;</script>

http://pinkdoorboutique.com.au/cgi-sys/suspendedpage.cgi <- server suspended page using the same script

after page 10 they start to turning into random pages, not actually domains..
so that about 200 sites? also i can see a bunch of mail./other dns showing in the results e.g
http://mail.annamapartments.com.au/
http://ds00701.snspreview9.com.au with the same domain script.
so if they have 3000 websites like it says on their website, shouldn't there be ALOT more under "construction pages" if you consider "mail." for 3000 domains?

I know for a fact that a bunch of domain providers will do the same thing when you purchase a new domain, e.g crazydomains
http://ilovemen.org/
http://davidwilson.com.au/
http://parked-crazydomains.com.au/
http://tiny.cc/ai6o1 – 431,000 results

so do crazydomains/austdomains/creapdomains(and all the other companies they have under different names) rip people off with the same auto generated page??
better not register a domain with crazydomains then!!!!!!

better to have an under construction page like they have, other then a page like this http://mail.sitesnstores.com.au/

it is all to common that people will spend the minimal on a product and expect it to be the best thing out, then crack the shits when it doesn't do everything they want.. would you go out and buy a 300 laptop then crack the shits because you couldn't play games on it, then go blame the company?

Gotta say though... most of the posts on here are just this guy
http://media.desura.com/cache/images/members/1/431/430462/thumb_940x3000/TrollFaceDancing.gif

Oh this is just completely unprofessional, keyword spamming your client's website. Do they know Google may even drop their client's search engine results for this?

Look at the footer of http://bmtronics.com.au/
Website Design, Design Web site, Web Design, Websites, Web Development by Sites n Stores

Each one of those words is hyperlinked striaght back to sitesnstores. I wonder if the owner of the site is even aware of this?

.Joel  writes...

Oh this is just completely unprofessional, keyword spamming your client's website. Do they know Google may even drop their client's search engine results for this?

It is werse than that. The sites can actually be blacklisted and removed from Google altogether.

.Joel  writes...

Oh this is just completely unprofessional, keyword spamming your client's website. Do they know Google may even drop their client's search engine results for this?

Look at the footer of http://bmtronics.com.au/

Each one of those words is hyperlinked striaght back to sitesnstores. I wonder if the owner of the site is even aware of this?

Wow, that is completely shocking. One link is enough, let alone trying to squeeze out as much anchor text as possible.

I feel like sending this poor store an e-mail to let them know that they should remove those links immediately.

I remember when I was looking to launch our e-commerce site, Sites n Stores were one of the first options that I contacted. I didn't know of this thread then but something just didn't feel right about these guys. They were way too pushy and made an incredible amount of follow up calls until I finally snapped and let them know that so many calls were completely out of line.

I ended up developing our online store myself.

Something else I have just noticed, every Sites n Stores site that I have looked at so far is poorly ranked and not indexed well.

Look at this site above as an example. Web archive age of 9 years! Google Toolbar Page Rank: 0, 6 pages indexed by Google (there's a lot more than 6 within this site), 1 page indexed by Bing, Alexa rank: No Rank. etc. You would think that they would at least provide some basic SEO/SEM strategy.

Also, at the bottom of the page there are Facebook and Twitter links, obviously part of their CMS. However, as this store doesn't seem to have any social networking accounts as these links simply point to the home page of each of these sites. They could have at least removed them for the time being. Not a big deal but would still be cleaner without pointless links.

Edit: Something else I just noticed. Many pages have been given the same title tag "Colac Telstra Store". This is completely unacceptable and is a fundamental basic to SEO. No wonder this site seems to be performing poorly. These guys are absolute jokers!

Not to mention that Telstra store site is three layers of embedded tables. It's a new site in 2011 and the whole thing is three embedded tables and not using div layout? Plus 11 of the most basic W3C validator errors that would each take one second to remove :p

I have decided to remove this post as the site does have Telstra branding so I would say it is fine.

One of our clients has a site with them and he's reasonably happy and has no major complaints. That being said, he's chosen us to develop all his new sites so while there is no reason to complain, their product offering must not be that attractive.

There is always an option. You can use Google site development tool to create a site. This is better for simple sites and it's free. Don't waste your bucks....

http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview.html

Sam@DEA writes...

One of my current customers was threatened with legal action because she moved her site away from SnS's servers

Despite the 15 pages of complaints, just that one sentence should be enough to know what kind of company you are dealing with. We don't help our customers, we sue them.

The only thing SnS's is good at is marketing itself to no clue, cheap business owners. Can't wait until the day all companies like this fade from existence.

I'd love to know how long their average customer stays for. Sad thing is most businesses NEED the internet to survive and end up with someone like SnS and end up thinking the internet doesn't work for their biz.

But it really does come down to being to lazy (maybe clueless) to research, if you can't be bothered to do a google search and find this thread of sites and stores reviews. Then really maybe being in business just isn't for you anyway.

chaosmaster writes...

Sad thing is most businesses NEED the internet to survive and end up with someone like SnS and end up thinking the internet doesn't work for their biz.

This is true, however if they 'need' the internet to survive, and only willing to invest a few hundred dollars, there business had high chances of not lasting long in the first place.

Can't wait until the day all companies like this fade from existence.

I'd think they were here to stay, and only increase in numbers unfortunately.

As developers you just need to not market for those type of business, market to medium to large businesses, and you will more than likely be dealing with someone more serious.