Has everyone else found Playtrade to be abysmal?

[TPH1]

I started selling on Play.com a few months ago and I wish I hadn't bothered. I've had the following problems:

- It took me months of wasted time to even get started as it's not technically simple to set up, and it can take up to 2 days to reach a technician on the phone.
- Uploading products is a nightmare. It can take hours of waiting for them to process before getting back nothing but a message saying "upload failure due to unknown error". I have not had one upload batch that has worked first time.
- Customer service is horrible. It's impossible to get hold of anyone who knows what they're talking about, and the people on the standard helpline are rude, incompetent, lazy and condescending. Their favourite solution to a problem is just to email you a link to a standard help page which I could have found anyway.
- They charge only 10% fees... Very good... BUT they also charge a 5% transfer fee, so it's actually 15%. What makes them think they can charge as much as Amazon do?
- Sales have been poor. I've undoubtedly lost money due to the time I've had to invest.

Unfortunately I'm signed up for the next 6 months, but I'm honestly considering just taking my products off now.

It's certainly made me appreciate Amazon and eBay more.

 

[Steve_g]

I started a few weeks ago, only got 150 products live so far but a rather dusty 5 sales last week, I know what you mean about uploads, its shocking. Other features such as the inventory search simply doesn't work.

I've spend hours getting uploads done, designing the store and generally trying to work around errors, I'm struggling to get motivated to get more products listed and revising my current listing format.

I think they will make a come back and making some good changes (compared to what it was like last year) would rather get established now before they gain ground on other market places and attract my competition.

 

[a4labels]

I started selling on Play.com a few months ago and I wish I hadn't bothered. I've had the following problems:

- It took me months of wasted time to even get started as it's not technically simple to set up, and it can take up to 2 days to reach a technician on the phone.
- Uploading products is a nightmare. It can take hours of waiting for them to process before getting back nothing but a message saying "upload failure due to unknown error". I have not had one upload batch that has worked first time.
- Customer service is horrible. It's impossible to get hold of anyone who knows what they're talking about, and the people on the standard helpline are rude, incompetent, lazy and condescending. Their favourite solution to a problem is just to email you a link to a standard help page which I could have found anyway.
- They charge only 10% fees... Very good... BUT they also charge a 5% transfer fee, so it's actually 15%. What makes them think they can charge as much as Amazon do?
- Sales have been poor. I've undoubtedly lost money due to the time I've had to invest.

Unfortunately I'm signed up for the next 6 months, but I'm honestly considering just taking my products off now.

It's certainly made me appreciate Amazon and eBay more.

This mirrored our experience exactly. I even needed to double take to check I had not just written that.

Shame - another avenue to market and some competition for eBay and Amazon would have been a good thing. Sadly I doubt if Play will be able to deliver either.

 

[David P]

This is very interesting. We keep looking at going onto Play but we are yet to make the plunge.
What really strikes me when trying to look into it is how little information there seems to be on how things work and how to get things listed.
As far as I am aware there is no public help pages or forums or anything like that.

You have to feel that with Rakuten behind them they will be able to make some impact on the market but perhaps not. That is really the only reason we have benen looking at them. otherwise we would have already dismissed the idea.

 

[David P]

Also I dont know whether it is due to a lack of products or if the search is simply poor but in lots of my searches within the clothing category you always get shown a lot of DVD's and CD's.

 

[AndyP]

We also dumped it several months ago. We definitely gave it a good shot with several hundred products uploaded and as has been said thats a painful process in itself but I think in the 18 or so months that we stuck with it our total sales for that period through Play was not even equal to what we would do in one average weekend. And when you raise the issue their only real response was to give you the "opportunity" to heavily discount (to about cost price) to appear in their various newsletters. They didn't seem to get that success isn't always about a race to the bottom. Marketing to them would seem to hinge on their sellers giving products away. Waste of time. When we did pull the products they didn't even notice.

 

[The Cue Store]

I started selling on Play.com a few months ago and I wish I hadn't bothered. I've had the following problems:

- It took me months of wasted time to even get started as it's not technically simple to set up, and it can take up to 2 days to reach a technician on the phone.
- Uploading products is a nightmare. It can take hours of waiting for them to process before getting back nothing but a message saying "upload failure due to unknown error". I have not had one upload batch that has worked first time.
- Customer service is horrible. It's impossible to get hold of anyone who knows what they're talking about, and the people on the standard helpline are rude, incompetent, lazy and condescending. Their favourite solution to a problem is just to email you a link to a standard help page which I could have found anyway.
- They charge only 10% fees... Very good... BUT they also charge a 5% transfer fee, so it's actually 15%. What makes them think they can charge as much as Amazon do?
- Sales have been poor. I've undoubtedly lost money due to the time I've had to invest.

Unfortunately I'm signed up for the next 6 months, but I'm honestly considering just taking my products off now.

It's certainly made me appreciate Amazon and eBay more.

I was considering joining up at Play.com/PlayTrade, but after reading this and the other posts I don't think I will. I'll be sticking to eBay.

 

[TPH1]

It is a shame indeed. The reason I signed up was because Rakuten combined with Play sounded like the only shot of taking on Amazon/eBay in the foreseeable future, but they've completely messed it up.

The high fees particularly annoy me, if they don't at the very least charge a little less than Amazon/eBay, why do we need them anyway?

 

[aogilvie]

We're not retailers but what we see is that getting new stuff listed on Playtrade can be slower than if you were adding new stuff to Amazon. So agreed - very frustrating. That said we do see decent sales for our clients once they have been through that pain.

That might be because of the price point of course. We have a repricer that prices up and down automatically and that also handles Euros and GBP as two independent accounts - so I guess that might be something important to consider when using Playtrade.

Rakuten are promising great things, and adding new categories as far as we are lead to believe, so having them as part of a multiple marketplace management strategy should make sense. And yes we do that multiple mgt thing.

That said I think the process for adding new items could be made easier - hopefully they'll get that sorted out soon.

Alex
Seller Dynamics

 

[Gaz Walker]

I was considering joining up at Play.com/PlayTrade, but after reading this and the other posts I don't think I will. I'll be sticking to eBay.

Likewise, that's a real shame.

 

[David P]

We're not retailers but what we see is that getting new stuff listed on Playtrade can be slower than if you were adding new stuff to Amazon. So agreed - very frustrating. That said we do see decent sales for our clients once they have been through that pain.

Alex
Seller Dynamics

I just watched the video for adding private listings and the process doesn't seem too complicated from the video.

Is it much harder in reality then? Or was it the old listing method that was rubbish? I know you used to have to submit the info to their team to submit which is no longer necessary

 

[a1anm]

We've been on Play Trade for over a month now and not one single sale!

Just hoping we make a few sales over the next 5 months so we at least break even.

Like other said the CMS is terrible.

We won't be continuing once the 6 months are up.

 

[Clifford.Smith]

Firstly let me apologise for your experience so far as a Merchant on Rakuten’s Play.com. Hopefully we can rectify the issues you have had and make becoming/being a Merchant with us a more positive experience.

We understand that opening a Merchant account can be time consuming but we aim to work closely with each individual to allow the best possible service throughout the account opening stage. We are currently working with the account opening team to streamline the process to allow our Merchants to get up and running much quicker and boost their sales by offering a range services . The toolbox is having enhancements added almost weekly and this does sometime cause some inefficiency and we appreciate any feedback so that we can optimise it for the best trading experience.

In regards to uploading products, we appreciate how difficult it can be and we aim to offer as much help as possible whether it is via the webinars our Account Opening team offer when setting up a merchant account or the tutorials that are provided when setting up a Merchant account. These include in-depth videos which will allow merchants to view how to create content and listings first hand.

Let me apologise for the lack of Customer Service you have received. We here on the Merchant Helpdesk pride ourselves on offering a high level of customer service, and to hear that you have received poor responses to questions asked does not sound like the high level we set ourselves, as a team we will work harder to offer the service our Merchants expect.

To make sure that you do get the best service tailored for Merchants, we recommend that you call the Merchant Helpdesk, rather than the Customer Service Team. We are here to help you specifically and are open from 8:00 – 18:30, 7 days a week. Our number is 08452 669651.

As a note to the query on the fees charged we would like to point out there is no transfer fee with a Merchant account and this means you should only be paying the 10% charge. If you have been charged the 5% fees please let us know so we can clarify the issue. The closing fees for selling differ depending on the tariff that you sign up for. This can be discussed with one of our Sales Managers when bringing you on-board.

We hope to help you boost your sales in the coming months and make your experience with Rakuten Play.com a profitable one.

We offer a variety of different options to boost sales on site which your ECC (dedicated E commerce consultant all Merchants have assigned to them) can help you with, below are some examples of what’s on offer -

· Firstly adding products to promotions on the site where you can offer a competitive promotional price for a limited period.
· Advertising space on the site in the form of banners or via space on newsletters. If you would be interested I can you ECC contact you to discuss the options further.
· Purchasing different search terms on the site is a great way to boost traffic to your storefront. In purchasing terms you can boost your Google Ranking making it easy for customers to fine your store.

Again any these options plus more can be discussed with your ECC once they are assigned to you as they will be your primary contact for boosting your sales and traffic on the site.

Our aim at Rakuten’s Play.com is to ensure that both Sellers and Customers get equal protection in fair trading and we constantly check our website to ensure the quality and authenticity of items that Merchants are wishing to sell. We also check feedback manipulation and run thorough checks on anyone who signs up for an account to make sure all are given a fair chance at trading and no merchant is discriminated against.

Random spot checks for supplier information are carried out on all Merchants for various items if we deem them to be high risk. This helps us ensure that only the best Merchants are trading with us as we take the sale of counterfeit items very seriously.
We have partnered with various companies who help us determine the authenticity of various products and this has been a great help in tackling counterfeiters in the past. We believe that this is one way that we stand apart from our competitors and we take pride in the care we offer all who sign up for an account with us although these checks can sometimes slow down the process of opening an account.

Once again thank you for the post. We understand your concerns in regards to the Merchant account and we hope to work closely with you and others over the coming months.

 

[aogilvie]

I just watched the video for adding private listings and the process doesn't seem too complicated from the video.

Is it much harder in reality then? Or was it the old listing method that was rubbish? I know you used to have to submit the info to their team to submit which is no longer necessary

Hi David - you're right to point out that things are much better. I did a couple of quick straw polls just to check "happy levels" and our clients are much happier with the listing process than they were before. I think getting some hand holding with the Play guys will undoubtedly help. For what it's worth they do seem to be a very approachable team in our experience.

Alex
Seller Dynamics

 

[Private Detective London]

As a customer, who used to use the old Play, the new site is very slow to use and its very difficult to search or filter products. There are clearly a lot of products on there but there is no way to easily filter through size/price/type so you end up on a page with a few thousand products and no way to see them all without, slowly, going page to page.

I recently removed the site from my bookmarks as it is just not user friendly to use. So I can understand people suffering poor/no sales. People may well want your products but can they find them.

 

[SamStones]

Sorry to dig up an old thread but I was just wondering if anyone has had any better experiences with play over the last few months?

They keep contacting us trying to get us to sign up but I can't find anyone who's actually having any success with it?

 

[JDL9000]

I couldn't waste your time, Like the first poster said, its a bit of a joke that they charge 15% (more then ebay and as much as Amazon, they do not even come close to those marketplaces), They would have been a lot better of Charging a total of between 5-10% to give reasons for sellers to sign up.

Also what is annoying is how they claim to only take 10% but slap on the 5% to get your money transferred.

Or you can not get your money transferred but get the money in play vouchers or something (basically they wont charge the 5% if you want to use your money to buy things from play. What Company would actually do this?

 

[SamStones]

Hi, thanks for your reply. I have seen a reply from a Play.com employee on here previously saying that the 5% transfer fee didn't apply to business accounts, can anyone here say if this is true or not?

I don't mind a 15% fee if there's actually sales coming through the site, but it's just got to be worth the legwork in getting set up and maintaining another sales channel.

 

[TPH1]

He is right actually yes, the 5% does not apply to business accounts so I had that wrong.

However, they have made no effort to improve the listing upload software, and as a result I have now stopped listing products on Play. It's the worst software I've ever come across.

I have also been told by several multi-channel software companies that Play.com are refusing to allow them access to the listing API which would immediately solve the problem. Ridiculous.

 

[TPH1]

Firstly let me apologise for your experience so far as a Merchant on Rakuten’s Play.com. Hopefully we can rectify the issues you have had and make becoming/being a Merchant with us a more positive experience.

We understand that opening a Merchant account can be time consuming but we aim to work closely with each individual to allow the best possible service throughout the account opening stage. We are currently working with the account opening team to streamline the process to allow our Merchants to get up and running much quicker and boost their sales by offering a range services . The toolbox is having enhancements added almost weekly and this does sometime cause some inefficiency and we appreciate any feedback so that we can optimise it for the best trading experience.

In regards to uploading products, we appreciate how difficult it can be and we aim to offer as much help as possible whether it is via the webinars our Account Opening team offer when setting up a merchant account or the tutorials that are provided when setting up a Merchant account. These include in-depth videos which will allow merchants to view how to create content and listings first hand.

Let me apologise for the lack of Customer Service you have received. We here on the Merchant Helpdesk pride ourselves on offering a high level of customer service, and to hear that you have received poor responses to questions asked does not sound like the high level we set ourselves, as a team we will work harder to offer the service our Merchants expect.

To make sure that you do get the best service tailored for Merchants, we recommend that you call the Merchant Helpdesk, rather than the Customer Service Team. We are here to help you specifically and are open from 8:00 – 18:30, 7 days a week. Our number is 08452 669651.

As a note to the query on the fees charged we would like to point out there is no transfer fee with a Merchant account and this means you should only be paying the 10% charge. If you have been charged the 5% fees please let us know so we can clarify the issue. The closing fees for selling differ depending on the tariff that you sign up for. This can be discussed with one of our Sales Managers when bringing you on-board.

We hope to help you boost your sales in the coming months and make your experience with Rakuten Play.com a profitable one.

We offer a variety of different options to boost sales on site which your ECC (dedicated E commerce consultant all Merchants have assigned to them) can help you with, below are some examples of what’s on offer -

· Firstly adding products to promotions on the site where you can offer a competitive promotional price for a limited period.
· Advertising space on the site in the form of banners or via space on newsletters. If you would be interested I can you ECC contact you to discuss the options further.
· Purchasing different search terms on the site is a great way to boost traffic to your storefront. In purchasing terms you can boost your Google Ranking making it easy for customers to fine your store.

Again any these options plus more can be discussed with your ECC once they are assigned to you as they will be your primary contact for boosting your sales and traffic on the site.

Our aim at Rakuten’s Play.com is to ensure that both Sellers and Customers get equal protection in fair trading and we constantly check our website to ensure the quality and authenticity of items that Merchants are wishing to sell. We also check feedback manipulation and run thorough checks on anyone who signs up for an account to make sure all are given a fair chance at trading and no merchant is discriminated against.

Random spot checks for supplier information are carried out on all Merchants for various items if we deem them to be high risk. This helps us ensure that only the best Merchants are trading with us as we take the sale of counterfeit items very seriously.
We have partnered with various companies who help us determine the authenticity of various products and this has been a great help in tackling counterfeiters in the past. We believe that this is one way that we stand apart from our competitors and we take pride in the care we offer all who sign up for an account with us although these checks can sometimes slow down the process of opening an account.

Once again thank you for the post. We understand your concerns in regards to the Merchant account and we hope to work closely with you and others over the coming months.

I've only just noticed this response.

I appreciate the effort in addressing my concerns, and I'm sorry that I had the transaction fee wrong. However until these 2 points are fixed, I personally will not be using Play:

1. The customer service: The number you mentioned is the one I already use, and I phoned them last week just to check I had no outstanding fees and the attitude was worse than ever.

The general attitude of almost everyone that answers that phone is completely wrong. They speak to you like you are they are personally your mutual business partner and don't particularly owe you any favors. It is a customer service line, the point of it is to help your customers out. If the person your customer is speaking to thinks that in his role as a customer service rep, his time is just as or more important than yours, he should work in a different department. Every time I phone, they will just tell me to email my manager or link me to a help page. EVERY time.

Just phone eBay for an idea of how customer service should be handled. Anything half as good as that would be fine.


2. The listing. You have even admitted yourself how difficult it is to use. Rather than spend hours trying to teach people how to use the software and hours more responding to complaints of the errors, just change it for god's sake!

As I mentioned in my post above, allow the likes or Linnworks, Storefeeder, Channel advisor etc. access to it. Actually I would immediately start using Play again if you did this alone.


Just my suggestions.

 

[TPH1]

Oops, please delete.

 

[David P]

Has anyone outside of the Media category actually got any half decent sales this winter? Looking at our competitors on there their feedback seems incredibly low but then i do know that their is not a major emphasis on feedback on Play.

 

[SamStones]

I've looked at several sellers on play who have been there for months and still have 0 feedback score. Surely this a bad sign!

Incidentally I replied to the sales rep saying I had only seen people complaining about how bad it was to sell on play.com and invited them to provide links to ANY 3rd party site where a community of sellers is discussing anything positive about selling on play.com. They replied without any such links.

I questioned the logic in charging a higher monthly fee than Amazon, and they agreed that the monthly fee was higher but the commission is of course lower - and therefore I would be "better off" with play than with Amazon.

I described their idea of signing up for a 6 month period for an unknown service as "ludicrous", and they said it was only so they would only get "committed" merchants.

I really would like to find some evidence to convince me that it would be worth trying, but for now, everything is telling me to stay well clear!

 

[David P]

It does seem to appear that they have messed things up. When Rakuten first did the takeover there was a lot of buzz/ optimism with regards to where play was going. It felt like it was going to be a good alternative UK channel outside of Ebay and Amazon.

It would be interesting to see where exactly they have gone wrong. From what people are saying it is terrible to list to however sellers would put up with that if it brought sales so therefore it sounds more like they have not managed to get the footfall to the site. Why this is the case I am not sure.

 

[etrades]

i joined and paid for 6 month which comes to an end this month.. i havent even bothered to list . my thoughts were exactly same that its one more avenue so game on. right from the email about how to list etc made me think 10 times and it true its not worth... the payment pattern explanation is a bit weird.

most of the merchants who are visible signed up when it was offered free to few months and if u are a big seller like expansys, my memory i believe u will find sales but for others its hard/nil i presume

i have now seen that even one of my biggest competitor has closed the shop as listings are not live.. that explains everything

to be honest i was put off from the start when i was asked 6 months fee, just mkes me feel they want to earn back money spent on buying the company somehow

 

[urban33ltd]

Well I have to disagree a little, we launched six months ago and have just signed up for another six months. Sales are not massive but there is a steady trickle and it did pick up in November and December for us on there. When the site really gets sorted and turns in to Rakuten.co.uk then I think things will really change. I would rather be on there at the start then trying to get on there when it's busier, plus all my stock is listed on there now and we can just get on and sell.

 

[TPH1]

i joined and paid for 6 month which comes to an end this month.. i havent even bothered to list . my thoughts were exactly same that its one more avenue so game on. right from the email about how to list etc made me think 10 times and it true its not worth... the payment pattern explanation is a bit weird.

most of the merchants who are visible signed up when it was offered free to few months and if u are a big seller like expansys, my memory i believe u will find sales but for others its hard/nil i presume

i have now seen that even one of my biggest competitor has closed the shop as listings are not live.. that explains everything

to be honest i was put off from the start when i was asked 6 months fee, just mkes me feel they want to earn back money spent on buying the company somehow

Oh yeah I forgot about this. The payment transfer/fee system from a bookkeeping point of view is nothing short of ridiculous. I don't know who they get to come up with these things.

 

[David P]

Well I have to disagree a little, we launched six months ago and have just signed up for another six months. Sales are not massive but there is a steady trickle and it did pick up in November and December for us on there. When the site really gets sorted and turns in to Rakuten.co.uk then I think things will really change. I would rather be on there at the start then trying to get on there when it's busier, plus all my stock is listed on there now and we can just get on and sell.

Can I ask what sort of items you sell?

 

[David P]

Oh yeah I forgot about this. The payment transfer/fee system from a bookkeeping point of view is nothing short of ridiculous. I don't know who they get to come up with these things.

What are issues here? Not heard about this before.

Cheers

 

[David P]

Has anyone got any updates to report on what is now rakuten.co.uk? We continue to wonder about it.