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| From HelloThemes sidebar |
I don’t complain much nor do I rant about many things. In fact, I think this is my first rant in two years of blogging.
During my 3 week or so break from blogging, one of my tasks was to get my wife’s beaded jewelry store up and running. It’s an e-commerce store powered by Magento Commerce. Magento is a CMS program kind of like WordPress. Its rivals are osCommerce and ZenCart (ones you may have heard of).
Now I know WordPress inside and out, but Magento is a new beast I have yet to conquer.
So the first thing I did was browse online for a suitable template just like I’d do for WordPress. I found one I liked on a site called HelloThemes.com and purchased it for $99. A couple things persuaded me to purchase a theme from them.
- Their site seemed friendly
- They seemed to know a lot about Magento
- I liked their themes
- And there seemed to be a ton of support for their themes
They even appear to have an online chat support just in case you run into any issues.
Problem is, as you can see in the image to the right and above, their chat is Offline . . . all the time! I’ve visited their site numerous times at all hours and their chat support is ALWAYS offline. Always.
Why even bother putting that on the site then?
I’ll tell you why. It’s so people like me and you feel safe with this company. They want us to feel reassured and comfortable buying from them. And it worked because I spent $99 with them.
I ran into all sorts of issues with the theme I purchased, most notably that it comes in three color choices but no matter what I tried, only the default color would show. I attempted to contact HelloThemes numerous times through email (contact us), their blog, and hoping one day their online chat would be, online.
The template I downloaded also came with a “how to install your theme” tutorial. At the bottom, here’s the last thing you will see: Hope this helps! If you still have any questions and concerns please don’t hesitate to contact us at support[at]hellothemes.com.
Yeah . . . I tried 3 or 4 times. What kind of response did I get?
I received nothing but silence. Not one email. Not one response. Nothing.
This is nothing but poor customer service and a lack of respect for those who actually spent money with your company. HelloThemes is probably just a couple of people who got together to try and make some money online all the while having little care really about you and me. It’s more about just a way for them to make money now.
Obviously, this is no way to run a business. If you sell products or provide a service, you need to provide some kind of support. Even if you are unable to help the person, at the very least respond to emails. Otherwise, you might find you piss off the wrong people (like a blogger who knows how to write seo blog articles). It’s just nonsense to never communicate with your customers.
If you sell a product or service, it’s best to provide some kind of support. Even if you don’t really support it and all sales are final, you need to communicate with those who are keeping food in your mouth.
Ok, my rant is over. I could seriously go on and on, but I’m pretty sure at this point most of you read the first part of this rant and then skimmed the rest 
June 24th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Great man, I have a rant about AllMedia.com (ASS!@#$’s). But, I just haven’t done it yet. I am afraid I am not going to be nice
Anyway, spreading the word, stay away from HelloThemes.com..
Jim Gaudet´s last blog ..Google Code | Let’s Make the Web Faster
June 24th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
AllMedia.com – I’ll remember that.
Yeah, I had some issues with Magento (the company) as well – they replied to my emails when I bought the User Guide and needed help downloading it, but when I wanted my money back I got nothing but silence.
But I figured one rant was enough.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:39 am
I read through every word. (I love rants)
From what you’ve written of your experience, Hello Themes sounds like a scam. They’re cheating customers out of money for a bad product and false promises.
I hope they decide to contact you. Have you looked into hiring someone for Magento and its theme related problems? You’ll be able to learn it faster that way too because you’ll have someone to ask questions to.
Samar´s last blog ..How to be interesting: Your opinion wanted
June 27th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Hi Samar. I did go to the Magento site and found there’s an area where you can post a note (like a job board) where Magento specialists can see you need help. Problem is, Magento would charge me for my posting and there’s no guarantee someone will respond, or what their expertise is. They also have a message board there and it helped a little, but nothing like the WordPress forums.
I did visit a number of “Magento Specialists” sites. I emailed a couple and talked with one on the phone, all were way too expensive for what I needed. Many of them wouldn’t even work with me unless I spent $2000.
Ok, Magento might be new to me, but it’s not $2000 new.
So I just did what I typically do, toyed with it and figured it out. Google was my best friend.
But yes, HelloThemes felt like a scam to me.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I bet Hello Themes’s in the can, and soon.
But frustrating!
And where would we be without finding help via Google — probalby not where we all want to be, that’s for sure.
Jannie Funster´s last blog ..Five Little Lightbulbs
June 29th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Google has been an invaluable resource to all us bloggers, hasn’t it. Heck, I think I have one half my brain dedicated to Google itself.
February 4th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Nothing makes me madder than not being able to talk to a customer service rep after I buy something. My rule now is you get what you pay for…
Thomas´s last blog ..Magento Plug-ins & Extensions
February 4th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Agreed, Thomas.
You definitely get what you pay for, don’t you?
February 8th, 2010 at 9:34 am
You get what you pay for rule does not apply to hellotheme as there are many theme providers that deliver prompt customer service. I too purchased a hellotheme and have spent over $700 just to get it working properly in various search engines and making compatiable with standard magento extensions. I now have a new problem, where I disable the slider, then renabled it. To my dismay, my site’s layout became distored and home page footer links frozen in older IE browsers.
At this point, I am fed up with the non-reponse from hellothemes for the past seven months. I’ve even tried calling the owner in the Canary Islands. Within the next month, I will be switching to a custom templatemonster theme.
And can you believe hellothemes has the gaul to release new extensions (as seen on magento connect)??
February 8th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Hi G.T.
Typically my answer would be no, but in the case of HelloThemes, I do believe they would have the gaul to release new extensions.
Template Monster is a reputable place and I would definitely suggest going there.
Thanks for the comment. Hopefully the word will spread and others can save time and headaches by learning from our experiences.
March 8th, 2010 at 6:24 am
I always used Hellothemes in my sites.
I believe they went through a time of transition in 2009 > 2010, and are now working at full strength. I am fully satisfied.
It’s hard to get answer from them trough their mail but with their forum I got the answers in a couple of hours.
Just sharing my experience…