Cratejoy

Cratejoy has helped my business by providing a backend that I never have to worry about.

Kommentare: Comprehensive sales platform with a lot of options.

Vorteile:

Easy to use with a great interface. The growing features help streamline my business so I don't have to worry about my customers.

Nachteile:

Customizing can be difficult if your business is not the same as others. Reports are pretty generic.

Cratejoy Sub Box Creator

Kommentare: Cratejoy has been a huge help in getting my sub box marketed and seems to be user friendly for my customers.

Vorteile:

Ease of setup, frequent update emails from Cratejoy

Nachteile:

Need updates via text/sms, easier filtering of current subscriptions, marketing options

Meh.

Kommentare: Meh. It was easy enough to operate, but you're constantly submitting things for approval. They are providing a subscription service themselves and yet you don't get the customer experience you expect for paying such high monthly fees. Glad I only paid a month and a half of my membership as I didn't find it worth it. Marketing is free if you have social media and play your cards right. So really? Why pay for a marketplace that you beat yourself up over trying to get approval for. We all know investing in professional photos is important but some people do what they can with what they have to start because there is no pre-sale feature on Cratejoy. You can't penalize someone for that especially when you consider the expenses at the beginning of a business(that sounds like I had crumby pictures... after my first email back from them I took even more pictures and I edited them and made them look decent enough - at least until I can afford professional ones).

Vorteile:

I had fun making my products in my store playing with layout and fonts and colours etc, and I liked seeing how my store was turning out.

Nachteile:

In no particular order: - Customer service (with the exception of one staff member and a supervisor who helped me with a tax set-up thing). - Marketplace ad feature - Out of date articles and instructions on website (make references to features that are no longer there or aren't being used at the moment) - Emails for correcting things to get yoru shop up and running have links that go no where and are long paragraphs that you have to read through slowly to decipher the information (simple bullet points would suffice) - Marketplace fees... seriously those are outrageous and on top of that we pay monthly to post in it to hopefully sell our product... if you even get approval. Not a practical way for a start-up to be doing business with all of our expenses highest when we first start out.

Best for newbies - bad for large shops

Vorteile:

CrateJoy is tremendously easy to use and offers a great all in one solution for starting a subscription box company quickly and easily. You don't need to know much about websites to set things up properly. Reports are useful and you have a lot of options and abilities in managing subscriptions and shipments.

Nachteile:

Fees are quite high if you list your company on their marketplace. You're charged 11.25% of EVERY purchase made on a subscription started through their marketplace, not just one time. If you use the built in WYSIWYG builder, the sites all pretty much look the same - not a lot of templates available.

Love Cratejoy!

Vorteile:

Love that it's easy to use and it's so easy to jumpstart a subscription box! The templates are great and love that subscribers have access to their own portal!

Nachteile:

I wish there was an app! Except that, we love it. Also wish there were easier ways to change a subscriber's Email... Oh! And shipping! Had to switch to Pirate shipping - wish it could be just as cheap but still on Cratejoy

It's a brilliant piece of software and does things it would take me months to piece together.

Vorteile:

You can pretty much set it up and leave it which leaves me plenty of time to get on with all the other stuff in the business.

Nachteile:

Would really like a built in blog feature it's a pain having to gave it somewhere else and link it together.

generally good

Kommentare: Easily run my subscription business.

Vorteile:

The program is very easy to use and tracks subscriptions very well. It makes shipping a breeze especially when you have multiple subscription products.

Nachteile:

I wish they had more one time shop features and options. There is no way for my customers to log in and rate my products without purchasing something even if they used a product in real life.

Cratejoy was everything we needed to get started as a brand new subscription box company.

Vorteile:

Cratejoy lays everything out, has several features, and is really the platform that you should start your subscription service on.

Nachteile:

There are still some features that would be great to implement, like customization and allowing the customer to manage their survey answers within their account.

Love it so much although they definitely take their cut, worth it though!

Kommentare: Overall it's been amazing, love their support and they have definitely fixed earlier bugs.

Vorteile:

The functionality is perfect for a sub box, plus the exposure you get via the marketplace is unreal!

Nachteile:

They take a huge cut, wish they would adjust their pricing system a bit, but what can you do? They monopolize you a bit

Outdated Software + BEWARE of Listing in the Marketplace

Kommentare: It was a bad experience.

Vorteile:

Drag and drop. Easy to use. There are limited themes but they are all easy for beginners. It's easy to add Google Analytics and a Facebook Pixel.

Nachteile:

Unfortunately, I have had nothing but bad experiences as a seller on this platform. First of all, they platform did not work correctly for me. There we're glitches that could not be resolved without contacting Cratejoy Support. Second, in the marketplace, they take way too much of a cut of sales. It would not be possible for most businesses to profit using this platform. Third they do not protect their sellers from bad buyers. IE - Reviews are everything. If any shopper decides to leave a bad review it will absolutely ruin you. And they won't help you. I was negatively reviewed by someone who was lying about her experience. I have no idea why. Cratejoy would not help me. Shoppers are actually incentivized to leave a negative review - it will only benefit them because they can get anything they want for free. Cratejoy does not require that it's truthful. Cratejoy does not require that they contact you first. They allow anyone to post anything they want.

An Overall Satisfying Experience

Vorteile:

CrateJoy by far was my first choice for the subscription box e-commerce world, particularly due to its ability to allow for intense customization. I could design my store exactly how I intended to, complete with various color schemes, pictures, and text inserts with fancy fonts. My products were always displayed in their best light and the Marketplace added extra exposure to help build my customer base. Additionally, allowing exposure to each individual shop's social media platforms created an unlimited potential for exposure to customers as well.

Nachteile:

New features can always be added, such as a more efficient way to handle shipments. There are times when the software can be a bit buggy and the shipping labels won't calculate or else are priced expensively in comparison to actually going to the nearest USPS and mailing from there. Also, the display of which shipment labels to print for which shipments (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) could be a bit confusing. I also was not a fan of buying shipping in set increments. More information must be acquired from the customer to prevent fraud, as I lost money in this regard. Additionally, I believe cancelled subscribers should be removed from the database to prevent the customer list from being too bulky. It is also a pain to not be able to edit live product information and instead have to create a new product listing.

Cratejoy has been a true game changer for my subscription box business!

Kommentare: Cratejoy is truly invested in your success. Their Customer Success and Marketing teams are top notch and go above and beyond to help you succeed. In addition, their marketplace is a phenomenal asset. If you're thinking about starting a subscription box, I highly recommend you sign up with Cratejoy!

Vorteile:

As a back end payment processor, Cratejoy is very straightforward and easy to use. Their marketplace is a true asset and worth every penny as well. In addition, their Marketing Team and Customer Success Team truly want to see you succeed. From helping me get started to having my box featured on CNN, they've helped nurture my box's success every step of the way.

Nachteile:

Personally, I dislike Cratejoy's website builder. It lacks features, looks very cookie cutter, and is difficult to customize. I built and run my website with a different platform and have opted to use Cratejoy only for checkout. I also was disappointed with their referral program as it felt pretty bare bones and lacked most features and options. Even with these issues, overall I have found Cratejoy to be an amazing platform to work with. Their teams are wonderful and they're truly invested in your success. While some aspects of the software are far from perfect, overall I believe the pros far outweigh the cons.

All-in-one platform for subscription boxes

Vorteile:

One stop shop for everthing you need for a subscription box business including recurring payments, integration with Pirateship for commercial USPS pricing, website templates, etc

Nachteile:

Lacking some website add-on functionality that platforms like Shopify have. They charge transaction fees on top of the payment processor fees.

Misleading fee structure, no accountability

Kommentare: Cratejoy has been a huge mistake for my company. In the end, after using it for a year I guess we are about break-even on our sales but we are missing 10% of our revenue because I was misled when I signed up for Cratejoy. They offer different fee plans and different subscriptions. At the time, I was led to believe that if we signed up for a subscription, we could avoid paying the absurd 11% fees per transaction through them. I went forward and launched everything and as far as I could tell, I was paying the lower rate because that is what was showing in my Cratejoy admin account. However, I eventually discovered that we had been paying the much higher rate all along. I had to see this in my Stripe account to realize it because absolutely everything else I saw from Cratejoy showed the lower rate. In the end Cratejoy has accepted no accountability for the lost revenue and I intend to stop using them as soon as I can without ruining subscriber relationships. BUYER BEWARE!

Vorteile:

Cratejoy is pretty easy to roll out and offers a solid subscription e-commerce service.

Nachteile:

It does not offer robust reporting or integrate with other apps and platforms very well, unless you are a full fledged developer.

Cratejoy makes running my subscription business a breeze!

Vorteile:

Cratejoy's ability to manage dozens to thousands of subscribers plans easily and effectively each month makes running my subscription business a snap. It's super easy to use without any major training and they are constantly adding new features or upgrading existing features to make the software even better. Their customer service department is pretty responsive and available should you have any issues or questions. I can't imagine running a subscription-based business without Cratejoy.

Nachteile:

Cratejoy could be expanded upon to feature more reporting and accounting features. It does currently need to run concurrently with an accounting software which is an additional cost.

Cratejoy is the only platform I would run a subscription box company with.

Vorteile:

Easy to setup, use and manage. It's the only platform that allows me to ship a progressive sequence of boxes. The marketplace also brings a lot of leads to the site.

Nachteile:

The platform is definitely missing a few features. For example, there are no multiple shipping options for the customer, blog integration, and there are some limitations with web development/integration.

I want to love it but I spend more time battling with the backend and with customer support...

Kommentare: Great to have recurring income !

Vorteile:

For the customer side, it works great. It's easy for them to use. Payment system works great. The designs they provide look great. At the begging when I first started two years ago, the tech support was super helpful.

Nachteile:

Customer service was great two years ago, now it has gotten worse and slower. I was told I need to hire a developer to install an email capturing popup on the main page. A site shouldn't be that difficult to use. The backend could be a lot easier to use. I tried to upgrade to one of their new designs so I could take advantage of their new upsell functionality and my website broke and I had to revert back to the old design in order to get it working again.

I love it.

Vorteile:

Cratejoy is very simple, straight forward and easy to use. I enjoy how I can easily see how my sales are doing as well as change products in a moments notice. I love this software because it is affordable and gives me everything I need to operate my online business well and professionally. Also, everything looks very nice online and the checkout process is very user friendly for my customers.

Nachteile:

The only thing I would like to see improvements on is the text and display style of the content information for each product. It is a bit challenging to change around my content. Also, I would love an easy way to add a blog to my site so that I can share more information with customers.

Really good for monthly subscription boxes

Kommentare: I think for a monthly subscription box it is fantastic and easy.

Vorteile:

Very templated and easy to set up. Customer service responded quickly.

Nachteile:

Not enough customization. There could be more templates and also ways to set up.

Cratejoy Brings Great Joy!

Vorteile:

Cratejoy is an excellent platform for smaller, startups to put their subscription service out there and equally compete with other services. Cratejoys interface, both for the users and for the companies, is very friendly and makes it easy for companies to make sleek looking pages promoting their subscriptions.

Nachteile:

The downside to Cratejoy is that you not only pay a monthly fee but you also pay a fee for each sale.

It's super user friendly and gets the job done efficiently.

Vorteile:

I love how non technical people can figure out the backend with coding. I also think the options for managing subscriptions is nice.

Nachteile:

I wish there more ways to export information that you collect. I also think it would be nice to have built in ways to communicate with the customers almost like a mailchimp feature. I had more complaints when I first started using Cratejoy but it seems like you really strive to improve on the site and have done so already.

I've had pretty good experiences with Cratejoy. It's a great service.

Vorteile:

Cratejoy is always updated to make the software better for us merchants. My favorite update so far has to be the Add-Ons.

Nachteile:

I feel like they are letting ANYONE create a subscription box and it's really hurting the serious box owners. I've had many customers say they are nervous to try my box because they've been scammed with out her box owners on the Cratejoy marketplace. Cratejoy needs to weed out these bad boxes.

Cratejoy makes it dead simple to start your own subscription box! We love it.

Vorteile:

Cratejoy takes all of the headache out of starting a subscription box. I've used it on multiple sites, and the ease in which I was able to start up, create subscription tiers, print labels, and ship a viable box was unmatched by other platforms. Their marketplace is a massive bonus, giving you free marketing and helping you find customers. We love it.

Nachteile:

Only downside is control over the business, and pricing. They take a pretty significant fee on any boxes found via cratejoy.com in exchange for the free marketing. It's best to prepare for that in your margins. Also, once you're on Cratejoy, it's hard to migrate elsewhere. Be prepared to start from scratch should you want to move to your own, self-hosted operation.

Really good functionality now, expensive though

Vorteile:

The fucntionality is great, you can do pretty much anything

Nachteile:

Cannot import tracking and marketplace is expensive!

Best Web App for Subscription Boxes

Vorteile:

I had a really great experience using Cratejoy. There is nothing that compares to it for a subscription box startup. They are really helpful and responsive as a customer service team as well. Real champs.

Nachteile:

I have none. They once changed their pricing in a way that the community didn't like. But then they listened to feedback, rolled back the changes they had made, and pushed forward with requested features. It was awesome. I love their team.