Vendio Free Webstore: A Bargain or a Bust?

Earlier this month Vendio announced a FREE ecommerce webstore offering.  While I thought the news was “interesting”, it didn’t really grab my attention.  For 10 years I have been creating websites and I have experienced the spectrum of webstore offerings ranging from very good platforms (Miva Merchant) to very bad platforms(Prostores) so the Vendio news did not “WOW” me instantly.  My first thoughts were “well, you get what you pay for” and “free” isn’t what necessarily causes me to get excited.  I don’t mind paying for value.  And, honestly, I am averse to “disruptive innovation” and “change for the sake of change” so I have to be thoroughly convinced about a product’s potential before I’ll invest my time in learning a new system even if it is free.  While my first impression of Vendio was not great, I must admit that once I gave Vendio a second look and took some time to learn about them and what they have to offer, the WOW factor of their new webstore has me completely convinced to give them a try. 

After I created a new Vendio account to take a look at their new webstore offering, I poked around the system for a few minutes.  I then logged out and figured I would come back later when I had more time.  A short while later I received an email from Vendio reaching out to me, letting me know that they were available if I needed any assistance.  Now, great customer service always gets my attention so I went back to the Vendio webstore and spent a little more time learning more about the system.  

I learned quickly that the Vendio store has the basic elements needed for a good webstore including the ability to create a website with a different template other than just a basic standard template. 

So far so good.  But then I learned that not only can a user change the underlying template, but within the template changes can be made.   And, most impressively, these changes can be made quickly and easily by just using “drag and drop”. 

So, someone designing their new Vendio webstore can quickly move the shopping cart information from the right side of the screen to the left side of the screen, for example.  No programming skills are necessary.  By this time I found myself focused intently on the screen, becoming considerably more interested in this “free” offering.

But looking good on the surface (presentation) is only part of the equation.   The underlying “guts” of a webstore is the critical portion.  When I attempted to input shipping costs, I noticed that the option for domestic shipping was all that was available to me. 

So I sent an email to Vendio inquiring about the availability of shipping costs for international buyers.  The very timely response sent to me was “ To add international as an option, go to Create Items, then open up the gear (view options) and add International Shipping.”

I even received a screenshot to help explain: (below is a screenshot from Vendio):

So, really, what I found is that Vendio puts the “basics” out in the open so as not to overwhelm a new user who is trying to design their store.  I like that.  I think it was explained very well to me in an email by Crystal, an employee of Vendio, who I happen to also follow on Twitter.

“One of the concepts that is prevalent is discoverability…. And what this is, is that the more a user utilizes us, the more features he/she “discovers”. Not all the bells and whistles are needed by every seller, so we hoped with our set up that a user can get in and get set up..and then discovers we do offer additional features. It’s daunting to lay out a feast with 1000 dishes and expect someone to fill up their plate with everything they will ever need. We hope that as users gain more experience, they will add “dishes” to their plate.”

What a great concept!  Give me simplicity, just the basics, and then let me make it as complicated as I want and need.  At this point in my review of the Vendio store, I was saying “WOW”.  I was really impressed which doesn’t happen too often.  But I had one concern.  The Vendio store is free and I know that nothing is really ever free in business and I wouldn’t expect it to be.  Again, I went back to Crystal and asked the question.  She sent me a rather lengthy email which convinced me that the Vendio FREE webstore offering is not a gimmick.  She even said something very telling: “We also have other free products that have been free a long time J..and others, like gallery, that we WERE charging for, but are now also free.” 

Vendio does offer services which are not free.  My guess is that Vendio hopes that they can attract new customers with their free offerings, like a Free Vendio webstore, and that new users will eventually try other “pay for service” Vendio offerings.  (Note this is MY opinion only)  I think it is an incredible Marketing approach for Vendio as I, for one, would probably never have considered spending money with Vendio had I not tried their free webstore.  I am so impressed with the functionality and ease of use of the new Vendio webstore and Vendio’s customer service that I would definitely consider utilizing their other services which are not free.  I do not mind paying for value and given my experience thusfar with Vendio, I am sure they offer other (pay-for-fee) services which could help me in my business.  Once I get more familiar with the Vendio webstore I’ll be checking out the other services that Vendio has to offer.

DISCLOSURE: I was not compensated in any way for this blog post.  

More information about Vendio can be found at: http://www.vendio.com/

Vendio_Crystal can be found on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/Vendio_Crystal