Hello,
I just looked back through my emails, and I do not see such a message. Strange.
An extra $10 a month (to only $20 total) is really causing them to need a different solution? Seems to be a pretty small expense to have a shopping cart system. If they’re only ever expecting to pull in $500 a month or less, they should be selling on eBay or something as they don’t have much of a business anyway… Not trying to be an ass here, that’s just the reality!
billywight,
Yeah, you’re kind of being an ass! Let me enlighten you about a few things…
You’re looking at this as if the business has no other expenses. If that were true, then $20 might not be a big deal.
It’s not a question of whether this is a “small expense” or not. Apparently you don’t know this, but most small businesses operate on tight margins. It’s not that this particular $20 breaks the bank. It’s more that they examine ALL their monthly expenses and look where they can operate more efficiently. Another $20 in that context is a lot.
Next, I have successfully moved many clients from PayPal over to a Stripe/SnipCart scenario. Part of that argument is cost/feature benefits. But now, doubling the basic monthly charge, SnipCart has made that effort much harder.
Next, some businesses are cyclical or seasonal. A couple of my clients have seasons where they make most of their money, and they have months with almost no money coming from online sales. Doubling the basic monthly charge in those “down months” makes it less feasible for them to carry this service.
Finally, for many businesses their online sales are only a portion of their income. I have several clients who make most of their money via POS activities. I successfully convinced them to build an online sales element. Doubling the basic charges makes is much harder for me to convince them to go down this road.
I hope this helps you understand the world of small business!
I’ve run two small businesses for the last 17 years; I’m aware of expenses and margins. Snipcart has those too, hence the price increase. If your clients can’t afford an extra $10 monthly to keep a shopping cart running, they’re don’t own a business, they own a hobby. Sorry this is hurting your business, but that’s the simple reality. Tell your clients to have one less Starbucks a month and they’ll be even. Or just try for better clients.
Hey billywight,
Why are you marching into this discussion just to hurl insults?
You were right with what you said before – you are an ass.
Hey Billy and Matthew,
I know both sides. I didn’t like the latter where I had to turn over every penny.
You can show your customers lots of ways to increase sales. One of the best is to create meaningful content around the products you want to sell. Become an expert in your field and take your customers by the hand.
Anyone can learn how to create content!
Simply building a fancy site is no longer enough. More needs to happen…
Christian342,
I help my clients build the best selling apps possible. I don’t think this is about content. It’s about the nature of certain businesses.
What insults have I hurled around? I’m just telling like it is. It’s $10 a month extra for a shopping cart. Snipcart has to make money at this, and providing a shopping cart plus support for only $10 a month no longer makes sense to them, so they raised their pricing. Seems pretty straight forward, I would think?
And it’s $10! That’s such a tiny change in the monthly cost of being in business, it’s not even worth a discussion. Suck it up and move on.
billywight,
If you don’t get what’s insulting about your attitude, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ll leave it to others to come in and comment on your quotes:
“they should be selling on eBay or something as they don’t have much of a business anyway”
“If your clients can’t afford an extra $10 monthly to keep a shopping cart running, they’re don’t own a business, they own a hobby.”
“Tell your clients to have one less Starbucks a month and they’ll be even. Or just try for better clients.”
Those weren’t insults, those were statements of reality. If you want to feel insulted, feel free. But it would be in your (or your client’s) best interest to take those comments as advice instead.
The hard fact is that if your client’s gross income from their business is less than half of the pay of a minimum wage job, they don’t have a business. Now I get that everyone has to start somewhere, but an extra $10 monthly should be the least of their worries as a startup.
Anyway, that’s the last of the free advice you’ll get from me. Good luck!
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I was also suprised by this change. I was billed roughly A$30 in Jan, and I thought snipcart was being weird like that and billing me every two months, but nope, received another A$30 in February. I haven’t seen any comms in my email related to this change.
I understand you’ll need to increase your prices at one point (double though?). It would be good if everyone received early communication about it, as I commited on the 12th of Dec, 2023 with the price of $13 CAD/month.
And unlike seasoned business owners, it is definitely difficult for those who are trying to make their first sale, or their sale after some intial support from friends and family. And yes I agree with @billywight comment: “they don’t have much of a business anyway”, because they are likely starting out.
It simply hurts more than it helps, and it makes selling clients on snipcart vs alternatives much harder, despite how much I appeal to this product’s simplicity.
EDIT: A potential suggestion would be to start the billing after the first payment has been made. The seller gets paid by the customer, snipcart gets paid by the seller, and the customer gets their goods. Everyone wins. The incentive for snipcart then, might be to help small business owners make that first sale, by providing documentation, resources, etc., and drawing in more sales yourself.
Hi Kevin,
It sounds like notification was not handled very well for this. In addition to doubling the monthly fee, they also made it a surprise. Further, I cannot find any way to communicate with SnipCart on this issue. They don’t seem to monitor this forum at all.
billywight,
If you don’t see your comments as insulting, or at least belittling, I don’t know what to say. I doubt anyone reading this discussion would fail to recognize your comments as insults.
What I wrote in my previous posts are reflections of reality, not insults. Calling you an idiot would be an insult (though, seemingly accurate since you’ve now made this response twice).
Snipcart likely doesn’t care if you’re unhappy about a $10 increase to the minimum cost, nor should they. They’re a business and have to make money. The entitled attitude that their service should be free or very low cost is the problem here.
Do you get free website hosting? Free business bank accounts? Free rent? Free utilities? Why should this be any different? Take it as a business expense, like all your other expenses. Learn and adapt or your business will die. It’s on you, not others.
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Snipcart likely doesn’t care if you’re unhappy about a $10 increase to the minimum cost,
An opinion that I don’t agree with. They should care about their customer’s happiness. As a business, your pricing should reflect the value you provide. The value provided didn’t double overnight. As Matthew pointed out they aren’t particularly active here it seems.
nor should they.
I will admit every business is different. But a business that doesn’t intentionally care about customer’s contentment is not a business I want to support. I don’t think that is what is happening here though - benefit of the doubt.
They’re a business and have to make money.
Yes. But not by all means neccessary.
The lack of communication I experienced, doesn’t fit well with me and likely others too, regardless of whether they can comfortably pay off this new price. Even a short blog or announcement post on their main website explaining the upcoming price changes would have been good.
The entitled attitude that their service should be free or very low cost is the problem here.
The expectation of a low cost service is something they intentionally or not put forth by having very competitive pricing. You can find articles and blog posts doing feature comparisons and low price is something they point out for snipcart.
Regarding the “free” point, there are reasons why it might make sense business wise. Space is cheap. It shouldn’t cost them much if anything, to hold some data that might be used later on. The first time it is used, they will earn $20USD. Easing the path for new businesses to be sold on snipcart. It’s also similar to the “pay for what you use” model, I would be fine with them charging half the amount for the test env, if it meant I only get charged for prod on my first sale.
Also, it’s only a suggestion for how they might approach the problem. It’s not a sense of entitlement. Entitlement would be demanding the point, and complaining or denying the feasibility of any other point.
Why should this be any different?
I think the problem here, at least for myself, is that we weren’t provided with official information as to the increase itself, and we don’t really know the reasons why it increased. If the business hasn’t made clear any changed expectation, that’s the businesses fault. I don’t list prices public and work on services for my clients, only to double them at billing time. That’s what “bill shock” is. If something is going to, or has gone past the expected price point, it should be communicated clearly. Then the other party, would have some time to adapt to the new expectations.
Learn and adapt or your business will die. It’s on you, not others.
100% agree.
Here’s the text from the email Snipcart sent on December 6th:
Thank you for being a valued Snipcart customer. We are writing to you about an upcoming change to your subscription.
Starting January 1, 2024, the minimum monthly fee will increase from $10 to $20 USD. Customers with a Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) exceeding $1,000 per month will not experience any change in their billing.
Since our inception, Snipcart has been committed to offering you a robust e-commerce solution and empowering your business with the best tools and support possible. We’ve done this while maintaining the same pricing since 2018.
A response to rising costs, this new pricing will allow us to continue providing you with a high-quality product and support.
No further action is required. You may manage your subscription anytime by visiting your account.
Could the notification have come earlier? Sure. But their reasoning is sound, and in our current economy with high inflation, a $10 increase after maintaining the same pricing for 6 years isn’t crazy by any means.
The standard fee is 2%, so if you were selling nearly $1k per month, it really didn’t increase much at all. If you’re selling $500 or less, then yes, it’s an extra $10. But if this is an ongoing thing, maybe you jumped into a shopping cart solution too early? Snipcart has to pay for this forum, for support, for CDN, for servers, etc., regardless of whether you’re selling anything or not. That’s what the $20 covers.
billywight,
Your whole approach to this is, if you’re not selling enough yet, that’s your fault. But that’s not really the discussion here.
The point I’ve been making is that a lot of small businesses watch every expense. That individual $10/month increase may not seem like a lot, but small business put their entire budget together. To be efficient, yes, they reduce each of those “small” expenses. You could isolate a single expense and create a false idea that the business is all about that one $10/month charge, but that would be ignoring the facts I just shared.
Beyond that, my point is that SnipCart issued no warnings about this. As a developer, it put me in an awkward position as my clients complained about an increase, and I was made to look bad because I didn’t know about it.
I received no email on December 6th about this.
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Thanks for sharing that @billywight
And yes, it isn’t crazy by any means. The problem is for new folk who came in thinking it would be this price, but then during their first (in my case) billing, it was double that.
maybe you jumped into a shopping cart solution too early?
To be fair, and by the price increase itself, it seems like it.
Snipcart has to pay for this forum, for support, for CDN, for servers, etc., regardless of whether you’re selling anything or not. That’s what the $20 covers.
Agree. Though the technical prices have not increased, at least for the cloud providers I have experience with. They have maintained their pricing, some services have even decreased their pricing. I agree that support will cost money as inflation and interests goes up this will likely take a bigger hit.
I’m just not sure if targetting the bottom line to keep the business afloat is good for business. It’s probably a risk they were willing to take if that were the case.
I’m not upset about the response, I just wished everyone affected, old and new could have been more informed about it as the changes came through.
For example, you’ve received the email on the 6th. I didn’t get anything. Even though I was a user since the August, 2023, and only because I wasn’t paying yet? In @MatthewSchenker case, would he need to have a paid monthly subscription even though he might not directly have been selling something via snipcart, to receive that important information from the vendor, to ensure he provides the appropriate communication to his clients?
It really breaks down at the lack of communications of these changes, in paritcular to non-paying, potential customers at the time. The price was just the surprise factor. When it comes to billing, no one likes surpises.
I can’t speak to why you guys didn’t get the email. Maybe it’s in your spam folder or something? Maybe you weren’t on their email list for some reason? I’m sure they intended to notify you, not sure why it didn’t come through.
Snipcart communication and updates have been derailed by the Duda integration for the last year plus, which sucks. I wouldn’t be surprised if Duda has something to do with the price increase too. Regardless, I don’t see an extra $10 as inappropriate given the economic climate and the fact that prices haven’t changed in 6 years.
And more importantly, it’s a business decision that they made. You can complain all you want, but I don’t see that being a valuable use of your time. Maybe increase your pricing slightly to suit; your margins just went down slightly, so adjust accordingly.
This forum has always been a community forum, not an official Snipcart staffed help forum (it actually used to say that on the top, not sure what happened to that). I’d suggest sending them an email if you want an official Snipcart response.
If one of my customers had an issue or concern about my service, I’d prefer to know about it rather than pretend everything is okay. It means I can make better business decisions later on, that will consider the concerns and impact it might have on my customers. My comments here aren’t intended to be “please change it back! it was good before!” or anything like that. I only hope to raise the concern of the gap in communication, and highlight the impact it has caused. If they see and address it, great. I don’t hold any expectations that they should or have to.
I’m only expressing what I would have wanted to see, had I been in their shoes, after executing those changes, just like you are expressing your thoughts and views in response to the reaction other users of snipcart are experiencing and sharing your perspective.