Dropped $800 on a "done for you" Shopify store and got burned bad

Last month I thought I was being smart by paying some guy on Upwork $800 to build a full dropshipping store for me. I figured hey, I dont know code or product research that well so why not let a pro handle it. Well the store was basically a copy paste of a template with bad product descriptions and broken checkout links. I spent another week fixing stuff and still only made like 3 sales before I gave up. The guy ghosted me when I asked for a refund too. Honestly I shoulda just spent that money on tools or a course to learn it myself. Anyone else get ripped off by a "store builder" like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbaradavis3d ago

That whole "done for you" thing is such a trap. Most of those sellers just grab a theme from a cheap marketplace and call it a day after adding some generic product photos. The broken checkout links part really gets me though because that's literally the most basic thing to check before handing it over. What really stinks is that you ended up having to do the work yourself anyway so the $800 just became a really expensive lesson. At least now you know better what to look for if you ever try hiring someone again.

andrew_baker93d ago

Wait, is getting burned for $800 really that big of a deal though? I mean yeah it stinks to lose that much money, but it's not like you lost your life savings or anything. People act like this is some huge tragedy when honestly it's just a bad purchase. You learned something about researching sellers before handing over cash, and you probably won't make the same mistake again. The whole "done for you" market is full of lazy people slapping together stuff they found for free online, that's been true for years. It's more on you for not digging into who you were hiring before you paid up. If you have the skills to fix it yourself anyway, then maybe paying someone else was never really the right move to begin with.