Custom Pricing: Wholesale B2B

Ugh, I don't like writing negative reviews, and this is my first one in the shopify app store. But there are major issues that customers need to know before installing this app. I really tried hard to work with Bold Apps to understand why they have not made this information available on the app description page, and was left astounded by their responses and disgusted by their lack of concern for how their app will have negative and destructive effects on their customers e-shops.

What you need to know: This app is NOT compatible with ANY or ALL inventory management apps and ANY or ALL apps that have inventory management functionality, including shipping and fulfillment apps.

Below I have posted the email dialogue that shows that Bold Apps is very much aware of this problem, and is aware of the destructive, time-consuming, and costly impact that this app will have when used with other apps many other apps. And you will also see that despite knowing this issue, they have no interest in letting YOU know about it. Their support team seems to have deemed it your own fault for installing it with out questioning the implications first. Unbelievable. I hope others can learn from this experience and avoid it.

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My email to Customer Support:
After reading through several of the articles in the support pages, I found one that states that the Customer Pricing App is...

"not compatible with any and all inventory management apps, these types of apps break the connections between our apps and the products causing errors that can become visible on the page, as well pricing errors. We do not suggest using inventory management apps under any circumstances while using our apps, as the damage done is very difficult and time consuming to clean up."

My shop uses a fulfillment service, Whiplash, and is connected to our shopify account via the Whiplash App. This is not categorized as an "inventory management app". It is labeled a "shipping app". But when they ship our product and fulfill an order, our shops inventory, as well as the specific customers order status are both updated and matched with Whiplash's system.

Recently I have been noticing that sometimes the inventory or order status are not updated in our shopify account. It doesn't happen on all orders, just some of them.

I actually emailed Whiplash yesterday to find out what could be causing that glitch. But now I'm wondering if it's because of the Customer Pricing App.

Is the Customer Pricing App causing these glitches?

If my fulfillment companies app manages our inventory by updating it when orders are fulfilled, does that mean Whiplash's shipping app is considered an "inventory management app"? If so, just to be clear, is Customer Pricing App incompatible with Whiplash?

Hopefully my suspicions are wrong, because Bold Apps has made no attempt to make this information available for their customers to consider prior to installing and paying for the app and liquid installation. Not to mention the amount of time spent trying to troubleshoot.

If this is the case, and Customer Pricing is not compatible with our fulfillment service, I will be uninstalling Customer Pricing and hoping Bold Apps will, at the very least, refund my money that I was charged for the monthly service and for the liquid installation.

If these two apps are incompatible, Bold Apps needs to inform people about this. It is Bold Apps responsibility to alert customers of these kinds of problems PRIOR to installing and paying for it. It is absolutely negligent and bad business to not make this clear.

Simply posting a single article buried in the support pages on your site is not sufficient. Especially because it doesn't even mention the considerations for shipping apps that might also have some functionality that the Customer Pricing App conflicts with.

I will hope for a response from Bold Apps to arrive soon.

This is a big deal and a big concern. Please take this seriously.
Chris

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Response received from the "support" team:
Hey Chris,

I'd be happy to help you with this :)

I'm not aware of any compatibility issues between customer pricing and whiplash, but its possible that there is. There's hundreds of apps on the shopify app store with their own unique functionality, with new ones coming out all the time that its difficult to tell exactly what would be incompatible with what. I would imagine that if there's a problem it would be with the way that customer pricing handles its inventory tracking. When a user checks out with a customer pricing variant the customer pricing app will cause the regular version of the variant to adjust its inventory while the custom pricing variant essentially has unlimited inventory. With inventory management apps they may try to adjust the quantity of the customer pricing variant which can remove the metafields on those variants that the app uses to control those variants. Also because the inventory app doesn't "know" to adjust the regular version of the variant (since the customer pricing variant is in of the order instead), it can result in inventory inconsistencies.

That being said, I don't know how that would cause issues with a shipping app such as whiplash since I don't know how the app is programmed or the processes it uses. Maybe they would be able to use that information to determine if the customer pricing inventory tracking or variants is somehow not compatible with the way that their app operates.
-Michael "Support Wizard"

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My reply back to the "support" team:
Michael, i must say i am disappointed with your reply. You said you'd he happy to help and then you tell me to have whiplash check to see if their app is compatible with yours.

I think that's rather dismissive of Bold Apps responsibility in this situation. Bold Apps is aware of a major conflict between Customer Pricing and inventory management apps. Yet it doesn't mention that AT ALL on the apps page in the shopify market place.

Whiplash doesnt have incompatibility issues. As it does what it is supposed to. Your app then prevents it from doing so. Bold Apps should be a little more concerned about this and since your app is the one that causes conflicts, it makes no sense for me to contact whiplash and have them look at your code.

Also, their app is free, yours is not. There is nothing stoping you from looking into this yourself.

I'm trying hard to find a resolution from you in order to avoid posting a negative review on this app. Please help me.
Chris

***
The response I received from their "support" team:
Hey Chris,

Ron with Bold here. Hopefully I'll be able to shed some light on this.

Shopify's framework doesn't have the ability to change the pricing 'on-the-fly'. You can't sell a product with one price for a retail customer, and a different price for a wholesale customer.

For our app to work within Shopify's ecosystem is that it creates variants of the product for each customer group. You still have the base variant at the regular price, and another variant at a wholesale price point, or variants at a gold/silver/bronze price point, for example. Everything else on the variants would stay the same, same sku, same item weight, etc. Again, it's the same product just at a different price point depending on who the customer is.

The challenge here is that inventory and shipping apps are built that each variant is their own unique product. A red shirt inventory wouldn't be reduced because a blue shirt is purchased. That wouldn't make sense. :-) Red shirt is purchased, it's the red shirt that is fulfilled down the line. Likewise, if a wholesale variant is purchased, that's the one that flows through...

I'm in agreement with you that there is a conflict between our Customer Pricing app and just about every inventory or shipping app for Shopify. We'd love for each app to work together, and our intention was never to create the unnecessary competition, forcing store owners to choose one or the other.

Last fall we reached out to about 10 or 12 of the top app developers, offering our assistance in helping them integrate their apps with ours. Most ignored our emails. Of the 3 or 4 that responded, 1 said that they would look at integrating sometime in the future, but it wasn't a priority. The remainder stated that they were unwilling to make changes.

We are left to create our own solution, that our development team has on the roadmap which should address these issues, allowing stores to continue using our apps and any existing shipping/inventory apps. It is a huge task, so there is no definitive time frame as to when this will be available. We are hopeful for later this year, or early 2016.

If you have any other questions or need help with anything else don't hesitate to ask. I'm always happy to help!

Cheers!
Ron

***
My response:
Hi Ron,

I understand how the app works and how it uses variants to create the various price levels of a product.

What I dont understand is how Bold Apps can actively offer Customer Pricing on the app store without any mention of this issue or any warning in the apps description that it will cause issues with inventory management apps. Even in the support pages, there is not a single mention of how the app conflicts with fulfillment service apps. There is one mention of the conflict with inventory management apps that directly states this app should not be used with any or all inventory management apps. This is information that NEEDS to be stated up front on the apps description page.

The fact that Bold Apps is well aware of this issue and makes zero attempt to inform the customer is appalling.

I will be removing this app immediately, and will expect a full refund for the monthly service fees and the liquid installation fees. Unfortunately, I will not be able to recover the loss of my time trying to set this up and then troubleshoot the problems. One the one support page that mentions the glitch, bold apps admits that the problems that arise from this conflict are difficult and time consuming to repair.
I guess as long as it's the customers time, bold apps is willing to take that risk.

I will NOT be returning to customer pricing when you get this glitch resolved. And i will be seriously considering removing any other apps used in my shop that are developed by bold apps. I have ZERO trust in your business. I hope that is taken seriously.

Very disappointed,
Chris

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The response I received from them:
Hey Chris,

You raise some good points, and we will look at ways that we can be more proactive in offering that information. I guess we take it for granted that many other stores ask the presale questions like "I have app X, will it work with Customer Pricing?", so that they can make an informed choice, and weigh the pros and cons before installing.

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My reply:
Ron,

I have removed the Customer Pricing app from my shop.

" I guess we take it for granted that many other stores ask the presale questions like "I have app X, will it work with Customer Pricing?", so that they can make an informed choice, and weigh the pros and cons before installing."

I find this hard to believe. Does Bold Apps really prefer/expect/endure being contacted by every customer that is considering using any one of it's apps to pre-screen it for conflicts with apps the customers have previously installed?

That doesn't seem very efficient for the support team to answer questions like that hundreds and hundreds of times, when it can be written just once on the description page in the shopify app store.

In fact, when I wrote in to your support team to ask about app-compatibility (after I noticed a problem and suspected a possible conflict), I was told to go ask the developers of my existing apps because he didn't know how the shipping app I use was programmed.

"I don't know how that would cause issues with a shipping app such as whiplash since I don't know how the app is programmed or the processes it uses. Maybe they would be able to use that information to determine if the customer pricing inventory tracking or variants is somehow not compatible with the way that their app operates." -Michael

In your support pages, one of the support pages says that Customer Pricing is "not compatible with any and all inventory management apps, these types of apps break the connections between our apps and the products causing errors that can become visible on the page, as well pricing errors. We do not suggest using inventory management apps under any circumstances while using our apps, as the damage done is very difficult and time consuming to clean up."

Now, that sounds like a pretty big issue and potential nightmare for shop owners. That statement makes it blatantly obvious that Bold Apps is aware of this very destructive conflict.

Please read this sentence again: " I guess we take it for granted that many other stores ask the presale questions like "I have app X, will it work with Customer Pricing?", so that they can make an informed choice, and weigh the pros and cons before installing",

Your attempt to pin the responsibility on me is only proving the absence of "support" from Bold Apps support team's skillset. To imply that I didn't live up to the app-selection process of other stores by not asking prior to installation if you app is going to cause me major issues with the other 34 apps that I have installed on my shop is rude, dumb and pathetic.

Do you not see the irony and insanity in suggesting that by my lack of questioning and weighing the pros and cons prevented me from making an informed decision?

First, we are not talking about Pros and Cons. Pricing errors and time consuming damage caused by your app does not leave room for any Pros.

When you buy milk, do you ask the grocer about compatibility with each of your cereals that you have at home? No. You don't. Because it's milk, and if it had issues with some cereals it wouldn't be on the shelf, because we trust the grocer to not offer us a product that would require us to question them about harmful reactions resulting from typical use of the product.

Salesman "Would you like to buy this DVD?"

Ron "Yes, I think I would, but can you tell me if it is compatible with my other DVDs? Such as Howard the Duck, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Hobgoblins, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Steel Magnolias, Jazzercise volumes 4-17, and volumes 22-45, and Beaches?"

Salesman 1 "Um..."

Salesman 2 "Sir, you will need to ask all the producers of those movies if their DVDs will conflict with this porno DVD you are wanting to buy."

Ron "Of course. Silly me. I'll go check with them and be right back for that DVD."

Yeah, cuz that would totally happen. Stop deflecting your responsibility. Even if the capabilities of your position doesn't allow you to change anything , or if your just too lazy to post a statement on the app description page, then still you should at least recognize the elements of reality that I have been pointing out in countless emails. Denying them is only an attempt to convince yourself.

smh.

Horrifying terrible plug in.
Extreme complex, overpriced, terrible nothing solving customer support.
Waste of time and money.

I AM SO DISGUSTED WITH THIS APP AND ITS TECHNICAL SUPPORT. I paid $40 for the app to be installed. It was not working properly so they had to go in to make changes (FYI it does not work with swatches so if you use swatches they want you to pay $150 for them to make it work. Also does not work with product preview pop up pages) totally bogus. In there attempts to fix a liquid error caused by the app they managed to screw up several things on my template on two different occasions. They then stopped responding to emails after slaughtering my website. Shopify was able to fix one of the problems but because it is not a Shopify bought template they could not fix all of the problems. They were able to pin point why and how the problem happened but said either bold or my template designer would have to fix the rest of the problems. My template designer wants $200 to fix it and I am afraid to let Bold (the makers of this app) anywhere near my html code again. If you cannot install the app yourself and your template was not bought on Shopify I would advise against hiring Bold to install it. Oh yea, Shopify said my template is very intricate so they felt the tech support at bold was just not "tech savvy" enough to know how to navigate it without causing issues. Lucky me!
If anyone wants to read the emails between me and this company feel free to reach out to me.

**THIS REVIEW WILL BE CHANGED ONLY IF BOLD IS ABLE TO FIX ALL PROBLEMS THEY CAUSED ON MY WEBSITE WITHOUT CAUSING MORE! I WILL NOT PAY FOR THERE MISTAKE**

very bad comunication with costumer, it also doesn't have any support to help us. I am just going to cancel my subscription.

Bad customer service, had to wait so long to get an answer that is not good answer and it's very complicated to know who you have to talk to.

This app bugs with many things like Facebook shop if you have sizing variants.
All prices are being visible by your Facebook followers !!

It bugs also the filters app because it create for example ( small-retail, small-wholesale...) so you have many many filter unnecessary.

It slow down the website, very much !!

The hide tags is not clever, it would have been better to make a ( -show ) tag instead of -hide, and choosing not to be visible it's the native solution of Shopify, so the default visitor don't see anything and you avoid many tags for nothing.

It double the inventory size because of the way it multiply the variants in order to the quantity of your type of pricing...

It creates to much tags that is really not friendly user and not clean in the end if you want to have a simple preview of your tags.

Well,
I don't recommand that app if you us many apps like me.

basically broken as of february. stole $20 from me . poor service considering they ask for so much.

Hello!

The app does not work properly in my shop and the installation team is overwhelmed with their work and has not been able to find a solution until today!

The support is also very, very slow and the work is not checked. There is no good quality management at BOLD.

On September 5th, 2020 I installed the BOLD app for testing and today is September 22nd, 2020 and it still doesn't work and I have been waiting for the last feedback from support for 2 days again! I cannot recommend this app + company!

I now have another app to test and it works very well for me and the support is very helpful and quick with its answers! The app costs more money, but it's worth it to me!

Have a nice day!

Greetings from Germany!

Dumb app messed up my cart page. My cart page use to auto update the quantity increase and decrease after the install it stopped updating automatically plus there's a little widget appears in the cart page that shows the discounts applied. I want it to auto update too. They told me it will require a custom customization which starts from $1000. Which is too expensive. I would suggest to stay away from bold apps. Very expensive service and uncooperative people.

baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad

UPDATE: We are so sad that it has come to this! We needed to uninstall the the whole thing from our shop (removing the liquid code, undoing the changes to the theme's HTML is tedious work!). They weren't able to resolve our problems and we have tried our best to be patient with them. Bold's CSP just don't fit in to our preferences and their suggestions for a solution is defeating the purpose of why we even purchased the program in the first place. It's an incomplete program to integrate with our shop.