All reviews
NORRDS
Excellent updater, yes it costs $9 a month but you also get customer support and regular updates. Thankyou so much to the whole OOTS team for your product, service and support.
Developer reply
Hello NORRDS Team!
Thanks for the feedback! We're glad to hear that the app has made updating a little bit easier for you.
Thanks again for taking some time to leave us a review!
We wish you the best of luck with your store!
Cheers,
Out of the Sandbox
Concetto è
The app has a bug. I asked for a refund. They are not very open to this type of requests. Basically I bought a thing. This thing is not as it's supposed to be. So I asked for a refund (also because I never got the ads about the app until a month after the "12 months of free available theme updates").
Basically I bought their theme 13 months ago. I discover that it needed some updates. I bought their app (14$ perr month) a month ago to have my first theme update. The app has a bug, they told me: "we are sorry ad we are working on it". Perfect, with my money. Anyway keep the 14$ and enjoy them!
Developer reply
Hello Concetto è Team!
Thank you for your feedback, we had an issue impacting a small number of merchants when using the diff checker feature. We have now corrected it.
We appreciate you choosing the Theme Updater app as the easiest and fastest way to update your Out of the Sandbox theme.
We do provide free updates for the lifetime of your shop when you purchase one of our themes; the app (not required to update your theme) is only free for the first 12 months from the date of purchase.
Thank you again for your feedback and support of Out of the Sandbox themes.
Nikki Darling
Making the theme updater a paid product is very frustrating, given how much the theme costs in the first place, and will be the reason I no longer recommend Out of the Sandbox to other retailers.
Developer reply
Hello Nikki Darling Team,
Thank you for your feedback. I wanted to share some details regarding the app to provide some clarification on the paid and free features.
The app offers a free trial period with a theme purchase. The Basic Plan features for the app are available for free for one year from the date the theme was purchased.
This free year is provided as a window for a new theme user to determine how much value the app provides to their store.
After the free year expires, a subscription is required to update the theme while preserving the content and settings configured with the default theme features.
The app is a tool that will speed up the process of updating but it is possible to obtain the latest theme files without paying for the app. Our Theme Updater app offers new updated files for free so that you can update in the standard Shopify process by rebuilding the theme with the latest version.
The paid subscriptions (Basic and Pro plans) offer a shortcut to the standard Shopify updating process. Rather than rebuilding the theme in a new file, the app is able to preserve the content and settings that have been configured with the default theme features.
I hope this clears up some of the details around the subscription plans and the free features that are offered. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team if you have any other questions about the app!
Wishing you all the best!
Out of the Sandbox
omigo
We write very rarely reviews but in this case this app has been bothering us a lot. We have bought the first team from Out of the Sandbox many years ago. At that time we didn't need to pay for the theme updater app at all and it was a free of charge which I think is the minimum as themes from Out of the Sandbox are not cheap. But since last year they figured out they want to make more money by charging for this app but in the same time reducing the quality of service. In the past we always got feedback within 24 hours when there was an issue or they needed to resolve something. Now we need to be lucky to get feedback in 3 days and this is called priority service.
So for us conclusion is that if we want to buy more themes it will definetley not be an Out of the Sandbox theme.
We would even not mind to pay for the theme updater app as it is useful but what they charge is too much 14USD per month for priority support taking too long. And yes we do request it through the theme updater with the priority support and a general email. If you go outside of the priority support you should be happy to hear something in 1 week and sometimes even 2 weeks which is completely ridiculous
Update 14-07-2020 According to feedback of out of the sandbox the question has been answered. But this is not the case still waiting for an answer on some changes of the theme they made which changes the design of the header
Developer reply
Hello Omigo!
Thank you for sharing these details; we take your input seriously and we’re always looking to improve the updating & support experience. We apologize that we’ve left you with the negative experience that you describe here! It’s great to see that the support requests submitted last week through the Priority Support form within the app were replied to on the same day (on the next business day for weekend submissions), and we apologize for the wait time for the normal support requests; we have been experiencing very high volume. We look forward to offering the Priority Support experience to all incoming support requests from Pro Plan users like yourself, regardless of how you get in touch - we’re working on launching that feature shortly; until then, feel free to submit any new questions through the Priority Support form within the app to have your request jump to the front of the line.
Thanks again for your review; always looking to improve!
-The Out of the Sandbox Team
مكتبة بنيان
I used one of thier themes and had one problem, contacted the support and found it helpful. one of the best advantages of thier theme is that is get updated regulary through the theme updater app and found it great! I think a lot of people here don't appreciate this app and think buying a theme for 180 dollars give theme the right to get free updates for life! of course they will charge for the updates and that how the will try to provide a better service.
Developer reply
Hey there!
Thanks so much for sharing this - we're pleased to hear the app and our themes are making life easier! Our themes are updated constantly, either with our own improvements or through adding support for new features of the Shopify platform itself (like the recent Product Media enhancements and Cross-Border improvements) - so, having a tool that makes getting the-latest-and-greatest as easy and quick as possible is crucial; we're glad the Theme Updater can help.
Thanks again for sharing these remarks, all the best, and good luck with your online store!
-The Out of the Sandbox Team
it's us or naked
This whole Theme Updater show is a total rip-off. Out of the Sandbox sells their themes with the promise of providing regular updates for free. Confronted with that they tell you, well, we do but you have to start from scratch and rebuild the whole store if not using Theme Updater, which only comes with an expensive monthly-subscription-scam instead of a one time fee. Out of the Sandbox blames that on Shopify. It looks very much like two companies working hand in hand, trying to suck more money out of their clients who of course depend on them if they want to keep up functionality of their e-commerce businesses. This is absolutely ridiculous!
Developer reply
Hello!
Thank you for the input on your experience with updating using the Theme Updater app; we apologize that it didn’t meet expectations! We take your input to heart as we continue to improve the app to make updating your theme faster and easier.
It is true that updated versions of any Shopify theme you purchased are available for free - however, free updated themes do not possess your past setting configurations nor code customizations. While it is unfortunate that this requires the time-consuming process of reconfiguring the theme to retain your past set-up, you can optionally save this time by using the Theme Updater app, which will 1) obtain the most recent version of your theme, 2) apply your past setting configurations and 3) detect your past code customizations, all in one step, without you needing to do these steps manually.
This is a tool we created to help our customers (Out of the Sandbox and Pixel Union theme users) through the complicated updating process; rest assured, your online store functionality can be retained without the Theme Updater app, but the manual updating process will take more time. The main features of the app are available for free for the first year after your Theme purchase, after which time an ongoing subscription begins, ensuring the app’s time-saving and convince benefits are available for the regular subsequent updates.
Thanks again for the input, and feel free to get in touch (support@outofthesandbox.com) with any questions you have about updating your theme! All the best.
-The Out of the Sandbox Team
Herbman Hustlin
This is not really for the app but more for their support for the theme which is terrible, unresponsive, dimissive and unhelpful. I was just going to purchae another theme from them but on the back on my recent experience I won't be.
Claribelskincare.com
I see I'm not the only person with disgust about the lack of customer service Out of the Sandbox offers. Beautiful themes, terrible, slow customer service. Not a way to expect people to run an ecommerce business. I forewarn potential customers to stay far away. If you run a day to day ecommerce business, pandemic or not, this is not the right company for you. P.S. I have tried for literally WEEKS to get (Magdalena) answers with no resolve. Shame on you for not supplementing your customer service as well as you've paid attention to your theme design. JQ
Ameyalli
I just purchased a subscription for Theme Updater to save me the job,
However I updated the theme and the app is functionless since it doesn't work at all.
The theme I updated is exactly as if I've installed the theme (EMPIRE by Pixel Union) and there are no changes at all, it's all at its defaults.
This is so annoying.
These are the files which don't have any changes (it's a ridicule amount of files, it doesn't make sense in most of them).
Empire (Dec-23-2019) (May-3-2020) has been successfully installed.
However, 55 template files contained customizations that could not be automatically applied to the latest version.
- Hide template files
assets/Account.bundle.js
assets/Contact.bundle.js
assets/ContainSwatchTooltips.bundle.js
assets/DynamicBlogPosts.bundle.js
assets/DynamicFeaturedCollection-StaticCollection-StaticProductRecommendations-StaticSearch.bundle.js
assets/DynamicFeaturedCollection.bundle.js
assets/DynamicMenuList.bundle.js
assets/DynamicNewsletter.bundle.js
assets/DynamicPromoBlocks.bundle.js
assets/DynamicRichText.bundle.js
assets/DynamicSearch-StaticHeader.bundle.js
assets/DynamicSearch.bundle.js
assets/DynamicTwitterFeed.bundle.js
assets/DynamicVideo.bundle.js
assets/GiftCard.bundle.js
assets/instantPage.min.js
assets/Page.bundle.js
assets/polyfills.js
assets/PXSMap.bundle.js
assets/StaticAnnouncement.bundle.js
assets/StaticArticle.bundle.js
assets/StaticBlog.bundle.js
assets/StaticCart.bundle.js
assets/StaticCollection.bundle.js
assets/StaticFooter.bundle.js
assets/StaticHeader.bundle.js
assets/StaticHighlightsBanners.bundle.js
assets/StaticPassword.bundle.js
assets/StaticProduct.bundle.js
assets/StaticProductRecommendations.bundle.js
assets/StaticRecentlyViewed.bundle.js
assets/StaticSearch.bundle.js
assets/StaticSlideshow.bundle.js
assets/theme.scss.liquid
assets/vendors-DynamicBlogPosts-DynamicFeaturedCollection-DynamicInstagramFeed-DynamicTwitterFeed-StaticCol-09aa5aa9.bundle.js
assets/vendors-DynamicFeaturedCollection-StaticCollection-StaticProduct-StaticProductRecommendations-StaticSearch.bundle.js
assets/vendors-DynamicSearch-StaticHeader.bundle.js
assets/vendors-main.bundle.js
assets/vendors-StaticCart.bundle.js
layout/none.liquid
layout/theme.liquid
sections/dynamic-instagram-feed.liquid
sections/static-article.liquid
sections/static-cart.liquid
sections/static-product-reviews.liquid
sections/static-product.liquid
snippets/cart-item.liquid
snippets/product-form.liquid
snippets/product-grid-item.liquid
snippets/product-price.liquid
snippets/product.liquid
snippets/structured-data.liquid
templates/404.liquid
templates/page.contact.liquid
templates/product.liquid
The template customizations will need to be manually applied from Empire (Dec-23-2019) to Empire (Dec-23-2019) (May-3-2020) only for these individual files.
Developer reply
Hello Ameyalli,
Thank you for sharing these details! We're very sorry for the inconvenience here - the Theme Updater App was experiencing a temporary issue with certain versions, and we believe this version of Empire was impacted. The issue has been addressed, and attempting the update again should result in a more expected outcome.
We have followed up on the support request as well, where we can continue the correspond if there's anything amiss with the update - feel free to let us know the version number of the Empire theme you're updating if the issue persists, and we'll get it squared away.
All the best!
The Gifted Panda
Installed on thegiftedpanda.co.uk when the app was free and only used a couple of times, some bits didn't work due to custom coding, however, it largely did work and only had to do minimal work. So I would have given it 4 stars..............until it changed to a subscription service.
Not paying that kind of money for something I will use a couple of times a year. More cost effective for me to do the work manually for half a day.
Developer reply
Hello The Gifted Panda,
Thank you for sharing your review; it's valuable to us to see where our customers are dissatisfied with the app to see how it can be improved.
Great to hear the app was helpful with your past updates; as you have experienced, the app saves time by obtaining the most recent version of the theme, carrying over your past settings, and helping with carrying over past code customizations; it sounds like some customizations were flagged as needing special attention, which the app does if automatically re-applying the customization to the updated code template would cause conflicts.
While the app is free to use for the first year following a theme purchase (from Out of the Sandbox or Pixel Union), a subscription is required to continue to use the app as an updating tool following that year. While some merchants, like yourself, only update a couple of times a year, theme updates actually occur regularly throughout the year - to keep running the latest and greatest versions (including new features like Shopify's new Product Media capabilities, or upcoming Cross Border features) other merchants update whenever a new version is available. For merchants updating their theme upwards of 10-15 times per year, using the automated process of the Theme Updater App provides a significant time-saving benefit.
If you find yourself doing manual updates regularly to grab the newest theme features and fixes, the app may be the better cost-effective choice to save you some time!
Thanks again for your input, and best of luck with your online store!
-Out of the Sandbox