Chris Jennings

I’m really jumping headfirst into this, but I have decided to take the knowledge I’ve gained over the course of my online career and put it to use for myself. I have had this ominous “entrepreneur” word laying around for awhile now, and it’s past due time to show up.

So at this point, I have done some preliminary  SEO research  for my targeted phrase and concluded that with the right dedication, I can dominate the phrase in the course of a year or so.  After I begin, I will provide a recap of my success if I so find it.

So let’s begin, I have taken an admittedly ambitious path with the niche I’ve picked, but I feel that with the passion I have for the topic of Teeth Whitening, I will be more likely to stick to it.

In my teens I suffered from naturally stained teeth.  I didn’t smoke and brushed regularly but this wasn’t enough.  My sister had similar luck and was treated by our dentist for $500.  As a kid, this was a TON of money.  I felt terrible for even wanting to ask my parents to pay for a treatment that was so expensive… I mean it was only vanity, not life of death… the stains remained.

I tried whitening strips, over-the-counter bleaching formulas and as seen on TV lights and had no success.  My sister’s teeth were so white and these off-brand solutions had left me broke and without results.

Luckily, I have a few friends in the dental field and they pointed me to their suppliers, unknowingly that I was looking to join them in practice.   To make an overwhelming long story short, I was able to cut a deal in which a certain supplier would ship orders on demand of my orders.

With no further ado, I bring you the Premium White Teeth Whitening system, one of the most powerful procedures available on the market and no thanks to your dentist, priced so that anyone can afford the confidence of a whiter, brighter, smile.

When news first broke of Shopify, I was ecstatic. A fully functioning, hosted shopping cart solution was a godsend for me as a web designer. I have several clients who thank me often for switching them over to such a robust, yet painfully simple ecommerce solution. After seeing the success that they’ve had, I have been quietly building a store of my own using Shopify.

Today I logged in to find out that: 1. The stats that are usually on my dashboard are missing, 2. the option to add a coupon is greyed out and there is now a link beside of it saying “upgrade your account.”

… I was at a lost for words. After further inspection, I was now listed as a “trial member” instead of simply having a free account. I was outraged. I wasn’t warned, offered an upgrade… nothing.

Here’s What’s New

For everyone that hadn’t activated their account before August 11th, 2007 you are now a trial member. You have 5 free orders to process before you are forced to upgrade. Those that had an activated account were granted a “grandfathered” tier in which everything stayed the same… unless they need SKU’s for more than 1000 products, then they will be forced to upgrade and pay the new monthly rate.

Here are the new tiers:

• Trial - $0/month - No coupons, 1 Block of Storage, 5 Max SKU’s, No Stats, 0% Transaction Fee, Can’t use own domain name.
• Basic - $24/month - No coupons, 1 Block of Storage, 1000 Max SKU’s, Basic Stats, 2% Transaction Fee
• Professional - $54/month, Unlimited Coupons, 4 Blocks of Storage, 2,500 Max SKU’s, Advanced Stats, 1% Transaction Fee
• Enterprise - $299/month (wtf!), Unlimited Coupons, 8 Blocks of Storage, 10,000 Max SKU’s, Advanced Stats, 0.5% Transaction Fee.

As you can see, things have changed. The lovable Shopify.com that I brag about to all of my colleagues and clients about is no more. To get the same features I was getting for free, I now have to pay $59 a month for.

Update - There is hope for some.

There is hope for those who had signed up before August 11th, 2007 but had not activated the payment gateway. Today I sent the following message using the Shopify support system:

Shopify, I have carefully been planning my launch for the past few weeks and I log in today to find out that since I didn’t activate my account, I haven’t been “grandfathered”. I feel that I too have been a loyal customer by simply telling my colleagues how amazing your free service has been so far.

I don’t think this is fair and would like to request that I be grandfathered as well. This is not what I signed up for, nor what I was promised - nor what I have been working on for weeks. I hope you all have the integrity to make this right.

Please help me resolve this.

Shortly thereafter I received an email saying that I was granted a “grandfathered” account. This shows integrity (and saves me $60/month), however, what about those people who we’ve all been raving to about the “free” Shopify???