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Don't waste your money on their consulting or even the "turn key sites" . However, they only sell their cookie cutter sites with consulting and you don't need it. They prey on the weak. I am a woman without alot of tech skills and even I found the consulting so weak and basic.
They teach from the books SEO for dummies and Pay Per Click for dummies, thats it. They send you word documents with basically info directly out of the books. They offer phone support but again, not much help at all. Just purchase the books for $15 and you will get the same results. DO NOT pay the $1500 they want to charge you. In fact, they told me most customers only use about 10-15hrs only. Hmm, I wonder why. It is a rip off.
Also, the sites are far from turn key. You will have alot of work to do before you can start selling. The site just has a design and products loaded (with no SEO and very unorganized, no part numbers, no weight of the item etc). Also, if you ask non scripted more in depth questions, forget it, they will not answer (because they don't know) and get frustrated with you.
Unless you have never used the internet before, don't purchase the consulting. For that matter, don't purchase their sites. They use the same vendors over and over and just re-brand the sites. The products and vendors along with shopping carts that quick and easily create a website for you are easy to find online.
Thanks for posting and helping others. Sorry to hear your having the same problems.
I am glad to hear at least some had positive experiences. I do not thinkg PEC is a scam per say, just the consulting is worthless.
Too bad PEC is now recruiting her positive users to post replies. Cracks me up actually. BeachMama, please don't imply I am misinformed. Did you purchase my site? Did you know the condition of my site when I purchased it? NO. Your comments are disingenuous. My site was junk and needed alot of work to even get ready for sales. Maybe they have cleaned up their act a bit. I am not the only one that feels this way as you already can see. I am not recruiting users to post negative comments, nor will I.
I repeat, from my experience do NOT buy a PEC site unless you know nothing about ecomm (which I did not but learned doing myself as the consulting was no good-it got old hearing how tired they were during each consulting the yawns, the unprepared sessions). At best, maybe purchase a site but do not pay for the consulting. Just purchase the books. If you have any prior knowledge, stay far far away.
BTW, each of the complaints and concerns listed in this review were discussed with PEC. For the founder of PEC to post that no one has ever made her aware of these issues myself and others have posted is completely not true. I have kept all email correspondence from them expressing these concerns and their lackluster or blown off responses.
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I bought a business from PEC 3 years ago. I was one of her first clients. Funny thing is that I just sold the business I bought from her for 8 times what I paid so my experience has been nothing but great.
I also bought another business from her that I sold about 5 months ago. Again, I made quite a bit of money on the sale of that site.
She told me right from the start that I would only use 20-25 hours of consulting and I would have the rest to come back to use for more help.
She told me to buy SEO for Dummies to have as a reference but we had 2 one hour sessions on SEO. She also explained to me that by reading the SEO for Dummies book it would prepare me for what I was going to learn in the consulting process.
You mention that you are an experienced business women-which is great. PureE is a great opportunity for someone without any ecommerce experience. If you know how to do it yourself I am not sure why you went with her company. She is pretty much geared towards someone with no online or ecommerce experience in terms of her consulting.
My name is Jennifer and I am both the founder and CEO of PEC.
I was just recently made aware of your post and am extremely sorry that you feel your experience was less then what was expected.
I am always upfront and honest with my potential clients and let them know that they will not use all of the 40 hours upfront. They should expect to use 20-25 hours on consulting and then be able to come back and use the remaining hours for other tasks. And yes, I do ask all my clients to purchase SEO for Dummies as I feel it's a great resource and I myself read it each year as the new additions are released, but we also do a 2 hour consultation on how to perform SEO. We merely suggest the book to have as a good reference tool.
To date I have not been made aware of any issues or complaints with any clients but would be happy to address your concerns privately and help to make your situation right. I find it disappointing that this has been taken onto a public forum versus addressed directly with our company. I am always available to clients for question or concerns, and I welcome the opportunity to speak with you further about your particular situation. Please contact me at your earliest convenience.
Many thanks,
Jennifer
Hi,
So who is Jeff Varner? I am attaching two files. One file is the end of the Schedule B that has Pure Ecommerce contact information. The second photo is the one that asks for my money back because the job was not finished after two years. I even stated I would accept $1000 of the original payment, because some of the work was performed. Mr. Varner replied to me about "training. Everything on my part has been completed. I was waiting for Pure Ecommerce.
Jeff Varner told me that some people walk away from their contract. I think he just ignored them.
By the way. BBB complaint
number is11156996
John
I purchased a site from PEC and had nothing but a positive experience. I find your comments interesting.
Yes, in step 1 she did suggest getting SEO for dummies to have as a reference book but they did intensive seo training with me. Also, when I was thinking about purchasing she was quite upfront and said that I would only use 20 - 25 hours of the consulting but would have the remaining hours to go back to use for the future- which I actually have used. As far as pricing goes... I actually priced out having my site designed and the design alone cost what I paid for the website from PEC.
I am very computer literate but did not have any experience with ecommerce. Without PEC to get me started, I would not have known how to proceed or I would have wasted hours and hours of my valuable time trying to figure out what PEC taught me. It's true you don't use all of the consulting hours up front, but over a year later PureE is still consulting and very helpful everytime I ask. They recommend the SEO for Dummies book so that you have a general knowledge of what they're talking about when they consult you. I can't imagine trying to consult someone on SEO who doesn't have at least the basics of what it is. Yes, once you learn from what they teach you it isn't 'rocket science' but if you already knew everything they taught you then you should have just started a website on your own instead of seeking an ecommerce consultant in the first place.
After my youngest turned 2 years old, I decided to go back to work. I was seeking something that I could do from home. After a lot of research on Work At Home Businesses, I found most were a scam. I decided to start my own business, but due to not having any ecommerce experience, I chose to use PEC. My site contains almost 3ooo products. When I priced out what it would cost to design not only the site, but a blog, a banner, & business cards, ect., the price had already exceeded her cost for a complete site. I am very computer savy and could have loaded the product myself; however, I wouldn't have know where to get the vendors. What would have taken me a year to load she completed in about 3 wks.
Regarding your comment about having to do a lot of work prior to being able to sell, you are completely misinformed. Due to the initial SEO work done by this company on my site, I received my first sale even prior to my launching the business. Some products had a product # and some did not. Not all vendors offer product numbers. ALL product information was loaded exactly as the vendor had offered it. I have been in business since 2008 and have never had a problem with the way something was loaded.
At this point, the SEO consulting I have received from PEC has been an integral part of building my business. I not only recommend their consulting services, but I highly recommend them all the way around!
Dear Fitgirl,
You generalized your experience saying that there was much work to be done before "one" would be able to start selling. I was merely correcting you.
BTW: The definition of disingeneous is insincere. By no means was I being insincere. I appreciate your effort though!
You made a general statement about PEC that lumped all their sites together. Chosing words like "their sites" instead of "my site" is unfair to the clients who haven't had anything but a positive experience. I also take offense that you assume I was recruited by anyone to make a comment. I fully support PEC and would not want anyone who may see your comments think negitively about my business because it was built by them. You have every right to make a comment about your own experience, but do not generalize. You are not only trying to hurt PEC's reputation, but you are doing a disservice to anyone who has already purchased a site from them.
Dear FitGirll22,
We actually have now figured out who you are via your company website and will be contacting you directly via phone. I truly hope noone ever does to you what you have set out to do to me and my family.
PEC.com LLC has since figured out the source of these untrue and slanderous comments. We have decided to pursue this matter legally and will no longer comment on the above statements.
I think this review of Pure-Ecommerce LLC is completely false and misleading. If you take a look around the web you will find they are a professional and reputable company with years of ecommerce experience. Pure-Ecommerce LLC was the answer for me! I knew I wanted to start my own ecommerce business, but was not sure where to begin. Since the first day I contacted Pure-Ecommerce with my business concept I have been nothing but 100% satisfied. The expertise and knowledge they possess in this industry is priceless to me. They held my hand every step of the way and today I can say I am the proud owner of a successful ecommerce business. I love my site, http://www.magicalmomentsboutique.com/ and I look forward to continuing to grow my business with the help of Pure-Ecommerce.com. You will find out for yourself when you visit their website and see the multiple articles and press on how successful not only their company is, but their clients businesses as well. I suggest checking them out for yourself - http://www.pure-ecommerce.com/
One thing I don't like about them is that they sell a website featuring certain category and as soon as that is sold they make another one for the same category. I feel they themselves create the competition that you are so much trying to avoid!
We absolutely do NOT recreate website businesses in the same industry in a back-to-back scenario that TGU suggests. This is misleading….
The design behind Pure EC is to take the client that has no experience in ecommerce whatsoever and teach them, through our 10-Step Process, to become an ecommerce entrepreneur and professional. We are “taking you by the hand” and mentoring, teaching, and consulting with you to help you achieve your goals. We are not selling success but we are selling services to reach your success goals.
We work in multiple industries and sub-niches of those industries. We make it very clear that we may have other sites in the same industry, and although we vigorously try to avoid, there could very well be similar or same products on different sites built by Pure EC. Again, we acknowledge this in the beginning but also point out that your success is dependent upon YOU not PEC. PEC trains its clients to learn how to contact new site product vendors and encourages them to grow their business in any direction they desire, because it is their business not PEC’s. PEC trains its clients on every aspect of running an ecommerce business as well as product vendor procurement but also Search Engine Marketing, which is so critical to your success, and what separates you from your competition despite the competitive environment.
I don’t believe this complaint is valid and I am more than happy to chat through any concerns TGU may have. Moreover, this a very poor platform to log a complaint because all it does is hurt the business relationship that PEC works so hard to develop with its client base as well as PEC as a whole.
I purchased two sites from Pure E. It's pretty obvious that they create or work in more then one time in an industry. With that said they were always upfront about that with me and in the end that didn't matter. What mattered was the vendors I ended up adding on my own and they taught me how to do find and load new vendors.
I worked with Pure E because I wanted to step into something that was "ready to go" I didn't have the time or the knowledge to set it all up. They did it for me. I certainly had no idea how to run an internet business either. The consulting was invaluable. To be honest I live in California and there is no way I could get all these services for the price I paid from them. I tried to piece the services together but honestly I could not find ANYONE who does it like this. I didn't care that they built other sites. I cared about the competition on the web currently. In the end do your SEO work as well as your marketing etc. Listen and do the work. My experience with them was top notch and I was very happy obviously as I bought two sites. I read this complaint prior to purchasing from them and tried to contact the person who made it. The person never contacted me back. I wonder if the person that made this complaint is real. They didn't list there name of site.
Are you still doing business with them ? pls give me review
WOW I disagree with any complaint about Pure-E! I was looking for a work from home job when I found Pure-E, I bought http://www.AmericanToyBoutique.com from them and didn't have any experience with selling online and they helped teach me. Everyone that I had talked to during and even after my training was very helpful and knowledgeable. They have always answered any questions I have, even now 2 years later. My business was ready to go. I wanted to add more to it and they helped me learn how to go about putting more products on and getting more vendors. I couldn't ask for better people to work with. I would highly recommended Pure E to anyone interested in purchasing a ready to go business. You have to work at it just like any business but you can do it on your time and from home or anywhere you may go. I am so thankful for Pure-E they have made my dreams come true!
The American Toy Boutique appears to be out of business, so I take their rebuttal as bogus.
It appears from surfing around that a few (at least) of PEC's consultants are former buyers of their sites. That would be ok if they are or were successful with their e-commerce sites. But further surfing around indicates that they too have defunct sites.
PEC clearly, in my humble opinion, is way too quick to sell sites that are essentially the same as ones just sold.
Their consulting was ok in my opinion. Nice people trying hard to help. I still refer to their stuff occasionally.
I think PEC unintentionally leads buyers to believe that it's easy to run an ecom store. It is a lot of hard work and it takes many hours per week to be successful. It is not for everyone! Additionally I don't believe you can be successful without learning some code (html/Css).
The PEC owners I believe now live in Hawaii. But they list they list NC as the domicile for the LLC and list Jen as the registered agent with a NC address (their former residence I think). Not legal. See attached.
I am one of the owners of PEC.com. It's never fun having to respond to bogus complaints from mystery people on "review" websites. This is not a review but an attack and it's a shame that websites such as this allow people to hide and not reveal who they are without any responsibility and consequences. We have a very good reputation and we work hard to keep it that way. I firmly believe the reason we have a good reputation is we deliver what we say we deliver and we focus on communicating with our clients to provide them the best customer service we can. In fact, I’m more than happy to discuss any concerns the mystery writer has and help him in any way I can to be successful online. That said, I'll address these points.
The American Toy Boutique is, in fact, in business and is doing just fine. They can be reached at www.AmericanToyBoutique.com. We appreciate their kind words and enjoy working with them.
Absolutely true that some of our consultants are actually clients too, and yes they are successful. We at PEC are very pleased to have them working with our clientele because they bring real-world experience and "I've been there before" knowledge...very valuable and we appreciate the hard work they do.
Regarding our consulting, and everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion, I respectfully disagree with the mystery writer. There is no other company out there that does what we do and stands by their client like we do. We offer a very
comprehensive 10 Step Process, 40 hours of consulting time, and a year to do it in. No other company truly does this.
It does take work to be successful, but if it were easy, everybody would be doing it. It’s really all about your motivation and vision for your business. Also, you don’t need to know any HTML coding, that’s ridiculous. We ran two retail websites for four years and knew nothing about HTML.
Finally, we are both cancer survivors and temporarily live in Hawaii to heal ourselves and our family. I don’t have to answer to where our company is located, which it doesn’t matter….the mystery writer is looking for something to criticize. We own a house in NC and maintain a mailing address and office in NC, so our business formation is based there despite us living in Hawaii for a short period. Moreover, not only do we pay taxes in NC but also in Hawaii and there is nothing illegal about this!
Hello,
Maybe your name is Jeff Varner? These are not bogus complaints. I paid $3500 to have a web site made.
Not done after two years. A lot of," We will finish it", and Sorry for the miscommunication.
Shame on you.
John Lewis
The American Toy Boutique is alive and well! A simple Google search of
my site name will return multiple listings for my site or you can visit
it directly at AmericanToyBoutique.com. My comment is in no way bogus
and I believe if you are going to make these kinds of slanderous
comments you should get your facts straight! I have not had to learn
coding in any way to run my site. The back end is very easy for me to
use. I have had nothing but a positive experience with PEC and last
time I checked it is not illegal in any way to live in more than one
place.
I am wrong about ATB being defunct. Very sorry! You are an employee/contractor of PEC.
I stand by the rest of my stated opinions.
PEC is wrong wrong wrong on their NC Annual filing. Business Law 101! Big deal...I don't know and doubt it.
You probably meant libelous. Libel or slander, it doesn't matter. I committed neither...
I avoid buying books that call that label their readers dummies, anyone who suggest you buy that is a little off their rocker anyway, IMHO. Either an expert is going to train you or not, but buying a book that calls you a dummy should be a question mark right off the bat! That's my two cents.
I also purchased a website from Pure Ecommerce after I had done my homework ( I thought) and had two conference calls with the owner Jennifer Varner. She reassurred me that this would be a very easy business for me to run and that if you had basic computer skills this would be ideal for my scenario...This was far from the truth, it is very difficult to get up and running do not let them kid you. I am sure some sites actually do well but I would venture to say the vast majority of these do not have a very long life. If I am wrong please show me the facts...I do not believe anything that either Jeff or Jennifer say...Its mostly smoke and mirrors...
PureEcommerce.com is engaged in highly reliable eCommerce setup and consulting. I am a paid in full, client. The poster who bad mouthed them has no idea what they are talking about. They are actually talking about their own failure of will. If you say "They prey on the weak, I am not weak, but a technical pro and they preyed on me, but I am not weak, the materials are weak."; then you are moaning about being a weak willed individual.
I am an expert, technically. I've been a Senior manager of software development, at Oracle, for the last 25 years, Good work if you can get it..
Nothing is easy about setting up a webstore. I know I could do it without help, but would I end up with something worthwhile for my efforts? NO. I tried. There is just too much to do without a plan of action and I don't know what I don't know. So I went to the other experts, and fiound PEC They have a fine program, excellent value for the money, and consulting that pays off. I am no shill, either. I am just getting started and I know, 1/2 of businesses online will fail, but I will fail 100% if I don't try, and if I don't work my tail off, in marketing my business.
So, I have a webstore after only about 2 weeks of part time work on my part. Check it out. I am now the proud owner of StylishNauticalLiving.com. We have our Grand Open in a few weeks.
The devil is in the details on how to set up Marketing and how to use search engine optimizing techniques, to get customers. How do you drive customers to your store? How will you not waste your marketing dollars, If you don't know that, you are missing the only meaning of a webstore, customers. And if you don't know how to tackle contact funnel marketing and how to measure all that, then you need PEC. There is nothing else like PEC. I've looked...and looked. There are plenty of people to take your money and not deliver. With PEC, you are delivered a functional webstore, if you follow the program. Ms. Moaner, didn't follow anything, but just quit, and had the audacity to want a refund.. Quitters never win, and moaner only moan. The sleepers stay asleep. Wake up! If you want a functional, instrumented for marketing and customer ease of use, website selling product, save a year of effort and buy a package from PEC. I did. I am happy I did.
How dumb to no recognize the very famous "For Dummies..." franchise, Sad and ignorant. There are litteral 100s, of valuable books from them, I a a few myself. Java for Dummies is one.
Too bad they don't have Dummies for Dummies, . I would highly recommend you read it.
It's been 3 1/2 months since you posted. Your store has no products. No social media hooked up. Has your opinion of PEC changed?
I, too, hired them and ended up with nothing. Partly my fault for following up but the owner had fallen ill in the middle of our site set up and we never completed it. I was a mom working 3 jobs and I just let it go. But it was a lot of hard earned money down the drain.
I bought a site from PEC a couple of years ago. I paid to have over 1000 products loaded on the website. I paid to set up accounts with suppliers. I bought accounting software. I set up business licenses with the State and City. I got a Federal Tax ID number. My wife and I tried to complete the training. We had a couple of conference calls with our project managers. It was difficult because I worked during the day and appointments were only available during the day. My wife is retired and I thought it would be a great way for her to produce income while staying at home. We hired a web designer to try and help us get the site launched. He shook his head and said it was far to complicated to start a website this way. My wife gave up and at the end of 2016 I shut down the site and closed the business. I lost about $9K on this venture. My wife and I have owned 7 small businesses in the past but this was by far the most confusing and difficult venture. We never sold a single item and the site was never launched. Maybe my expectations were to high. I thought I had bought a turn key operation and PEC was going to hold our hand during start-up. The frustration, confusion, and expenses were very heart breaking to us. The people at PEC were very nice but not very helpful with guidance and information. They would tell us to return to earlier steps and try again. I would not recommend this to anyone who is not web smart. Even my grown children with a lot of experience could not figure out how to launch the site. This turned out to be one of the biggest failures in my life. Wish I could go back in time and pass on this venture.
Scary thought losing the money. I am always worried about being scammed. I just visited the site this week and they sound like a small town hard working family trying to help others. I do need a reliable way to open a business on the internet, its something I always wanted to do. I've been looking since match 2018. joined Builder -all but it seems even more bogus. Sad for me and my wife. If I made a mistake like spending the money with PEC and lost it, I'm positive she would leave me because of my bad judgment. I'm 61 and this would be my chance to make enough money to help us during our retirement years.
Thanks for everyone's input, Sincerely Peter Coleman from Chesapeake Virginia.
Fraud company they are professional BS
I paid $3500 to have a website made by Pure Ecommerce. I spoke with Jeff on the phone, and I felt pretty good in the beginning. But the first red flag was when the project did not get started right away. My payment was cashed, and a little time passed before I had to write to Jeff again, and ask what is going on. I let this go because it was around the Christmas/New Years holidays. This is when I discovered that most of the work would be done by Contractors, or at least, people who did not work in the same building.
Once Covid hit, there was definitely a lack of communication between myself and Pure Ecommerce. Each time, I would speak with Jeff (the Company's President. The person who signed the "contract" between Pure Ecommerce and I). He would always let me know they are going to finish the website.
However, two years after the "contract" was signed, the website was still not complete. I have given up on waiting. Maybe that is what they want me to do.
I was contacted late last year by someone, who supposedly made a private Facebook group of people in the same situation as me. But, I was unable to locate the club for some reason. SO, I am not even sure who contacted me. I made complaints with the BBB, which was not even answered. I made a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. They told me they took the information down. And if there are enough people, they will pursue it.
I have to grade Pure Ecommerce as a SCAM. As long as there are people out there who paid money, but did not get their website made, The people who claim to have had a positive experience are just paid endorsers.