My first contact with Spark Paws was to check them out based on the recommendation of a friend who had good experiences with them.
After browsing their site, I came to two conclusions. One, their selection was really cute. Two, their prices were pretty high. I wasn't thrilled with the $10 flat shipping fee unless you made a 30 or $35 order. I decided then that I would probably not be ordering from them.
Fast forward to November 10th. They were running a promotion on Facebook, all items were less than $5.
Cute products (hopefully) good quality? This was right at my alley.
I spent about an hour and a half on their site looking and choosing items to get to the $35 threshold for free shipping. When I had made my selections and was ready to check out, I hit the checkout button and instead of going to checkout I was offered t-shirts. I tried several times to check out with no luck. At the beginning of this process I tried to create an account, which also had not worked.
By this time I was 2 hours in and more than a little angry. I had resolved to never order, and went back to my Facebook scrolling.
The promotion came back around and I thought, "What the heck, I'll give it one more try. If I'm able to start an account I'll place an order."
Acount being successfully created, I placed another order with different items.
The next day I received an email stating there were items left in my cart and asking if I had had a problem. I sent a reply that I had indeed but was able to successfully complete a different order and no longer needed the items from the first one. Next day I got a similar email saying there were items left in my cart and asking again if they could help. I explained again the situation and that I had placed a different order, no longer needed the original one and asked them not to contact me again. The next day, another email. By this point I was pissed and will admit I lost my religion a little. Again told them not so nicely to not contact me again. Guess what? Today? Another email. This time supposedly from the co-founder. I don't even want to discuss that reply because it was very ugly.
The previous email had had a link to go back to my cart and complete my order. I tried going back thinking I would just remove all the items from my cart and stop this Insanity but the website said there were no items in my cart at all, so I certainly shouldn't have received today's email.
To top it all off on day five (today) I still have not received my order despite its supposedly coming 3-day ground.
The cherry on top was the email offering me a 10% off certificate. Seriously? It would have to be a lot more than 10% and a cold day in Hades to get me to order from this company again.
As for positive feedback and helpful suggestions, I'll say this, The $5 promotion is a really good way to build your customer base and provide your current customers a little bit of a perk. I guess my suggestion would be that this whole situation would not have come this far if the customer service team read replies from previous emails before sending another one and completely alienating a new customer.
Please, save yourself the hassle. You can get similar merchandise with much less hassle from other sellers.