Complete Headache!
I engaged CVR Studios to help with packaging updates and Amazon listing design for a small range of three laminating pouch SKUs. The project cost close to £3,000 and was paid in full upfront, based on Charlie’s pitch and assurances about their Amazon expertise and strategic process - a decision I now hugely regret. I work in the Amazon space myself, so I’m familiar with listing optimisation projects. This was a personal project and due to a conflict of interest, I needed to engage an external agency.
Unfortunately, the quality of the work delivered was far below what you would expect from an agency that supposedly specialises in Amazon listing design.
The packaging designs:
The copy on the packaging had no real strategy behind it. It appeared to be copied directly from my original onboarding notes without even being properly read through.
* Initial discussions I had with Charlie about updating various images on the packaging were completely disregarded. Instead, they simply rearranged elements from my existing packaging.
* Basic errors were made, such as displaying a pouch with a glossy finish on a matt box.
* There were sloppy text alignments and multiple revision rounds where I had to point out the same issues repeatedly. When I spoke to Charlie on the phone about these missed points, my comments seemed to have magically disappeared…
* The other versions (which I paid extra to have designed) looked no different. When I raised this, the only change was an additional line of text with a questionable gradient and some poorly executed white stripes on the pouch that were apparently meant to make it look glossy.
* The final straw was that the designs included old barcodes on the packaging, despite it being made pretty clear that these were not to be used. If we hadn’t spotted this at the last minute, we could have ended up with 10,000+ units of stranded inventory in Amazon which would have been a pretty serious and costly issue.
I could go on, but in the end we decided to finish the work in house and complete the designs ourselves. Did we receive any money back for this? Of course not!
The Amazon listing work:
Next, Charlie sent over a document containing the listing copy they planned to use for the design work.
* The first page was for an “A3 Matte Finish” pouch which was a good start. We don’t even sell an A3 matt pouch - and even if we did, we’d at least spell matt in UK English. I digress.
* The document was broken down into six SKUs, only two of which were actually the correct product.
* Even where the SKU was correct, the details raised serious questions. For example, the copy claimed the pouches were six times thicker than competitors - I doubt a pouch that thick could even fit through a laminator…
* There was clearly no keyword strategy whatsoever. Even the most basic search term, “A4 laminating pouches”, wasn’t included anywhere in the listing copy. You don’t need to be an SEO wizard to figure out that including the primary search term might be a good idea…
At that point it was clear the project wasn’t going to work. I asked Charlie to stop the work and felt it would be fairly reasonable for them to refund the listing design work (given they hadn’t kicked it off bar the copy document) and still allow them to keep the entire fee for the packaging design (which we ultimately had to finish ourselves).
When it came to kicking off the project and taking my money, Charlie was extremely responsive- often replying within 10 minutes. When it came to discussing a refund, however? Crickets.
After a heavily drawn out back and forth designed to waste everyones time, it became clear that a full refund for the listing design wasn’t going to happen, and we ultimately had to accept a £400+ loss for work that delivered no value and couldn’t be used.
Overall, the experience was disappointing to say the least and extremely time consuming to deal with. Save yourself the money- and the headache - and look elsewhere!