Well I’m sure by now at least 182 of you have seen my last blog post,

Photrade: Strike 2! What is going on???

Well I am happy to report that my fears have been laid aside, questions answered, and my faith in the site  restored.

Andrew Paradies, the CEO of Photrade

was generous enough to reply to me regarding the site and the issues perceived or real that I talked about in my post in addition to the comments I made or that were left.

I would like to publicly thank him for sharing that information with me, he by no means had to. I think it shows, despite what it may look from those of us on the outside looking in, that he is still very much committed to making the site a success.

I am going to continue to use the site and I hope others will as well.

It pains me to have to write a post like this but it has to be said.

I think anyone will tell you that I am a huge proponent of the Photrade site, have been ever since I joined last November when they were in private Beta. Now I realize that they are still in Beta….

BUT, ever since they opened membership to the public the site has been like a ghost town.

ISSUES:

• Site Outages (strike 1) – This to me is inevitable based on the dynamic and heavy load running an image web site must put on servers. I accept this but what I do not accept is that they’ve only made 1 blog post about it and nothing in the time since to update their users. I realize they may not want to air the specifics of their dirty laundry but some reassurance that they are top of it would be nice.

• • Since that original blog post on 10/23, there has been another major outage (like 18 hours +) and several small ones. It would be nice if they kept everyone in the loop. The last major outage was so long that some were fearing that the site had closed entirely! (myself included). In fact the only way I found out what was going on was that someone made a post in a Flickr group and Scott B. said that they were just having server issues again…things were being worked on…
  • To compound matters, the blog is on the same server that the main site is so even if they did make a post and the site was down you would be able to see it.

• Customer Service (emails) – Prior to going public, 9/10 someone from customer service (or even Krista herself) would have emailed me back to address an issue or a suggestion within one day. Even if the issue wasn’t something they could resolve immediately they would at least let you know that they were aware of the issue and that someone will take a look at it.
  • Since going public I have yet to receive a reply of any kind in an email I have sent to them. I’ve made about 12 of them so far about various issues and never got a reply from them….no acknowledgment of any kind. In fact, I even had to resort to making a blog post about a problem I had before I heard back from them about a payment issue. Even then it took over a week to resolve but in the end I was taken care of.
  • Again, I realize that they must be busy and all of that but not to even respond with an acknowledgment is not a good sign in my opinion. How do we know if they are just busy or if the ship is sinking?
• Ghost Town
  • Getting back to my original ghost town comment. I figure they are slammed working on other stuff? but nothing on the site has changed in over a month. I mean they even stopped updating the featured photos section. The same featured photo has been on the splash page now since 10/2. That might seem small and insignificant but it was one of my favorite things to check! To me it shows that the site is alive and interested in what is going on with it’s members.
  • Regardless of what they are or are not working on, it would be nice for some noticeable sign that the site is still alive and kicking…a list of things they are working on (fixing issues, new features – even if they never come to fruition). Just some sort of communication…even a simple “It’s been a crazy few months, yada, yada, yada”.

• Customer Service – (ORDERS) STRIKE 2!))
  

  • This one is huge and the main reason for my post today. I consider this one by far a greater sin compared to anything I have mentioned thus far.
  • The Story – A friend of mine ordered a print and a key chain from me last month but never got her merchandise or the print.  She let me know about the problem and I emailed customer service…even CC’d Andrew and Krista and of course they never got back to me. Someone did contact my friend and apologized and said it would be taken care of but guess what…here we are a week later and still nothing! They never got back to her after the initial apology and promise of is being addressed.
  • My friend:

I just emailed them again as they lied to me on the 5th and said an Andrew somebody would be responding that day with more information and still nothing.

My order was now placed over a month ago and I got nothing.

Did they ever answer you? I was really looking forward to this stuff, especially the keychain but I am now afraid to ever order from them again, I hope you understand, if there’s somewhere else I can get your pictures on stuff, let me know.

That to me is completely unexcused. They should have sent her stuff out the next day using over night delivery @ their expense. Meanwhile, was this yet another isolated incident or a sign of things to come?

Stumble It!

Man, talk about annoying!!!

http://www.photrade.com/index.php?error=1

For about the 5th time in 2 weeks now, Photrade is DOWN!

All I know is that they’ve been having “server and database” issues. Of those approximate 5 outings, one of them was severe, I think they lost about a days worth of data and I’m not sure if they ever got everything restored. Accounts, photos, comments, and mail down the drain.

Thankfully all of the other outages have not affected any account information that I know of. HOWEVER, it is particularly annoying for me since my photos from my Photrade account for about 84.8% of my blog content!

I hope they either figure out the issue and corect it or at least let everyone know what is going on. I can’t imagine that the confidence level in Photrade is very high at the moment under the current circumstances!

I think it’s unfortunate from them because I have found the site very useful, I hope this is just a hiccup, a growing pain if you will.

Stay tuned?