Tagging Miles

  • Saverocity
  • Home
  • About
  • Ask Tagging Miles
  • Support Us
  • Store
    • Reselling Tools
  • Guides
    • Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment By Amazon
      • Start Here
      • Setting up an account
      • Analyzing and adding a product
      • Shipping 101
      • Shipping 201
      • Ungating Product Categories
      • Amazon Seller App
      • Amazon Seller App Part 2
    • Expert’s Guide to Fulfillment By Amazon
      • Dealing with Returns
  • Mile High Reselling Club

My Experience with Glasshouse Inventory

March 13, 2017 By Trevor 4 Comments





Glasshouse Inventory provides an exhaustive inventory reconciliation service. I signed up for Glasshouse Inventory’s service mid-2016. I even had them go back into 2015 to see if there were any reimbursements that I had missed. I even thought so highly of Ashley, the principle of Glasshouse Inventory, that I was happy to have her present at ResellingDO3. At the time I signed up, I had gotten what was really a sweetheart of a deal, I think I was paying as little as $35 a month. Others were paying anywhere from $25-100 a month. 

Ashley grew this business very quickly, and at some point, she signed up some bigger Amazon sellers, and decided that they needed to change their business model. On 7 December 2016, she sent this e-mail out stating that the business model would change effective 1 January 2017:

Glasshouse Inventory

A cleaner view of that new pricing option is below:

Glasshouse Inventory

I opted to stay on, as I was curious to see how everything would work out. Here was my response. 

Glasshouse Inventory

I received a response that essentially said that the lower subscription was a “beta testing phase” and the company had progressed. I get it, you have to make money. 

A few weeks later I received a refund, however it was insufficient, a couple of e-mails cleared that up, but it gave me my first concerns with the level of service I would now be getting, and in fact, paying more money for that degraded service. The key message though, was in response to my question of how the new business arrangement would work, this was the response:

Glasshouse Inventory

I was sent nothing. In fact, I received no communication from Glasshouse Inventory for nearly a month, then receiving an e-mail regarding a new dashboard:

Glasshouse Inventory

I get it, there are growing pains, but, again, related to my previous concern that as a smaller seller, I wasn’t going to get the same level of service as others, and I see at the end: 

If you’d like to schedule a training session, Ashley has availability the week of March 27

This e-mail was sent February 6. Message received, loud and clear. But I still held through for a week. Then, a week later, I had still not received an invitation to my new dashboard. I sent my message expressing my decision to change course.

Glasshouse Inventory

I received a response fairly quickly, directly from Ashley.

Glasshouse Inventory

She also included a screenshot of my dashboard–the one that I had never received an invitation to, mind you. It was still reassuring that she responded as quickly as she did. I want to highlight something here though, which again, gave me hope:

We will send an email when we’re finished with a record of your cases and reimbursements to explain your January bill and finish your services for that month so you can find an alternative going forward.

I responded to Ashley fairly soon after (as I was in Bali at the time):

Glasshouse Inventory

Ashley responded with what I thought was perfectly reasonable. She answered my questions.

Glasshouse Inventory

Then, a few weeks later, I receive an e-mail stating that I had a bill:

Glasshouse Inventory

Great! I expected this, and I had seen a couple of reimbursements come through, but the number seemed a bit high. So, I go to the link, then download the excel of the invoice, expecting to see, as Ashley had assured me I would see – a record of your cases and reimbursements to explain your January bill. What did I see? 

Glasshouse Inventory

Now, I don’t know about you, but that does not look like a list of all the cases and reimbursements. So, I logically sent an e-mail back–in fact, I sent two e-mails back, because I felt I might have been too harsh in my first response.

Glasshouse Inventory

I received no response to those emails, but, then I got another e-mail Saturday and Sunday morning. I get that this is likely automated, but it still frustrated me, because I was not being provided the information I needed to be able to properly compensate Glasshouse Inventory for their services. So I responded again, this time including every e-mail address of the company that I knew–because maybe this was just an automated e-mail address that no one actually reads:

Glasshouse Inventory

As of yet, I have not received any response, but the last bit of this did transpire over the weekend. 

Thoughts on my experience with Glasshouse Inventory

I have to admit, I was impressed with Ashley in the first few months of working with her. Like I said, I had a sweetheart of a deal; a fixed subscription cost. But when she made the change, I had the logical expectation that I’d receive those things that had been promised. Those included:

  • Two Legal Agreements explaining the services of Glasshouse Inventory and timing
  • A Mutual NDA
  • A Dashboard
  • A record of cases and reimbursements to explain my January bill

Unfortunately to the best that I can find in my e-mail (and I had to search through it to get all of those screenshots), Glasshouse Inventory didn’t deliver. Like I said, I get it, a growing company can encounter growing pains, but, logically, anyone would realize that when you’re telling your customer that you are going to charge them more, you want to back that up, right? 

I think the part that frustrates me the most is the lack of following through on promises. But, as I sit back and think about it, I can only imagine how many of the other “beta testers” feel. Glasshouse Inventory clearly cut their teeth on many of us smaller resellers, I dare say, many folks in the miles and points community, and to receive this caliber of treatment, is a shame.

Have you worked with Glasshouse Inventory? What was your experience?

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • LinkedIn

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Amazon, FBA, Inventory Reconciliation, Reselling

Comments

  1. MickiSue says

    March 13, 2017 at 9:39 am

    To be honest, I haven’t yet decided whether or not to sue. Because the “value” I got for my money was laughable, the idea that a contract can be cancelled at whim by one of the parties is just plain WRONG, and the terrible execution of that terrible idea leads me to believe that in the end, Ashley and company are utterly uninterested in their reputation in the marketplace.

    I need to figure out if I, too, received too little of a refund. Probably, right?

    This whole affair is a case study in how NOT to run a business.

    Reply
  2. Russ says

    March 14, 2017 at 1:02 am

    I wonder if the guys in the top 50 will receive similarly inflated invoices…

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Uber gone bad, A new type of Stowaway, Q1 5x ending soon - Tagging Miles says:
    March 17, 2017 at 7:00 am

    […] My Experience with Glasshouse Inventory with my reselling business […]

    Reply
  2. Amazon Seller Support Associate Shares Insight - Tagging Miles says:
    May 3, 2017 at 10:12 am

    […] Party Vendors (like Inventory Lab, Glasshouse Inventory, etc) are not necessarily prohibited, but remember, you are ultimately responsible for your […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Stay in touch!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Search

Subscribe

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Subscribe To Our Newsletter

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Topics

  • #Avgeek
  • Airline Programs
  • Ask TaggingMiles
  • Awards
  • Cashback Portals
  • Credit Card Match-ups
  • Credit Cards
  • Dollars and Sense
  • Editorial
  • Events
  • Frequent Flyer 101
  • Giving Credit to Credit
  • Hotels
  • Manufactured Spending
  • Mileage Run
  • Miles and Points
  • Podcasts
  • Random
  • Rental Cars
  • Reselling
  • Saturday
  • Savings & Loan
  • Tagging Miles
  • The Brass Ring
  • Travel
  • Travel Insurance
  • Travel Programs
  • Uncategorized
  • Weekly News Roundup
  • Where Credit is Due

Recent Comments

  • Trevor on Targeted: Spend on your United Explorer Card, earn up to 4,000 Bonus United Mileage Plus Miles
  • christ on Targeted: Spend on your United Explorer Card, earn up to 4,000 Bonus United Mileage Plus Miles
  • Chase Spending Offers On Hyatt, United, British Airways, AARP & Ritz-Carlton - Doctor Of Credit on Targeted: Spend on your United Explorer Card, earn up to 4,000 Bonus United Mileage Plus Miles
  • emptylegflights on Elite Status – Leaving AAdvantage for Spirit Airlines
  • Join me at the Frequent Traveler University in DC this summer! - Tagging Miles on Saturday Special: The Oberoi Amarvilas – Taj Mahal Hotel Review
Note: Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline, or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. The owners of this website may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links and advertisements posted on this website. For more information, please see our Legal Notice.

Copyright © 2018 · Tagging Miles

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.