Simon Says Stamp - online retailer of the year!

What?!?’bn

It sounds like it's for the state of Ohio.

I haven't had issues with them, but I get that peas have. I still order from them on occasion and am seriously considering that Valentine Card Kit.

I do like some of their exclusive designs but the postage to Oz always a killer for me
Scrapbook.com always gets my $

From the 2019 nomination form:

BEST CREATIVE ONLINE RETAILER OF THE YEAR

Open to AFCI member online-only retailers without a physical location who have been in business for 5 years or more. This includes sellers on eCommerce sites. Judging will be based on the overall business and performance, site usability, customer experience, community involvement and unique characteristics that set the business apart from online-only retailers.

You can see the online form here for the kind of "documentation" they had to provide to accompany the nomination.
form.jotform.com/91745880666168

It's all self-reported. Or it was in 2019.

I can kind of see it. I know they take forever to ship compared to everywhere else I order from, and while I've never had to deal with their customer service department, I've heard plenty of unhappy stories about it. BUT they carry tons of different brands and I've been able to get items from their shop that were sold out everywhere else, and they do have a great creative team. And I do love a lot of their brand of dies. They are definitely not the first shop I'd choose to order from, though.

Wow, that’s fairly surprising. But I will say that they have improved quite a bit this past year or so.

They finally have a review feature, although most of the reviews I’ve read were left by Design Team members who presumably got their product for free! (so not honest unbiased reviews at all).

And although stuff takes a while to arrive it’s leaving their warehouse sooner than it used to. They can’t control the shipping speed from there, although at the price they charge for shipping I’d appreciate priority mail like I get from scrapbook.com. I ordered from them a few times last year when they had their loyalty program going and they did seem better, but unless I’m buying exclusive designs I usually order from scrapbook.com.

I’d give them a most improved small online retailer award, perhaps.

I ordered more from them than anyone else this year as they always had what I was looking for in stock. I live in Ohio so I get my orders very quickly and I have always had great customer service from them.
But I understand the frustration of others. And hopefully things will get better customer service and shipping wise.

I don't usually order with them. I love their $5 off coupons so the one time I got sucked into trying a new product at full price that I couldn't get anywhere else without paying as much as the item in shipping, I was able to get it along with a couple of stickers in stock in the sale section to apply the coupon. That was actually the last time I ordered from them until late last month. I've placed 6 orders since then because I've been able to get onto their sale section and snag some serious bargains that I'm over the moon excited about. Everything from those orders arrived without incident. Their packaging isn't pretty or anything, but everything shipped within a couple of days (a bit longer if it included a weekend) and while it's not Prime by any stretch, it is faster than things I order ship from ACOT and they haven't shipped anything smartpost like ACOT does now and I'm actually paying for my shipping with ACOT compared to the $5 off coupons that make shipping $1.99 with SSS (even though they apply it to the products rather than shipping, I compute the coupon as a shipping discount).

That being said, being treated poorly when there is an issue is a HUGE turnoff for me and I will stop shopping at stores solely for that reason, so I can completely understand why those of you with customer service issues with SSS feel the way you do. Here's hoping they continue to improve as their business evolves.

That’s good to know!

I’m not too far from Iowa, so my Taylored Expressions order's come pretty quickly too!

I've never had trouble with their shipping. One time I had a problem with a promotion that took a couple emails to resolve, and it bugs me that they won't add to an order once it's placed. But when I was making Christmas cards and received the wrong cs from Amazon I vented about it in the stamping enablers group. Heidi offered to send me some of the cs I needed, no charge. I didn't take her up on it (I changed my design to use what I had on hand) but I appreciated the offer.

It's not the first place I shop. Their shipping always seems high as do the prices of items.

I do love their Stamptember event and usually buy, I just don't like paying shipping multiple times for FOMO on stamps/dies.

Count me as one of their satisfied customers. I order from them quite a bit and haven't had any problems. I've heard others have had issues with shipping.

I think they always have the MSRP of an item as their base price, maybe with a penny added to make it a whole dollar amount.  It's often the first place I check to make sure Amazon isn't charging something ridiculous.

Simon Says Stamp was the first online retailer I bought scrapbooking supplies from because they used to have an awesome clearance section.  I stocked up on Kelly Purkey alphas and washi tape that way.  But then they updated their site and I never found the clearance section again.  I've placed a few orders since then for their exclusives but they haven't been my first choice of retailers since then.