Wooow. Honestly, this blew my tiny mind.

Ok, so I had a customer who uses 123-Reg’s super duper website builder CMS thingy. All good, right? Hmm...

So they had the eCommerce bolt-on and ran their online store from this “CMS” that was provided by the dodgiest URL ive ever seen in my life;

https://online-experts.agency/

Like, wtf. Im getting red flags already. Dodgy domain, dodgy domain extention.

Anyway – my client had hit the wall with what was possible with this site builder, they were getting increasingly frustrated dealing with their “support” agents, so came to me and we built them a new site and used the Online Experts CMS data export options to pull my clients 1000’s of products into a CSV for importing into their new shiny website.

All seemed good…

Oh wait, no options? It seems all the data was present, SKU,. product name, image references, descriptions, prices, etc…. But no variations/options?

Ah.

Looked at the export options (there aren’t any) so decided to reach out to their “support” agents to see if they could advise how I could get my clients data off this system for him…

Ok, so the regular 123 Reg support portal with the ticketing system is absolutely GARBAGE anyway, and unsurprisingly its not where you get support for the “Online Experts” side of things. That department has ZERO access to the 123 reg support tickets.

Marv.

So I got a phone number, it rang twice and then a lady answered it sounding as if the phone ringing had surprised her. I explained the issue, she seemed instantly out of her depth and after a short phone call she assured me it would be looked at, and I left her to it.

A week passed, nothing.

I rang them again and they informed me that the customer had been emailed. I do not believe them as my customer LIVES in their emails. I get instant replies when I contact them.

I was given some fluff by another “Support” agent who was about as helpful as the first lady (not helpful at all) and I was informed that it would be dealt with asap and someone would contact my customer.

They didnt.

Once again, I rang and this time spoke to a lad that seemed to empathise with the position we were in. An entire project was now stalled because my customer wasnt able to get an export of HIS data. I’m sure this is against privacy/data laws or something.

I was given his managers email address, and I emailed her. This was her response;

Erm, Sorry?

You cannot export data from your own database? Are we rate or what?

Online Experts, apparently!

Why would you ask the design team about a data export query? Do they export data using Photoshop? Pfft..

That leaves my client in a position where his team now have to add 1000’s of product options into his new store manually, after they’ve adde3d them manually over the years to their first website.

Its disgusting that 123reg will allow people to build their businesses up on this platform and then essentially leave them totally stranded and in the sh!t if they ever want to move away.

So if you use the 123 reg ecommerce site builder addon thingy – then be warned! It may be cheap, you may be able to build the site yourself – but if your business does well and you outgrow the 123reg online shop site builder platform then you will have to start from SCRATCH as you cannot get all your data out of it! For google fodder sake its also called the 123reg MMAW service.

20 years experience in making small businesses succeed. Hmm OOOOKKKK!!!!!!!!

If you’re having trouble with them, then use the following contact details to get in touch with their receptionists… I mean “Support ” agents.

0207 023 9300

lucie_onlineexperts@123-reg.co.uk

support@onlineexperts.zendesk.com