In a single sentence:
Our online store website is closed
Well there is much more than just that simple sentence
Beginning end of 2017 around December we have been getting random emails from our online store’s (www.avaraapparel.com) contact form asking about a ‘Teddy Jacket’.
I searched through the web and instagram by the info the customers provided. It seems like there was a store and a instagram account that was giving free ‘Teddy Jackets’, all the customer needed to do was to pay for the shipping.
IF IT’S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEN IT PROBABLY IS like the below item which is the center of the reason i have shut down the website and writing this post
**Please do not fall for these scam/fraud deals**
Some may be true but always do more research and make sure it is a reputable company
The store’s name however is very had the word ‘Avara’ in it, that’s it but what was more confusing was that their instagram name is so close to ours. Ours was avaraapparel, their’s had a “.” in the name, otherwise it would look exactly the same.
If you are not careful you could have mistaken their’s from ours.
Anyways that whole month i have gotten around 30 of these emails asking that they have paid but did not get any shipping info on this jacket and are asking for a refund or threatening to report the website.
For each of these emails i have replied and explained and explained that our store has no association or affiliation. Some was quick to understand but some needed more explaining.
Then when i thought it was all over the emails from the contact form started coming in again. Seems like they are doing the same technique on giving away free jackets as long as you pay for the shipping but this time they have created a new website.
Then a couple of days ago another person contacted me saying even thought ‘I’ have changed the website name, the charge from his credit card still went to Avara Apparel, i will stunned and got even more confused
After emailing back and forth with this person, it seems like the name was indeed Avara Apparel but was BC registered, but mine was in TX. It even took me to send him a picture of my Tax Permit to convince him.
Since then i have put notices up on my instagram profile, pinned a post on facebook page and closed down the website. Hopefully all this will end as soon as possible with no more people contacting us via facebook or instagram and them getting their refund after reporting fraud from their credit card companies.
My website was idling with not much new content as business was also slow so it was a no brainer to hold on first and to restructure the business model and think of how to go forward in the future.
Well we are still active on Etsy and doing custom printing so for now that will be our only channel for sales at the mean time
Little bit of everything 