Five Star Commerce Avis 

As a small business owner, I specifically chose Five Star Commerce because I wanted to support a US-based boutique agency. I was willing to pay their premium hourly rates ($140/hr for a Project Manager, $80/hr for a Specialist) fully expecting expert-level execution and communication. Unfortunately, the experience was a complete letdown.

First, there was a severe lack of basic project management. Our assigned Project Manager admitted he didn't even audit our existing Amazon and Walmart accounts to establish a baseline. Instead, he blindly assigned a specialist to relist products that were already listed, and we were billed for this redundant time. Furthermore, the new listings they created had completely incorrect SKUs, despite us providing the correct data in their onboarding spreadsheet.

The most frustrating part is their "black-box" billing model. When I asked the Project Manager a direct question about e-commerce best practices for FDA compliance, he bypassed the question three separate times across three emails. He provided no strategy, yet I was still billed for the time he spent drafting emails to dodge my questions.

When I escalated these issues to the owner, McKay, there was zero accountability or apology. Instead, he shifted the blame onto us for being "resistant." In my experience, if an agency makes a mistake, they fix it or refund to uphold their quality standard and ethics. With Five Star Commerce, you pay for their mistakes, and you pay them to read your emails asking them to fix those mistakes.

Save your budget and look for an agency that values transparency and actual expertise.

[Update in response to the merchant's reply]

The merchant's response below perfectly illustrates the exact gaslighting and lack of accountability that led to this dispute. To clarify their false claims:

"Refused to talk": I refused to get on a phone call because I demanded all communication remain in writing for a clear legal paper trail—a standard business practice they repeatedly tried to avoid when confronted with their errors.

The Actual Mistakes: The issue was never about Amazon's safety documents. The core issue was their Project Manager failing to perform a basic account audit, which led to an $80/hr specialist blindly billing me to relist items that were already listed. Even worse, they used incorrect SKUs and then blamed us for not having the right info—despite the fact that I had already provided all the correct details during our onboarding.

The FDA Question: I never asked them for a legal guarantee. However, when I am paying a premium rate of $140/hr, I expect the agency to actually know their craft. I explicitly asked how they apply e-commerce best practices to our listings based on their advertised "expertise." Their Project Manager was unable to provide any explanation and dodged this direct question across three separate emails, yet they still billed me for the time he spent typing those evasive responses.

"Wanting free work": I absolutely do not want free work—in fact, we are deleting everything they touched because their work is fundamentally unusable. We now have to hire a different agency to redo everything from scratch after wasting almost two months with them. I am demanding a refund for gross negligence, duplicate billing, and a predatory model that forces clients to pay hourly fees for the agency to fix its own careless mistakes.

Business Ethics: I provided this agency ample time and clear documentation to process a fair refund for their defective work. Instead, they chose to hold onto the funds while completely refusing to acknowledge their own shortcomings. Blaming a client—who trusted them and paid their premium rates—of "wanting free work" rather than taking accountability for their own failures shows their true character for everyone to see. This lack of accountability and poor business ethics is exactly why I feel it is crucial to warn other small business owners before they invest their budget here.

Take my experience as a warning.