Covert Affiliate Store Builder Review

Product: Covert Store BuilderCovert Store Builder review logo
Overall Ranking: 40 out of 100 or 2/5 stars
Price: $47
Owner:  IM Wealth Builders
Website: http://covertstorebuilder.com/

 

The Covert Store Builder (CSB) is promoted with a lot of hype as you can see below. I must admit seeing claims like this make me suspicious and certainly doesn’t encourage me to look more deeply into this program. However, for the sake of this review, I will continue.

covert affiliate store hype autopilot

 

The owners claim their store builder is a self-optimizing, intelligent WordPress theme that allows you to create an affiliate store in a matter of minutes. In this review, we will see if these assertions are real.

 

Background

At the beginning of 2013 after seeing some of the “Amazon affiliate themes” and not being impressed, IM Wealth Builders started looking at the largest e-commerce sites to see if they had similarities that could in part be the reason for their success.

After 6 months, applying what they had found, they came up with Covert Store Builder. At least that’s the story. Apparently IM Wealth Builders have sold more than 10,000 copies of their store builder software.

 

What is Covert Store Builder?

This is a product that will enable you to build an online affiliate store very rapidly. It is a WordPress theme, so all you need to install this, is a domain name and hosting. You can use the theme to create an affiliate store in any niche or multiple niches.

Using an affiliate store theme like this you can market products sold by Amazon, eBay, Commission Junction and others.

 

Who is this for?

CSB is aimed at anyone who is interested in making an affiliate store. Although it is made to look very easy to set up and could be easy for a newbie to get started, the problem, as with many other programs, comes a little later. How will you get traffic?

You will be in a very competitive market, so you will need a great deal of traffic to earn money. This is where most people will fail.

 

The theme

The store builder theme is like many other WordPress themes and it can be customized easily from the theme options page. The difference with the Covert Store Builder is that it allows you to rapidly add products from an affiliate network. In fact, you are told you can have your store up and running in 5 minutes.product search

You choose the product you want to promote, the network and the number of products you require. The theme then returns a list of products. You select the products you wish to include and the category. The products can then be saved as drafts that you can edit later or posts that will go live immediately.products to import to store

As you can see it’s possible to add products to your store very quickly. One of the advantages stated by the owners of Covert Store Builder is that you can add products without having to write a single word of content.

However, if you use the automated content that is imported with your products, you will not see any traffic from organic search results. To rank well in the search engines you will have to write some unique content. Creating original content will take time and work, consequently, the 5-minute promise cannot be achieved.

The method of acquiring traffic that is promoted with this theme is from social media and they don’t really mention any other traffic. Unless you have a huge following on social media I have difficulty imagining that this will give you enough traffic and sales to have a successful store.

When the theme was released there was a problem with the price updates on Amazon not being imported into your store. This meant your store could be displaying a price different from Amazon. Thankfully, this seems to have been remedied in one of the updates.

 

Useful features

The store builder theme has some useful features:

  • self-optimizing – the theme tracks impressions and clicks and will show the most popular products of your store at the top of your first page.
  • add to wish list – when a visitor clicks on the add to wish list link, they will be asked to sign in or create an account.
  • sharing wish lists – when your members have built a wish list they can easily share this on social media which in turn can drive new clients to your store.
  • automatic welcome emails to new members
  • members automatically added to your autoresponder list
  • visitors can comment on your products using Facebook comments

 

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • good looking theme
  • some good functions
  • some training on setting up your site
  • 45-day money-back guarantee
  • unlimited license

 

Cons

  • no training on getting traffic
  • too much hype
  • 5 minutes to build a website – not possible
  • highly competitive market
  • setting up your store rapidly you will be using content that is not unique
  • no free trial
  • you don’t get the support expected from a paid theme

 

Tools and training

There are some limited training documents and videos you are given when you sign up:

  • a PDF step-by-step guide to help you build your store
  • a help file explaining the different settings and functions
  • tutorial videos showing how to install the theme

Training to get traffic is not included, you will have to obtain this training elsewhere.

 

Support

There is very little in the way of support. There is a knowledge base with just 2 articles relating to Covert Store Builder. For any other questions, you will have to create a ticket and wait for the reply.

IMWealth Builders Covert Site Builder support

When you use a paid theme you expect to have great support, unfortunately, with CSB, this isn’t the case. A knowledgebase with just 2 articles is ridiculous. Take a look at the knowledge base at WooCommerce to see what a good knowledge base should look like.

 

How much does it cost?

Covert Store Builder costs $47 and you can use it for multiple sites. The owners say the price is going up to $97 later, although it’s been at this price since its release.

There is a 45-day money-back guarantee.

In addition to the price of the theme, you will also need a domain name and hosting.

 

My final opinion

The Covert Store Builder provides a good looking theme and has some useful features built-in. Nonetheless, there are a few things that I don’t like.

The constant hype about the theme, making it seem easy to make sales, get traffic and all this on autopilot. This just isn’t true.

There is a big issue with using copied content to fill your site. Using content that is already published online, you will always have difficulty to rank well in the search engines. Therefore, little traffic and no or very few sales.

You don’t get the support I would expect from a paid theme. Not providing good support makes me think they don’t really care about their customers.

Covert Store Builder is not a scam, but anyone buying this theme will have great trouble getting traffic and will probably give up after a short while.

 

Verdict: Not recommended

If you are thinking of starting an online store or any other internet business, I think it is a very good idea to obtain some training before you get started. This will be very beneficial to you. After the education I received from my #1 recommendation, I have achieved a page 1 position in Google for several articles.

The knowledge gained through the training at Wealthy Affiliate will help you bring traffic to your store if you do decide to go down this road. But be warned, you must be prepared to work hard probably over a period of several months before you see your first results. The 5-minute wonders as mentioned in CSB just don’t exist.

If you want to compare Wealthy Affiliate to Covert Store Builder, have a look at the chart below. You will see what a great training platform really is like.

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions, comments or experience with Covert Store Builder let me know below.

  • Covert Store Builder Review
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Summary

Description: Covert Site Builder is a WordPress theme for building an affiliate store. Includes some useful features and you are led to believe your store can be set up in just 5 minutes.

Price:$47

My opinion: CSB provides a decent looking theme and includes some useful functions which could help you to make sales. The worst thing about this program is all the hype telling you how easy it is to set up your store and make money. They reality will be very different, you will struggle to get traffic and sales.

Website: http://covertstorebuilder.com/

13 Comments

  1. Jerry Huang | Smart Affiliate Success January 19, 2018
  2. Greg Waugh September 3, 2016
    • Peter September 5, 2016
  3. Emmanuel September 29, 2015
    • Peter September 30, 2015
  4. Abayomi July 24, 2015
    • Peter July 24, 2015
  5. Todd April 21, 2015
    • Peter April 23, 2015
  6. Cathy April 2, 2015
    • Peter April 3, 2015
  7. Jennifer March 31, 2015
    • Peter April 1, 2015

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