Red Flags when Shed Shopping
Shopping for sheds isn’t always an exciting experience, but when you shop with us you can be assured that we’re giving you all the information you need up front. If you want to know how thick our steel panels are, how long our warranties last or how to look after your shed, you’ll find it all listed on our website. There’s nothing intentionally hidden on our website – but if you can’t see what you’re looking for, just ask us and we’ll let you know!
That said, not everyone is as pleasant (and dare I say as handsome) as us. So, you’ll need to know what red flags to look out for when you’re shopping around. If you’re looking for a new shed this year, here’s our guide to make sure that you don’t have a cowboy arriving at your door.
No physical location
In a modern age where Amazon is the biggest store in the world, it feels like this isn’t (or at least shouldn’t be) true. However, sheds don’t work in the same way that say, a lovely dress does. You can’t just slap your shed into an envelope and send it back if it doesn’t fit; there’s a lot more involved with a garden shed. A significant amount of people want to see their shed before they purchase it and our showroom in Finglas and our larger flagship showroom on the N7 Naas Road are both visited by hundreds of customers during the week for this very reason.
Having a physical location isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of trustworthiness, of course. It does however, signify that the company is legit. There’s someone on site to talk to should you need assistance with your purchase and there’s always a place to go to should you need any help after you purchase your shed. It’s more than likely that a company with a long-term physical location isn’t going to suddenly disappear over night.
A physical location doesn’t guarantee anything, but it should reassure you to some extent. Why? Well, here are only some reasons:
- Some online-only companies aren’t based in Ireland as lots of people find out the hard-way. If your shed is coming from a company based in the UK or outside the EU, you could get stung with import charges etc.
- Online only shed companies, in our experience, don’t offer any post-sales support at all.
- You might have very little recourse if anything goes wrong with the shed down the line with an online-only company (or find it exceptionally difficult to get a resolution)
- You might not get what you were made to believe you were getting. Like I said, if the company doesn’t tell you the specifics of their sheds very, eh, specifically, you could end up with something that won’t suit.
- Returns can be a ridiculous hassle
So a physical location in Ireland can offer a certain amount of assurance. Are all digital companies a scam? Of course, not. So next, let’s look at the ways to keep you and your money safe when shopping online.
Check Scamadvisor.com
If you don’t want to, or can’t visit a physical location, at least visit Scamadvisor.com
I can’t recommend Scam Advisor enough. It checks websites in a number of various areas to see how reputable it is behind the scenes. For example, it checks how a website accepts payments (are they ‘get your money-back’, friendly?), it tells you how old a website is (older websites tend to be more trustable) and it reads online reviews on your behalf and lets you know how people view the company. In a nutshell it does a lot of heavy lifting on your behalf and lets you know whether you should trust a site or not.
Here’s a snippet of our review, for example:
However, ScamAdvisor is not a definitive answer. At the time of writing, there is a company that made off with over €200k worth of deposits in Ireland. It scores a 92 on scamadvisor, with the only red flags being that there was few reviews and the traffic to the site was quite low. So, even with a high score on Trustpilot, it’s worth looking out for other things like:
Company Registration Number
By law, a company’s website needs to include the address of the registered office of the company and the number with which it’s registered (you can see ours in our footer at the very bottom of the page). If a website doesn’t have this or a link to this, you should be cautious as this may not be a company based in Ireland.
No personal photos
Shed companies generally will be able to build and take photos of their own sheds. Our assembly team send us pictures of the sheds they put up regularly. They’re generally rubbish (they’re shed assemblers, not photographers, in fairness), but we put them up on our social media pages regularly enough to show off their work like a proud mother sticking up whatever it is that you’ve painted there on the fridge, love. In this vein, we also have photos of our staff up in our About Section. Here you’ll have a look at the gorgeous people that help make this company run.
A company that only has clearly AI photos or photos with other companies logos on them should be treated with caution.
How to spot a ‘fake photo’
We’ll look at fake photos and AI photos separately. We’ll start with the ‘fake’ ones. In this sense, I’m using fake to denote that the image isn’t theirs. i.e. They may have pulled it from another reputable sellers’ website
Fake photos of sheds are rife. Hey, fake photos of lots of things are rife, so this tip isn’t just great while you’re shed shopping, it’s also helpful to avoid scams, see if you’re getting cat-fished and more!
Mobile
- First of all, save down the image that you want to know more about.
- Now, go to images.google.com.
- Click the photo icon
- Choose the image that you want to check
- the results will load
From here you can see where this image originated, if it has been modified, or in our case, if this shed is available cheaper elsewhere (from amazon for example).
Desktop
On Desktop it’s a much easier process. Using Chrome as your browser, just right-click the image and choose ‘search image with google’. A new window will appear on the right hand side with all the available results, as above.
How to spot an AI photo
Macho Man Randy Cabbage. Probably AI generated.Â
This wasn’t an issue up until fairly recently. ‘AI photos’ prior to 2025 were usually a bit rubbish. Nowadays however, they’re much better – but they do have some telling tells.
- Text: At the time of writing, text on images generated by AI can be proper wonky. If the text makes no sense, it could be AI.
- Background Elements:Â Walls that defy physics, chairs with not enough legs, no support beams etc. The background is often overlooked, but a quick glance towards it can indicate it’s AI generated
- Yellow Tone:Â A weirdly specific one, but AI images tend to all be slightly yellow-tinged.
- Weird Grass Texture: Probably more specific to our business, but grass texture is something that AI can struggle with. If the grass looks fake, untextured or otherwise off it may indicate that AI was used.
- Too Clean: Okay, stay with me here. We all want to live that Instagram-lifestyle, but like, the world doesn’t always cooperate. Rain will fall, puddles will appear, trees will grow unevenly, flowers can be patchy, etc., etc. If the scene looks too perfect it might be AI.
At the time of writing, AI is growing and becoming more powerful and prevalent. The above may not be relevant in a week or a years’ time, but it’s still worth being sceptical of images nonetheless.
Lack of shed details
If you’ve read through any of our shed details, you’ll have seen that we give all dimensions, all details about metal thickness and pretty much any other technical specifications that you could look for. If a website isn’t offering this information, they may be hiding the true details of the shed. We don’t hide anything – we’re very upfront about what we sell.
An example of this is when we stocked budget, woodgrain sheds. They were the least-expensive sheds that we sold. They were thinner than all of our other metal sheds and liable to dent if you were heavy handed with them. That said, if you just need some cheap and cheerful storage, they were grand – and we told you that up front:
No social media presence
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads, BlueSky… there’s no shortage of social media sites for a company to engage with their customers on. You’d have to question the legitimacy of a company these days if they don’t have any social media presence. Have a look on all the usual sites, look for social icons on their website and once you find them, have a quick look through their socials to see if they are who and what they say they are. We say we’re gas and we’ve, like, two viral tweets to prove it:
But hilarious 4-year old tweets, aside, have a quick look on the social sites and send a message if you’ve any doubt.
Reviews
Trustpilot along with Google Maps make up the two most popular review sites for shed companies in Ireland. While, personally speaking, I find that Trustpilot can be a pain in the arse to deal with, they’re generally well maintained and more trustable than the alternatives. The more reviews a company has, the better equipped you are to realistically evaluate their value and worth to you. While we’re on it, look out for:
