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Online Gifts Not There Yet? You're Not Alone.
The Associated Press said in this story that Toys R Us has been telling customers that they are unable to keep their promise that all orders placed by December 10th would be received by customers in time for Christmas. A report on ABCNews.com claims that this is a "universal" problem, not just with Toys R Us, but I didn't have any problem with the online merchants I used this year, none of which were Toys R Us. What about you? Did all the gifts you ordered online this year get there in time for Christmas?
Anybody looking for a CIO job?
I guess that's what you get when you promise too much.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
I did what shopping I did either well before christmas, or I paid extra for fast shipping.
Sheesh. Merchants shouldn't have to promise delivery-on-time, people should arrange for that themselves, or deal with the fact that they didn't do their shopping on time.
Still opinionated, still grouchy.
-Elthia
...why i didn't get anything. Not that anybody likes me or would give me something, but now I know it's all the online retailers' fault.
I used BarnesandNoble.com and CDNow for all my online purchases and it took care of everyone but my girlfriend (And it all arrived on time!). For her, I just went to the mall at midnight on the 23rd. :-)
Online shopping is god.
Justin W. Williams
I was supposed to get a SWANKY 8x4x24x CD Burner for christmas. It did'nt come. I almost cried, My hard drive is so full of MP3s. All legal, of course. I did, however, get the stuff from Amazon that I was supposed to get. Seems like it'll take another year for this whole thing to get working. After all, when they first opened disney world in 1953, the Pirates of The Caribbean went crazy and ate all the tourists. Or something like that.
I did all of my "holiday" shopping online, and i received each and every bit. Actually, i received two microsoft intellimouse explorer, and i only ordered one. I chalk that up to the merger of Egghead.com and Onsale.com (i ordered from egghead) And let me tell you, it's a bitch to get customer service from that place.
DVDs via Reel.com and Amazon.com all arrived as promised, perhaps a day later than normal (credit that to USPS) but received nevertheless. I just made sure to order early and not allow myself to be gouged for extra shipping.
--------
Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
I was one of the few people that bought from Toys-R-Us and my gift is not here. However I should have known that would happen because online retailing has taken on by storm. However my gifts which I bought from Amazon arrived on time and in good condition.
I also am willing to bet that some idiot sues them for not being able to keep there promise given all the recent stupid lawsuits... (even though the lawsuit might teach online retailers a couple of lessons).
Next year, I will pay eXtra for ontime shipping or do all my shopping at the mall (which stinks because of the crowds). It is interesting to note that e-commerce sales have risen so much that companies are having trouble filling orders, while supposedly more people that even go to malls... (i.e. e-commerce not effecting normal shopping)
The only exception was LTD Commodities, which promised (in November) to deliver by X-Mas, and they still haven't on one item I ordered. But LTD is a B2B site, and I should have expected this looking at their web site.
Never believe promises that businesses make. The current climate of brisk sales and consumer confidence, companies can afford to make promises they can't keep. Hold them accountable, but plan ahead anyway. That's what I say.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
Thinkgeek.com... I ordered from them on the 14th, and recieved my orders two days ago, which was terrific. All the geeks on my list were pretty happy.
ToysBUs are full of crap. I mean, for fsck's sake, I live in Canada and it only took 8 days for my order to get to me!
While most of my on-line orders this year were not gifts, and I used the cheapest shipping method, all arrived by Dec 24th. Only took about a week after placing the order. Toys R Us may be experiencing supplier problems.
The wait for tech support doubles every 18 months... Any likelihood they can solve your problem halves. Foosters
I, like you, thought that I hadn't received any Christmas presents before. I stumbled around my apartment, blearily fixing breakfast. Suddenly, my doorbell rang.
I hurried down to the front door, opened it, and found myself facing an overnight courier. She had a package for me. I signed for it, eagerly accepted it. According to its label, it had been shipped from the North Pole. Wow.
Back in my apartment, I gently set the package down. With trembling hands, I unwrapped it. Inside, there was a lump of coal.
Which just goes to show something. I'm not sure what, though.
When I ordered stuff last night then made it quite clear that even with overnight delivery it wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas. I thought that was rather redundant since I was pre-ordering the rerelease of Vernor Vinge's True Names which isn't due out until December 31st. They should have said it wouldn't arrive this year. ;-)
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I ordered three packages online; two on the 21st that were sent three-day shipping and one on the 23rd that was overnighted. I tracked them online and everything looked good, until I went to my mailbox at Parcel Plus where they were shipped to and found out that they were closed on the 24th! Bastards.
Read a story in the local newspaper about them having problems with their internet site and them having to limit the number of users. Of course they do use NT, so they have a history of making poor choices.
I ordered my SGI 1600SW on 12/14/99 from buycomp.com with overnight shipping and received it on 12/16/99. Best Christmas gift I ever gave myself! :) :)
First of all, everything I ordered came on time.
Here's what I have to say on the topic. Online stores are just like retail stores in that they have to get from suppliers and warehouses. If there's no more of an item in stock, there's no more of an item. Some stores are nice in that they tell you how much of each item they have in stock, but some don't do that. In some cases, WYSINWYG (note the "not" in there). I think for the increased online shopping, online stores are doing a very good job at keeping up.
Here's my advice. If it's sold out at many local retailers, you can bet it may be sold out online. Especially popular video games. To the parent on the ABC news story who didn't get his game in time... live with it. The kid will play the game if he gets it on Christmas or the week after. Give it to the kid as a new years gift if you must.
Overall, I applaud the online retailers for saving me time and money. (I especially liked all those free shipping deals... a 40lb bag of dog food.. and you were willing to ship it to me for free. Wow!)
- J. Marvin
I preordered The Matix with soundtrack from reel.com back in early October. It was supposed to ship on December seventh, but didn't. I called them and they said they had no clue when it would ship. It shipped last Sunday, the 19th, but did not arrive yesterday. My problems with reel, and I suspect any company could have these problems, are that the service representatives wouldn't or couldn't find out when the movie would ship, and the fact I ordered in October, far ahead of the release, and they couldn't get enough from their supplier ahead of time.
Thankfully the purchase wasn't a Christmas presant. I bought it for myself.
I was extremely impressed with Barnes & Noble (www.bn.com). I order several kids books, some CDs, and a few tech. books for myself the Friday before Christmas. I chose standard UPS delivery. They shipped items separately, but only charged me the price for shipping all at once. All books got here before Christmas. No problems here! I was extremely satisfied with their service.
I did all of my shopping on line - from amazon and red envelope - paid a bit extra for shipping, didn't finish shopping until one week ago, and everything arrived by thursday for everyone. I was actually quite impressed. I wonder whether the newer .com's are doing better than the old brick and mortar companies that now have on-line stores. I'd bet that the order goes like this: (first being best) 1) catalog companies that have a web presence (llbean, etc.) 2) new .coms (amazon, cdnow, etoys) 3) brick and mortar companies with new web sites (toysrus, barnes and noble) I'd love to get more data to figure out whether this is true.
For all the flack Amazon has been taking recently, I can honestly say I've never been dissapointed with their service. I ordered some gifts last Monday and had them 3 days later, waaaay in time for a wrapping session.
--[shangodee]
Sure, their ads may be rather annoying, but I've got no complaints - both my father and I have placed several orders from Outpost.com, and we're immensely satisfied. I mean, we ordered gifts on the 23rd and they arrived here yesterday morning!
I guess it's just where you order from.
Tort
I'm petrified about shopping online. I don't want anyone to get my credit card numbers and start abusing them. I don't want to give marketers any information about me. And, lastly, I don't want to drive the storefront shops in my town out of business. Gee, they've got too survive, too! Just, like commercial companies in the wake of open source.
I ordered some stuff from Amazon, and I can be nothing but impressed of the swift service. I chose the cheapest method of shipping (which, for Sweden, isn't cheap at all), and 2 weeks delivery should be expected. 5 days later the books came, in nice gift wrapping.
Way to go, Amazon!
I ordered quake 3 arena for linux from lokigames on tuesday to give to myself for xmas. 2 day fedex didn't make it here by friday. Too bad, I wanted to use it at the lan party tomorrow. I'll have to use windows instead. :-( Come on nvidia and xfree! My riva needs the drivers you've promised!
The only online shipping I did this season was for a couple Hannukah presents from Alibris. The books came much faster than Alibris said they would, and I was very pleased. I wish they had photos of the books, though.
Switch the . and the @ to email me.
I ordered from a few places, and it arrived faster than I had anticipated. Another place sent it very, very late - then the next day, I recieved the exact same shipment (checked the invoice, only ordered one thing). Same deal happened to my roommate, and a buddy of mine who works at Borders said that their shipments have been totally screwed up...
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
I haven't bought any "gifts" as such, but
have bought stuff from www.bookshop.co.uk
and www.linuxemporium.co.uk within the last
week or so. All of it arrived by yesterday.
-- You've got to get a hat if you want to get ahead.
Well, I've heard the problem stems from the fact that the US Post Office, FedEX, and UPS were all sued by Amazon.com for using it's patented "one-click" technology - you know: *click* "sign here sir".
As a result, all your toys are still in a warehouse which was seized by Amazon.com for contractual compliance.....
Well this morning I opened up what I thought was going to be my new video card with NVidea's GeForce 256 chipset(woohoo). Instead I just found a small weight and a nice picture of it. It turns out that they are on backorder everywhere. I guess I'll just have to play with my little picture of it untill it arrives.
I placed 4 seperate orders 3 weeks in advance. Only 2 have arrived. I could just blame the seasonal mail clog, but by the look of the companies I ordered from I'd say it's just inefficiency and understock. I'd guess that alot of the late package problems are going to be due to stock problems this time of year. In the spirit of the season: ---------------------------- This post goes on a 50% markdown tommorrow.
After several years of net-hype and decades of retail catalogs, to say that [ahem] "e-commerce" is new... Hm, yeah, getting buyers to give you nicely formatted entries in a database for fulfilment--whoa, really radical concept. Stand back kids, it might bite..
Things aren't getting shipped on time because these companies aren't shipping them on time. And the reason they aren't shipping them on time is that their collective heads are spinning with visions of all the money to be made "on the internet" instead of the boring details of running a real-world business. Hate to break the news to you newly minted e-businesspeople, but maybe if you spent more time getting your sh*t together and less time drooling over the wealth of Solomon that flows to anyone who uses the letter "e," you wouldn't have these problems.
Personally, problems like this make me really happy. I hope to god that "consumers" decide that e-commerce is a load of hooey so the whole PR front collapses and we can god back to the Good Old Days of the net.
Get the e out of e-xmas and put the x back in xmas, I say.
I ordered two cds on the 21st overnight air so they would get here in time. they still have not arrived. Last time I shop with them.
Unfortunately, a friend of mine ordered from Archie McPhee, and has yet to see his order ... He ordered back in early November, I think.
YS
"Arrr! The laws of science be a harsh mistress." -- Bender
I did a lot of online ordering this year, from all
of the places. Only 3 of them were not arrived
ontime. I have a stolen package(the stupid postman suppose to place all the oversize packages to the managers office, but he is lazy and drop it off my door)
The other one is GT2, which is delayed and back ordered, Buy.com shipped it on 21th, but it hasn't reach me yet.
The last one is simply out of stock, and the online shop's stupid shopping cart can not show
the availibilty... so I'm still waiting.
Everything I ordered, including something I ordered AFTER I was told it would not make it on time, made it by Friday. The company I ordered from Fedex'ed it at no extra charge even though they were under no obligation to do so.
:)
On the flip side, another company has screwed up every order I've given them. Luckily I did not use them to buy any Christmas presents since they have not arrived and I don't expect them to.
It seems just like everything else you can get good service or crappy service. Just a matter of luck and experience -- I'll keep ordering from the former into the new millenium, and heaven help me if I order from the latter ever again.
P.S. The latter kept crashing since they use Microsoft ODBC and Microsoft servers. Coincidence?
got everything i ordered. got my "you are dumb" shirt from thinkgeek, quake3 from loki (minus the box...where is it guys?), but i did cancel my order from egghead and that wouldn't have gotten here, doesn't matter anymore.
one last thing; i heard my cousin (7 years old) talking about his new N64 and how he didn't like it because the games suck. once again proving we don't care how great the graphics are as long as it has good game play...be creative guys!
bye,
-jimbo
While almost all of the shopping that I did online (Thinkgeek, Eddie Bauer, Spiegel, et al) were extremely pleasant, Eddie Bauer was both the fastest and the slowest.
How is that you ask??? Well, I placed three orders.
One order first, to get something for my wife.
The second order (placed on an affiliate credit card) was a bunch of items for the whole family, and (most importantly) a winter coat for myself.
The third order was placed as a result of the second order being out of some items, and me going back and making replacements for out of stock items.
I ordered these December 22, just before midnight, with the third order not getting placed until about 1:00 am CST on the 23rd... The website advertised "guaranteed delivery by the 24th if ordered by the 22nd". Given this information, I expected the first two orders to make it, as they were placed before midnight, on the 22nd, and the third order, possibly not. No biggie, only a couple of shirts on the third order, and I can give those out late...
Ironically, I received the first and last orders on time, with the third order not in yet, and not coming until Monday, as I was informed by Eddie Bauer when I called.
This creates a dilemma, because the first and third orders were the LEAST IMPORTANT orders I made, and the second, not-yet delivered order by far the bulk of my Xmas shopping.
Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it, but wait, and explain to my family and friends that their presents were 'on the way', and try to convince them that I had indeed thought about them beforehand, and not just putting them off.
Rather embarrassing, in a big family. I'm opening gifts from everyone in the family, with nothing to return to the majority of the household.
I ordered on the 22nd from Amazon. I didn't expect to get the gifts on time. They arrived on the 24th. I have to say, I was impressed. Just goes to show, the real e-commerce companies (not the companies that went to the web because it was the next big thing) have a clue. Anyone else is debatable.
I placed two separate orders from L.L. Bean. The last one was on Dec 15th. Both arrived in the promised 3-4 days.
It appears that L.L Bean's website is directly connected to their inventory system. There were two items (colors actually) that I tried to order that were out of stock. It was nice to find out up front, so that I could order something that was in stock and that chould be shipped right away.
Jonathan
This year, towards the beginning of December I ordered (well, not I, but my old man...anyways...) we ordered some Sony equipment. The basic idea was a respectable, expandable, entertainment system for the lounge.
After much research into products we decided with an all sony system. After giving up on getting a special card with which to order the products and benefit an extended warranty, when it became apparent that even just the card would not be on the horizon before the new year (let alone the products ordered with the card...)
So, after ditching that idea we went back to basics, and noticed a nice cheap price for the goods on Sony's online retailer AV-Store. the goods were ordered towards the beginning of December, and we were assured they would be here in good time for christmas.
After repeated delays and more reassurance they would be here in time for christmas, we are still lacking some serious electronics.
We ordered an MD deck, Fully featured amp, and of course, a DVD/CD deck.
The DVD deck arrived in time, and after the delivery guy had me stunned for half an hour when I read the invoice which congratulated me on my purchase and gave instructions for assembling my new indoor dog kennel... He came back and promptly gave me the correct package. On the invoice was a note listing the other two things we ordered with "to follow" written next to them.
So here we are, and still amp and MD-less. The DVD works great, it was amasing that even a CD playing through the old crappy amp and old crappy speakers sounded so much better when played from the DVD/CD deck! I couldnt believe it! But then again, I guess thats what you payed the wad of cash for isnt it?
An short email note was sent to notify us that the amplifier had not been shipped to the UK supplier in time, and so pre-Christmas delivery would not be possible, and it would be here sometime in January. But no word on the MD as of yet!
As for the speakers, they were purchased from a local dealer (they werent Sony). After calling once, and confirming everything, we went to pick them up. There they were, sitting by the counter, ready for the taking! After waititng around a while and listening to the guys talk amongst themselves to find out who put the speakers there, we were pleasantly notified that they had just been sold to some guy in "a big package deal" and we'd have to wait for others to be ordered. Some time later we finally went and picked the newly arrived ones out of the back of the store... this time we didnt let them get to the counted to be flogged off in a package deal...
So right now music is being played through the old Hi-Fi... The DVD is feeding through the Aux-in and playing through the killer B&W speakers.
I cant wait for the rest of the kit to get here so we can get some real quality sound happening instead of this inept setup held together by chewing gum. (The quality of the old Hi-Fi is such that the speaker connections were through some miniature spring terminals, which we nearly snapped in trying to connect the ultra fat 18 strand silver coated speaker cable. Right now the whole thing is literally held together mostly by gravity)
So thats my Christmas dissapointment rant. I really am dissapointed at this! Perhaps they sould adopt a similar policy to the pizza companies... if your stuff isnt delivered in 30 days you get it FREE!!!
There was one good thing that came out of all this though... I guess its only a semi-good thing... but they did manage to hack the DVD to work in all the zones ebfore sending it. Seems we were one of the lucky ones, because they said only a small amount could be done, and the only alternative was to wait, or have them send it and then later pick it up again to put in the chip.
I still cant work out what the deal with this chip is though. It seems to undermine the whole security thing! I can watch DVDs from anywhere, and even the copy protection is disabled, so I can make perfect digital copies, or record onto videotape, and its all legal and approved by Sony!
Go figure!!
Got this in my mailbox this morning from the Ditherati mailing list:
... UM, WE FORGOT WHAT COMES NEXT
PICK IT, BOX IT
"We sat down yesterday and felt that there were some orders that we were not able to ship for Christmas."
Toysrus.com CEO John Barbour, on the lack of fulfillment felt by his company's warehouse workers during the holiday rush, The New York Times, 23 December 1999
I know that I am not supposed to be using Amazon (you know the whole one-click fiasco) but, frankly, I don't care. I figured: "better order from a store that has enough resources to get all my stuff to my house on time" and it worked like a charm...I ordered on the 22nd and received it on the 24th.
.{redmist}.
-------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
I ordered a DVD from CNL on the 21st and received it yesterday morning without a hitch. Pretty good considering I'm at the extreme other end of Canada. What makes that interesting was the fact that I opted for Canada Post over UPS. Not only was it much cheaper, but UPS doesn't actually operate here and the minimum time I received a UPS package was about a week. I wouldn't have received it in time. Maximum time? A month. Ridiculous, even the USPS is much better than that.
I also made an order from Digi-Key which came in 3 days, despite the fact that I live in Canada. Probably had something to do with the fact that they let me use Purolator.
As an aside, with many people having DVD players nowadays, Christmas shopping has never been easier. I got three today: Pink Floyd's The Wall (awesome DVD, very well put together with tons of extra features), Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock, and South Park.
Needless to say, I'm happy. I'm inviting some friends over tonight to watch The Wall (twice, the second time around with commentary by Waters and Scarfe) and drink a lot of booze.
Jeez, reading /. on Christmas Day, how sad is that? Posting on Christmas Day, how sad is that?
Anyway, this was the first time we've done a significant amount of our shopping online, and we have had mixed service. Here's my little review:
1. Amazon.com
We ordered toys, a book, a CD, and a stereo system. Everything was shipped promptly, everything arrived looking in good condition. Even though they couldn't gift-wrap the stereo (which was to be a surprise gift), they did wrap it up in concealing plastic so as not to give the surprise away. Yay for Amazon's service. Boo for Amazon's patent silliness.
2. art.com
My sister-in-law bought us a framed print from here, arrived a little later than anticipated but still well before Christmas. They packed it up nice and securely, and they even have a little pic on the outside of the packaging so you can check to make sure it's the right thing without opening it. Nice touch.3. eToys
My wife actually ordered from here before I could stop her, but it was at least a week or so before the eToy thing became huge news.. Anyway, eToys' service sucks. We ordered two items, one of which shipped fine (though arrived looking like it had been sitting on a Wal-Mart shelf for a few weeks), but the other one didn't. So we get an email saying it was backordered. Of course, when we ordered it, they didn't bother telling us this - I thought the greatest part about online shopping was a live inventory reporting system.. Anyway, the toy should arrive sometime next month. Happy end of January, son!
3. Toys R Us
We didn't order from here ourselves, my sis-in-law did. Ordered well before Christmas, but didn't arrive, like 90% of the other ToysRUs orders, apparently. When I read about the $100 certificate they promised, I thought "well at least that's something", but as I suspected, they managed to talk their way out of delivering: they told my sis-in-law (who had been waiting a total of 2.5 hours on the phone) this week that it had actually been backordered, so they canceled the order and refunded her money. Funny though, the week before they said it was in transit.
So yeah, it was a pretty mixed bag. On the whole, we got cheaper prices online, and I didn't have to suffer the holiday crowds (my wife did, and she reported toy shelves were picked clean..)
Now all I need to do is find out why Create & Draw in Elmo's World doesn't actually let you draw anything..
I ordered three Christmas presents online.
:)
One: Used LCD projector. Came within a week. Admittedly, this was back in October (early present - couldn't pass up the great deal I got, convinced the parents of that.
Two: My parents ordered two cell phone accessories for me on Monday or Tuesday (can't remember exactly - Think it was Tues.) - they're already here. We weren't expecting them until next week. (BTW, these were from www.getcheap.com - Their selection isn't so hot, but their prices are VERY good.)
Three: OmniRemote IR module/software from Pacific Neotek. Not here yet, but it wasn't expected due to the late order (same as the cell phone accessories)
If only handsfree kits for the LGC-330/BAM-330 cell phone existed...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Family members report last-minute orders from Amazon [insert *apology* here] arriving in like 2-3 days. Even my order from Forced Exposure was unusually fast for them (like 5 days). UPS and FedEx must've also been doing some good work.
Enjoying my new Twiddler :)
For the most part all of my shopping that I did online was on time and without problems.
A preordered DVD shipped on Monday from DVD Express that got to me on Wednesday through priority mail. I also had a couple of DVDs that I ordered on Monday show up on Wednesday by way of FedEX. Books that I order from (insert name of insane patent holding company here) were also on time.
The only thing that was negative was ordering a camcorder. The first place I ordered from took all the information online then after you validated the information, displayed a screen saying that they would call for verification and shipping information. Calls to the customer support line were hopeless - on hold for 30 minutes before I gave up. I called again and tried for the sales line - instant answer and I was told it was backordered. When I asked if I could cancel the order, they said they would do that when they called...they never called. I answered the ordering email that they sent, canceling the order. They did answer the email but I think they need to buy a clue.
I did finally find a place that had the camcorder, it was also on backorder, but the price after discount was better than anyone else on the net (www.marketplace4u.com). The camcorder showed up before christmas so all was well.
The companies that try to just push thier mail order operations to the net thinking that a form that collects information is good enough will not make it.
RastaSaf
hey there, ya, ordered a palm Vx from chapters.ca it was supposted to be here on like the 20th, but by the 24th it hadn't even left their building, and we had been phoning since the 20th! We got all mad, told them off, then phoned back later and cancelled. Later on that day (24th) the manager of a local chapters store called, he had gone to a "competitor" and bought one on his VISA, he was about to bring it over! However, we had already bought one locally. Anways, they did kinda redeem themselves, but it shows that nothing gets done until you get mad at someone!
I ordered stuff from reel.com, amazon.com, bigstar.com, thinkgeek.com, and buy.com arround the 12th. All the orders except buy.com's were accounted for within 7 days, and were exactly what I ordered.
From buy.com I ordered a book and a movie. First, their site was fairly broken when I was there, which should have been my first clue that they were useless. I got a couple of really ugly asp errors. Then they sent me an email which said that my book was not shipped yet, but the movie had (this was 7 days later). When the package finally arrived, it was the book, and not the movie. I had to leave to visit family for the holiday's, so I don't know if the movie ever showed up, but I left on the 23rd, and hadn't heard anything else from them yet. I am very dissapointed with them, and WILL NEVER order from buy.com again.
There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors than zombies or vampires anyway.
why aren't you boycotting amazon like the rest of us? don't you know about their lame ass patent lawsuit?
This year I went around ordering parts for a new computer. For two of the pieces (Athlon 550MHz CPU, and an Enlight case), I just pointed my browser over to PriceWatch and just found the cheapest price. Placed my order for those 2 parts on the 17th, and all those got here on the 22nd. The other three parts I ordered (Asus K7M motherboard, IBM Deskstar harddrive, and some ram) I order from TCComputers. I did this with two seperate orders, but only one of the orders arrived. I placed the one that arrived I placed on the 17th also, but the one that has yet to arrive I placed on the 18th. I was actually quite amazed that everything amazed myself. Had a lot of problems 2 years ago with ordering online, stupid company kept on screwing me over.
This year with ordering online has been pretty good so far. But you still can't beat going out to the mall to get all the shopping done. And while your out shopping, you can preview all the ladies.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Its not what it is, its something else.
I've been shoplifting.. er.. shopping.. online for about a year now, and haven't had any real problems. Amazon.com, Mercata.com, and ties.com have all had great service. This year involved books and DVD's from Amazon, a DVD player from Mercata, and a Pink Floyd tie from ties.com. Everything arrived on time, and without breakage. :)
When 800.com had their promotion of 3 DVD's for a penny (about a year ago), the delay was outrageous, but with a deal like that, who could complain?
-kris
A great example of good business if I've ever seen it. Ordered the movie "Spaceballs" from Bigstar.com a couple of weeks ago. They said it would be back-ordered until the 28th. Others obviously have good taste as well. Got an email from them yesterday saying it was being shipped that day. We paid for UPS ground, but Bigstar paid the balance for UPS overnight or same day. It showed up yesterday afternoon. With service like that, the other companies have no excuse.
Business analysts know that etailing is all about fulfillment. Catalog companies already have this in place, so you are generally safe if you order from LL Bean etc. New etailers, especially if the company is already dubious in terms of organization are not trustworthy. Toys R Us has been having trouble with it's brick and mortar stores for years; they would be the last people I would place an order with. Wal Mart on the other hand has superb inventory control and organization on the brick and mortar side and is therefore likely to be equally great on the web side.
Specific experiences I have had over the last year:
AMAZON - good to great customer service. Relatively high prices. I ordered twice; my wife once. They were slow shipping this season, but got everything here on time. I complained about their slow shipping and they refunded all of my shipping costs plus sent a $10 coupon.
Buy.com - crappy service but excellent prices on computer items. Other prices are not so great. Don't order anything time sensitive from these guys. They also have a 15% restocking fee.
DVD Wave - low prices, and surprised my with valiant attempt to get late ordered (non present items) DVD's to me by Christmas. I placed one order for three items, and they made three shipments to me. I will use these folks again.
Bookpool - Low prices on technical books and very nice customer service. Second only to Amazon in service.
J&R Audio - Only electronics place I have used on the web. Prices ok, service has been very good. Bought my DVD player from them, was shipped same day.
First, I placed an order at Toys 'R Us on the 9th and got screwed -- the package isn't here, but their idiot reps claim it was shipped on the 23rd. The problem is that I had to go out and buy the toys at the mall in the meantime, and I can't get the money credited back to my account until I send the stuff back.
Second, I ordered a Palm as another gift. The site popped up an error message when I tried to complete the transaction. I tried for hours to reach their customer service line, but it was constantly busy. It turns out that they billed my card and didn't send the damn thing -- yet more money suddenly unavailable to buy gifts with.
Finally I ordered some silk PJs from Victoria's Secret for my g/f. I paid for next day shipping, but they didn't get the package out the door for three fsck'ing days.
Each and every gift I tried to buy online got messed up in some way, and I ended up having to go to the mall for the toys and the Palm (the PJs made it at the last possible second). Overall, I'm really pissed off at the companies who dropped the ball -- only Toys 'R Us made any real attempt to make right with the situation.
I'm never buying off the Victoria's Secret site again -- in my book, if I pay for Next Day shipping and order before 10AM, the product better damn well be shipped that day, not a frickin' week later. Also, I'm sticking to large online sites for computer gear from now on -- the little places obviously don't have the manpower to handle a holiday rush if anything goes wrong with their website. I'll probably try shopping online again next year, but I'm going to buy extra early so I don't end up getting screwed over as badly as I did this year -- at this point, I'm looking at eating raman and walking to work (in Wisconsin in January) until the double-charges (Toys 'R Us and the place that charged to Palm without sending it) get taken off my stupid credit card.
Christmas would have been far less stressful if I'd just gone to the mall. There ought to be some kind of consumer protection law against what happened to me this year, especially V.S.'s "not really Next Day" shipping rip-off.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
After seeing a few people scrambling around 3-4 DAYS before Xmas, I'm amazed how much stuff was actually delivered on time.
I, for one, like to order early. AND, I'm actually quite happy with buy.com. I have consistently found them to have the lowest prices on almost everything I want. (And they had free shipping for the first (?) weekend of December.)
I ordered many of my X-mas presents direct from Buy.Com. The results were mixed:
- A few items appeared within 2 days of ordering!
- Most things were shipped within 7 days of ordering.
- Two things are still on order. (A movie, and a couple of kids books.)
Now the movie was a popular one that has been back-ordered, and so were the kids books. I'm not going to fault Buy.Com for not being able to deliver the goods in time because lets face it: If the manufacturer isn't able to produce enough for every distributor then there will be occasional shortages.
Out of the 25 or so things I ordered online, 23 of them showed up well before X-mas. I'm quite happy with that fact!
The kids books? Well, I just went to a local store and picked up something else. When the books do arrive, I'll just keep them until their next birthday.
All in all, I'll continue to shop online. For those of us miles from a city, it's nice not to have to drive all over town (polluting the air and such).
Well, I ordered an ibook from MacConnection for my Mom, with airport, base station, floppy, USB hub, and even got her a copy of Linux. Everything came except for the base station which was able to pick up easily from the local CompUSA. We even got our "Barbie Airplane" on time.
Michael C. Hollinger
I ordered an import PSX game (beatmania) from GameCave on 11/27.... I STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN IT! ARGH!
Yep, I was smart enough not to wait till the last week :)
Sorry for this guys. What with all the holiday cheer, i just wanted to poll who was actually working on this fine festive occasion. (Unfortunately i am, but my arse is bursting with holiday flavor!).
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
I made the mistake of ordering Perfume from Macys.com two weeks ago, even though I'm not far from their store in NYC, I just didn't want to put up with the crowd. Even though I paid for overnight shipping, it's not here yet.
After I realized that it didn't come, I called their customer service, and after 10 minutes of them blaming it on UPS, they finally said, "Oh, it's alcohol based, so it has to go UPS Ground".
They shouldn't have allowed me to ship overnight, or at least sent me an email telling me that it was going to ship differently then I anticipated.
So, after work on Dec 23rd, I stood for 2 hours in line with other schmucks to get the perfume, and now have to go through the hassle of returning the late bottle by UPS or whatever when it finally gets here.
Other than that, everything was fast, ordered Geek stuff from CopyLeft (which was the best), EddieBauer, etc.
Merry Christmas...
I got a $50 B&N gift certificate from my brother for Christmas. I spent about an hour getting my shopping cart together, only to go to the check out and find it empty. Went back, found everything again and it made it out.
My books and cd's came to $42, which, through my keen math skills, I figured $50 would cover including S/H. B&N's checkout process wouldn't let me out without putting in my credit card nums. Plus after triing to get through without inputting the afformentioned CC nums, it lost my stuff again!
After reacumulating the books and cd's I wasn't sure I really needed, putting in my credit card that wouldn't even get billed, I tried to complete the tranny, only to get an error that the Microsoft SQL server couldn't process my transaction. Annoying.
So I calls up the customer service 800 number, waited on hold for 10 minutes between being tranferred three times, (30 minutes total) before getting someone to take my order. She didn't speak english (my overly complex native language) very well, but we got there after I spelled out every title of 3 books and 2 cd's. I talked to her about 15 minutes total, and she waived my shipping costs (good lookin out, kid!), leaving me well under my $50 GC amount, but still wouldn't let me off without broadcasting my credit card numbers yet again.
All in all, I'm seriously over the e-commerce revolution. I'm also really tired of voice-mail systems that seemingly EVERY company hides behind. I'm getting a little online shop together for a skateboard shop I swing with, but I'm going to emphasize the 800 numbers and the ability to talk to real people more than the shopping cart ish.
All this from a long time internet enthusist. I'm predicting a backlash of good old-style REAL customer service that actually makes it easy for people to get what they want. Power to the people! : )
-=nft1999=-
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -Gandhi
*coughclassactionlawsuitcough*
I ordered books from both of the big Canadian booksellers this month.
In the second week of December, I ordered a book online from Chapters for my brother, to be shipped via Canada Post, and it was in my mailbox two days later.
And then last week, to compare how its competitor Indigo is, I checked their website and wound up ordering a couple of novels (for myself, not presents) that weren't in the Chapters database. Indigo listed them as being out of stock, to be available in a few weeks. I placed the order, not expecting it before Christmas, and sure enough, I got an email saying my order couldn't be shipped for Christmas and offering me a $10 gift certificate as a result.
Needless to say, I'm quite happy with both of them, above and beyond the pleasure of not being stiffed by the US-Canadian exchange rate.
I received just one item on Tuesday. So I called about the other items because the web site's order tracking page didn't have any new information about my order. Turns out that one of the items wasn't in stock, and they didn't ship the other item.
I changed the order, and both items got to my house on Friday (Christmas eve) while I was out at CompUSA buying the same items (for a total of $150 more than Outpost.com). I guess I'll be standing in line next week returning everything.
That's 5 days for an overnight delivery. Not so good.
I ordered a game from Amazon.com and asked them to wrap it. I even paid $5 for it because I'm lazy. It showed up on time, but they had forgotten to wrap it. I got my $5 back.
I ordered a part from Palm Computing on Sunday. They said it would arrive Tuesday. It arrived Friday.
These places have a lot to learn.
I don't have a witty quote.
The one that pissed me off the most was Victoria's Secret (ordered some silk PJs for my girlfriend). I could understand that a company which has never been through a Xmas rush to be unprepared for the jump in volume, but VC's? They've been in the catalog business for ages.
That's why I was shocked with the lousy service. Specifically, they didn't send out my "Next Day" package until three days after I'd ordered it. I mean, if I order something before 10 AM their time and pay for Next Day service, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to get it shipped that day -- even the next day is understandible at this time of year, but three days? You gotta be kidding.
Anyhow, my point is that even companies who have been doing mail and phone order business for a long time screwed up this year. I find that a little bit shocking given the fact that you'd think that the net wouldn't change their volume of business that much, just the ordering method. Granted that I did order a bit late in the season (the 15th), but I needed my Xmas bonus to finish shopping.
In any event, I'm never shopping there again. Christmas would have been less stressful if I'd just gone to the mall on the 24th.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Thats what I hate about shopping online. They take your order, then you wait and wonder. Fear and doubt, fear and uncertainty, uncertainty and doubt. You call and wait on hold and then you get nothing but lies from people who can hardly speak English. I never buy anything online - better to schlep over to the mall and get the thing in your hot little hands and know that you are done. I had to break this rule a few weeks ago because I found on ebay an item I had been looking for for several years with no success. I pay extra for priority shipping - it should take a week to arrive. Two weeks later, I get an e-mail from the seller. It turns out she had decided it was unnecessary to include my company name in the address (even though I supplied it) The item had been returned to her. Of course she is nice enough to re-ship it, but tells me I should really try to look for it next time. (Note that some 2000 people work in my building and anyway our mail is sorted separately. Without a company name, it ain't getting to me.) feh
Let's see here. I went to amazon (unfortunately), CDNow, DVD Express, Barnes & Nobles, Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate, and despair. I got all of them before Christmas, although I will admit that I didn't buy anything in the last week.
That, to me, is half of the equation. You've got to realize that a good number of these places are going to get slammed later in December. It's just like shopping in the mall. If you go in the first couple of weekends, you're not going to have a problem. You try going in the last week, good luck! e-commerce or brick and mortar, you run into those problems, depending on WHEN you shop.
I think it'd be fantastic if some third-party site (like, say a bizrate or SOMETHING) would come along next year around December and say, "OK, this site had a n% success rate. Don't order from them past x date." etc. etc. It's this kind of objective (read: non-subsidized, non-associate) statistic reporting that can go rather far in promoting e-commerce. After all, the bad companies will have to shape up or be eliminated, and the good companies will be rewarded.
I expect things to get better next year, though. I will once again advise people to shop early! It's easy. You're ON the web already, people. And if a company's burned you before, don't go back there.
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
I shopped at Amazon, eToys, Patagonia and A&F this season and everything went fine. Prices were great, shipping was fast and some of them even came wrapped.
They had something on the news the other day about this. Big, long segment about the horrible possibility that you might not get your toys in time for christmas.
Funny thing was, they basically said the main problem is people waiting until the last minute to do their online shopping. Would people do their shopping through catalogs in this short time and expect things to arrive right away? Would they raid the toy store one week from christmas and expect the most-wanted toys to be on the shelves for them to purchase? No? Well, then why are they trying to do the same thing online?
Online shopping is basically the same as using mail-order catalogs or phoning a far-away company to get an item. You've got to make the same allowances, because that's just the way the world works... everything gets gridlocked a few weeks from christmas. If you give your purchases plenty of time to spare (proportional to how in-demand the item is and how large the company seems to be) and then get burned, you should complain... otherwise, 'tis your own fault for trying to take the easy way out.
I ordered three tee shirts from thinkgeek, amazing timeing. My only qwalm is the non-cool not enough shipping options and no tracking number.. Damn.
My brother got me a Creative 6x DVD kit. He ordered it online. It is Christmas day, and I don't have it :P Why?
:P Kinda ironic.
He ordered it the 15, and it was supposed to be there by the 18th. However, by the 22nd it STILL wasn't there, and he called the company. Apparently they didn't think it was necessary to call him or email him and tell him that there was a delay in the order. They knew this the 17th or so, but didn't send any sort of email or phone call. He had to email them, fax them, and then call them TWICE to get through to find this out. Needless to say, he canceled the order and reordered it from another dealer. Also, needless to say I will not be ordering from that place EVER.
So... online shopping can have issues, especially when you get idiots like that. If the company had half a clue they might've gotten the thing to me, but now here I am christmas day with 6 new DVDs but no player
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
Check out all the complaints they receive on a regular basis on forums like alt.video.dvd. DVD Express seems to deliver the most reliable service of any vendor out there. I've probably spent $1K there and they've never screwed up a single order.
This year I was trying to buy reprints of Walt Kelly's Pogo comic strip. I found that both Amazon and bn.com had them. At Amazon, there was a desciption and a picture for each of the five books. Bn.com didn't even have separate titles for each one -- volumes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 were each just labled "Pogo." I had to check them by ISBN number at amazon to discover what their actual titles were. On the other hand, they were each several dollars cheaper, and could ship several days earlier.
So, of course, I went with the cheaper option. They arrived two days later, right on time -- but the order was screwed up. Instead of volumes 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8, I got volumes 3, 4, 5, 8, and 8. I haven't called customer support yet -- I don't really want to face it.
So it occurs to me that this may be a problem with online shopping in general. Letting the mouse do the walking, a shopper can use service from one site while actually buying from another. This ultimately teaches resailers to be as cheap and shoddy as possible -- the world may not survive!
Or maybe J. Random Customer will have loyalty to sites which provide good service. I would be interested in other people's experiences with this.
--Jack
Very appropriate in this case
Eventually, I suppose, all the orders will arrive. Invariably, some of them will be unacceptable--the merchandise is damaged, or the wrong item was shipped, and then we will have round two of the ecommerce explosion: how well these companies handle returns.
So far, I've had two occasions to return things to Amazon. First was a defective CD, second was they goofed and shipped the wrong thing (I ordered the DTS edition of "Saving Private Ryan" and they send the Dolby Digital edition).
In both cases, I sent an email explaining the mistake, and within a day or two, they sent back an apology, and entered a new order for the replacement item. With that, they sent a prepaid shipping label, so that when the new shipment arrived, I could put the old item in that container, attach the label, and mail it back.
When I opened the replacement CD, there was a note inside the jewel case telling me that they had opened it an inspected it to make sure that it would not be defective like the prior one.
Anyone know how the other online merchants handle returns?
That being said, some companies have their act together, and others don't. Last year we did 75% of our Xmas shopping online. This year was more like 95%.
Things went quite well. We had two minor disappointments, both from Amazon -- one item ordered with a 1 - 2 week leadtime didn't get in ontime (although the rest of the order made it fine) and one item (a hot toy) that had a 24 hour ship went to backorder and didn't ship until Friday. Outside of that, Amazon went fine.
We also ordered from Outpost (for about the 3rd or 4th year in a row), which consistently showed up the next day, on schedule. This was 4 or 5 orders, to 4 or 5 shipping addresses (as was Amazon -- both are expanding their lines nicely beyond what we've bought from them before).
We'd ordered from EBWorld a few times this fall, with great success, so we ordered some last minute items from them on the 22nd, which arrived like clockwork on the 23rd.
My wife placed an order from E-Toys that came in like clockwork as well.
There are places online that can't get an order out on time in August. I wouldn't count on them for Xmas, either. But the places we've come to know and trust did us a solid once again.
Similarly, we've got local merchants that are predictably a joy to deal with, and others that could f*ck up a wet dream -- you live and learn who to do business with, who is efficient and who you grit your teeth every time you have to shop there. God help me if I have to do business with my local Best Buy or CompUSA -- I could set myself on fire there and be a pile of ashes on the floor before I could get someone to come write up a purchase ticket or open a display case (God forbid I should ever need ADVICE from them). Fortunately, these are the brick and mortor stores who are most easily displaced with sales taxless bargains and free overnight delivery.
Happy Holidays!
I didn't buy a single thing online. It's just in the states that everyone buys every single christmas present over the Internet.
Amazon blew orders for two books. I ordered both of them on December 2nd; both were advertised as being available with 24-48 hour deliver times. Instead, I received an e-mail from Amazon explaining that I should contact them if I didn't receive the packages by December 20th! 18 days later! Guess what - one package was mis-delivered - the other is still MIA. They've shipped another copy of the missing book, which I'll probably see something late next week. So much for Christmas.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th Ed., Vol 2
- Barnes & Nobel - three separate orders of CDs, a package of 10 paperback novels, a set of language tapes. All but the tapes were "ships within 24 hours" stuff, ordered on either the 10th or the 14th. The books took 5 days to ship, the CDs took 3 days to ship, the tapes were ordered on the 14th of Dec and are yet to ship (they were 1-2 weeks to ship items). I live in Australia. The CDs are shipping via air, the books & tapes via surface. Nothing has arrived. The local postal system will not be running until Wed of next week...
- 1942 for the GBC, (pre) ordered from "checkout.com" around the 29th of Oct. Supposed to ship around the 14th of Nov. Yet to be released.
- A 1050mAh battery for my 8810. Ordered on the 15th, arrived early last week. (rocks BTW)
- A USB-PSX controller adapter ordered on the 12th from "Borer's Nest" - no sign of it yet.
The tapes and some of the CDs are sort of gifts, but Christmas isn't particularly significant by itself at my place. We typically start giving gifts and being festive at the Soltice, and work our way through to New Years. If the stuff doesn't arrive until next year it's no biggy. Anyone using On-Line ordering for important gifts that had to arrive for specifically Christmas day made an error in judgement.My online gifts haven't arrived yet.
/. for a rant, but I needed it. And if anyone can recommend to me the best shrink in the UK, I'd love to hear from them.
I have tried placing several orders in the past, with several companies, varying both telephone/web and both methods simultaneously to make an order.
My conclusion is that it's like trying to shoot a peanut with a shotgun - it's hit 'n' miss.
In August of this year I place two separate orders with two of the largest and well respected computer suppliers here in the UK - Simply Computers and Action Computer Supplies. I am *still* waiting for both orders to be completely fulfilled.
With the Action order - for hard drive caddies - every month that I phone, I am told the order will be delivered at the end of the month, and it never comes. Last time I phoned them I managed to find out they had about 400 back orders for this one item (obviously going back to August at least), and that I was 'about fourth from the top of the list'. Inspiring or what? Definitely what, because that was in November. However Action have managed to deliver other web orders successfully, and have delivered my lovely new Iiyama with no hassle.
Simply Computers have been much worse. This time it was several items ordered over the web, using their own 'Internet Account Card'. Simple enough order, SS7 motherboard, PC100 64mb memory and a full tower AT case to put it all in.
The motherboard and memory arrived successfully. But no case. So now at the beginning of September they send two cards simultaneously, each giving different dates for delivery. Either way I was to expect it for around 17th at the latest.
21st I phone them asking where it is. I find out it was cancelled at the start of the month, "But I was sent two cards saying it was on back-order?", says me. "Well we cancelled it 'cos your debit card expired and we couldn't be ****ed to tell you". Real helpful - promising delivery of an order that had been cancelled weeks before. And if they knew my card was going to expire - which they did - why couldn't they tell me? [Common Sense? We don't do that!]
Eventually, after re-ordering once or twice, and once more being sent a back-order card, the case finally arrives somewhen in October. Yippee, thinks me, presuming all was well with the world. That is, until I came to install the motherboard (an essential ingredient in most computers).
This is where it gets too technical for a computer company: I have ordered an AT motherboard. I have also ordered an AT case. AT motherboard goes into AT case. Simple, right? Not for Simply. Cutting this rant short, they've taken an ATX case, swapped out the PSU for a replacement AT PSU and scribbled out the 'X' on the box with a pen. So that makes it alright then.
Putting the (AT) motherboard into this case now leaves me with a huge whole in the case where the keyboard gets plugged in. Big enough for a hand to reach in and pull anything out. Big enough for screws or other such metal objects to find their way into my machine and short the motherboard. In short, about as secure as a house with no roof.
But wait, what's that I hear you cry? A backing plate? Of course! Digging out the backing plate is really helpful. It is an ATX backing plate. As in a backing plate for an ATX motherboard (which would normally go in an ATX case - yeah, I know).
Time for a three-page letter explaining the rudimentary elements of PC building for Simply's multi-award winning (yes, really!) Customer Service team. Sit back and wait.
And wait.
"Hello, Simply Customer Service Department please. Yes about that three-page letter I sent a week ago..." Pause. "What do you mean you can't find it?"
Lengthy discussion later, and I am promised an AT backplate for my case. Satisfactory, says me. Can't wait for it, says me.
A telephone call several days later: "Where's my backing plate?" Pause. "What do you mean it must have got lost in the post?" Another lengthy discussion, another promise of delivery, but this time I get the guys name.
So we're round about November now. And finally my AT backing plate arrives! Hoorah! Is it an AT backing plate? Yes! Does it fit? Does it heck! It's obviously for a completely different model of case (perhaps an AT case?) and I'm worse off with it in, ready to fall in on the motherboard, than I was before it arrived.
Feeling a little sore about this, I refer to my invoices once more. I'm not going mad, I definitely ordered an AT motherboard and an AT case - but wait a minute, that's not the price for the memory!
Another e-mail and telephone conversation: "So sorry, Sir. Our fault of course. I'll send the correct backing plate out straight away. Overcharged for the memory? Well if you send me a copy of your receipt..."? Oh yeah, ordering over the web. That must have been the page that popped up after submitting my order. Fortunately I kept this as a file on my desktop.
Another backing plate arrives! But it's identical to the last one. Speaking to the representative again he promises me that he's putting the correct one into an envelope "as we speak". I ask him to make sure that it's the correct one for my case, and he assures me it will be.
He also e-mails to say the difference in price for the memory has been credited back to their account. Of course, the difference should have been in my favour, but it's only money, right?
I am now waiting for the correct backing plate. For a company that offers next day delivery, it sure is taking a lot of next days for it to arrive. So I phone the guy. "Sorry, Sir. It'll definitely be with you in the next few days".
No it wasn't.
"Actually, Sir, the person who normally licks the stamps for the envelopes has been on holiday, and I thought it had gone out to you but it hadn't. But it's on it's way now!"
Amazingly he was right! A few (more) days later and another package arrived. This time it was exactly the same as the last two that were sent, but a bit more grubby and a bit more dented and bent.
"Would you like me to send you out another one, Sir?", "No, because you've tried four times, and each of the three that actually arrived have all been the same. You've proved you can't get it right even with four attempts, what's the point in a fifth?"
Then I ask to speak to someone above him. Now he gets rather evasive. He'll tell me his name, but of course he's in a meeting, and no, I can't have his extension number. I check that he's actually allowed a phone, and yes his is, but they're not allowed to tell me the number.
I insist that he calls me the minute he gets out of his meeting. Here's my home phone number. Here's my work phone number. Here's my e-mail address. And I'm told he will call me.
Does he? Nah.
Later that day I phone Simply again. Of course the bloke's gone home or is still in a meeting. So I leave a message with another member of their staff, promising me that this supervisor will call me. I give them my home phone and work phone yet again, and sleep fairly well safe in the knowledge that I'll be able to sort things out the next day...
Or the next day. Or the day after that, Or the week after that - in fact, I've been waiting several weeks for this elusive guy to phone me to sort out this minor problem of an incomplete order.
We're now at the present date and time. I'm still struggling with my old computer kit, and walking around the big box that contains a completely useless mutant AT/ATX tower case. I'm also a lot thinner on top... a receeding hairline long before my time.
So a big thanks to David Dawson, Simply Customer Services Agent, for the witty conversation, the useless AT backplate collection and the many laughs he's provided me with over the past four months. To Mike Clinell, his supervisor, for returning urgent calls so promptly, for running such an efficient and competant group of staff, or for his new Guinness World Record title for the worlds longest corporate meeting (the record now stands at about three weeks). I would also like to thank singer Ronan Keating and band REM for their excellent two songs I have listened to so many times, continuously, in a loop, for the past four months.
Sorry to use
insignificant sig
I bought geek stuff from Soberbia.com and it came before christmas!!!!
Augustus
I ordered a bunch of shirts and whatnot for all my geeky friends - from my other geeky friends. ThinkGeek did a fabulous job getting things to me promptly and professionally.
Everything got here on time, even though I recieved a email that one of my orders was backordered for 20 days...it still got here nonetheless! Online merchants, and shippers really did there job..I guess I should mention that two major boxes just made it on Christmas..but they did make it!
My mom ordered a 3D Blaster Annihilator (for me) on the 8th of December and she hasn't even been billed yet, let alone received anything. At the time she ordered it they said it would be 1-2 weeks, now the futureshop.ca web site lists it as being backordered. Doh! Looks like I'll have to wait before I can partake in any GeForce gaming goodness :(
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I shopped exclusively on the Net this year - mainly from Amazon - and was happy in the end. Amazon shipped everything within 36 hours after my ordering it, with one exception, which still shipped within 96 hours.
I am not happy with UPS, however.
Amazon dumped a large shipment of stuff bound for my house onto a truck on December 16th, all marked two-day. UPS scheduled delivery for the 20th. They don't deliver on weekends, and that is fine by me - it gives them even less of an excuse to be late.
Late they were. On Tuesday, the 21st, I still hadn't got my packages, so I called UPS and asked for a refund on my shipment (to which they claim I'm entitlted).
"What refund?" the lady asked. I cited the web site. "Oh, that doesn't apply during holidays," I was told.
That shipment arrived on Thursday, the 23rd December. Another arrived on the 24th, thankfully.
I've just sold my UPS stock.
If a promise is made that the gift is supposed to be there on time and it's not, when it _DOES_ show up, don't you have the (legal?) right to refuse it?
I was very pleased with my purchase from buy.com on the 15 or 16th. my product was recieved 3 days later and i didn't chose any express shipping options. I just did the cheapest one. The product i ordered was a newere hard drive. Buy.com was great. i also got a sound card from compuvest and it took about a week but it was a return so it was very fast turn around time. I guess i am just lucky.
these stupid retailers used NT and Solaris in their online stores. if they had used linux instead the merchandise would have arrived on time.
now there are millions of unhappy kids because nt and solaris cannot stand up in an enterprise computing market.
when will people learn its high time for an all linux internet
i figured that not having to go to the mall is a good thing, right? so i'd just order some clothes online... well, i began emailing customer service with questions on sizes and fits until i figured out that they dont know what they are doing... so i blindly ordered. only one out of the seven items i ordered fit. it has been two weeks since i sent the merchandise back and still no credit to my account. i keep complaining to them and they just say "sorry, we go a lot of returns and we'll get to yours." honestly i now would rather goto the mall (which i dispise) and shop there.
I've read several posts that imply that this is somehow technology related but 9 times our of 10 it's an operations or warehouse problem. You can plan for a spike of 5x or 10x by adding capacity but when orders start coming in at 2x, 3x, 4x of the most optimistic *projections* you cannot just get a bigger warehouse. You can't just hire more people and train them (for customer service, warehouse, etc.). For many items you can't just order more from the manufacturer. So that is when errors and problems start creeping into the process.
I know like it sounds like this is some sort of excuse but it's not. For every customer who comes away with a negative experience WE, AS A COMPANY, HAVE FAILED THAT CUSTOMER and deserve any scorn that they may have towards us. But, that being said, the point I was trying to make is that this is not a problem you can throw more servers at, or write better code, or buy a better database for. It's real world logistics. There's not a ecommerce company out there that has more than 4 years experience doing this and it's a learning process for every company. Some companies are more "lucky" than others because they were able to steal away personnel that had large order volume experience from the brick and mortar world. The number of people with that level of experience is finite and the Internet is producing challenges even some of the most seasoned operations gurus have never imagined. Every year as experience is gained online retailers will perform better and better. I would suggest rating online retailers on how well they learn their lessons rather than how they perform during some snapshot period in time.
I actually posted a story on this on the 23rd. I was extremely fustrated with Toys at the time. They were in the process of screwing me over hugely. I guess the story's content was a little too much flaimbait. The stroy goes I got the letter. Check the website, it said at 5pm that the order was in the warehouse. 4 hours later at 9pm on the 23rd it said on the website that it was delayed. I called Toys' 1-888 number that was a travesty. I waited 40mins on hold, then got dropped as soon as the rep answered. Dialed back in same thing after 40 mins. Third try after 40 mins gout a rep. The rep told me that my order was delayed and would not make it before Christmas. I was pissed so I did what any red blooded american would do. I asked to speak to a supervisor. Waited on hold for another 40 mins before someone picked up and dropped the call. I was turning purple at this time so I wrote a nice long letter to the CEO.. Not that he reads his email or cares but it felt good. I gave up and played some UT for a few hours then went to sleep. I called up at 9am 12/23 and the operator I got on the line told me it was being shipped that day for overnight delivery. Plus I was getting 100 Geofrey bucks. Around noon time the buzzer rings and its Fedex Overnight Express. They had shipped it the night before... They were totally screwed up at Toys this year. I will think twice about shopping Toys R Us online next year. Anyway here's the letter I recieved from the CEO:
From: johnb@Toysrus.com
Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 15:33:36 +0400
Subject: Important Update Regarding Your Toys R Us Order Number XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Dear Valued Customer,
As we approach our holiday deadline, it becomes apparent to us that even with
our fulfillment center working around the clock, WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DELIVER
YOUR ORDER BEFORE DECEMBER 25TH.
Even though the vast majority of the orders we have in our system will be
delivered on or before Christmas day, we believe that it is imperative that
you be informed in time to react for the holidays.
Satisfied customers are our lifeblood and I would hope you could forgive us
for this very frustrating experience. IN THE NEXT 48 HOURS, WE WILL SEND TO
YOU BY OVERNIGHT EXPRESS, $100 WORTH OF FREE GEOFFREY DOLLARS that can be
used to purchase additional gifts at any Toys'R'Us, Kids 'R' Us or Babies 'R' Us
stores - as a thank you for your patience and understanding.
If you want to cancel your order please email us at cancelmyorder@toysrus.com,
please include the above referenced order number in the subject line.
We are rushing to get every order shipped as quickly as possible, so if your order is
delivered and you do not wish to accept the shipment, please refuse delivery and we will
make sure your credit card is credited for the full amount of your order.
Over the last few weeks, Toysrus.com has become one of the most popular
e-commerce sites on the Internet. Unfortunately, because Internet sales have
been far greater than anyone expected, our whole infrastructure - from
customer service through fulfillment - has been overloaded by the hundreds of
thousands of orders placed on our site.
As a father of two little boys, I can fully appreciate the annoyance and
frustration that this email will cause. On behalf of everyone at
Toysrus.com, we sincerely apologize for being unable to meet your
expectations and promise you that we will be dramatically more prepared
to deal with this level of growth in 2000.
Sincere apologies,
John Barbour
CEO
Toysrus.com
Email address: johnb@Toysrus.com
Runestar - Happy to have gotten the gifts. POed for the Angst this email caused me...
The merchant in question promised that if the order was placed by a certain date, it would arrive at the customer's home before Christmas. The merchant couldn't even SHIP the products before Christmas, let alone in such a manner to allow the actual shipping companies to get it there in time.
That was the whole point of the article -- they promised and couldn't deliver. People shopping a whole month in advance didn't get their stuff.
You are an idiot.
Not only impossible to get delivery, but also actually impossible to cancel orders. Got so pissed, I posted my experience online at http://www.atrium.com/toysrussucks.html . There was no service, and I believe that the unreasonable burden put on customers may in some cases be actionable.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. [H.S.T.]
I ordered some stuff late Wed. (22) from Ross-Simmons. Only snafu was FedEx assuming I wasn't in the office and just skipping my building. A call to local dispatch and I got all in time to not get the wife upset because of no presents!
I have to give my parents a whole lotta credit. They are new computer users and did a fantastic job ordering from cdnow.com and a few others (all of which were on time). However I felt so bad when they sheepishly asked me if I could help them order one of my gifts fro ebags.com because they couldn't navigate the site. I don't know what they thought of having their 17 year-old son having to order his own gift, but it gave them good experience, and everything arrived ontime, so kudos to cdnow and ebags.
-- From my Best Friend (Written to me over ICQ): "i was gonna go to a party...but i had to reinstall windows"
*My* situation: Ironicly, the first and earlist item I ordered for the purpose of fulfilling my Christmas present list did not come through. This was ordered on the 10th of December. This is despite 2 phone calls, 2 emails, and a statement that the item was in stock (on two different days after I ordered, checked during the phone calls). The second phone call was on the 23rd, where the lady basicly said "It'll arrive by Christmas." 1 item in order. AIn't here. Everything else I ordered, including about 10 CDs, a USB keyboard, mouse, 5 DVDs, NIC, RAM, books, etc. after that has arrived. These include shipments from barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, onsale.com/egghead.com, cdnow, reel.com, dvdexpress, softwarebuylne, and bigstar.com. CDnow at times were delayed in getting items out (normally they seem to ship within 48 hours; for 3 shipments, they shipped over a week later) but they still arrived a couple days in advance.
It's my take that most of the complaints registered here result from a disconnect between the accuracy of information that the customers believe they're getting versus what the companies are actually providing.
Others have mentioned that, except for the web interface, on-line ordering is exactly the same as any other kind of mail-order. This is true. But the presence of information on the web implies that it is both accurate and up-to-date. While the accuracy part is easy to achieve (just tell the truth about the product, and be sure to update when necessary), many sites fail to deliver on the up-to-date part. Customers ordering from a printed catalog already know (because of the medium itself) that its information may be out-of-date. Contrast that to calling an "800" number, when you're (usually) talking to someone connected with a real-time online system which lets them find out if something's in stock right now, and, if you want to order it, grab it for you, so it can't be sold to anyone else. (Much the same way as airline tickets are sold.) Also, at the good companies, these reps are smart enough (and are given the information they need) to warn you if 2-day UPS shipments are actually taking 3 days because of the time of the year. This "800" level of service is what a website implies, but in many cases that's not what's there. Examples below:
There are a lot of reasons that the web isn't providing the information that the customers actually expect: They include everything from remotely-hosted websites to outsourced fulfillment of orders. None of them matter. The successful companies will be the ones who recognize these implied levels of information accuracy, and actually deliver them. They will take advantage of seasonal delays to win customers by under-promising and over-delivering: If my usual delivery is 4 days, but I say (because of the holiday rush) that it'll take 6 and it actually takes 5, you're a happy customer. But if my website says "usually ships in 2 days" and it takes 5, you're upset. Is the actual service any better? Not really. But who will you trust in the future? The losers will add disclaimers, whine about unexpected demand, and make excuses.
Ordered at least fifteen items from Amazon, not just books, to three different addresses with all sorts of wacky giftwrapping (including the "hand done" that they warn may delay by a day). All of it got to each address on time, well wrapped, just as I had asked. Amazon rocks. This was an occasion to remind me why I have ordered from them so many times and will continue to do so in the future. Also ordered a number of books from little independent book stores (my g/f likes old books) and one thing from e-toys. All of the bookshop owners knew what they were doing and sent the stuff properly, as did e-toys. A note for those whose service wasn't as sterling as mine -- when writing letters to executives (customer relations VPs, etc.), I have had good results when I restrain my anger and language, and KEEP IT SHORT -- one page, including address header and stuff, maximum. It is very tempting to go on and on writing down all the details of how and why the service sucked, but put yourself in the position of an exec who is looking for an excuse to blow this letter off. Then pare it down to the absolute minimum length. Precisely describing the problem in detail isn't nearly so important as sounding reasonable (since if you sound reasonable, the reader will assume the problem must have been bad -- otherwise a reasonable person would not have seen fit to write a letter), and expressing your dissatisfaction curtly. Note that it may be worthwhile to write down the details of the incident, since the company may decide to follow up and ask you what exactly went wrong. This is capitalism after all -- you, the customer, reign supreme (Katz blather notwithstanding), since it is your money these companies want. Hence, to the VP in charge of customer relations, it doesn't matter what exactly went wrong -- just that you're dissatisfied. If someone on his staff contacts you to find out the specifics, THAT's when you give over the screed you origianlly wrote, describing in exact detail the indifference of the CS rep, the incompetence of his or her supervisor, etc. BBB
Well, I only ordered one item this christmas, and it arrived on the 3rd day of a 3-5 day ship time estimate. So I'm quite happy.
;D
For those of you who were wondering, it was the Myth Total Codex and it's great
BushLad
Well, I managed a 2/3 success rate down here in Australia. I ordered some products from Wishlist.com.au on the 17th and they arrived on the 23rd. I ordered some toys from ToysAndMore.com.au - also around the 17th - again, they arrived on the 23rd.
:)
:)
I struck out, however, with OzBooks.Com - again, I was placing the order around the 17th and was comparing prices with Amazon. If I had ordered from Amazon and taken the 2 week shipping, I'd have missed Christmas but saved about AUS$50 (using 3-4 day shipment meant an extra AUS$40). The indications from OzBooks were that the goods were in stock but would take 3 to 4 days to arrive. I figured I'd take the chance and save some $$$. Sure enough, no sign of it at the office on Friday - word via email from OzBooks were that they were waiting for product from the USA.
Overall, I'd say that Wishlist.com.au has *really* got their act together and I have no hesitation in recommending them. I've purchased from them a number of times and their whole operation comes across as very professional. Emails confirming that an order has been received, processed and despatched (despatch emails usually sent around 3am on the day that I wind up receiving the goods).
ToysAndMore was in a similar situation with good service and an on-line order query feature. Once the goods arrived, they had full instructions on returning them for refunds, etc. Unfortunately, they were shipping with Australia Post so once it was shipped, it was "into the void"
While OzBooks didn't get here in time, their staff were honest and prompt in their responses via email.
To sum it up, I found on-line shopping to work really well this Christmas, given that I left it late and it only took me a whole 2 hours (while doing other things) The companies I used appeared to have their real-world logistics closely integrated with their web sites (in stock/ship times/etc) and their follow up was excellent. It would have been nice if the books could have arrived, but at least everyone had something to unwrap on "the day"
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
I had a nearly flawless Christmas, with more than half of my gifts ordered online. The exceptions were things mailed so-called "Priority Mail". There were two orders, one from Amazon.com, and one from Buy.com. They were placed in the last days of November, and shipped Dec. 9 and Dec. 2 respectively. Both orders had items shipped the same day UPS Ground, both of which arrived two or three business days later. But the Book and shipped priority mail on Dec. 9 came "about two days later" on Dec. 23, and the CD never came. The addresses were all correct, and all of the other parts of those orders arrived on time, but they were shipped UPS. Buy.com filed a claim for the lost CD, and could only reship the CD via Priority Mail again, and that was taken care of on Dec. 20. No surprise, it still hasn't arrived.
My brother works for "big five" consulting firm. A few days ago he called me up and said, "well, I've learned all about E-Commerce!" Apparently he was recently dispatched to Toys R Us with a bunch of others from his firm to ... package toys. Apparently the senior VPs were in there packaging toys as well. My brother said that at one point he and a senior VP were both looking for a particular type of barbie doll..
Funny stuff.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I cant believe your saying what you are, guarenteed delivery before xmas means itll be there under the tree or whatever on xmas morning. If the company you buy from cant be SURE! it will be in your hot lil hands on or before xmas then what is the "promise" worth?
"hey we shipped it but UPS stuffed up".
like i care if UPS stuffed up!, its not my problem! "you" promised delivery, its not here, what kind of business are you running if you dont take THAT kind of thing into consideration.
You certainly wouldnt want these companies to be in the replacement organs business :) Id like to know how many people who got burnt this year will buy next year.
My uncle ordered a sweater for my aunt from Nordstrom.com. Instead of a medium, like he ordered, they got an Extra-Large. Oops! :P
subject says it all
I did almost all of my holiday shopping online this year, with *generally* good results. There are 2 major beefs I have, that really detract from the experience. First of all, I purchase almost all of my computer hardware online, so I'm used to E-Commerce. As has happened before, an item I ordered for my girlfriend had 84 of them in stock when I ordered. Naturally, I ordered it UPS 2nd day, and that was around December 10th. Just around when it should have been delivered, I got a post card from the vendor telling me it was on backorder (!) and would ship within 30 days. Try telling that to your girlfriend on Christmas. Fortunately, it came on the 23rd, so I was safe. Then, a ring I ordered for her (again, 2nd day UPS) still hasn't arrived, even though I've been billed for it, and haven't been notified as to why it hasn't arrived. This sort of thing also happened to me this summer when I put together my latest PC and ordered with Diamond Viper 770 Ultra graphics card. I was told that there were "plenty" in stock. When I finally got the email confirmation, OnSale.com told me it would be 2 weeks before they even started shipping for the people in the "queue." It's a real drag when you order parts from 5 different places (2nd day, of course) and find that you have a screaming system with no video card.
It also makes that 2nd day delivery for an extra $15 really useful, too. Lesson for the stores: Get ACCURATE, real time stock information to your customers or be prepared to have really ticked off customers.
The higher, the fewer.
My wife and I ordered from EToys several times this season, along with an order from Amazon,
Lands End and a couple other places. The only item that didn't show was one of
about a half dozen Playstation titles ordered for our teenager. I placed one order with EToys last
Sunday evening for 2 GameBoy cartridges our 6 year old wanted. They were warning then that it wasn't
guaranteed by Christmas but automatically upgraded it to express shipping just in case. They arrived
Thursday. My online purchasing has increased dramatically over the past several months and the
only issues I have are with regard to sites that make you pick a login name (airline tickets come
to mind here...) instead of using something like your complete email address. How reasonable do
they think it is to generate a pseudo-random permutation of your name to use as a login? I'm
not going to remember it, and if I write it down I've got to make sure I keep that information with me
in case I need to check on something from [home|office|middle of nowhere].
--Kit
Former Inmate, VA Linux Sanitarium
My wife and I successfully shopped from Amazon.com, Spiegel, Sundance, and O'Reilly. We had no particular problems and everything came in a few days.
The previous poster is absolutly correct. Shopping online is many times safer than physically handing your credit card to somebody in person.
- alltea.com - They sent email confirmation when the order was placed, and another at the time of shipping, which included the UPS tracking number.
- bananarepublic.com - Shipment confirmation email containing FedEx tracking number, but they sent it as an HTML MIME part. Bah.
- sees.com - Shipment confirmation email. This was the first to arrive (via priority mail).
- rei.com - No email, but arrived on time.
The screwy one was not the smallest company, nor would I suppose them to have the least cash to throw at the problem: williams-sonoma.com . I received an order confirmation which contained an order tracking number. After a few days of not hearing further from the company, I checked the status of my order on the web site, and found that it was being "processed," whatever that means. I called customer service, and spoke with a personable fellow who told me that their order database granted far more purchases of this particular item than existed in inventory, and that i might expect to see my gift by January 4. I thanked him for his assistance, and cancelled the order.I immediately went to the brick-and-mortar Williams-Sonoma store about a mile from my house, and bought the item I sought, after hearing that it was one of twelve they had in stock. This raised a question in my mind: would it have been so difficult for the W-S order steering logic to have discovered the availability of that item within walking distance of my shipping address? Why not prompt the customer service rep with this information, or maybe even notify the store to ship it locally? It would seem that, especially for fancy-ass businesses, this simple service (which has to be trivial to implement) would really add to the purchasing experience.
My next question was, how can an online company not assume that gift-like items (excluding things like industrial power generators or tanks) purchased in, say, the month before December 4/24/whatever have the potential to be related to the chanukka/xmas/random holiday? Given that, wouldn't it make sense to actively notify customers if there's even the slightest possibility that an order couldn't be filled in time? I think I recall See's giving a nod to this by automatically upgrading the shipping method to next-day or something a few days before xmas eve. I really would have appreciated this kind of notification from W-S, however, as soon as they discovered the January 4 shipping date.
The best part of the whole thing is, however, that the day after I picked up the item from the meatspace W-S store, another one arrived via FedEx, which will have to be reclaimed by FedEx next week. =)
-jd
I ordered most of my stuff online. Actually, most of my gift-giving was dictated by who gave the best coupons--hey, if they're going to be bleeding money, they might as well bleed it on me. I did order from Amazon (yes, they're evil, but they didn't make money off me, that's for sure). It came in time. BuyJewelry, yep. Bolt, no. Fortunately (?), the thing I ordered from Bolt.com was an inflatible chair for my brother. It did not come :( But what did my brother get me? An inflatible chair! How gift-of-the-magi-esque!
My favorite purchase was with valueamerica.com. They are (mostly) a front for other stores. They also have "ValueDollars" that you can use to get 50% off your purchase. So for my mom I found a $20 box of chocolate that they had free shipping on. So I got it for $10. As of the 20th, it had still not come. Then on the 22nd, a package shows up. Turns out it came from "BuyCandies.com" or something like that. But they didn't have the thing I ordered, so they sent something equivalent (like I could tell the difference) as well as another box of stuff to make up for it. And they sent it next-day FedEx, which must have cost at least the $10 I paid. I was happy with that purchase.
Stil waiting on that chair . . .
I ordered from a few stores over the past 1 and 1/2 months. Outpost.com came out way above all the others. I ordered three items from them at different times over the past few weeks. The orders where all placed between 10 - 11 pm each time. Without fail, less than 8 hours later each item was at my door via Airborne Express (I live near Baltimore, MD). And Outpost dosen't even charge for shipping most items. My last order was placed the night of the 23rd. The airborne guy woke me up banging on the door 7.5 hours later.
As for the others...
toytime.com- had the items in stock and shipped/arrived on time. Only problem is they don't seem to beleive in packing materials other than a carboard box. Things arived a little banged up... like kids care.
toys-r-us.com- never had any decent items in stock to ship. etoys.com did... but I'd rather do without.
cdnow.com- sucked. paid for 2 days shipping for 'in stock' items. Shipped 1 week later... ground. Wrong items shipped.
We did 100% online shopping this year. -- eToys.com was OK -- amazon.com was OK (Really good) -- dvdwave.com was OK (Great communication) -- reel.com was OK (No problems here) -- kbkids.com had problems and said stuff was backordered (We ordered on the 10th and the backorder notice came on the 21st....However, after a nasty note from my wife, the stuff "showed up by magic" within 48 hours... -- toysR'us was not used by us: however I can imagine how much money they lost this year...and how bad of a rep they will have for years to come. -- linuxmall was OK (Came within 48 Hrs!)
Amazon had posted all over their site the deadline for orders to arrive by the 24th: the 22nd. Confident in seeing all this, I ordered my late gifts the 22nd in the afternoon, halfway curious if they could do it. Alas, they could not.
;)
I kept checking the order status page, which said that my items were "shipping soon" until finally I get an e-mail the evening of the 23rd saying that they could not ship my order in time for X-mas. An hour later they shipped part of my order. Houss later they shipped the third item of the three.
Yeah, it's mostly my fault; I'm aware of the realities of the eCommerce world. I did get a $10 gift certificate, though!
I'm Jewish, and I must say, I really got bit in the ass this holiday season. I ordered a Lego Mindstorms set off Amazon.com (not a smart move, but I did it). The site read "2-3 days". Yeah, right. One week later my order entered "Shipping Soon" status. Didn't ship after that for a whole fscking week, by which time Hannukah was over anyway. And what really ticked me off was that little note after every item in their store, "Need this by December 24th? No Problem!"
Damn people seem to think everyone in the world is Christian.
(Excuse the rant)
-Sam Black
I placed an order on 23rd November for a CD that was "ships within 24 hours". I received it 23rd December. I called the place twice in that period asking them what's going on (they're in the same city I am, Sydney, Australia) and they said "we'll follow it up with the supplier and let you know". Needless to say they didn't call back.
To top it off, earlier this week (about the 20th) I looked on their website and noticed they were offerring delivery within 24 hours of ordering to the Sydney CBD (which is where mine was to be delivered to). I wrote an annoyed e-mail to them asking how they can offer 24 hour delivery when they can't even get my normal order there in a month. I got the CD about the same time I got the e-mail reply.
So yeah, avoid ChaosMusic.. the $5 saving or so isn't worth the wait I think :)
I ordered a Sega Dreamcast on the 23rd of November or so. I was told it would arrive well before Xmas. My friend received his about 1 week before Xmas but mine never arrived. The company I ordered from insists it was shipped, so it is either caught up somewhere in the mail system or lost for good.
It was shipped around Dec 10th with Airmail so should be here by now. If it doesn't arrive in the next week or so I will start worrying big time.
I know Dreamcasts were in short supply over the Xmas period but the fact that my friend received his on time has me worried as he ordered from the same place also. The company stated that my order had been shipped. Hopefully I get it soon. I wouldn't know what to do if it never arrives.
they make you think they have any obligation to you but they dont and this shows that you should not in any way rely on them
you must not be brainwashed by hyped propagandized products !?
I ordered several things from them throughout the year and always had problems. Things that were supposed to be in stock weren't, delivery time was bad. Maybe I am an isolated incident but I doubt it.
I placed several orders with outpost.com and without exception, they exceeded my expectations on every order. They offered free next day shipping on items that were in stock, and they were not kidding.
A few examples:
I ordered a scanner for my sister from outpost.com on sunday night, and she called me monday morning to thank me! that was this week!
As a last ditch effort at finding a gift for my brother in law, I ordered a CPU from Outpost.com on Tuesday night around midnight, and it was on my front porch when I got home from work on Wednesday!
I am most impressed with outpost.com's service! (not affiliated, no relation, etc...)
However, I also purchased several items from e-toys on December 6th (go ahead, flame me). While the inventory/ordering/giftwrap/shipping user interface was great (I'm think that some companies should take a look at their order flow processs), their delivery was less than satistfactory.
After placing a large order on 12/06/1999 that was to be delivered to several different addresses (everything was in stock on 12/06/1999), I received an order confirmation an hour later to confirm my order. Very good so far.
Two days later, I receive an e-mail that some of my articles were too big to gift wrap. Didn't they know that at the time of the order? Oh well.
Fast forward a week or so. I get a call from my sister that the order of lego's arrived just fine. Then, two days later, I receive an e-mail from e-toys that the lego order shipped.
To make a long story even longer, every shipping confirmation e-mail was received after the item had arrived. Not really a "bad thing", but annoying.
The worst part is that on 12/20/1999, I received an e-mail that two of my items were OUT OF STOCK! And I ordered them two full weeks prior! Thanks for the advance notice so that I can make other plans...Jeesh!
Anyways, I am VERY happy with outpost.com, and pretty pissed at e-toys.com (I would have ordered from toysrus.com, but their inventory sucked, IMHO)
Have a happy new year, everyone!
Robert
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
Of course, they offered to extend my credit limit, but this would have been a Bad Thing(tm).
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Ordered some brain teasers from hotbox back on the 20th of Nov. Received an email saying we'd receive them within 2 weeks. Waited, nothing appeared. Emailed them again, they "guaranteed" that the package would be here by christmas. Needless to say, nothing at all. They apologized, said no one was working there during the holidays, and we should contact them again about it in early Jan. Won't ever be buying anything from them again, to be sure.
Ordered quake 3/linux from Loki when it was announced (early dec?). Due to a CC failure, was postponed. Provided them with correct info again 3 weeks ago. No news from them, no package. I thought they were receiving the gold master from ID before the 27th, but somehow that can't be right, as I would've had it by now.
Ordered a Dust Puppy doll and a Pitr coffee mug from userfriendly. Was made aware that it wouldn't be here for christmas. As they said, it's not, but it's for myself, so it's all good. At least they notified people that packages wouldn't likely be received before christmas prior to any orders. My best experience with online shopping to date ;)
Looks like I'm the unlucky one here. Unfortunately my Thinkgeek order still hasn't arrived. And after waiting 6 weeks since ordering and 4 weeks since the bill hitting my CC I'm not too hopefull of ever receiving it (with airmail posting)
Sigh, such is life.
-Brad
-Brad
Many ecommerce sites seem to be one gigantic front end web application with no back office to actually fulfill them.
The Gap :-) Saved my dad's life a whole number of ways from the information on his radio show. All orders (lots of 'em) through his website and phone arrive early and with extras thrown in.
We ordered TWO months ago. Before delivery, we called The Gap and asked for a change of delivery address. We quadruple checked and the STILL sent it to some strange combination of the two addresses, and took no phone # for FedEx to call us. Address fixed, package left in lobby of our apt building, not with super - on Gap's instructions. DUH! Now they've sent a new, but incomplete version of the order. Incomplete because they failed to tell us that two items were special promo items that are of limited quantity. 'Team Leader' of Gap customer service "Belinda Johnson" screamed at me after I pointed out to them that they had the wrong address, ordered items to be left unattended, and that FedEx was able to find me for three other separate package deliveries this same week - so FedEx COUN'T have attempted delivery to me four times this past week. They refunded my money. I go the tracking number for the existing new package 50% complete and FedEx will have it to me Monday. We're Jewish.. we don't care about x-mas (no offence meant, of course)
ATT Wireless
Customer service is a nightmare. LONG waits, incompetant help. Sent me the wrong phone, sent me the phone anyway when I cancelled my order, spent four hours on the phone with them. Unable to give discounts. Don't really want to save high-volume users. So I'm at Bell Atlantic now, because I'll only use a unionized company. But they're not reported to be much better. Their phones aren't as nice at ATT's, but their NYC coverage is much better.
Gary Null
We're big health nuts. Gary's the most respectable name around. This guy mainlines Vitamin C.
FedEx
Outstanding, knowledgeable and helpful although not particularly friendly customer service. Just the package, on time. THANK YOU! I often mark packages for two day delivery and get them the next day. Even on x-mas.
3Com
Bought the Home Connect camera. Sweet little unit. Didn't work on my dad's machine. Customer Service only open from 9-6 M-F, duh. On a day off from work called them. They were rather cryptic in their response which I finally figured out, through searching the web, that my stupid MoBo doesn't support Universal Host Controllers, only Open Host Controllers for USB. If they had said, "Sorry buddy, you bought a cheap-ass MoBo that doesn't have the right timing." rather than what I now understand as synonymous "please see your hardware manufacturer" I'd be much happier.
Spend wisely X-mas observers.. donante to the Human Fund.
I ordered a Palm IIIx from Chapters.ca as a Chritsmas present for my mother. It arrived...and then 4 days later I received another Palm IIIx from them! I guess that, in the Christmas rush, they packed and shipped the first Palm without updating their database. Thanks for the Christmas gift, Chapters!
One was late, a small lego toy, which was okay because I had ordered three for that person, and amazon gave me a $10 gift certificate since the gift was late. I have no complaints. Next year I will do 100% of my shopping on-line, rather than the 80% this year.
Personally its not God I dislike, its his fan club I cant stand (bash.org)
I instead received The Power of a Praying Wife.
All things being equal, this sounds like a much funnier book. I might just keep it. heh
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
All the stuff i ordered from fufme.com hasn't arrived yet either......
Secondly, here are some complaints that I have:
My fiancee purchased a palmIIIse for me for christmas (cos it was so purty) well ahead of date. After not receiving said present for me, started calling where he ordered from to find out that they were backlogged and that they would return his call. He received an email two days before christmas telling him that they were unable to complete his order and that they were not going to have anything in stock till after january! He was more upset than I was about not recieving said gift.
The second complaint i had was with amazon.com. I had started shopping there well before christmas (nearly a month) and found that they had everything that I wanted. I bought 12 items in three orders with the promise from amazon.com that they would be there well before christmas (which didn't matter to me as my fiancee and I are going to be celebrating christmas on the 30th). One week after ordering, i received one confirmation that one part of the order was shipped. two weeks after ordering i received the confirmation that the second part of the order was shipped. the main part of the order (8 items) did not ship until the 22nd and arrived on the 23rd. Nearly a month after I had ordered them.
I've also ordered from art.com (who fucked up my orignial order, told me it was out of stock and then proceeded to have a sale with said item -- which i complained about) and dvdexpress.com. Those orders were done early last week with second day shipping applied. No confirmaiton from them that the orders has been shipped (yet again) however since i'm assuming (heh sure right) that they are all listed as being "in stock" that they will ship on monday to be delivered here wednesday at the latest.
I think the thing that bothers me the most is the fact that most people seemingly are more worried about what they are getting than the actual thought. while having a palmIIIse is pretty cool (to me at least), i'm not all that stressed if I don't get it for christmas. i'm just concerned in the fact of how we are evolving as a society (nee community) when it seems that each year christmas becomes more and more commercialised. whatever happened to just spending time with your family and close friends? I've never understood the moral majorities need to be so damn greedy. Remember "he who dies with the most toys -- still dies."
ls
etoys.com:
:)
Last year I ordered some stuff from etoys.com - this was way before their idiocy. But, a year later and I am STILL waiting on them to deliver one of the toys.
This year I did not use them at all, for the obvious reason, but I would not have used them anyway because of the crappy job they did last year.
edmundscientific.com:
Most excellent job. One of the things I ordered was back ordered. However, the item was shipped in plenty of time for Christmas day. Now, if I can get people to order my stuff from them next year, maybe I will finally get one of those lenses so I can melt concrete...
bikeworld.com
Only ordered one thing from them, but they had it to me the next day - and I even ordered it after the fedex cutoff time. Very cool.
netmarket.com
Pretty horrid. I did get the stuff in plenty of time to wrap, but it took them well over a week to get it to me. Not sure that I will buy from them next year for that reason.
knifeoutlet.com
Excellent place. Fastest shipper of the bunch. Not sure I should have bought cooking knives for my dad for Christmas though... he used one of them to cut something and immediately sliced his finger open.
A relative of mine was chosen to be in the report by ABCNEWS, and they were really interested in getting him to appear mad.. but he kept telling them, I shouldn't have waited so long.. it is really my fault, etc. Its amazing how the media can make opinions made by the public look totally different.
getcheap.com is also pricesnap.com and a billion other domain names.
They sell cellular accessories dirt-cheap. Their service and prices are great but dirt-cheap also describes the quality of their products.
The car charger I recieved did not charge the battery on my phone at all, AND it would cause the phone to turn off as soon as you plugged it in.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I ordered my copy of Q3A Special Edition for Linux from Loki
and had no problems. I received it by dec. 22 (I live in Argentina).
I'm so happy I can't stop fragging!!! Can't wait for
the next lan party...:)
Chalito[LPQTP]
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
I had several packages ship out from several online vendors, and for the most part everything went fine. A package shipped via UPS ground made it here before the 2 which were shipped from the same vendor, same day via UPS "second day air". In fact, I have yet to receive one of these "second day air" packages, although it was shipped last Tuesday. UPS has informed me that I am SOL, and that they will not be refunding any part of the shipping cost. Bah!
I had an order placed with (UK based) HMV online. The page displaying the Christmas shipping dates was blank, so I assumed the limit hadn't been set yet. On the 23rd Dec, I was getting a little nervous as the order was still "being processed". The Christmas shipping dates page was still blank, but being the suspicious type I am, I checked the frame source... and found dates. They only displayed properly in MSIE - not Netscape, which I was using! I then found I'd actually ordered a day too late, but fortunately in time to cancel the order and nip off down to the shops!
Ordered 5 CDs from CDNow on Dec 12. All items were claimed to be in stock. The order did not ship until Dec 15 (why?). It is after Xmas and I am still waiting... -- Jacek
I had a bad experience with Oreilly or rather my mother did. She ordered me two books from them that were in stock, the first week of December, and they still aren't here yet. It's not like were really far away, were only in Canada and were pretty close to the border. Needless to say I'm not very pleased because I wanted to learn about C programming over my Christmas break.
i ordered from amazon, jcrew, gap, clinique.com (for mom. . .;-) and netmarket.com. everything arrived on time (read: before christmas) except netmarket.com. (it was only place i could find a black and decker scrub buster for grandma)
it wasn't until i got the confirmation email that i found out it wouldn't arrive on time. turns out that they outsource *all* they're fulfillment. most folks outsource fulfillment -- so that's not a big deal. but they outsource to tons of different vendors. of course, they didn't tell me that.
the website clearly said "pick 2nd day air to guarantee delivery by christmas". but, they dropped the ball. . .
what did i do? well, i just ran out to home depot and bought one. (ugh!)
anybody want a scrub buster? i'll have one arriving beginning of january. . .
I placed an order for components to build a computer system for someone's family, and everything came in with the exception of the Altec Lansing speakers, which were backordered. This was a complete system, from the mouse to the monitor... I ordered all my parts from The Chip Merchant the Saturday before Christmas, and everything arrived on the Wednesday after.
Everything I ordered arrived in time. I ordered stuff from Sovietski and Lark books.
I ordered eight books from them. They offer the choice of having each book sent as it becomes available or waiting until the order is complete and shipping it all at once. I choose the latter with the thought in mind that I would be reducing the amount of shipping materials (including all the insert ads they send) and that UPS would have to drive to my house only once. Well, each book came separately. So, I have eight boxes with eight sets of junk ads to go with them. Then, when I e-mailed them explaining the situation, hoping that they would promise to do it correctly in the future, they ignore my complaint and refund my shipping costs. While I appreciate the free shipping, they don't have a clue regarding reducing packaging. (ing, ing, ing, ing!)
this was a year ago, they said they'd try to have it to me before xmas, but it came a week late. they were very nice about the refund/return.
my family/friends got some generic gifts cuz i had to run in circles at the mall buying stuff to cover the loss.
this year, i bought zip/nada off the net for xmas. it's just too crazy having to depend on UPS/FEDEX *and* overloaded retailers.
i went early to the malls, and searched carefully in the offbeat stores. it came out okay. Actually, I prefer the malls now. There is something impersonal and uncaring about last year -- i like holding the gift in my hand and checking it out.
I'll buy stuff off the web for myself, and maybe for birthday presents, cuz those dates are pretty random through the year, but not xmas. It's too chaotic to consider.
The wierdest thing is, the Toys R Us near my house was fully stocked about ten days ago. But they can't keep up with the web? Something funny there.
BTW, bless you all these holidays -- linux, slash, andover, ACs, first posters, MEEPT!, nice posters (and mean). Tis the season for forgiveness and time for a new year!
(Bill Gates and Microsoft are still getting coals -- bastards).
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Well IMHO, ToysRus messed this up bad. The PR on the radio was disasterous. The CEO whining about their system problems. Sheesh! How about this for a novel idea - order fulfillment no matter what it takes. Since it sounded like they had many orders which were not going to be shipped in time, they could have done it the old fashioned way, faxed the orders to local ToysRus stores and shipped the orders from there. or have the employees deliver in their personal cars. nothing will ever get those customers back for ToysRus. And their website is likely to take a major hit. Some customers will feel so thouroughly screwed that thay won't even shop at their local ToysRus store. The CEO could have been on radio talking about how they were going the extra mile to insure a wonderful christmas for all their customers, no matter what.
Funny, after all the commercials Toys'R'Us had with the kid playing with his rain check receipt; it has become reality?
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
My girlfriend went to thinkgeek for me this Christmas, and spent a half-hour Christmas morning raving about them.
:)
Ordered the stuff the week before Christmas, and received it all two days later, on the same day that the UPS tracking number arrived in her inbox. She says they were also extremely polite.
Cheers to thinkgeek! I LOVE the black penguin polo!
Zeitgeist
perl -e 'print "zj5GuPW9b.sEiQQVgvL1Tr." ^ pack("H48","000f5c3312353e4a166e12311d363d3905172