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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?
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
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.
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 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
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.
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 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
Some of our on line Xmas shopping experiences:
Banana Republic - especially good, rapid delivery. Wife gave wrong billing address (we just moved), they called her at home, at work, and emailed her on the same day. Once things were straightened out, the stuff was here in 3 days.
Cooking.com - paid $17 for expedited shipping on 12/12, arrived on 12/18. Called up and bitched, shipping charge removed, bonus cookie cutters sent.
Yankee Candle Company - Very good, prompt shipping. Established mail order business, no surprise.
Kitchens etc - Easy to order, sale items just like in store, goods arrived in two days.
LL Bean - Easy to order, rapid on-time delivery.
Bath and Body Works - cannot order online
CDNOW - Wish list was nice. My mom was finally able to get me CD's that I want. Free shipping for 3+ cd's. One weird thing - now I get promo email addressed to me but with my mom's name on it.
We did most shopping on 12/5, though. I'm sure that the earlier you ordered, the better off you were. All of the shipping companies' service deteriorates towards 12/25 as well, which potentially tarnishes your opinion of the e-tailer...
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 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 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.
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.
I ordered a couple of DVDs, some were preordred and some were released. A few days later I received an e-mail that said that the released DVDs had shipped. About a week and a half later they show up in my box with a postmark 4 days after they said they were shipped.
I was irate. I contacted reel.com's customer support via e-mail and explained the situation and asked what it means when I get an e-mail saying a product had shipped since I obviously didn't mean that it was turned over to the shipping company.
I got back an e-mail explaining that sometimes there are problems fulfilling orders. I tried to explain that this had nothing to do with fulfilling the order and everything to do with being honest about when the product ships. I got virtually the same response about reel.com fulfilling orders. I gave up at that point.
When I got the DVDs that I had preordred, there was no postmark on the box. Heh.
I'm assuming that e-retailers think by telling someone the package has shipped that will get the customer off of their back. But as Toysrus.com just found out, it only makes things worse in the end.
My mother ordered some gifts from toysrus.com on the day after Thanksgiving. They showed up on Wednesday. We were less than impressed.
Dean's Rule #45. The truth hurts for a moment. A lie hurts for a long time.
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...
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.
- 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.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...
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...
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.
CIO job?
To rehash a certain Userfriendly. .
Customer Dialup connection: 20$
T1 for server: 200$
VA Linux server w/ Apache, PHP, and SQL: 2,500$
The look on the kids faces when the presents don't arrive: priceless
Shopping online e-commerce. Ruined by stupid businesses everywhere.
Of course, I doubt they used a T1 or a VA Linux server. They probably spent more on a T3 and an NT solution, which was less reliable or just not flexible enough to say "Sorry -- this item out of stock." It's not just the CIO who should be fired....
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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 . . .
Of course, they offered to extend my credit limit, but this would have been a Bad Thing(tm).
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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
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.
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