On Line Shopping

You know when you’ve been doing something for ever (cartwheels, perhaps) and someone else says they wouldn’t know where to start and you look at them, puzzled and concerned…

Well, I’ve been on-line shopping since before my son was born, so that’s over 10 years now. I did it before paypal existed. And one of my friends confided in me that she’s scared of on-line shopping, in case… in case… she couldn’t articulate her fears but there were there and they were real. So I decided to write about my shopping experiences, and tell you about the Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

The Good:

These companies are the standard bearers, the shopping experience to which every other on line company should strive:

Amazon.com – yes that amazon. It’s a wonderful company, I own no shares in it, but actually feel customer loyalty to it. They have a clear cart, you understand where everything is, it’s a very easy site to navigate and the more you use it the better it reflects your needs. They have free shipping (for orders over $25.) My only complaint is if you ever want to call them and speak to a human, it takes a bit to find a phone number, but emailing complaints or queries is very easy and they always answer quickly. If you ever have problems with a product or delivery, they always err on your side.

Zappos.com - I recent bought a pair of shoes from them, and they are the guys who introduced me to the free return option. So impulse buying becomes even easier! The shoes didn’t fit right and they didn’t have the size bigger, so I had to do a straight return. I gave them back to the UPS guy who visits my building and the next day I got an email from them, saying they had received my return and refunded me. Gold standard service, I will buy from them again.

Freshdirect –this is for New Yorkers only, but it’s a wonderful grocery shopping site. It’s range is oddly limited, but it’s recipe option (they give you a recipe and then you can order all or some of the ingredients listed below, they email you the recipe on delivery) is just terrific. I have made errors that were entirely my fault – (I ordered decaffeinated instead of caffeinated coffee, big mistake!) and they corrected it immediately, no questions asked. They have great customer service.

The Bad:

Ebay is iffy. My main problem is with their feedback system - if you have a 100% record and you complain about bad service, the guys you complain about will give you a negative feedback and spoil your rating. So I think it actually stops a lot of people justifiably complaining and gives people artificially high ratings. I notice that some people start getting a lot of neutral responses, which doesn’t affect ratings. I take those neutrals to mean that this person is unreliable and avoid business with them if possible. I’ve been both a buyer and a seller, and have had a few very unsatisfactory buying experiences which were not resolved to my satisfaction at all. But my selling experiences have all been terrific (and I am counting my blessings there, because if the person doesn’t pay, you’re stuck in limbo waiting for them.)

The Drug store. They bombarded me with emails saying I had been such a good customer, I would get a discount, or I had spent so much I got 10% of my previous purchase back as shopping dollars – but I had to spend them within a month. If I’ve just spent $90 with you, I may not need to spend more within 4 weeks, and you sending me daily emails saying I’m going to loose my $9 advantage is not helpful, I feel badgered. Also, if you really appreciate me so much, why that time constraint? If I was a good customer, reward me properly, not with all these silly rules and limitations. Give me free shipping for next purchase, no matter when it is, give me something I want, not something that suits you. I didn’t get the next order and won’t be buying back from them in a hurry. And that’s a service problem, not a product problem; the products they sent me were fine.

The Ugly

Actually, even the ugly is not too bad. I’ve never been ripped off, ordered and paid and not received something. But I’m cautious in the sites I choose, they have to have a certain look or have a RL existence too.

iKitchen – I ordered and paid, and waited, and waited. And finally called after 6 weeks. They told me that my product was on back order, but had never emailed me this information. They told me it was in stock now, and I should get it in 2 weeks. I waited, and waited. After 3 weeks I got an email saying they didn’t have it and they refunded me. Not ugly in that I was ripped off buy annoying and I had to do the chasing. Bad customer service, I won’t go there again.

Overstock.com – they have a $5 restock cost, as well as return shipping fees. It’s just not worth it. There are much better customer service sites out there.

Ikea. I hate Ikea with a hatred that is passionate and personal. I love their stock, it’s their customer service that lets them down so badly. I preface this by saying in live in Manhattan, and the nearest Ikea is in Paramus, so it’s not like it’s a 10 minute jaunt to return or pick something up. The problem was theirs – they sent me this enormous wardrobe without the screws, so I had a million pieces with no way of putting it together. So I called, and waited, and waited. I put it on speaker. I was on hold for 30 minutes. Really. They said they would mail me the screws. Well, they didn’t. So a few days later I rang again. Another 30 minute wait. Please send me the screws. The sweet customer service girl in North Carolina promised me that the store in New Jersey would send me them asap. By the third call the girl said that there was a note in my file that I had been upset in my last phone conversation, but she couldn’t get the New Jersey office to do anything other than forward my request. It took a month for the screws to arrive, in the meantime the space was overwhelmed with Ikea pieces (we had opened every box to search for the screws) and mess. Ironically, if I had ordered the entire thing on line, and not gone in to NJ, the service would have been better. Ikea gets zero for follow through on its customer service.

So like the girl with the curl, the good is very, very good and the bad is so not worth it.

Almost forgot to mention ebates! If you link to them before you shop, you will get all sorts of discounts and points and cash rebates. Worth doing! (though I often forget)