the weekly whinge

I’ve used the components supplier farnell before and found them to be excellent. Up until recently I’ve been able to get around their minimum order value for free delivery because work has an account with them; however work has changed their policy so I can’t order stuff through them any more (grrr).

So anyway, I needed to repair the PSU on a Topfield I got off ebay and the 6 capacitors I need came to £2.69 inc VAT; I figured I’d have to bite the bullet and pay a fiver or so for delivery (although I wasn’t too happy about it). Imagine my surprise, therefore, when the checkout came out at “free same-day-dispatch”.

It turns out that farnell abolished the minimum order requirement for website cash orders at the beginning of the year. So hurrah for them!

Edit: they arrived next-day too. Brilliant!

Reedit: no-minimum-order policy has now been reversed. Booooo!

Tags: online ordering.

So I placed an order for collection at my local store with boots online on the 16th September (yes, boys and girls, that’s 12 days ago). They told me at the time it would be available to collect by the 23rd, which I thought was a bit slothlike, but hey!, how urgently can you need toothpaste, right?

The despatch note came on the 18th, which gave me hope that I might be experiencing shiny clean teeth and that fresh breath that 3 cups of coffee and a mustard-filled sandwich does its best to destroy (and I’m sorry but the Colgate I can get from everywhere – actually that’s another rant, but I’ll leave that for another day – just doesn’t compete) within a reasonable amount of time; however it’s now the 28th and I’ve still not had the nod from Boots to tell me that I can collect.

I sent them a polite email on Friday and have heard nothing. So today I tried a different tack – this is the text of the email I sent this morning.

Order status is despatched and has been for nearly a week. I dropped into the store on Friday and they suggested that the next delivery date would be Saturday but your status still says “despatched”. Now given that I could probably have attached the package to a tortoise and it could have travelled the 20 miles or so from Nottingham to Alvaston by now, unless you’re shipping from the Outer Hebrides using the pony express I’d say it has either not been despatched at all or it’s been lost on the way.

Can you investigate and let me know when you expect to be able to fulfil my order?

So I guess either I’ll now never receive it or I’ll give them a laugh and they might actually do something. We’ll see 🙂

Edit – the automated bounce email I got back states (about their 0845 number):
You will pay at the local rate and calls may be recorded for training purposes
I thought they weren’t allowed to call 0845 “local” rate any more?

Update (2009-10-01) I received a phone call from a very helpful boots rep today: their courier has admitted mislaying my parcel. Oh well, at least they’re dealing with it!

Tags: boots.com, colgate, online ordering, theramed, toothpaste.

I need a new tyre (I think mine has a slow puncture) and I found these guys – tyre fit direct – who seemed to be offering the best deal for an on-site fitting (actually the best price at all – even cheaper than the remarkable black circles) for the Conti I wanted.

So I go through the order process, which seems all well and good: I get an email back telling me that most orders will, if placed before 10:30 (mine was around 9:33), be fulfilled the same working day.

I sit back and wait but, when lunchtime arrives and I’ve heard nothing I figure I should check to make sure that the order hasn’t just disappeared into the internet ether. One phone call to tyrefitdirect and “they’re trying to find a fitter nearby as their normal fitter’s van is broken”. Hmm.

At 13:57 I get a short phone message telling me that they’re cancelling the order; they’re not sure what’s wrong with the van and they don’t know when it will be fixed. I get the distinct impression that the van doesn’t actually exist.

There are two things wrong with this. First, their tagline is “Mobile Tyres Fitted Nationally”, not “Mobile Tyres Fitted Nationally (as long as you’re in one of our three delivery areas)”. Second, can it really take four and a half hours to figure out they won’t be able to fulfill the order?

For future reference, Mr TyreFitDirect, if you’re serious about “fitted nationally” the right thing to do is to send a non-local van to fit my tyre. It may cost you a bit more but it will pay in the long run because you won’t get bad publicity like, erm, this blog post.

Failing that, tell the customer up-front and don’t wait for him to call you.

You see, the problem is that the impression I now have is that tyrefitdirect.co.uk are just a bunch of cowboys who probably have a couple of fitters signed up and (if you’re lucky enough to live in the right area) will turn up with the wrong tyre and expect you to accept it because you’ve waited all day and you need the tyre to get home. So next time I shan’t even bother and I recommend that others don’t either.

So I’ve gone with the excellent e-tyres instead, who are a little more expensive (actually 10% more) but who have delivered on their promises and done an excellent job the last three times I’ve used them. I suppose “you get what you pay for” applies here as anywhere else.

Edit on 7th October: I spoke too soon – etyres have just called to say their systems were down overnight so now I have to wait another day. They are at least apologetic enough to send me a £10 voucher though, which is more than our friends at “Mobile Tyres Fitted Nationally” ever did, and at least they’re coming tomorrow (touch wood…).

Tags: online ordering, tyres.

This (7dayshop.com) initially looks neat but when you think about it, given that the idea of a USB drive is that it’s as small and unubtrusive as possible it really has no value except as a gift for a geek who likes poker.

Ah. Won’t need to buy flash drives just before Christmas then…

Tags: 7dayshop, online ordering.