It occured to us at www.eStyleSense.com that even though there is a growing confidence in the ability to shop safely online, there are still folks that buy from web-based companies that are being run like a hobby, and not a business.
We were pointed in this direction by one of our own customers who had a very bad experience with not just one, but a few sites when she was trying to buy a Prada key chain. You can read her entire email at http://www.estylesense.com/eStyleSense-Rave-Reviews-s/38.htm. The first site told her it was out of stock. This happens to us as well. A customers logs on at 2 am and buys an item of which we sold that last one at 10pm. We call our distributor the next business day and they are out as well. This can’t be avoided.
However, she then ordered the item from another site that sent her a confirmation that the item was in stock and would be shipped. Then she didn’t hear from them for weeks even after she tried to contact them via phone and email. No one was returning calls or emails for this company! These companies give all web-based etailers a bad name. The sites are not being run like a business with attention being paid to customers each and every day.
At eStyleSense.com, if you call us we are usually sitting next to the phone and will answer your questions, place your order, check on your order, etc. right them and there. If we are in another area tempoarily we will call you back within the hour with very, very rare exception. If we make a mistake we will tell you so that we can help you with another item or you can go elsewhere to find that item. We’ve even helped people find items at competitor sites because we couldn’t get it for them.
If you order an item this holiday season from a company you’ve never done business with before, call them. Either place the order over the phone with them and get the customer service persons name, or within a day of placing the order online give them a call to check on the status.
And just becuase it’s a well known company don’t assume that your order is being handled properly. In many cases traditional brick and mortar retailers have had to develop a web-based operation to be competitive. But running a web-based operation is a completely different animal. It is typically run by people that have no experience in the brick and mortar side and visa versa. The traditional retailer may be great, but they could have poor or non-existent customer service on the web-based side.
To give an example, I ordered one item with two parts from Levenger. Levenger is a catalog company with a web site that has high quality items and a very good reputation. The item was a lap top desk with an attachable light. I bought it for my son and had it sent to him at college.
After the initial order and confirmation of that order I gave it a week or so before I started thinking about my order. I contacted Levenger by email and received an email back saying that the light (that attached to the lap top desk) was being shipped, but that the desk itself would be shipped at a later date. Huh? What good is the light without the desk? The desk was eventually shipped and received a week or so later.
As mentioned above, Levenger has a great reputation for quality and the items that came lived up to that reputation. But if this were a gift for the holidays or a birthday, I would have been very dissapointed that it came seperately and it took so long. Not to mention the added hassle my son had to go through to pick up two items at their centeralized mail center instead of one.
So call the etailer about your order especially if it’s a holiday gift. The holidays create enough stress without having to worry about a multitude of items that aren’t coming in as fast as you want or need them.
Tagged:holiday shopping online shopping
