Infuriating Customer Service-Great Sales
Written: Jun 22 '04 (Updated Mar 11 '08)
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Sierra Trading Post is a wonderful place to purchase odds and ends clothing and sporting goods for men, women, and children. It is a wonderful place to purchase because of the very good price and the relative timeliness of delivery if you pay for the more expensive service.
Delivery charges are based upon total price of merchandise and choice of surface, expedited ground, federal express 3 day and federal express 2 day service. THe cost for an order between $30.01-$60 is $7.25 for surface which takes9-12 business days; $8.25 for expedited, which takes 4-6 business days (in my case it took 5 days; fex ed 2 day delivery costs $15.25 and 2 day is $27.50.
If one lives in the territories or has a post office box, there is no fed ex delivery.
The prices are excellent for merchandise and when there are sales, the prices are even better if that is possible. There is a Bargain Barn where there is always a 60% off sale.
The website is clean and easy to read. It may not be sexy in terms of graphics but the web page is well displayed. On the right hand side is a listing of all products available for Outdoor gear; Men's Clothing, Shoes & Boots; Kids Corner: Home Decor (which includes Kitchen, Bath, Pet Gear, Artists Prints, and more); Bargain Barn; Web Only Items (There is also a catalog; and New Items (they add new items at least weekly). The search index is also by Brand Name Search; Search by Size; Search by %savings; Multisearch; and Online Catalogs.
When you choose an item, there is a listing of size availability on a chart and the opportunity to zoom to enlarge the product for viewing.
Often when you go to choose the product there will be other colors and sizes available (or not available) as were listed on the products initial home citing. Sometimes that can be exciting or disappointing. It can be disappointing because intially your size and color in the product is listed and then you go to purchase the product and the chart does not include the size or color you initially wanted.
There are many well known brands. Other than the manufacturers for shoes that I list below other merchants are: Bushnell,Joseph Abboud,Maxx New York,Tsunami, and Nikon.
The products and prices are really a find in terms of quality and the great sales. Generally it appears that the items are odd lots so there are only a few products in a few sizes available.
Purchasing online is easy. You just go to the product, put it in your shopping cart and check out. There is also an on-line customer service chat.
However, if you need to ever return something or heaven forbid, something gets lost in the mail, you have to have an amazing amount of patience or have a great supply of the ability to shrug off the ineptness and actual rudeness of the customer service people.
I made a purchase of Wolky Sandals at an incredible price-$40 instead of the $120 in the specialty stores. However, after I wore them once for an hour, the dye on the shoes came off all over my feet.
I was not concerned about returning the shoes because they advertise on the website about their 100% guarantee and that no sale is ever final.
I called up customer service and explained the situation and she said that there would be no problem, just return my shoes parcel post and the company would credit me.
After a month of not being credited, I called the company. They said that I should give it another week. I called back the person I spoke with. It was not an easy feat to get hold of her in the calling center because the supervisor answers the phone and makes it very difficult for you to speak with the person. The supervisor told me that she was the supervisor and aware of the situation and was the one monitoring calls to her employee.
After several phone calls, the supervisor did not approve of the form that the USPS wanted me to send to collect my money for the lost package.
Finally, after agreeing to write a letter that the company would not have to pay for the lost package, they said that they would sign the form that the United States Post Office requested stating that I never received the package.
Well, just this week, I received a credit on my account---the shoes apparently showed up to Sierra Trading Post. I also received a not so pleasant phone call message on my home answering machine saying that my account was already credited a day earlier and there was no need to fill out the form and she was going to tear it up.
Well talk about good customer relations!
It took forever for the company to find the missing shoes and instead of an apology, I got a reprimand.
There is no doubt in my mind that the products such as Wolky, Mephisto, Josef Seibel shoes and the variety of sporting goods are quite fine.
The prices can be less than 60-80% off. THe sales are good although you never know what merchandise they will have and usually they sell just a few sizes in the product.
I had a miserable experience with trying to resolve a potentially lost item which I had paid post office insurance for. I don't know why the return department has to be so difficult to the consumer.
I would not purchase from Sierra Trading Post again despite the excellent prices.
I do not intend for this review to sound like "sour grapes" because of a bad experience with Sierra Trading Post. For me with an online store experience, it is important to know that if I have a problem with a store that is located in Cheyenne, Wyoming and I am in Boston, Massachusetts, that I can speak to a person and get results. It took close to 6 weeks to resolve this issue. I know that if I had a problem with "lost" merchandise with a store like LL Bean, it would be resolved immediately and I would be a return customer (which I am).
However, this was my first experience purchasing with Sierra Trading Post which I did tell the customer service person who tried to assist me with resolving the credit for the package that did not show up to the warehouse for 6 weeks. She was very pleasant but told me that her hands were tied because of the rules and policies of the company.
I just felt that the customer did not come first and this took many phone calls and requested phone appointments on the end of Sierra Trading Post to tell me whether I should wait one more or 2 more days or a week or 2 weeks to see if the package had arrived. I was frustrated because the US Post Office had made it so easy for me to get the claim resolved and it was Sierra Trading Post who had put me waiting and waiting eventhough they were not financially responsible for the merchandise.
Recommended:
No
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Wolky sandals
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Epinions.com ID:
friendly2
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Location: Newtonville, MA USA
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 1 member
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