We had a good experience with LakesideCollection.com...
Written: Nov 23 '04
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| Full Review |
Overall
LakesideCollection.com is a website that has a little bit of everything for your gift-giving needs. We received a catalog in the mail for some reason as of yet unknown and after perusing my wife had a list of items to buy for Christmas gifts. I went online and checked out a few reviews here at Epinions.com and noticed that overall, the feeling was not great. However, the largest complaint was shipping time, and we were ordering in August. We figured we would give them a shot, and if the stuff did not show, we would cut our losses and find other gifts well before Christmas.
Why did we take our chances with LakesideCollection.com?
The reason we went with LakesideCollection.com is a two parter; first of all, as mentioned above we were shopping early. It was very likely that we would receive the gifts prior to Christmas, yet if they did not show we would have enough time to find something else. The second (and more important) reason is that the prices were wonderful. One of the items we found in the catalog was the Little People Noahs Ark set, and it was listed for $16.95. We had not found this at any retail store for less than $20! Each item that we ordered (9 total items) had savings of 10-20% of typical retail price, so there was a savings to be realized by shopping with LakesideCollection.com!
Site Layout
LakesideCollection.com is a catalog company at heart and this spills over into their website. The shopper can look items up by catalog number, which is how I found our order this time around. A user can also peruse their offerings by clicking on the current catalog(s) and perusing page by page. A third alternative is to open the Shop Online drop down menu and select the type of item you are shopping for. Just a few of the choices are listed below:
Apparel
Books
Food
Electronics
Giftware
Housewares
Jewelry
Toys
To say their selection is good is a mild understatement, but from the looks of it much of the stuff is seasonal and special run. In other words, what you see in the catalog and available online may not be available when you come back in three months.
For our particular order, we bought some toys such as the Noahs Ark set, some childrens books and several holiday knick knacks for the upcoming Christmas season.
Ordering/Shipping and Handling
The ordering process is easy and safe on LakesideCollection.com. In our case I looked up the items from the catalog that we were interested in purchasing by catalog number. Enter in the quantity of items you would like and click on Add to Shopping Bag. Once you have found all of your items you can choose to move into the checkout phase.
Checkout is fairly painless and straightforward. If you are a returning customer, plug in your user ID and password and your previously saved data will pop up into the form page. If you are a new customer, simply fill in your billing address and billing information. The site will accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover cards and also will request the security code from the back of the card. Once you have entered in your information over the 128-bit encrypted page hosted by Verisign you will receive your confirmation number and your order is processed.
Shipping is handled through UPS and the scale for shipping charges can be found here:
http://www.lakeside.com/shipcharges.asp
In our case we bought $112 worth of merchandise and the rate was 13.95.
Order Completion?
As soon as the order was placed I received a confirmation email. Then we waited, and waited. From our previous online shopping experiences we expect to have shipment occur either the next business day or two days later, at the most. In the case of LakesideCollection.com, they tell you up front that your order may ship in as many as 14 days. 10 days after we placed the order, it was shipped. An email was sent with the tracking number and a link taking you directly to the tracking page. From the date of shipment it took 6 days to reach our house. Our order was complete and delivered as promised, arriving in good shape!
The Final Word
LakesideCollection.com is a website with a wide selection of items that you probably did not know you wanted or needed. Their pricing is very good, and the shipping rates seem reasonable. The large delay between order placement and shipment seems excessive, although in their defense they do mention it right up front. If you have enough time to wait for the order (up to 24 days) I would recommend using LakesideCollection.com and give it 4 stars. Most folks get impatient with internet orders that do not happen instantaneously, however, and I have to knock it down to three stars for the large time delay.
Recommended:
Yes
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