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Finding poor shopping sites - When Brick and Mortar goes dot comSep 18 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Read the epinion reviews and be careful of stores that jumped to dot com.
Brick and Mortar goes dot com Some classic Brick and Mortar stores have gone for shopping sites, yet years later, still don't have it right. Many have great products, and prices but are lousy at online service when problems occur. While I agree that poor shopping sites are the bane of online shoppers; often good retailers acting as adapted sellers on-line cannot make the jump. They won't get it right until they understand that stores and online sites must be a single system. Always read recent Epinions of sites, all of them, sorted by date, as some sites get worse over time. Look for reviews by Top Advisors with negatives about a store. Recommendations: 1) Email everything related to a problem to the customer service center. 2) You may have to cancel or return an order if the item goes on sale, and reorder it. It's nearly impossible to get a price match on the sale items. 3) Understand that the store often must service any problems of the dot com site and is often unwilling to address issues with the dot com. 4) Some dot com delivery costs are not the same as the store delivery cost to your home. Often the store is cheaper for delivery. 5) Read the dot com policies and print them out. They may change from the time you order and the time a problem occurs. 6) Check back with dot com over the next month after you purchase the item, some does not automatically credit price matches on sales, as some stores do. 7) Print everything (emails, and screen prints) out, before you go to the store. 8) Know that you will often be asked to go to the nearest store to resolve dot com issues. Know also that the store may be a separate company. 9) Many Customer Service reps cannot deal with multiple complaint issues on the same item effectively, it's not in the training, or their software to manage this. 10) Often sites have store pickup, but the stores won't know the status of items. If you have problems with the store pickup, ask the store to check the truck manifest. 11) Generally, Direct delivery items do much better than store pickup, check for free delivery (avoid shipping rebates) during sale periods. 12) Set reasonable expectations, but also expect reasonable service. When everything works out with a dot com order, you won't see the problem of conflicting service policies. When a problem occurs, often 2-3 groups must get involved and determine the responsible party, and this affects issue 9 above. 13) For some sites, In home repair service means scheduled service on a week day (when we have time) for repairs on the contract. If you want local, next day, or emergency service for repairs, skip the service contract and hire a local shop. 13) Read recent Epinions, all of them, sorted by date This will provide you with recent experiences on a store, and service trends. Generally, positive reviews are rated more helpful, but I also should have read the negative, inarticulate anger. Look for reviews by Top Advisors with negatives about a store. Some stores and the dot com currently are effectively 2 different inventory, and accounting systems. A dot com order is transferred to the store system when you select store pickup. The dot com may only be responsible for direct delivery. The money follows the inventory system, so the store must resolve problems from the dot com. Some items can only be ordered online, but must be picked up at the store, per policy. (Often, you can't order and pickup these items at the store, nor order the items online and have them home delivered.) Look for stores with price matching on their sites also, some sites will not honor price matches the way their B&M stores do. I have had experiences where we argued for days over issues of responsibility, with Customer Service of a store and Customer Service of a website on different sides, and me in the middle. In many cases, the stores and shopping site are two different companies. It would seem that classic Brick and Mortar stores have had enough time to get their act together. That is not necessarily true, read the epinions.  |
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