Buying a PDA on Dell.com -- a craptacular experience
Written: Oct 21 '01 (Updated Oct 21 '01)
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The Bottom Line
Dell.com is one of those stores that you recommend, but you feel horrible about doing so. :(
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I recently bought a PDA through Dell.com, the Sony CLIE 760C. It was a below average experience, but I eventually got my nice new CLIE in a nice well-packaged box.
PRICES:
If I had a bad time with Dell.com, why do I recommend it? PRICES.
One thing you have to know about buying accessories (including PDA's, digital cameras, etc) on Dell.com is that they have frequent specials that only last a day or two. Either check out "deal" websites (like Dealitup.com) or just check the Dell4me page every once in a while. I bought my CLIE with a 20% off coupon, which is HUGE on a $400+ product. The special only lasted the weekend but they've had several such sales (as well as 10% off sales and $25 off sales) recently. At the time of this writing, they have a 10% off digital camera sale. I don't know if they'll have another 20% off sale in the near future, and I doubt it since I'm sure they lose money with that.
Without specials, the prices on accessories at Dell.com are good, but they vary. Most PDA's, for example, are retail. Some, however, are very well priced. For example, my CLIE retailed for $499, but the price before the 20% off was $469.
Dell.com also has free ground shipping (but I got free overnight shipping -- more on that later). When you go to their website a free shipping window pops up and it says "FREE SHIPPING ENDS SOON!" -- but as soon as the promotion ends, it comes right back, usually.
SELECTION:
Dell.com has an average selection of PDA's and accessories. They have most major PDA's, but their accessories really vary depending on what type you own. They have a lot of HP and Palm accessories, for example, but absolutely no Sony accessories. Most of the accessories they do have are listed as "Out of stock."
It takes Dell a while to put new products on their website. My new Sony CLIE 760 appeared on their website a good two to three weeks after it was released. The same goes for the Visor Pro and Neo. Popular PDA's are also out of stock at a relatively high rate. Considering it's a computer store first and an accessories store 8th or 9th, it's not too surprising. If they carry PDA's, however, they should carry them in stock.
NAVIGATING:
Dell.com is rather poorly designed. Unless you just hop on their website, buy one of their "featured" products, and check out, it's a slight hassle. Here are some problems I faced:
1) To "access" a current promotion, you have to go to the right page first. For example, to access the 10% off promotion and have it added to your card, you had to click the "Software and Peripherals" page first. You can't just go to the Handhelds page; you can't just go to the promotions page.
2) After you load a promotion, you can't load a different one. When they were offering $25 off and 10% off at the same time, my browser loaded the $25 off promotion and I couldn't "shake it off" to add the 10% off promotion instead (you can only have one promo at a time). I eventually gave up (I didn't really want to buy at that time, anyway).
3) It's not intuitive how to add a coupon. First, you have to delete all promotions from your shopping cart, some of which appear automatically (since you can't use a promo and a coupon at the same time, although it doesn't tell you to do this). Then, very small text appears saying "add a coupon!"
4) For some reason, when I made my purchase, it was on "Ground shipping: $0.00," but when I checked, 2-day and overnight shipping was free too! This isn't a problem, but this wasn't mentioned anywhere on their site. I gladly took them up on their offer, though. :)
5) It's really hard to find accessories. You can sort accessories by manufacturer, but not by "Platform." If I wanted to find an accessory made for the Sony system, I had to sort through every single accessory manually. To find memory stick memory, I had to look in the digital camera accessory section, even though memory sticks are made for PDA's, notebooks, and MP3 players as well.
SHIPPING:
Although I had no problems getting free overnight shipping, shipping didn't seem overnight. It took about five days to get my product. Dell told me my "estimated arrival date" was about a week and a half after my order date. I guess this is an automated system they use for computer orders, and it's understandable since they have to make computers by hand. For peripherals, though, they just have to load it from their warehouse. There's no logical reason why their estimated date was so long, or why my package didn't arrive in 2-3 days, if not 1 day. I'm not complaining since my overnight shipping was free, but some people undoubtedly pay $15 for overnight shipping and still wait 5 days for their order to arrive.
Dell's order tracking SUCKS too! They use their own tracking system, instead of sending to UPS etc's page (I didn't even know which carrier took my package). Their tracking system didn't even tell me my order had shipped until after it had already arrived at my house. Bad bad bad.
CUSTOMER SERVICE:
It's getting worse. After I ordered my very cheap CLIE, I called customer service to ask if I could apply the $100 off coupon instead of the 20% off. Yeah, they were both great deals and I really shouldn't complain, but I'm not one to pay $20 more than I could.
My first call I was on hold for about 15 minutes and I hung up (I had to go). The second call it took about 15 minutes again and the customer service people answered. The guy seemed royally confused and told me the sales people were the only ones who could add coupons after a sale. They redirected me to sales. After another 15-20 minute wait, some guy answered. He asked me what I'd like to purchase, and I said "Well, I'm not buying anything really, but this is regarding a PDA sale." He immediately said, "You have to buy something, this is the sales line. You must need customer service." I explained to him what my situation was and he tried to redirect me back to customer service, but I said no thanks and hung up. I was really more polite than I sound here, but they were slightly rude and very unknowledgable (but then again, I had a strange request).
So anyway, I cut my losses and ordered a SECOND CLIE with the coupon. I figured I'd send my first one back or sell it on ebay if the second one showed up (but I was hesitant to cancel it because I wasn't sure they'd honor a $100 off coupon "floating" on the Internet, which was fine with me, but I figured I'd use it anyway just in case it was a legitimate coupon).
In short, they said it was in stock (even days after I ordered) but they never sent it. The tracking page said "delayed" (but of course, that's it). After another crappy call to customer service they told me it was out of stock, and that the coupon was ok (but I don't really put too much stock in what they say).
Anyway, my CLIE is still indefinitely delayed (almost a month after I ordered it while it was in stock). I'd cancel it but why bother? I might as well enjoy the ride.
Dell has a 30 day return policy, but using that must be harder than hunting snipe (luckily I haven't had to use it.. yet).
Their customer service is a 360 turn from the fantastic customer service I received at Handspring.com (you can see my review of that to see what a great web store is).
OVERVIEW:
Horrible customer service, bad tracking, mediocre web page, good prices, terrific specials.
If I didn't get the best deal ever on my PDA, I wouldn't recommend Dell for non-computer purchases. Likewise, I only recommend Dell to you if you get a killer deal! If you don't, spend $10 or whatever more to get your purchase at a "friendlier" dealer.
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
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