Sears.com: The Worst Online Shopping Experience I’ve Ever Had
Written: Jan 02 '12 (Updated Jan 02 '12)
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My husband and I purchased our first Christmas tree from Sears in 2004 and have since associated the store with Christmas decorations. We take a trip to the store to see the ornaments and other decorations they have available every December. Though they didn’t have the garland we were looking for, we found some beautiful ornaments that would work well for the second themed tree we’ve always wanted to have. Since we didn’t need the items immediately, we decided to wait until the after Christmas sales to do our shopping. The items seemed to be available online and we thought it was a convenient way to order them. Our experience turned out to be anything but convenient.
Website
Sears.com is the online presence for the department store, offering the products sold in their brick and mortar stores with additional items as well. The site sells clothing, tools, electronics, home goods, fitness equipment, jewelry, toys and more. The site is also set up as a marketplace to give customers the opportunity to purchase products sold by third party retailers, providing an even larger selection of products.
Website navigation on Sears.com is mediocre. The products are sorted into logical categories, which can be accessed and browsed from a menu at the top of every page. Certain categories aren’t so easy to find such as seasonal items, but overall browsing is efficient enough. I preferred using their search feature, which provided accurate search results. I felt the marketplace feature was detrimental to both navigation options, as an enormous selection is presented, but many of the items aren’t sold by Sears and therefore don’t fall under the same shipping rules and return policy. I had to remember to continuously click the “Sears Only” button every time I searched for anything.
The product pages are detailed enough to make educated purchasing decisions. A picture of each product is included, which can be enlarged for better views. In some cases, additional angles are provided. Each page has a thorough product description with pertinent details about the item. Pricing is clearly indicated on the right side of every page. A shipping and in-store pickup option is offered for some items. There is an option to check store inventory for those that are available for in-store pickup.
Customers may order from Sears as a guest or with a free account. The ordering process was easy to follow, but buggy. I had to repeat the majority of the ordering process five times for one order. I would click “checkout” and follow the prompts to input my billing and shipping information, then clicking continue would bring me back to the cart summary with the “checkout” button. It was extremely frustrating and I did nothing different during my fifth attempt when it worked.
My Experience
My entire order experience with Sears.com could best be described as an epic failure. I can honestly say I’ve never had such a disastrous online shopping experience.
The fiasco started with an order on December 28th. I referred back to the links for the Christmas ornaments I had wanted to purchase, looking forward to taking advantage of the after-Christmas sale. The items were priced at more than 50% off from what they had been a few days before. I chose several different types of ornaments and discovered every one of them was no longer available for shipping, but only store pickup. I chose store pickup at two different stores because I happened to be traveling to the town of the other store for a holiday gathering within a day of the order. I placed the order on the evening of the 28thfor seventeen items totaling $86.59. Overnight, I received an email informing me the payment could not be authorized and instructing me to log-in to their website to update my payment information. I don’t know if this was an error on my bank’s part or Sears, but the order was shown as cancelled by the time I logged in the next morning. I was irked that they did not give me much time to correct any errors and put off reordering until the next afternoon.
I placed my second order a few hours later. Some of the items were no longer in stock and I wouldn’t have an opportunity to get to the other store, so my order was scaled down and limited to items that were in stock at my local store. I placed an order for a tree skirt that was available for shipping and seven packages of ornaments that were listed as available at the closest store. Two charges were authorized on my card; one for the tree skirt ($27.71, which included $5.50 shipping) and another for the ornaments that were being picked up ($34.63). I was a tad annoyed about being charged for the ornaments prior to the pickup in the first place. It makes sense for online shipped orders to be charged as the item is leaving Sears’ possession to be sent to the customer, but not for in-store pickups. I have ordered online from other stores such as Best Buy and was charged only at the time of pickup. Sears may want to have a guaranteed payment for items they’re taking off the sales floor, but most stores take that risk for customer loyalty purposes. My concerns became very relevant an hour after my order when I received an “Urgent Attention Needed” email stating that their “final inventory check has revealed that the item(s) are not in stock at the store.”
Having worked in retail before, I can understand how inventory inaccuracies occur, but I was annoyed that they didn’t fill the items they did have. I checked their website a third time and saw that the stock information had changed for some of the items I had ordered. Since I figured their inventory was updated when they tried to pull the items for my order, I decided to try my order one more time. After all, by this time the only order I had successfully placed was for the tree skirt that would be shipped to my house to match the ornaments which had all been cancelled up until this point. I placed another order for the three types of ornaments that were now listed in stock and received an email informing me the order would not be available for pickup until the next day since it was placed within an hour of closing. That frustrated me a bit given that I had placed the two previously cancelled orders within plenty of time to get to the store prior to closing, but had to wait due to the issues the store was having. I received the email informing me the order was ready for pickup the next morning and went to pick the items up that afternoon.
My pickup experience was better than my order experience, but only marginally. The pickup area of the store was a small, under-heated room in the back with a bunch of teenagers staffing it who could have easily been mistaken for loitering customers. For some reason, they weren’t wearing any noticeable type of uniform. We were not greeted and they only helped us when my husband and I inquired if this was the correct place for pickup. One employee asked if I had my receipt and I informed him that I had the email since it was an online order. He gave me a baffled expression, before asking for the payment credit card. He told me he couldn’t find the order but persisted after I confirmed it was definitely the payment card and found it a few minutes later. He came out with four boxes of ornaments. I asked if there was another item for the order, as I should have received five boxes. The employee looked at the order again and informed me that the last item was delayed and would arrive in 30-35 days. I was annoyed that this information was not emailed to me at any point, nor was it mentioned in the email that declared the order ready for pickup. The item had been listed on the website as “available now” in store. I paid for the items they did have and left. When I checked my bank account, I noticed they again had preauthorized the orders and charged me separately for the last item. There were two charges: $26.00 and $12.97.
I have not yet received a response to my email to Sears’ customer service regarding my experience. In keeping with the quality of service I received thus far, I was unsurprised when I received an email this afternoon saying, “Attention needed for your Sears.com order: We apologize, an error occurred while processing your order. The order has been cancelled” and providing a customer service number to “place a new order.” I didn’t know to which order the email referred and what type of “error” occurred, so I called the number. The tree skirt is no longer in stock and they cancelled the order. Not only did I not “place a new order” but I don’t expect to ever order from them again. In two days, I placed three orders, had two orders completely cancelled (one in two parts), had a poor pickup experience, had another item delayed without being informed, and had $101.31 authorized from my bank account for only $26.00 worth of product. Their phone customer service was “sorry for my inconvenience.” Well, now I feel so much better about the aggravation and look forward to waiting for my $60+ back over the next few days because it’s more important that Sears hold my money for the inventory they may or may not have.
Obviously, I do not recommend shopping with Sears.com.
Recommended:
No
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Christmas Ornaments, Tree Skirt
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About the Author
Member: Jamilynn
Location: Staten Island, NY USA
Reviews written: 284
Trusted by: 47 members
About Me: Trying desperately to catch up with reviews. So many products, so little time :-)
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