Gevalia.com: Great Coffee, Useless Website
Written: Jul 08 '02 (Updated Jul 11 '02)
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I can't exactly say that I used Gevalia.com last winter to purchase a 3-month coffee subscription for my father for Hanukah. There were so many technical problems with the website over the course of a week that if I didn't have friends that subscribe to this company through mail order and my father hadn't specifically requested their coffee, I would not have purchased from them. At the time I wasn't even able to register at the website, much less order from it, so I ended up using Gevalia.com to research their products, but calling them directly to order, which I consider to be a waste of my time.
The Web Site
The Gevalia website is primarily designed in deep reds, gold and white. The red and gold give the website a royal feel, but the dark hues combined with small lettering make it a little difficult to read. There are three main areas to Gevalia.com, Coffee, Catalog & Gifts, and Cafe.
The Coffee section represents Gevalia's mainstay as a company, their coffee and tea subscription services. However, as someone who was visiting the site to purchase a gift subscription, rather than a subscription for myself, the website was frustrating. The Coffee section is only for purchasing subscriptions for yourself.
The Catalog & Gifts section is a standard online store. The categories are currently Summer Celebration, Gevalia Coffees, Gevalia Teas, Gift Baskets, Coffee Accessories, Tea Accessories, Sweets & Desserts, Famous Markets, Kitchen & Table, Specials & Promotions, Gift Certificates, Gifts Under $50. As implied by having a category for gifts under $50, most of the items and subscriptions available from Gevalia.com are fairly pricey. It is ironic that the first product listed in the Gifts Under $50 category is a Gevalia Thermal Carafe Coffee Maker for $59.95. However, the remainder of the items under this category are priced from $14.95 to $49.95, with the majority above $30.
The Cafe section of Gevalia.com is for general information about coffee, tea, Gevalia as a company, chefs, recipes and an Amazon.com bookstore. If you want to purchase any of the books, you are better off going to Amazon.com yourself, signing up as an affiliate, then purchasing through your own affiliate link because you will receive 5% to 15% cash back on your purchases, payable quarterly after $25 accrues.
Shopping
What should be a simple shopping experience with Gevalia.com turned into something of a nightmare.
I suggest registering with Gevalia.com first if you are seriously considering a purchase. The registration information includes your name, address, phone number, and email address.
It was very difficult to find a gift subscription for my father. I couldn't find it under Coffee nor Catalog & Gifts. As I revisit the website today I don't know how I found what I was looking for because I can't find it again. That the website only displays six items at a time in the search results makes it even more annoying. Even downloading their e-catalog didn't help. Somehow, I eventually found a three month subscription that I could give as a gift.
Item descriptions are clear and adding an item to your shopping cart are easy. Select the variety (if applicable), quantity, who you are shipping to, and gift wrap (if applicable, $4.95 per item), then click Add to Basket. After you click Add to Basket, two more buttons appear, Continue Shopping is automatically selected and Continue Checkout is available.
Purchase
At $5.55 to $7.45 per half pound of coffee, Gevalia coffee is expensive. If you are looking to make an individual purchase, in the e-catalog there is a discount offer of 15% off any individual purchase of $65 or more through November 15, 2002. Enter WOT005 as your promotion code.
Checkout is where I ran into serious problems last winter. The Shopping Basket displays all of the items you have ordered, Shipping Rates ($5.95 to $16.95 Ground, $8.95 2nd Day, $15.95 Next Day), and Taxes (Sales taxes are collected for AZ, NJ, WV, NY, PA, and CA.). You can change quantities, request gift wrap or remove each item. On this screen you can enter any promotion code and a link to store policies is available.
At the Shipping screen, your information will be entered if you registered with the site and you elected to ship to yourself. You select your shipping method here and may enter a gift message up to 50 characters. You can also choose to save the shipping information to your online address book.
At the Billing screen, you enter your billing address and credit card information. The credit cards accepted are Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diner's Club and Discover. There is also a link for a printable order form to use by phone, fax or email.
The Preview screen is where your order is displayed and you confirm your order. I would get all the way to accepting the order, then there would be an error. I couldn't tell if my order was accepted or not. I ended up calling Customer Service to confirm.
Customer Service
Customer Service is available from 1-800-GEVALIA (800-438-2542) or CustomerService@cl.gevalia.com. Customer Service answered promptly and was very courteous, but was not helpful. I was told that orders entered at the website were not available for 24 hours and that I would have to wait a day to find out if my order went through or not. As it turned out, there was no record of my registration and order a day later. I ended up calling Customer Service and ordering over the phone. If Gevalia coffee hadn't been specifically requested as a gift, I would not have ordered from this company.
Shipping & Product
On the bright side, all of the coffee that I ordered arrived on time at my father's house and he very much enjoyed the coffee. Gevalia is a Swiss company doing business internationally and their product is high quality.
Bottom Line
I recommend Gevalia coffee, but not their website. I encountered too many problems searching and ordering to consider Gevalia.com useful. If you you want to enjoy their high quality products, call 1-800-GEVALIA and request a catalog, then call back and order directly from their Customer Service.
Recommended:
No
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About the Author
Member: Janine White
Location: Chandler, AZ
Reviews written: 195
Trusted by: 142 members
About Me: Criminologist turned Software Engineer
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