Rate your retailer.

[.Wilier.]

Since there seems to have been a fair bit of postage recently about different shops that weve used so I thought we should have a thread rating them.

A few rules:

Speed of delivery

Cost.

Level of support via:
Phone
Email
Written letter.

General Pro's (if any)
Con's (if any)

 

[.Wilier.]

I'll start the ball rolling with Ebuyer.

Delivery Speed: Good. Items arrived before the due date.
Cost: Best Ive found on-line.
Support: Takes a while via phone. Email is quicker and resupply of faulty parts is fast.

General:Ive used them for a long time now and never had any problems. One gripe was the fact that they wouldnt send part orders, or even save items from an order until all were in stock. This has been fixed and they now send part orders and auto create a new order for oustanding items.

 

[.Wilier.]

Micro Direct

Delivery Speed Good. Items arrived on time.
Cost Not the cheapest on-line, but some of the barebones bundles are good value.
Support No phone support to speak of, but email was quick. I was given an RMA number within 2 hrs of my email, and had a new item within the week.

GeneralAlthough I was dissapointed that the item I bought was faulty, I dont think the supplier can be blamed. Theyve changed it quickly, although the cost for returning has not been reimbursed.

 

[Chilly]

Scan
Delivery: I have regularly had items delivered next day for their standard delviery fee (flat rate of £10, until you start to include monitors and things, then it goes to £15).
Cost Some of the cheapest bits around, I nearly always buy from them and they are nearly always cheaper than OCUK and most other shops that actually do carry stock.
Support By phone - generally a bit of a wait on the phone, maybe 15-20 minute queue, but once you are through they are happy to help you diagnose or failing that dish out RMAs, there is a 15% restocking fee I think, but I have never sent back non faulty goods.
By email - never had occasion to email them, I always use the phone, I dont trust email

General stuff
+I find their Today Only page to be excellent very often, and it regularly carries very good kit for very good prices - atm 512mb DDR2 for £50 or something + tonnes more.
+If you spend more than about £50 you generally find a random present in your parcel, this is generally a USB dongle, a bluetooth/usb wotsit, CD-R, DVD-+R etc.... Always nice to find a random present
-If you order online with a switch(maestro) you cannot deliver to anywhere but invoice address, although you can phone up and get them to deliver to a non invoice addres - fuck knows why you have to phone them.
-The phone sales people are a bit dim sometimes. I bought a load of kit and it took the monkey who took my call bloody ages to sort it all out and get the same price I had on the web.

Overall: I would say one of the better UK based online pc-bit retailers, they are a pretty big company and have huge stock, they also do some of the nicest pre-built systems about with a choice of nearly any components you want - its effectively a "pick your bits an we build it" - although there are standard systems of course.

 

[DaGaffer]

The Glowlounge

Specialist small site dealing mainly in Shuttles (barebones, pre-built and specified systems) plus a few other accessories such as media players etc.

Speed of delivery
3 days to get a custom-built system. Not bad at all

Cost.
Not the cheapest, but generally competitive with other sites selling the same product. Plus, they are happy to install any bits you have already and want to use, which of course reduces the end bill.

Level of support via:
Phone Phone line on site - answered up to 7pm.
Email very quick responses to non-standard questions
Written letter. n/a

General Pro's (if any)
If you live in London and you want a Shuttle, you should definitely consider these guys; fast, personal service plus a physical location you can pick up from (saving delivery charges).

Con's (if any)
You're not going to be able to use them for general day-to-day PC purchases as they're very specialist. Horses for courses tbh.

 

[.Wilier.]

PC World

Gonna be a bit of a shocker this one, but Ive just seen the light.......

Delivery Speed 1hr. Order on-line and pick up from the store.
Cost Not the cheapest on-line but for convenience, they cant be beaten.

Support Not used them, although looking at some of the gimps in the shops, Im not sure how technically proficient they will be.

GeneralToday I wanted a new FF wheel for home. I want it TODAY, not in 3 days. I rang the store and they said that it was £47 in store, £37 online, but I could order it online and pick it up from the store, at the online price How cool is that? So if you absolutely must have that piece of kit, right now, do it this way and you can get it with online price with pick-up convenience.

 

[Embattle]

AKA Collect@Store.

OcUK

Speed of delivery - Next day, depends on what you select.
Cost - One of the cheapest before delivery, like many online companies.

Level of support via:
Email - Very Poor

General - OcUK are generally good as long as you get no problems, if you get issues they seem rather annoying to deal with compared to even some of the other companies I've had bad experiences with.

 

[Embattle]

Dabs

Speed of delivery - Generally 1-3 days, again depends on service selected.

Cost - Not always the cheapest compared to some other less known or smaller online stores.

Level of support via:
Phone - Average
Email - Poor

General - Had to wait a long time for my camera with the expected date always sliding further back, during this time I tried to get more information via email which was rather unsuccessful.

 

[Embattle]

Komplett

Speed of delivery - Good, 2 days.

Cost. - Cheap, compares well with OcUK.

Level of support via:
NA

General - The item I ordered was cheap and arrived in a few days.

 

[Embattle]

Tekheads

Speed of delivery - Fast, next day delivery avaliable.

Cost - Comparable to OcUK, slightly under for the item I ordered.

Level of support via:
NA

General - My item arrived next day and so far I've had no problems with it.

 

[Embattle]

Savastore

Speed of delivery - NA

Cost. - Average, comparable to Dabs.

Level of support via:
Email - Utter shit.

General - Having ordered the same camera off them as I eventually got from dabs.com I had to wait ages and seemed unable to get any real information as to when it would arrive, cancelled it in the end.

 

[Embattle]

Valuemedia

Speed of delivery - Fast, next day available

Cost - Cheap

Level of support via:
NA

General - Even though the DVD-Rs I got were the bulk cakebox variety none have failed to burn yet and they were good value at the time.

 

[SheepCow]

OcUK

Speed of delivery: Fast
Cost: Moderate to Expensive
Level of support via:
Phone - bad, massive wait times, always engaged.
Email - non-existant
Written letter - good, they phoned me.

General: I now avoid them if I can, but they have been good in the past - you're fucked if you ever have a problem though!

 

[SheepCow]

Amazon

Speed of delivery: Very Fast
Cost: Cheap to Moderate
Level of support via:
n/a

General: Delivery is amazing, very very fast and if it's just a normal package it'll goto your local post office if you're not in instead of the farthest away warehouse shittylink can find. Usually a bit more expensive than dabs/ebuyer for electrical/computing kit.

 

[Jonty]

Hi guys

What I may try and do is take everyone's comments and pop them in just one post to keep things nice and together Probably won't be for a while yet, though.

For myself, I've recently bought a shed load of things from eBuyer. The first load arrived ahead of schedule, so that was impressive. The second lot was delayed by a day after paying for next day delivery but they responded to my eNote on the same day (11pm at night actually ) and they refunded the extra postage costs quite happily. I've also RMA'ed something in the past and, again, they were quite happy about it. Prices in general are competitive.

Savastore I've been very impressed with, they have some real bargains if you browse carefully (their search engine is sadly lacking). I've also ordered things at 4.45pm and received them the next day, again, very good

MicroDirect I'm generally happy with, had a lot of things from them and generally they offer good prices, particularly on their offers page. Sadly there was once a mix up whereby they ignored my emails to cancel an order, then when I phoned on Monday (order placed on Saturday) the customer (we-don't-) care desk told me to essentially go do one That aside, they have been otherwise good apart from expensive carriage costs.

OcUK, Tekheads and Novatech I've had a few things with, some of the prices being noteworthy, and everything has been fine. OcUK have been quite arrogant, though, claiming their exclusive products are the best when in fact the companies in question don't have that good a reputation. Note also their forums don't allow you to post links to competitors, even when OcUK don't even stock the item in question. That I find quite repugnant, but I guess it's their forums ...

Kind Regards

 

[Cask]

Technoworld

Cost: Best on the web for the monitor that I wanted.

Speed: Ordered by phone Friday 4pm and arrived Monday about 4pm. Asked for the cheapest delivery option (1-3 days) and I got next day.

Support: Unknown, but they have contact numbers and addresses which is better than a lot of companies.

 

[Lazarus]

Ebuyer.

Delivery Speed: Terrible. Part of order arrived 3 days after the rest of the stuff.
Cost: Good
Support: Shocking. Long wait on the phone, unhelpful once you do get through. Enote - had one open for a month before it was responded to.
Letter was posted over a month ago - still not answer from them

General:Used them once - and that will be the only time.

 

[Tilda]

bump, should be stickied

 

[Clown]

Seriously, you're a ... person who should kindly consider the consequences of bumping old threads because it upsets myself and others p)

 

[Lazarus]

???

 

[Jonty]

Hi guys

Please don't bump threads or unnecessarily report them

The thread was unstuck because:

• Nobody had posted in almost two years.
• The last seven posts had to be deleted because they were all spam.

If people wish to use the thread as it was intended, fair enough, but otherwise please just let it rest.

Kind regards

Jonty

P.S. Clown, it's fine to disagree, but please be civil and proportionate

 

[Tilda]

I just think its a handy collection of sites that sell things, and a mini-rating of them.
If you dont want people posting in it, fine lock it, but imho it should be left stuck.

 

[Moriath]

a mini rating thats 2 years old and probably completely misleading now

 

[Jonty]

a mini rating thats 2 years old and probably completely misleading now

Hi guys

I'm sorry disagree, Tilda, but Moriath 'hit the nail on the head'. Things change so quickly, especially with internet businesses. Some go bust or get taken over; some have service that improves or declines; some have prices that become competitive or expensive etc. The information needs to be up to date and well-informed in order for it to be useful.

As I previously said, I'm happy for people to use this thread properly, but the truth is that the information is old and the last half a dozen posts were all spam. I won't lock the discussion, but perhaps people will continue to look elsewhere when seeking recommendations.

Kind regards