Bring back mail order! (The future of the .com industry)

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Product:	The future of the .com industry
Date:	31/12/01 (74 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper?

Disadvantages: Takes ages, Could be damaged, Postage fees

Online shopping sucks and that’s that. All these dot com companies who sell product on the net are glorified mail order companies with similar problems.I decided to order all my Christmas shopping on the net this year to see if I could save a couple of quid and effort.
Im all in favor of high street shopping as you can touch and feel then pay and you are checking the goods at home within half an hour.

Dabs dot com was my first venture where I ordered some software on this specialized site. The price was reasonable and the transaction with my credit card went through nicely. It arrived three days later fairly near to Christmas and I can’t complain there.
Now I had saved just under four quid here from the PC world high street price.and the goods were well packed and in tact. But when I checked the postage it was nearly twice as much as it should be bringing it up to the high street price. No saving there!.

Amazon was an unmitigated disaster and I warn you to expect ludicrous delays with these guys. I ordered again with a credit card through their integrated shopping basket one click system. Next to each item is the price and how long it will take to get there.
I ordered three run of the mill high street titles with a healthy saving on December the 1st. It’s the last day of the year and nothing has arrived.
I took the now seemingly foolish option of requesting the order to be sent when all items are ready.
This is another scam as they charge extra for items delivered separately to claw back some of their sexy reductions.

I have just got a confirmation e-mail saying half of your order has been dispatched on New Years Eve!. That has now got to negotiate a bank holiday and disgruntled PO.Then mailed on to my sister in Scotland who was here last week waiting for it!.
The following e-mail below which I read with incredulity was that a standard 2002 video review book available by the hundred as I speak on t
he high street will take a further five weeks!!!!! To get here. That’s an incredible ten weeks from my original order!.
If they can deliver in book terms is a bottle of milk at their most profitable time and when they need to be on the ball to encourage back first time customer what chance have they.

These are bog standard books two a penny in the high street yet I have to wait between one and two months to get something I cold have got for two pound more in one thousandth of the time. Please tell me why online shopping is supposed to be worth the effort here.
They had clearly priced up the video review book wrong at ten pounds cheaper than WH Smiths and are now stone walling to get me to change to a book with a minimal mark up for me and loss to them.

The third site I visited was Blockbusters online so I could get the Godfather box set DVD cheaper than the high street. Not one in stock. I checked other categories and again nothing presumed it crashed.
Also this year I have searched for flights and accommodation through Last Minute and E-Bookers.
You type in the destination and rough times and dates.
Then you get quoted prices ranging from 580 to New Zealand to 1400 which look totally made up so you are tempted onto other airlines that have a surreptitious tie in with the websites.

E-Bay and the like are more risky as you don’t know what you have bought until you get it. The old pros that know the score also send you stuff that bares no resemblance to what you ordered and with a vulgar postage tacked on top.
You also don’t know if you are bidding against a phantom bidder who could default on their offers or in fact be the owner of the goods themselves.

Tescos have a busy successful site in order rather than profit up and running at the moment although they have lost three million quid in the venture.
But because theres a nominal fee for delivery it costs Tesco to get the goods out. Th
ey to are seeing that its better having those online customers in the shop with the smells and product placement over sipping Chardonnay and pressing repeat order.

If there is a future in online shopping it has to be more than the nanny being lazy over the shopping whilst she chats with Raul back in Romania costing another fortune.
I know there are only two web companies currently turning a profit on the net with E-Bookers being one.
In the time of recession its often advertising budgets that is hit the hardest.
If they have been losing money since day one then how are they going to survive the post September 11th with such crappy delivery and customer service……Not for me.

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