I shop instore with pets at home all the time. We have 4 dogs, 2 frogs and turtle so we buy quite a lot of pet products.

Having shopped in store with them, naturally when pets at home launched their website a couple of years ago, I had a good look through their website to see what they sold.

I have to say that their website has improved a lot over the last few years. They didn't use to do internet shopping through their website. It was just for information really. I think it must be about 3 or 4 years ago now that they re-launched the website and started to offer their customers online shopping.

Since then I have only placed two orders with them. The main reason for only placing the 2 orders is because I have 2 pets at home stores very near to my home and so don't like to pay delivery when I can easily pop in on my way home. Usually delivery is free if you spend over £50, they have had a lot of promotions for free delivery recently but it's still easier to go to the shop.

Of my 2 experiences of shopping online with pets at home I had one very good and easy, and the other terrible. I'll start with the bad.

The first time I shopped online with pets at home was about 2 summers ago. they had a brochure with a pet wardrobe in it, so that you could keep all of your pets Tshirts and dresses together. I had a lot of dog T shirts as my dog gets very cold in the winter and shivers and thought this would be a really cute little way of keeping them all together. At £29.99 I though it was a great price as I had seen some in Harrods for hundreds of pounds. I told my mum about it and she also wanted one so we went to buy 2 in our local store.

When ended up visiting about 4 different stores and couldn't even get 1 let alone 2. So I suggested thatI order them online and we could even save 10% as they had a promotional code for first time internet customers.

I ordered them and got the 10% discount and was told they would take between 3 and 5 working days to arrive.

I waited. And I waited. Nothing came. I checked my online account which said the order had been cancelled. I hadn't cancelled it and I hadn't been contacted about it so I phoned them. I was told that they were out of stock adn wouldn't be getting anymore in. I asked if they could tell me if they had any stock in any of the stores and was told that they were limited edition and that they were completely sold out.

I was very unhappy with pets at home. Could they not have sent a simple letter or email or phoned me to let me know. Instead I had to contact them and I think this is very poor customer service.

About 2 weeks later my mum and I were out shopping in Romford and on the way home we popped into a pets at home that we don't usually visit. I couldn't believe it. There sitting on the shelf were 2 pet wardrobes! We literally grabbed them and ran (to the tills, were not thieves!).

Since then I have seen them pop up at 2 other stores and once saw them reduced to clear about 6 months ago. I am not very impressed with pets at home and how we were treated and deicded not to use them again.

However, a couple of weeks ago my dog started to have trouble getting on and off of my bed at night. She would jump off and then stratch my arm and bark untill I would pick her up and lift her back onto the bed. After a week of this I was not very happy and very, very tired as it was happening about 3 or 4 times most nights.

I had heard about pet steps before and thought they might be a good idea for her. I looked everywhere but they were either really expensive for the solid ones or out of stock. Then, when searching online I found them on the pets at home website. I didn't really want to order from them again but they were internet only and I couldn't get them anywhere else at that price. I was so desperate for a good nights sleep that I ordered them.

This order could not have been more different from the other. I ordered them on a Sunday morning and they were here by Tuesday afternoon! There was no problem and they were perfect. I don't know if they have changed their system but it was certainly a lot better this time.

Having ordered from them twice and having such different experiences I really don't know what to think about their service. I like to think that they are better now and perhaps learnt better ways from the past.

I would order from them again, but with caution. I am warding them 3 out of 5 as a middle mark. This is the only fair rating I feel I can give after my experiences with them.