An Addition to the Direct shopping Catalogue. (additionsdirect.co.uk)

Member Name: welshwickedone

Product:	additionsdirect.co.uk
Date:	22/09/06 (1483 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheaper than other home shopping catalougues, good variety

Disadvantages: slow delivery on large items, bad communications

Additionsdirect.co.uk
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What is Additionsdirect.co.uk?
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Additionsdirect.co.uk is the online facility to the Additions Direct Catalogue. It began life as the inspiration of Argos who wanted at the time to branch into the clothing market as well; however, it did not go all that well for them. In January 2004, Argos eventually decided it was time to sell the company so the Littlewoods Home Shopping Company purchased it from Argos and own it to this day. Although another home shopping catalogue it does offer slight variations to the other Littlewoods Catalogues available.


What do they sell?
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As with all home shopping catalogues, Additions Direct offers a huge variety of products, which would be impossible for me to list so I am going to do brief category descriptions.
Women: - They sell all sorts of women’s clothing, footwear, nightwear, sportswear and lingerie. They also stock perfume, accessories, jewellery and watches.
Men’s:- All sorts of men’s clothing, footwear, nightwear, underwear, sportswear, aftershave, accessories and jewellery/watches.
Children’s:- They have a somewhat limited selection of clothing and accessories for children from newborn to 16 years of age, plus accessories for bedrooms and nursery's.
Sportswear: - This is an addition link and section to all the various products and branded sportswear available.
Home and Garden: - This section covers everything from furniture for the lounge and dining room to the bedrooms plus the entire home furnishing ranges, a limited selection of garden furniture and accessories and DIY products are available.
Electronics:- This section sells everything from mobile phones, sat nav, telephones, sound systems, TV's, DVD players, VCR's to PC's and gaming.
Appliances: - This section is where you can find all your large and small household appliances as well as home wares.


Ordering / Payments
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Ordering from Additions Direct is very straight forward as with most internet shopping facilities, first thing you must do is register an account. This can be done on a credit card basis or you can apply for the Direct Plus Account which is a credit facility offered by Additions Direct. Add the items you wish to purchase from Additions to you shopping basket and then when you have finished placing your order you can view your basket at anytime from the link found at the top of the screen of any page. When you are checking your order from your shopping basket, you are able to edit your order if you need to and delete any unwanted items, before you proceed to the checkout. When you are happy with your order, you then continue checkout by clicking the checkout link, which will take you through the payment process of your order. You will need to have either a Credit Card or Direct Plus account to complete your checkout order and are requested to complete all the details requested as you proceed through the checkout. Once you have finished the checkout procedure you are sent to a printer friendly webpage with an order number for you to print off for your own reference, however you will also be sent a copy of the invoice to the email address you supplied during the checkout procedure. The site offers payment by all major credit cards and for other options of how to pay there are full details in the help section of the website.

Delivery
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Delivery from Additions direct is fast on some items and can be delivered within 48 hours depending on the time of you ordering, but there is a £3.50 delivery charge on all orders no matter how big or small. Certain items can be delivered the next day if order before 1pm and providing the item is in stock, but this service carries a £6.45 delivery charge. You are also given an option to specify a delivery day, but again, be warned this also carries a £6.45 delivery charge.


Credit Facilities.
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As I said earlier there is a credit facility available from Additions Direct called the Direct Plus account. This allows you to have items on credit and pay for them over a selected period of time, however it is very important to know that this service charges a massive 29.8% APR. This can work out to be very expensive. They do offer a facility for you to pay over three equal instalments without any interest on the interest opt out plan but this is also subject to status.

Catalogue requests.
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You can now collect a catalogue from all larger Boots Stores if you prefer, but there is a facility on the website for you to order one to be delivered to your door. This is free of charge and there is no charge for catalogue delivery either.


Returns and Refunds.
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Should you have any problems with your order you are able to contact the customer services to arrange for them to collect the goods to be returned, but it is extremely important to read all there returns guides before even placing an order, as you have to be aware there are guidelines for unacceptable returns. Simply call the FREEPHONE automated customer service number 0800 096 6093 or speak to an advisor on 0870 413 6000 to make arrangements for collection. There are no charges for returning an item. Refunds will either be credited to your Direct Plus account or Credit Card depending on your payment option you used to pay for your goods. All items are on 14 day free home approval, but there are some exceptions.


Help and Advice.
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This site offers an excellent help section that will be able to provide you the answer to any questions you may have with regards to shopping with Additions Direct and this link can be found at the top of every webpage clearly showing the word HELP. It will allow you to find out everything you need to know about returns, privacy policies, accounts, credit and much more. It will also give you all the contact details should you wish to either telephone them, write to them or email them.

Security.
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Additionsdirect.co.uk boasts a 100% secure shopping feature on there online store, they state that this is possible because they use the following features. They use SSL (secure sockets layer) in there ordering and payment facilities and that all transactions are processed by there secure server in an encrypted format for added security. This process will also be securely closed immediately after the transaction payment has been processed for even more added security. Full details of this are available from http://www.additionsdirect.co.uk please see the privacy and security links available from the webpage's help section. The site security is governed by IMRG Senate, which also governs all Littlewoods Shop Direct Home Shopping Limited companies as well as many other leading internet-shopping organisations.

Other Site Features.
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This site also features a sizing guide to help you work out the size of clothing you wish to order. There is a women’s size guide, a men's size guide and a children’s size guide. In addition, the site gives you access to a curtain-sizing guide to help you know what size curtains you will need to fit you window requirements. There is a site guide for everyone to be able to use to help them navigate the site easily and this is available in a link from the help section.


My Opinion.
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I have recently taken a tour of the additions direct website as I wished to purchase the washing machine they had for sale, and I must say I found the site extremely easy to use and very easy to navigate. However they do offer a great help section should you find you are having any difficulty. I wanted a washing machine from this particular site as to be honest they offered me the cheapest price for the brand of washing machine I wanted. Also I wanted to purchase from them, as this would mean only a small £3.50 delivery charge compared to up to £16.00 delivery charge wanted by other leading online electrical retailers, who's name I will not mention as I am going to be reviewing those at a later date. I found myself order a few other items as I was order from there already and I had no trouble finding what I wanted. In my opinion, I felt they had a good variety of items to choose from. They are generally a lot cheaper than the Littlewoods Catalogue, even though the same company runs them, probably because you cannot earn commission on the items from this company. I think it is a very good site that has all of its policies and security features easily accessible, as well as the other information you may need to return items, pay for them and more. I personally did not use there credit facility and I think everyone should be aware that they charge a very high interest rate of you do choose to use there credit facility. I do feel they offer a good range of ways to pay for your goods though as well as a good selection of goods to choose from. When I placed an order from them it was easy to go through the checkout procedure with everything clear and easy to understand, and I think they offered a very high level of security for me to pay by credit card. The two smaller items I order I was amazed to find delivered well within the 48 hours they said they would be and I will give them 10/10 for that, but when it came to my larger washing machine that’s when the problems occurred. Although I did receive, they email confirming my order there was only 3 weeks direct from manufacture delivery stated on the washing machine. I presumed I would be contacted shortly for arrangement of delivery. Three weeks later, I had still heard nothing from Additions Direct about the delivery of my washing machine, but I must say they had not yet charged my credit card either. I ended up phoning them to find out what was happening with my order. The staff in the customer service centre was very polite and tried to sort out the matter for me, but still left me waiting to receive a phone call as to when to expect delivery of my new washing machine. Then suddenly yesterday without any email or contact, my washing machine arrived, and it was just luck that someone was home for the delivery. This I think is very unacceptable as we were given no idea on delivery of this large appliance and then had no time to arrange the removal of the old one. So overall, the staff may have been polite and very friendly but they still left me unaware of what was going on and the delivery service of this company for larger items is extremely poor. The delivery drivers I have to give a massive 10/10 for them, as they were very polite and well presented and they were extremely helpful too, it is just a shame they actually worked for Hotpoint not Littlewoods. The smaller items were all well packed, as was the washing machine and the delivery driver for those items was also polite and well presented, so I will not complain on that, as that driver did work for Littlewoods. Overall I would give additionsdirect.co.uk a 8/10 for there overall service as they were let down by there delivery procedure for larger goods.

Summary: 8/10 for this site with room for improvement.