Empire Direct - Direct to my door (Empiredirect.co.uk)

Member Name: MrVanilla

Product:	Empiredirect.co.uk
Date:	13/12/06 (763 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good pre sales customer service, cheap products, easy to navigate website.

Disadvantages: Finance purchases only shipped to your address.

I'm always a bit wary of ordering high value/potentially breakable items off the internet and this was my first purchase with Empire Direct.
As i was about to move into an unfurnished property I ordered a Panasonic 42" PX60 Plasma display and a Hotpoint WT761G washing machine (total price approx £2300) using their "able2buy" finance package.
The package was good, in that it was a buy now, pay in 9 months with 0% interest. I arranged finance with able2buy and had a delivery date set for approx 1 week after ordering the items.
What i didn't realise was, that if you buy on finance, they only deliver to your current address. As i had moved out in the week that the delivery was to be made i was told that they could only deliver to my old address. Obviously this was a big problem so after several polite discussions with various people at EmpireDirect they managed to sort it so that the items would be delivered to my new address. I know how difficult it is to re-arrange things with finance companies so a big kudos to Empire for sorting this out.
On the delivery day the packages were delivered first thing in the morning and the delivery was handled very professionally by the driver and his mate. Although they didn't unpack the items and remove the packaging materials i didn't have much of a problem doing this myself and it gave me time to sort out the best placement for the TV.
As for the items themselves i have had no problems whatsoever with either the TV or the Washer so i've not experienced Empire Directs customer services or returns dept.
What i can say however is that i was very impressed with the level of pre sales service from Empire Direct, especially with regards to the finance problem. That coupled with the 0% for 9 months and that the items were the cheapest I could find on the web made my online shopping experience with them very pleasurable.
I shall certainly be shopping with them again.

Summary: A pleasurable online shopping experience