Top Banana! (jungle.com)

Member Name: fluffypup

Product:	jungle.com
Date:	28/04/01 (547 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Professional, friendly, easy to navigate, search & order online or offline. Cheaper than high street retailers.

Disadvantages: Definitely not the cheapest online retailer around, but what's a few quid when you know you are getting a good service!

We wanted to buy a top quality photo printer. After doing the research (dooyoo, computer magazines and friends) on what make and model to buy all we needed was a top retailer. Most directed our attention to jungle.com rather than the high street. We decided to therefore surf on-line and check them out.

The first thing you notice about jungle.com is on how professional the site looks. It’s bright green! Jungle.com’s trademark is a lion paw’s footprint. Other good bonuses are the large Which Webtrader Computer Association icon and that it’s affiliation with Great Universal Stores and Argos. We were immediately impressed. The icons along the top signified the various on-line stores – music, films, games, phones, electrical and computers. The icons on the left hand side indicated features such as: my jungle (personal details when you join, if you want to buy on-line), order tracking (always good to find out the status of your orders once you buy), information (explanations about Jungle.com, frequently asked questions etc), a secure credit card guarantee (which is good to elevate a few of my worries about buying on-line) and an order by telephone icon (good and refreshing sign if you have a phobia about buying online).

The navigation and search facilities on jungle.com are fast, very easy to use and impressive with the all the various layouts across the sections. I usually scout around a site to get a good feel before even contemplating buying anything. Surfing around I noticed several top site awards given by ‘shop@home’ as a top on-line retailer.

Below are only a brief guides to the different sections with Jungle.com, as were interested in only buying a printer within the computer section.

·The music section had the top albums listed along with available searches in genres listed as: blues, country, compilations, dance, pop etc.

·The film section had both DVD and video formats diss
ected into different formats such as: action, adventure, children, comedy etc with other sections highlighting new releases and special offers.

·The games section highlighted the various different games platforms; the top 10 games; accessories; pre-orders; and a list of the top selling games.

·The phones section has a list of all the different networks along with their own offering of a “Jungle talk” service.

·The electrical section was split in a similar way to the music and films sections and was split into DVD, television, audio, camera and camcorder sections.

Jungle.com computer section layout was identical to the other highlighted sections. The page layout is pleasing to the eye. It has a number of tables that contained: a list of top sellers; a search by brand (e.g. Apple, Microsoft etc); and a browse section for software, desktop PCs, laptop PCs, handhelds, printers, scanners, monitors, modems and CD media.

The computer section page highlighted an offer of the week, a new or latest release item and key product selections from jungle computer, software and peripherals. We needed a printer, so we double clicked on the printers from the listed menu. The inkjet printers’ page highlighted all the top and favourite brands. Fortunately our choice was one of these printers listed. We also did a search on other possible suitable printers. It had a clever search function. You could search using either: popularity, price, description, manufacturer and department.

Each printer had a large photo of the model, a brief introductory description, reviews written about the product from jungle members, a banana rating (out of 5), an option for writing a review, a list of the manufacturers, its price - inclusive of VAT (Hooray, rather than most other retailers who prefer to list products exclusive of VAT!), its product code, plus a comprehensive list of key features, specifications, additional information,
an option to email the page to a friend, the kitchen sink (not really) and other products of interests relating to your item choice (e.g. ink cartridges).

Our choice of printer had 4 ½ bananas after reading the all reviews it still seemed like a good choice. Two out of the eight reviewers had only marked it down on how quickly the printer had gone through its ink, which wasn’t a problem in our books. We decided to order our chosen printer on-line. We quickly navigated to the check out and purchase via a credit card. A small shipping charge was added £4.99, which comparing it to the likes of the high street computer stores was still a good £10.00 cheaper.

We checked out the prices with another on-line retailer called Dabs. It was £1-2 cheaper but we had a better feeling with Jungle. All the opinions that I had read and rated on dooyoo, I could only recall people having problems and concerns with Dabs. Jungle offered a no quibble 7-day money back guarantee. They also guarantee a delivery within 3-5 days. Its deliveries are always via a courier rather than via the Post Office and you have to sign on receipt of delivery. We followed our order via the on-line tracking service from receipt to the front door. The printer was happened to be in first class working order with no hassles at all. What more can you asked for?

You can generally tell how good a retailer when something goes wrong. My Dad decided he wanted a new printer from Jungle, as well. He ordered a printer on the phone, as he doesn’t trust ordering on-line. His printer arrived 4pm the next day. On installation it turned out to be ‘Dead On Arrival’. He phoned Jungle.com at 6pm on Good Friday (public holiday) of all days. The man answering was polite, helpful and offered to get the manufacturer to deliver and install a replacement the following Tuesday (because of the bank holiday) with no questions asked. They turned up on the day and installed the printer fo
r him.

Jungle.com do come very highly recommended. Their service is fast, friendly and efficient. You immediately obtain a good vibe both when ordering via on-line or the phone (good for people who have worries about ordering on-line). They don’t pretend to be the cheapest but you do get quality and a no quibble 7-day money back guarantee. What more can you ask for? Top banana by it's own ratings systems!

Summary: