Online retailers you've been impressed or NOT impressed with this holiday season

[mrsklamc]

UNIMPRESSED - TANGA - I got a great deal and supposedly my order is on its way, but whenever I click the tracking link, it tells me page not found. It has only been about a week, so I'm not super worried, but I don't like not having tracking info. I like their website though, so I guess I should reserve judgment.

Oh I had the WORST experience with Tanga- after no less than FIVE emails telling me my order was on it's way, the last one being just THREE DAYS before I got an email saying, "No, it's not on its way after all, we can't fulfill it." Well then you shouldn't have kept sending me emails saying you could! I passed up sales on the same item while I waited, so you COST ME MONEY.

 

[AC7179]

My stepdaughter lives in MI and it's easier for me to buy stuff online, ship it to her house, and have her wrap it for her son for Christmas.

On November 15, I bought all his Christmas from toysrus.com and had it shipped. Everything made it except the $30.00 Rescue Hero set. Although the packing list indicated it was there, it was not, and an FAO Schwarz piano was in it's place.

She called. They told her that since she didn't place the order, they would not help her, even though it was shipped to her.

I email them the situation. I am promised a 24 hour turnaround for a response. Nothing.

I email them again. Wait the 24 hours. Nothing.

One December 3, I call. I talk to a very nice young man who says he will sent me a replacement Rescue Hero set, and my stepdaughter can keep the piano as well, as it would cost too much to ship back to make it worth it. Well, that was pretty nice.

Yesterday, I get an email response from their system that promises a 24 hour response, that I need to send the piano back. I would have had no problem sending it back if that's what they had told me to do initially! Jeez!

They also send me a ten percent code for my trouble.

I emailed them back and said that the child has already opened it, played with it, and we were told we would keep it, so not sending it back. Let's see how this goes. Definitely hasn't been easy with them. Never again!

 

[kellia]

Impressed-
Amazon.com. Some times it is creepy how fast things show up! Have had a problem with getting my books from a seller, but can't blame Amazon. My son hasn't gotten that far in the Harry Potter series or I would have escalated the problem to Amazon.
JCP- fast shipping.


Slow- Kohls.com, slow as usual. But, they are gifts so don't need them yet!
Target.com was also pretty slow and unresponsive about their shipping status.

Unimpressed- Home Depot.com!! Paid using gift cards, one of the orders got cancelled and was a huge mess to take care of. Couldn't give me a refund, so I'm still waiting for another giftcard to come in the mail. My other order came, but I had to return it due to change in our kitchen plans. What a headache for the Customer Service people in the store! They were great, but took 30 minutes to get it returned.

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

Impressed - Wal-Mart.com I ordered Lego R2D2 onsale for $139 - estimated delivery date to the store (love it that I can send it to the store and pick it up so DD doesn't see a package arrive!) was Dec 5/6 - it arrived on her birthday (Dec 1st!) how perfect!! I was going to use it for Christmas but gave it to her (and DH) as a special surprise - huge hit. Our other order came in early too!

Not sure yet - Amazon - order arrived today - I managed to get the box w/o DD seeing it but haven't gotten to open it yet. ... If it's all correct in there then they're on my "nice" list.

 

[luvmy3jewels]

Impressed:

Amazon - I probably order 75% of my gifts from there and have never had a problem. Love the Prime 2 day shipping!!

Coldwater Creek and Best Buy have also been very quick with their shipping.


Unimpressed:
Target - I went to order a curtain for dd's room from Target on-line. The cost of the curtain was $15 and they wanted to charge $6 or $7 for shipping. I noticed a heading on the page that said shipping was free for purchases over $50, so I found two other items that I was planning to buy anyway that put the order up to $60. Went to check out, and the shipping cost is shown on the very last page of the order process. Quickly found out that the "fine print" says the free shipping on orders over $50 was only for select items and the only way to find out which items were the "select" items was to go through the check out process. I ended up empyting everything from my cart and not ordering anything.

 

[princesspiglet]

IMPRESSED- Amazon. I probably ordered at least 95% of my shopping here. I am Prime so everything comes super fast. Only had one problem with one specific item that was missing parts. Sent back and was credited 2 days later. Happy with that.

Also impressed with Forever21.com, Mindware.com

UNIMPRESSED- toyrsus.com. Placed an order on 11/19 and it is still showing as "in process" on their site. Also very unimpressed with a local store, lancasterarchery.com. Placed an order for a quiver on 11/5- said on website it was in stock. Called them on 11/19 and they told me the quiver was on backorder and would arrive by 11/30. Dec 1 I called them again and they told me the same thing, quiver was on backorder but I would get it by 12/10. Called 12/10 and was again told the exact same thing!!! I proceeded to rip them a new one and cancelled the order.

 

[fairestoneofall]

i have had pretty decent luck this year with orders. i had one issue finding something i wanted for my youngest DS, but it was more a factor of the manufacturer discontinuing the item and retailers still having it for sale on their site.

i've ordered from: toysrus.com, planetjill.com, qualitytoys.com, americangirl.com, restorationhardware.com, rhbabyandchild.com (restoration hardware's baby line), and Christianbook.com.

 

[LilyWDW]

Impressed: Amazon... but that is nothing new!

Unimpressed: My local USPS. They seem to like to hold my Amazon shipments for a couple of days before I get them.

 

[tzeitel]

Nice - Sierra Trading Company. I ordered DD's ski stuff this past Thursday, had it in my hands on Saturday! Perfect for her first lesson of the season that Sunday - we had gone to Target to get her a basic base layer not thinking the package would get here so fast. They always have great prices too

Naughty - Old Navy/Gap. Most of DD's clothes are Gap and ON, seriously I have a problem and they are usually great. I placed an order during their awesome Thanksgiving sale (sale stuff up to 60% off plus 30% on top of that). The next day I get an email one of the items was not available - no biggie. 10 days go by and no email about shipping. I check online and my order still shows as "in process" and I see that another item is now no longer available. I emailed them and their response was that the package would be there with plenty of time for Christmas It was all Summer stuff so I was not really in a hurry, but I did not like not being told that another item was not available - maybe 10 days ago the item was available but my order was stuck in processing limbo!
I placed the order through Gap but the 2 cancelled items were ON so I am not sure who is to blame.

 

[rachael95]

Impressed: Amazon as always. But we're prime members and I don't think two weeks go by a year where we're not ordering something from them.

Unimpressed: Kohls (big surprise) My husband ordered a Keurig from them and thought he was supposed to get $20 Kohl's bucks. Called when he didn't get it and was told, well, there was tiny writing that you ordered it on this date and the $20 deal didn't start until 2 days later. So sorry, you don't get it and since the bucks deal was only for a few days, no, we won't give it to you now if you return it.

 

[tzeitel]

So far it seems like Amazon is the big winner and Kohl's & TRU are the big losers on the DIS boards!

I stopped ordering from TRU years ago since I always had issues with shipping or my order getting cancelled. DD just got a TRU gc for her birthday but I just don't want to deal with them online - the closest store is 2 hours away so that is not happening. Will probably re-gift the card and just get DD something from Amazon.

 

[pantherlj]

Adding shutterfly to my impressed list! My calendar arrived 3 days after placing my order! Pictures are a tad grainier than I thought they would be but it could be due to the type of paper it's printed on or maybe the quality of my upload.

 

[donac]

Impressed Snapfish. I made my calendars on Tuesday night and they were at my house on Sat. I had one of their calendars before and they both came out great.

 

[Chelley00]

Impressed: Soccer.com, Dicks Sporting Goods and Chefs.com

Least impressed: Target. The discount was great (additional $10 off every $50, 5% off and free shipping with red card) but they sent everything in 3 boxes, charged me for the whole order once, and then separately for each shipment. I kept waiting for the charge for the full order to come off and it never did, so I had to call and get it refunded, and was on the phone for an hour.

 

[candy0730]

Super impressed with Dicks Sporting goods. I ordered 2 North Fleece men's items on Sunday night and they arrived on Tuesday. The items were 25% off and free shipping!

Amazon is also amazing. I signed up for a free 30 day trial of Prime so all my packages are arriving very quickly. I love their tracking feature.

 

[bridget]

I have only been impressed
Dicks Sporting Goods (1 order)
Kohls (3 orders)
ToysRus (3 orders)
Walmart (2 orders)
Barnes & Noble (2 orders)
Big 12 Sports.com (1 order)
Amazon (countless)
Best Buy (2 orders)

Plus, my FedEx, USPS and UPS people have been outstanding!!!

 

[madge]

Between Amazon Prime and Shoprunner, I'm very spoiled by how quick packages come! I use them as much as I can!

 

[anelson81993]

Impressed:
Amazon. I'm a Prime member, so I'm used to getting my orders from Amazon pretty quickly. However, last Friday I ordered three non-Prime items shipped to two different addresses (one was a gift), and paid for standard (not expedited in any way) shipping. I had the items (at both addresses) on Saturday--on an order that said it could take anywhere from 4 to 14 days!

Not Impressed:
E.L.F. My sister wanted make-up for Christmas. Fine. Her favorite brand (for everything but mascara) is E.L.F. Great, since their make-up is cheap and pretty decent quality. I had the options of purchasing it in my local Target/Walmart/supermarket (all 3 had E.L.F. for the same prices as online), or at their online store. I picked the online store, since I'm constantly getting coupon codes from them, plus my CC offers me 5% cashback at E.L.F.'s online store. I picked out a bunch of make-up that my sister wanted, used my 40% coupon code (a little annoyed that they won't let me use all the coupon codes they send me, since I get 2-4 per day from them, but only one code per purchase, but ultimately not a big deal), and paid for expedited shipping, all a week ago (Wednesday, two days before I made my Amazon purchase). I had it shipped to my school address, since (at the time) I still had more than a week left at school and shipping was supposed to take only 2-3 days, and I didn't want to ship it to my home address and have my sister intercept it before I got home for Christmas.
Unfortunately, at E.L.F., paying for expedited shipping does not equal receiving expedited "order processing." My order has been "processing" for a week now, with no end in sight. E.L.F. does claim that they will be shipping my order today, but I highly doubt it, considering that it's nearly 9 pm my time. I'm done with school on Friday and will not have access to my school mailbox (residence mailroom closes Friday) until January 14. I have emailed E.L.F. twice now asking them to please change my address on my order to my home address, and have heard nothing back (except an automatic email telling me that it may take them up to 72 hours to respond, which is not even slightly helpful as Friday is less than 48 hours away), and when I called to make the same request, I learned that due to the holiday rush, their phone lines are down, and they are only taking emails from customers. Well, I've already paid for my order, including the expedited shipping, and I will be very unhappy if they ignore my emails and ship to my school address anyway, especially since the website indicates that while an order is still in the "processing" phase the shipping address can be changed. I will be asking for a refund if I do not hear back from them very soon.
UPDATE 12/13
Opened up my email account this morning; received an email from E.L.F.: They shipped my order today. To the school address that I asked them not to ship my order to (twice). To the address that I will not have access to after tomorrow. I emailed to complain (phone lines still down), and have not heard anything back; however, there are no returns at E.L.F. So mad. I'll have to replace these items now in order to have my sister's Christmas present in time for Christmas, and I won't even get my money back on the other order. I'm hoping that they acknowledge my complaint and either give me a very good discount on a re-order, or give me my money back (allow a return, perhaps) on the order they shipped to the wrong address. Either way, I will never be ordering from E.L.F. again.

 

[amyro]

I've had problems with the online Disney store, although maybe they weren't completely behind it. Most recently I ordered a few things from the site I tracked the package everything was fine until I noticed the package had been marked as received. But I did not receive it! I asked my family and neighbors, no one knew anything. I first contacted Disney store via email got no response. I contacted ups they were no help, just said the package was signed for and received nothing they could do, I felt as though I was fed misinformation and just being blown off. I contacted the store again and was told it was not their mistake. :/ well that's a disappointing loss of money.

 

[horseshowmom]

HSN

I ordered a large tin of David's Cookies for a friend of my daughter's who is in vet school as a care package for exams (delivery time was stated as 5 to 7 business days).

At the end of that time, I had rec'd no email notification of shipping. I contacted them and was told that the delivery date had been pushed back to 12/24 (long after exams were over). I requested that the order be canceled since it wouldn't work for what I wanted (the gift card even referred to the exams).

I was told the order couldn't be canceled because it had been sent to the warehouse. I explained that wouldn't work - even talked to a supervisor. I told them that I had told the girl to watch for a package so now I had to order something.

Supervisor finally said she would try to cancel the order, and I woud hear something the next day. I didn't.

The next afternoon, I ordered something else for the girl from somewhere else (which cost more since I had to pay extra for expedited shipping now). That night I got an email from HSN saying that order had shipped. Now I've paid for two packages!

I called the girl, told her what had happened, and told her to share with her roommates. Lesson learned. I don't expect to ever order from HSN again.