Best / worst online holiday ordering experiences?

December 13, 2004 3:55 AM

Want to share your good and bad online holiday ordering experiences? (no peeking until Dec. 25)

I'd love to have a general guideline for next year's Christmas present buying. I'm actually done shopping for this year, but thought I'd ask this while your own experiences are still fresh in your mind, and maybe others can still benefit from our collective input as well, considering that there's still plenty of time to do some online shopping. Which online retailers have you had great experiences with, and which would you never order from again? And which ones have stellar delivery records? So far, I can share this- I ordered all of my online purchases on Nov. 30, and opted for regular ground delivery in each case. The books from Amazon took 4 days. The two gift certificates I ordered from allposters.com still haven't come, although when I check tracking, it says they were shipped 7 days ago. Also, they haven't returned either of my emails, in which I asked if they could email me the gift certs so that I could print them out - very unprofessional not to respond, so I'll not buy from them again. The carry-all I ordered from LL Bean came in a freaky 2 days, and the sucker was monogrammed! I was so wowwed. The body powder I ordered from Lush still hasn't come. The knife set I ordered from Henkel's came in 4 days. The hoodie I ordered from Think Geek took 5 days. The tshirts I ordered from haring.com came in 7 days. The hat I ordered from goodhumans.com came in 6 days, and the hat I ordered from rustyzipper.com came in 4 days. How about you?

posted by iconomy to Shopping (11 answers total)

While it wasn't for christmas (unless buying things for yourself around this time of year counts), when I bought an HDAdvance + 200GB HDD + Broadband Adapter for my Playstation 2 from Linker4u.com, it literally was the worst online shopping experience I have had in the many years I have been doing so. I was brought in by the fact that they had the best price for the package I got, and have successfully bought things from Hong Kong before (a 1 Gb Flash2Advance from Success-HK with only a slight hiccup when customs in Alaska called to question me about the package). It took 18 days (was only supposed to take 7) to arrive, and they didnt reply to *any* of my 22 or so emails....at least it showed up intact and exactly what I wanted (eventually).

As per holiday shopping, I have had excellent experiences with Mountain Sun Designs, Newegg, Buy.com, Indigo, Edmund Scientific and Rad Rowdies this year.

I know, most of this is extremely geeky stuff...but each one of these companies is quick to reply to a query and ships when they say they will.
posted by gren at 5:50 AM on December 13, 2004

I had a good experience a while back with eBags and appreciate the opportunity to give them a plug. I bought a bag that I just didn't like when I took it out of the box and even thought it was my own damn fault, they happily took it back immediately, sending me a bar code to paste on the box for free shipping back to them. (And then a second one when I screwed up the first return.) I also got this carry on from them which is really terrific.

With tech stuff, I've been very happy with J and R.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:51 AM on December 13, 2004

The only complaint I have this year (did most of my shopping online) deals with Brooks Brothers. I bought a gift card and was charged over $5 for shipping (for a piece of plastic!) The same evening, I bought cards from Bath and Body Works, where shipping was free. The GC from BBW showed up first, via the USPS. The Brooks Brothers card showed up via FedEx, which explains the five dollars, a couple of days later. Quite irritating, as I would have opted for the USPS had I been given a choice.

Other than that, my online shopping this year has been uneventful.
posted by sugarfish at 7:14 AM on December 13, 2004

BlueFly provides excellent customer service. My girlfriend got burned twice last year by two different Amazon Z-Shops (goods never delivered), each with good ratings.
posted by mkultra at 7:19 AM on December 13, 2004

I have had good experiences with rosssimons.com (jewelry & home stuff); Levenger.com (pens, art supplies); whiteflowerfarm.com (stationary) and anthropologie.com (women's clothing). Also had really fast delivery from polo.com for some chic sweats that were on sale, and they came in these beautifully bowed gift boxes that didn't cost extra. In the past, I've also had good service from wishingfish.com, uncommongoods.com, and redenvelope.com.

A few places I check regularly for gift ideas are mightygoods.com and shiny shiny (girl gadgets).
posted by onlyconnect at 7:51 AM on December 13, 2004

newegg always has reliable delivery. a bath of techy presents for the family showed up right on time. and nixonnow.com has been good so far, they promised delivery by the 13th and lo and behold, UPS says the package was on the truck for delivery to my place as of 5 AM this morning.

(nixon has some great watches, i own one. but i was mostly ordering because my family is amused by the logo... i mean, how much fun is it to buy stuff with your last name on it? my wife's cousin always buys "hanes" socks for the same reason.)
posted by caution live frogs at 8:10 AM on December 13, 2004

My only rule is to never, ever buy a Christmas present from Value America ever again. But they went ka-boom in the .com burst, so that's probably not going to be a problem.
posted by waldo at 8:17 AM on December 13, 2004

Holiday? December 25? Sounds like Christmas.
posted by rxrfrx at 8:34 AM on December 13, 2004

Response by poster: Ya think? Did you read the first sentence my 'more inside', rxrfrx?

These links are fantabulous, everyone. I've just started a new bookmark folder for great online shopping places. I'm chuffed to see so many positive experiences so far, and also surprised by the caliber of some of the companies that people have had negative experiences with. More, more!
posted by iconomy at 8:50 AM on December 13, 2004

I have stopped buying from the US online anytime before the last week of November. Last year, it took some of my purchases till the first few weeks of JANUARY to get here (ordered on Nov 25, normally plenty of time). Plus this year, I have heard stories of the US customs turning whole trucks of packages from Canada.
posted by Quartermass at 9:41 AM on December 13, 2004

Not holiday experiences but worth mentioning. Back in my college days I had a package from Amazon go missing. Most likely a botch of the campus post office. After some serious clicking around on the site, I managed to find a customer service phone number. They overnighted the missing item no questions asked, free of charge. The same thing happened about a month later, same results. Fantastic.

Although probably not high on your list of holiday retailers, a shipment I ordered from drugstore.com at 4pm on a weekday arrived the very next day around 10am using their free UPS ground shipping.
posted by mauriteb at 10:39 AM on December 13, 2004