I live very close to Scan so Im very lucky, I did live in Portsmouth for a while and found Novatech very good.
When I have use of a car (not very often), I go to CCL because they are only a dozen or so miles away. However for deliveries, I'd go with ebuyer, scan or dabs.com. I've been to YYT in London a couple of times, when I'm down on business but it's not the nicest place to visit. They could do with taking a leaf out of PC World's book on customer service and making the place look inviting. I know they have a lot of stuff on show in a small area but the lack of daylight is quite intimidating.
Tu As a rule of thumb I never call them or anyone else...the email system works just as well and is fairly quick. I've been chatting to scan all week about my order making changes etc For me buyer and scan are my main ones...as long as price is good....If other etailers beat their price inc del I go with them...I use plenty of other places for those odd bits and bobs mostly good sales they have.
PC World , omg i went in the other day and they had a radeon 5450 for over £40, can get it as low as £20 online anyway i like scan i wish they made there website a little easier though
Scan, ebuyer, amazon, are the most reliable sellers, have a huge range and good prices. Yoyotech, dabs and also ebay are good places to shop too. PC World's range is limited as they target the 'mainstream' user.
I'm putting together a thread about how to shop for PC Technology and stand up for your Consumer Rights when things go wrong. It's still a work in progress but currently has some decent resources available including template letters for the Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended) and also Section 75... http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=217849 The key thing is to never stick your neck out when it comes to after sales costs. Avoid expensive phone calls if possible. I always raise a dispute via e-mail and then where necessary escalate the matter in letter form. If that doesn't work then I pursue legal means as I've outlined in the thread I linked. This is extremely easy with my Credit Card company as they have an internal e-mail system so raising a dispute doesn't even cost the price of a stamp!
Agreed. There's a Novatech store here in Cardiff now and my other half is sick of the sight of the place! I can find cheaper online, but nothing beats the convenience of being able to drive down and get it there and then. I can't say I've ever had experience of their after-sales service before now, I've never had need to use it. But I would much prefer being able to walk in somewhere with a faulty product than have to box it up and send it off; it's far more difficult to fob someone off when they're stood in front of you.
Hey guys & gals, Just popping into this thread to say we are aware of the customer service issue that has been addressed by numerous individuals. We are undergoing a solution to fix this. We welcome all criticism as it helps us grow better as a business. Reading this thread we can only apologize for our employees 'rudeness' and seek a way to improve the quality that we have strived to achieved working off on one of London's busiest technology street, Tottenham Court Road. I like to say personally that if you do visit our store, Thank you. Secondary we love to hear your feedback. We understand we are not perfect, however much we like to be. So if an employee is rude or unwelcoming simply address to that person you wish to speak to someone else. We have employees who are not sales people working on the floor when we are short ( it happens a lot when the there's tube disruptions ). We are aware of our prices also, It's something we cannot avoid being a 'high street' store. Most of our competitors are north or outside London where overheads are smaller. It's not cheap being in London and even though we could move out to be competitive online, this would only hurt London'ers technology street and our mission statement. We've been here 11 years and are not looking to change this. We know we are the best store in London for parts. No other store in a 20 mile radius from us can compete on us on stock and price ( some stores on the 'high street' buy from us to sell at even higher cost ). We are only a small business of 11 personal and strive to fight with the 'big boys'. If you personally wish to let us know what you think of yoyotech's service and support and basically anything then please email me, Doug, at this email address ( marketing [at] yoyotech .co.uk ). Thank you, Doug. YoyoTech. 0207 307 4910 marketing [at] yoyotech.co.uk PS. Everyone whom has posted in this thread up to this post can have a LITS ( London Technology Show http://www.litshow.co.uk ) ticket on us to the first 15 people ( Sorry about the limit can only give out more then what I actually have. If you miss out we can send you something we think is equal in value ). This is to say thank you for your feedback. Just email me using the email address above and mention your username, this thread address and we can either send out the ticket or you can pickup. We only require details to hand over the tickets. Nothing else. No information collected will not be used in any way except only to hand the tickets. We will be keeping track of usernames to stamp out multiples ( people who are not the actual user to take advantage of us and of this offer ).
lately I have mostly been buying from... Specialtech - Scan and Overclockers All are fine to deal with, no real insentive to chose one from the other, scan seem to be slightly cheaper not by a great deal..Special Tech seem to have the water cooling stuff I like and panels and things etc ..
Scans shop is awesome, they have really spent some money on it. It used to be just a desk where you paid and then another where you collected. Now they have a lot of items on display which really helps with things like cases. You can even take items off the shelf and pay at a separate till, handy if you are just nipping in for a single item.
I've split my latest rig between eBuyer and Scan, thanks to Scan's lovely BT forum postage offer, I'm getting my case shipped for nothing! I generally price-compare between Dabs, Scan, eBuyer, Novatech and Yoyotech, although it's generally always between eBuyer and Scan for the prices - I had to plump for eBuyer for my motherboard as Scan didn't have any stock (and I'm an impatient bugger!). Honestly though, any of the retailers you listed will be fine to order from - just go for the lowest prices but bear in mind you're paying multiple postage if you split suppliers so you might not actually save.
Scan & Overclockers so far for me, ordered a complete system from the latter and then some extra bits with Scan. No problems at all with both, although I think Scan sometimes do things a little cheaper. Especially with the free shipping this forum grants us.
Scan, Aria and Microdirect are where I got the parts for my PC. Scan do free delivery for bit-tech forum users. (wish i knew that earlier though)
I use mostly Aria, had a couple of HDDs die on me that I ordered from them and they handled it very nicely, about a week later I had brand new HDDs to replace the bad ones. It seems like Scan is cheaper than Aria these days which it didnt use to be a few years ago, I also hated the absurd shipping prices of Scan. Oveclockers is just very overpriced compared to most others so I stopped using it a while ago.
Mainly Scan and CCL. Sometimes Play, Amazon and Ebuyer. Used to Dabs, but not anymore after their TERRIBLE customer service.
