Rant Ebuyer free delivery

Whenever I've bought something off ebuyer before I've always selected free delivery. This is usually fine and I've never had a problem with it - it's usually with UPS and although it says within 5 working days I usually receive it the next day anyway.

So I ordered a couple of things on there on Wednesday (this and this), as well as some things on Scan and novatech. Everything arrived today, except my ebuyer order. So I look on my account and see that even though both of the items I ordered are in stock and they've taken payment for them, they have a ship date of next Tuesday 15th.

I raised an enote with them as I was a little curious as to what the delay was, and basically they refused to ship my order until the 4th working day after my order, so it is delivered on the 5th working day.

Now normally I probably wouldn't bother to complain about something like this, but I usually get pretty good service from ebuyer and I can't see any reason why they would delay sending out my order other than to get me to pay for one of their priority services (which is usually UPS anyway). So now I have to wait until next week for my order while it's sat in ebuyer warehouse waiting to be shipped. They could at least say "Next working day, but we won't bother doing anything with your order for 4 days" for their free delivery option.

Is it just me, or have they always done this? I guess I'll have to start factoring in delivery costs whenever I consider buying anything from ebuyer from now on

 

Well you've order something with free delivery which is generally slower.
You may have been lucky enough to get it next day in the passed, but it is free and is expected to take time.

 

Dispite the issues i had with ebuyer over the MSI promotion i do still use them, All my deliveries come with parcelforce and have a big yellow sticker that states convenient delivery, which i assume means whenever parcelforce are in the area.

Ive never had an issue like yours with delivery though, Maybe its just because its the run up to christmas and they're prioritizing the orders that have payed for delivery.

 

I think you're complaining for nothing tbh. It's not called free delivery for nothing. If there's a maximum of five days turn around, and they are experiencing more business due to the holiday season, then you can expect to wait, and to like it

Yeah it sucks to have to wait, but I never EXPECTED ebuyer to deliver faster than their stated turn around is, of free delivery.

 

In fairness to smc, whenever I've ordered something from eBuyer (and I'm assuming it's the same in his case), it's ALWAYS been delivered within a matter of 2-3 days using the "Super Saver" option, which states delivery will be made WITHIN 5 days - sometimes, 1, sometimes 5, but mostly around the middle. It does seem really crummy of them to intentionally hold it back until day 4, especially since then, they HAVE to pay for overnight delivery.

I always assumed it was their last priority when you used Super Saver, but I never expected them to actively delay it. Bad on them!

 

And yet you still complain when you actually get the "free" delivery option?

Never had a problem with ebuyer - except once, and they just refunded my money. I still use them

 

Have you thought that maybe its out of Ebuyers hands.

My recent delivery back at the beginning of december was later than usual on the day of delivery (the city link guy is like clockwork normally around 2.30ish). I asked him if he was busy today and he said he had 160 parcels to deliver that day and we are very rural so its alot of running around.

Back to my point, its christmas, couriers can only handle so many parcels a day and quite possibly ebuyer have been allocated only so many slots for delivery, so the free delivery ones will get held back.

Its nice when the delivery does get pushed forward but its wrong to expect it all the time, its free for a reason.

 

Ah, I forgot it was Christmas That probably explains it, because I've not had this problem before. The person who replied to my enote could have explained that though.
But my point was that when you pay for next day delivery, you're actually paying for them to process your order faster, not the delivery method. If it took 5 day to arrive because they sent it via a cheaper courier or Royal Mail then I couldn't care less. Anyway, it's still free so I guess I don't have any reason to complain, they just weren't very transparent with it is all.

I appreciate they must lose a lot of money by offering free delivery though, I seem to remember they stopped doing it a while back before reinstating it after so many people complained.

 

That would be why they only offer free 5-day delivery on items where there's a fair whack of profit to be had. If you only order parts where there's little/no money made out of them, you get a big discount, but it's not free, AFAIK.

 

Well it's on all orders over £49.99, with a maximum weight of 30kg IIRC.

 

I had the same thing recently, it does seem as if they're holding deliveries back until they've got enough to ship to a certain are for UPS before they'll actually send them out.. maybe they get some kind of bulk discount or something.

 

Possibly, it just sucks that I received my orders from novatech and dabs the next day using their free delivery option, so it seems the problem is on ebuyer's end (unlikely considering the fuss they made over their state-of-the-art warehouses) or the couriers that they use (in which case they need to use someone better).

If it's neither, then they have no good reason for delaying the order which is hardly good business practise.

 

That was my thinking,

I just ordered a camera from Amazon on Wed on the free 5 day option and got it this morning. Same time I ordered stuff from ebuyer and its not here, but hey i'm in no rush. As long as I get it i'm sorted.

 

I think they are entirely within their rights, at this time of year, to put the free shipping buyers at the back of their shipping queue - Which is almost certainly what's happened here.

You seem to be asking for the same efficiency as a person paying extra for shipping, in one of the busiest times of the year for pretty much every postal service, but for no extra charge?

Sure, I love their free shipping most of the year, because it's as you said - Mostly next day anyway. But right now, in december, their workload has skyrocketed. They can't afford to burn time picking, packing, and shipping your order ahead of orders that buyers have paid more to get the delivery ASAP.

And that sounds a lot more hostile than I meant it to >.>

 

Not really, I'm just asking for the same efficiency I get from all other online stores at this time of year.

Yeah, I know, but it's hardly burning time. Now they've got to do it next week when they'll probably be even busier.

Besides, it's a rant. It doesn't have to make sense

 

I must confess, I'm not familiar with either Scan or Novatechs shipping practices, I've used them so infrequently.

Pff, Rants never need to make sense. 2 The Ranting Gryphon and Sean Kennedy both proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

 

They obviously have orders from delivery paying customers that need to be picked before yours - that strikes me as kind of obvious really.

Ebuyer have always been great to me.

 

It's more the point that they have all these arty-farty warehouses, and super-fast couriers, and talk about speed/efficiency, yet are actively delaying an order 4 days, as opposed to just processing it, albeit a little slower.

It's kind of like, what if Royal Mail took every second-class letter, put it in a bag for 4 days, then shipped the lot off using Special Delivery?

 

Option 1), Ebuyer has finite resources to process / dispatch orders, fancy warehouse or not. You chose free delivery, so they prioritise paid delivery orders. At times of high demand, to not do so, would be dumb.

Option 2), Given that most retail companies use just-in-time ordering, and often have deals with their suppliers to hold stock on their behalf, it would not surprise me if your order was awaiting delivery from another company, that contractually didn't have to ship for free delivery items until the last minute.

Option 3), Somebody at Ebuyer is messing with your head

 

We're just going round in circles now...