I had a very bad experience with babies247.com and am keen to give a negative review of their online store. I made the mistake of not looking for store reviews beforehand and have learned my lesson.
I ordered a Maclaren MX3 stroller at the very competitive price of £127 including delivery from their website, on a Monday evening. On their website it says: "We will aim to dispatch orders within 24 hours of receipt and orders will arrive with you within approximately 7 days", so I was hoping that it would be shipped the next day. My concerns were first alerted when the payment confirmation email included the rider "If the goods you have ordered are in stock, we will endeavour to dispatch the same day. Deliveries are usually despatched within 48 hrs and be delivered in about 7 days unless express delivery has been paid for. If for any reason, we envisage a delay, we will contact you to explain the situation. NON-STOCK ITEMS - If the goods you have ordered are temporarily out of stock, we will contact you to let you know the earliest possible delivery time."
I checked the status of the order on their website on the Tuesday evening, and again on Wednesday afternoon, and it was still showing pending. Having not been contacted, I was still assuming that there were no problems with stock, but I decided to telephone them to find out how the order was progressing. The telephone number supplied was next to useless; half the time a fax machine answered, and most of the rest of the time it was an answer machine. After about 15-20 attempts I finally had someone answer the telephone. To be fair, they were polite, and agreed to find out the status of the order and ring or email me back that afternoon. Unfortunately they did not make contact despite their promise to do so.
At this point I became concerned and began searching for reviews of babies247.com on the web, and I found two sites with very negative feedback. I contacted my credit card company who confirmed that payment had been taken from my credit card first thing Tuesday morning. It was too late to contact them again that day, so I left it until Thursday lunchtime to telephone them again. This time I did not get through at all on the provided "customer service" number. Now babies247.com is the online store for a real shop called "JKUK" or "Just Kidding UK", based in Southampton (it seemed particularly ironic that the credit card payment came up as "Just Kidding"!). I rang their flagship store in Southhampton and explained that I had been unable to contact the online customer services direct - they rather helpfully put me straight through.
I explained the situation as above to the person (I think it was the same one as I had spoken to the day before) and they said that they were still chasing up my query. I pointed out to them the assurances on their website that they would contact in the case of any delays, as well as the fact that they had taken my credit card payment within hours of me submitting the order. She offered to go down to the shop floor to check if the item was in stock, so they were clearly in the same building as the flagship Southampton store. After about four minutes on hold, she returned to inform me that the item was not in stock, but that they would have one in about ten days, and then asked if I would be happy to wait! I explained in no uncertain terms that I would not be happy to wait and that I wanted a refund applied immediately (Thursday 2pm) on the card transaction.
Since that time I have checked with my card provider, and they did refund the money, but not until the Friday.
My impression is that this is a successful "bricks and mortar" store which has not successfully transferred to the online world. A little research shows that the online store was launched about 2003, and yet they are only up to order numbers in the "900"s four years later.
I have learnt several lessons: - always search (carefully) for online reviews of vendors - if stock levels are not clear from the website, ring and confirm - pay with credit card so you have some buyer protection in case things go wrong
I hope this helps others avoid making the same mistake!
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