clickshop.com > Reviews > Don't double click on Clickshop.com!!

Author's product rating:   

Helpfulness of Staff

Unhelpful

Advantages:	Absolutely none !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !
Disadvantages:	TOO MANY TO FIT IN THIS BOX !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !  !

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I encountered this online retailer whilst looking to buy an R4 Evolution card for my NDS.

Clickshop.com (hereafter referred to as "the shop") is an online retailer of specific electrical goods. The shop is based in South Glamorgan and from what I can tell it sells exclusively online with no physical premises.

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Home page
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The shop contains products under the categories of Audio, Computing, Gadgets, Gaming and Memory. As with 99.9% of online shops there is a search facility, although I did not use this since the R4 NDS appeared on the Home page with a direct link for more information and to 'add it to cart'. As such I am unable to comment upon the product search facility.

The home page is attractive, well thought out and easy to navigate round. This could be said of many online shops, therefore, it is expected.

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Payment for products
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Shoppers can pay in numerous currencies, including British Pounds, US Dollars, European Euros, Australian Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Hong Kong Dollars, Chinese Yuan, Korean Won and Taiwan Dollars. Whilst this is of no real benefit to the British it may be beneficial to our foreign friends.

The shop offers a secure (with full encryption) payment system through Protx and accepts all major credit cards (including American Express - which is still not accepted in many places).

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Delivery of products
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In my experience delivery was done on the cheap but premium prices were paid. I was charged £2.50 to have my R4 card delivered using Royal Mail 2nd class recorded delivery. The actual cost to the shop was £1.24 (as indicated on the Royal Mail label.

I do not agree with making profits on P&P charges and think that consumers should pay the actual P&P costs. Since the shop sells loads of these products the owners will know the actual delivery costs and should charge accordingly, therefore the excuse of "we don't know how much it was going to cost so charged an estimate" (an actual excuse I have had when making purchases off Ebay!), does not wash with me.

Whilst £1.26 excess postage might seem minimal I am just one customer and if the shop made £1.26 on all customers then I'm thinking that would add up to a significant amount of additional profits.

The shop will deliver worldwide like many other shops. I cannot comment on international shipping prices, but if they are anything like domestic prices then I am thinking that these are going to be excessive.

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Delivery of my R4
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I ordered my R4 Evolution card on 6 September 2008. Given the second class delivery I was expecting delivery around 09/10 September 2008.

My R4 arrived on the 25 September 2008, some 19 days after the order had been made and the payment taken!

On 11 September I received an email stating that the shop had encountered problems with a batch of R4s and these had been returned by customers, therefore, the remaining batches were to be sent back to the manufacturer and delivery would be put back to 17 September! I was not overly bothered by this since I thought it would be better to have a working product rather than risking having a faulty one and having to send it back, so I left the issue. In addition the shop sent a very apologetic email.

When my R4 had not arrived by 22 September 2008 I decided to try and contact the seller. The shop does not give a contact number on the website so I had to email them. I received no response.

The website has a 'news' section and under this is clearly stated in writing that any customer who does not receive their R4 in 7 days would receive a free gift to the value of £4.95 or higher for the inconvenience caused. I have still not received this gift and whilst I have chased it up on more than one occasion I have yet to receive a response. Somehow, I don't think that I am going to get this.

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Problems with my R4 and after sales service
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When my R4 arrived I eagerly opened up the box and found that the software disc was missing!! I read the back of the box which clearly stated that contents of the box, and there in black and white, it stated software CD.

Just like the website, the sales invoice did not have a contact telephone number so I had to send another email to the seller. The seller responded the following day and told me to download the software from the official R4 site.

Once I had downloaded the software and put it on the R4 I eagerly plugged it in to the NDS and……….. nothing. Other than the word "loading….." displayed through the screen. I re-formatted the card and re-loaded the software but still carried on getting the same error message.

I emailed the seller again. I did not receive a reply the following day so I thought that I would get the phone number from BT directory enquiries (after all I had the trading address). Guess what? No number found for the seller.

I left a further email with my phone number asking the seller to call me to discuss the matter to ensure that I was doing something wrong and that I had not bought a faulty R4 card.

The seller finally replied 2 days later. The email purely said "Look on Youtube to see how to install the software and use the R4. Sorry I cannot be any more help. Sef"

That was the last I heard from the seller, despite sending further emails. The after sales service is appalling and the seller offered no advice or assistance. The seller did not even know what to do with the product!!! He is a pure retailer who buys in bulk and punts them out.

After hours of research through NDS forums and Youtube I discovered that the R4 is not compatible with micro SDHC cards of any size. That was one problem sorted - I was using a 4gb micro SDHC card.

I borrowed a mate's 4 gb Micro SD card and loaded the software. The same error occurred - no joy. Further research identified that the maximum size card supported by the R4 is 2 gb.

I borrowed the same mate's 2 gb card micro SD card, loaded up the software (a couple of times) and still no joy. I believe that there is something wrong with this batch of R4 cards.

The seller still does not respond to me despite numerous emails sent. I have even written a letter (using the Sale of Goods Act template on the UK consumer website) and still no luck.

I know that this R4 is faulty. I will accept a replacement or a refund but without communication from the seller I'm not going to get either. I paid under £15 for my R4 so it is not worth pursuing through the small claims court.

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Conclusion
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My experience with Clickshop.com has been exceptionally poor, I am c. £15 out of pocket and have wasted many hours searching through forums. I will definitely NOT be using this store again. EVER.

Even if I could manage to get the product to work the shop's delivery costs are extortionate and amount to daylight robbery, there is no after sales service, little communication with the seller and absolutely no comeback if, just like in this case, things go wrong.

Use at your peril!!

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Closing note
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One good thing to come out of all this is that my girlfriend secretly bought me an R4 Evolution from a reliable source, albeit at a higher cost. Although there was no software CD (again!) the after sales support was second to none and I managed to get the R4 up and running in minutes. 