kiddicare.com

I've recently been learning that buying all my bits and pieces for my impending baby isn't as easy as I remember it being the first time round. There are so many suppliers out there fighting for your business, and I have been truly confused with all the internet searching trying to find the best deals for the best products I need.

I was recommended to Kiddicare by an online forum elsewhere as apparently the prices were fantastic compared to high street shops. Needless to say I had to have a look.
I soon found out there is an actual Kiddicare store in Peterborough, however that's no where near me and shopping online was the best way to go if I was going to make a purchase.

First impressions of the site is that it is very "busy" with lots of pictures of loads of different baby products. I found this very confusing to start with. Luckily I had in my mind, I wanted to search for a cot, as I had been comparing prices elsewhere for a few weeks now.
The search facilities are very clear and even I managed to type the word cot and press search without any fuss.
A mountain of results were returned to me, all with pictures. The prices were ranging from nearly 700 pounds right down to 70 pounds in the sale. I was able to search via offers, or items in the sale etc, which saved me browsing through every single item to see which one I wanted.
The first one that jumped out at me was a half price deal of a cot which came with a mattress and cot bumper and duvet set for £69.99. This was a fantastic price as a standard cot in Mothercare or Argos starts at £59.99 on its own without the mattress etc.

Delivery charges would be the next hurdle I would come across, but no they were free on orders over £50. Anything under this amount is £5.99 which is slightly above average and would maybe put me off purchasing..
At that total price of £69.99 I really couldn't pass this offer up. Kiddicare promised to deliver the next day as I was ordering before 12pm. It all seemed too good to be true really, but I had heard good things about the site so happily registered my details as a new customer and placed my order.

You can pay for your order with all the standard cards, Visa, MasterCard, Delta, Switch. They only accept card payments and wont therefore accept cheques etc.

In the next twenty four hours, I received a confirmation email from Kiddicare to let me know my order had been placed, another email to let me know my order had been despatched, and I also received the delivery (via Interlink) before lunchtime the following day. It was all packaged well and the driver brought it into my house for me as you can imagine it would have been heavy and I wasn't lifting it. My signature was required and job done.

I made my other half open everything to check all the bits were there etc, and all was fine. I was very pleased I had gotten myself a good bargain without worrying about whether I had got the best deal or not.
Thankfully I haven't had to use the returns service but according to the website it looks to be an easy process with no extra charge for returning goods.

My buying experience was obviously very good and I will definitely consider them next time I want to make more purchases, but there are a few things that could deter you from ordering from Kiddicare.

- High delivery charge if you order small amounts
- Not all prices are discounted very much from the original (i.e. a Tommee Tippee milk bib is around £3.99 on the high street, and on Kiddicare it's £3.89. A ten pence difference really isn't worth the order in my opinion.
- Delivery on a Saturday costs £12.99.
- Kiddicare only deliver to UK mainland, and if you live in certain postcodes in Ireland or Scotland, there is a whopping delivery charge of £24.95.

The plus points of this site do seem to outweigh the negatives, unless you live in the wrong area. There is an extensive account information area for you to look back on and track your order. This is also the place to submit a returns request.
The customer service I received was fantastic as I mentioned but I also found out afterwards that Kiddicare offer a Live chat customer service option. I thought this was a good touch and certainly helps when you have a comment, question or complaint and want an answer but don't want to email and have to wait or spend ages on hold in a phone queue etc.

The range of products is also very wide. They really do seem to have everything you could ever need and more for your baby. If you want to buy the larger, more expensive items then this is definitely the place to look as some great deals really can be found in the form of half price monitors, cots, pushchairs, car seats etc etc. I could go on and on, but I wont.