misco.co.uk

Misco were formerly known as Simply Computers. I've made 2 purchases from them and I'd be happy to use them again (provided the price is right).

Website

The website looks very professional and not hard on the eyes. Everything is neatly and evenly laid out. I have never experienced any downtime. Pages are very quick to load and I have never encountered any problems searching or browsing the site, so I have no complaints here.

Something about the website that stands out for me is that when you start typing something you want to search for in their search box, it provides results of what customers recently ordered. I like this feature and find it quite handy.

You can turn off product thumbnails, which I think is great for those who are on dialup. They have the usual results per page selection as well as a way to increase or decrease text size. There's a box on the right where you can enter a tracking code to track the status of your order. Very thoughtful! With all these features that you may not see on other website, I would give the Misco site an above average rating. They accept all major Credit and Debit cards as well as PayPal. Only problem I've ever had was with an order where my money went through but the order didn't go through. Not had that happen before.

Something else I like about the site is how you can submit your feedback about each of the product pages so that you can point out mistakes or tell them that they are missing some information in product descriptions. On product pages like RAM, they have a popup to tell you what all the different terms mean that are likely to see in the specifications.

ORDERING

Order process is easy enough. Just add items to your basket, click checkout, login or enter your payment and delivery details and register an account. You receive email notifications with order confirmations, dispatch notifications with tracking information and even a quick survey for you to rate the order process. I found it all very straight forward. You can also order by phone using their free phone number.

DELIVERY

Delivery usually takes around 3 days from order date and I've found that my items are indeed delivered 3 days or sooner from order date, so quite speedy and with everything well packed.

There does seem to be a minimum charge of £5.00 exc. VAT (£5.88 inc VAT), which I find a bit high if I only want to buy small light items though. I would like for them to offer a cheaper alternative for orders with a single small and light items such as flash memory. Overall, I've always been happy with delivery aside from wanting to save a bit on postage. Quicker and more expensive options are available but I find 3 days to be quick enough.

STOCK AND PRICES

They have a fairly big product range. Nowhere near enough to match that of Ebuyer but still enough to keep you busy. Prices aren't always the lowest. There are some items like flash memory, USB pen drives, which are competitive but others I've found some other items to be cheaper at Ebuyer and some other places. For example:

Misco - for 2x 512MB DDR400 Corsair Value Select RAM memory = £65.79

Ebuyer - for 2x 512MB DDR400 Corsair Value Select RAM memory = £55.28

Even so, they do occasionally have bargains now and again though. I found a nice Air Tech laptop bag for about £10.50 and it is great quality. They also have an 'Open Box' category where items are reduced because they have missing or damaged packaging or are returns from people who no longer wanted the items.

They have a fair amount of stock and many from big brands such as Toshiba, IBM, Freecom, etc. They sometimes stock brands that other places do not, like my AVerMedia DVB TV Card, which is good. They have a good product range and they would be a god alternative retailer if you've had bad experiences with other retailers and want good customer service.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

On my second ever order, I chose to pay using PayPal. My money went through but four days later, I still had not received my order, any dispatch emails or any tracking codes. The site did say that one of my items requires 3 days for them to get stock because it is dispatched straight from their supplier so I waited. On the fifth working day, I emailed customer support with my payment details to query this. Within an hour, I received an email and it turned out, they had not received an order from me since 5 months ago so my order obviously didn't get through. They refunded my PayPal payment and I re-ordered my order using my Mastercard instead.

They publish their addresses for each of their branches and there's even a whole list of telephone numbers. Not like Ebuyer who hide behind their eNotes system.

VERDICT

A very good place to shop for computing stuff. Great customer service compared to many other online retailers of computing product. Some of their prices do not always compare well with other retailers and their minimum delivery cost is quite high if you only want small light items, but that aside, highly recommended.

Thanks for reading!