Equipment vendor rant

[nhulst]

Vendor A: I sent an e-mail inquiry on Sunday. It's now Thursday. No response.
Vendor B: I placed an online order on Tuesday. Credit card was billed immediately. It's now Thursday. Item not shipped, no communication beyond the auto-generated e-mail at the time the order went in.

Neither of these vendors is SatelliteAV, only because Brian doesn't have either of the things I'm buying.

I understand these are small businesses and I don't expect things to happen in five minutes, but it is really so hard to communicate in this amount of time?

What are your great or lousy vendor experiences?

 

[Kraven]

One Vendor gave me the "yeah yeah its been shipped" story for 2 weeks then it arrived via Overnight Fedex. Am understanding guy and things happens but being lied to...well line was drawn. I never publicly bashed the vendor but never bought from him/her again.

Cheers, K

 

[Anole]

A lot of little outfits don't have the part in stock.
One I've used, has product drop-shipped by his distributor.
(which usually works okay)

Or maybe they normally do stock, but they're back ordered and waiting for their distributor to restock.

Some very small dealers don't get to FedEx, UPS, or the post office 'till they have lots to ship.
For some, that might be once or twice a week.

None of 'em want to admit the truth and lose your sale.

I wouldn't bash anybody on a single bad experience.
There are occasional slip-ups from everyone.
And having modest to reasonable expectations, helps.

 

[Cham]

Fortunately I don't think I can complain about any of the on-line businesses I have delt with regarding satellite equipment. I have had to wait for items to ship or get re-stocked, but I was mostly aware of those issues before I made the deal. Worst problems have been with items tied up in customs for 4-6 weeks for absoulutely no reason... Certainly not the fault of the venders. I am quite picky when it comes to verndors and do quite a bit of research before going to a new one. That may have helped me somewhat.

 

[johann12]

I also do a search on potential new vendors. First, I look at the BBB and see how they handle their business and i do more searches.
I never had any problems so far.

 

[updatelee]

Ive ordered off satcom resources before, they have excellent prices and fast turnaround on email questions, unfortunately they only use fedex which isnt cheap when shipping to Canada.

UDL

 

[madmadworld]

if we knew who it was.......
been buying online over ten years big and the most small of vendors and had little troubles mostly e bay sellers who do not package well is the worse. sad stories.
even the Hong Kong sellers do a good job and refund faster than guys in the states.
good luck

 

[nhulst]

if we knew who it was.......

Yes, I knew that question would come up. First, though, I'm going to call both of them today and give them a chance to say what's up.

Neither of these was an eBay transaction.

 

[Blindowl1234]

Went thru the same thing this summer trying to get a motor for KU band and a few other parts. Trying to find the parts in stock was the biggest issue. I finally got the extra spare parts I needed for backup. I realized I spent way more on this hobby over the last four years than expected, so now I just watch the tv and quit experimenting. This economy I'm sure has caused suppliers etc... to not stock as much as they once did. nhulst, I rarely use ebay for my fta stuff as well.

 

[nhulst]

Follow-up.

Vendor A: Called and inquired. Item actually had shipped same day, for some reason the invoice came through ok but the tracking information went to my Spam folder. Egg on face.
Vendor B: Called and discussed with him. He hadn't gotten back to me because the solicitation was actually for a dealer and not for an end-user looking to buy a single quantity (though this wasn't made clear on the website.) Don't know why he couldn't have e-mailed back and said that.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Anymore I deal directly (and solely) with the sponsors of SatelliteGuys and those companies which advertise and visit the forum here.
I have never found a reason to gripe with them, not once and not in the least! I have never come close to a bad experience with any
one of them here. Obviously, there are times when you may encounter a defective item or a missed shipment or a foul up in the ordering
process, but these guys always make it right for us and you know they want to. It is their business and their honor that is at stake, so
they always do what is right and even go FAR out of their way or maybe even take a loss to keep you, as their customer, pleased.

I cannot say what is really going on in their minds, but I think that they are this good to us because they are "ONE OF US" and they are just
naturally honest and geared to be helpful and courteous and willing to make our experience right because they enjoy everything that we do!

It's like helping your brother fix his house or his car or his stereo.... etc. You wouldn't do wrong by your brother now, would you?

RADAR

 

[Anole]

I'm pretty happy

I've spoken to the owners of the three most recent FTA Gold Sponsors.
They're all very interesting people, and I wish there was more time to chat & brainstorm.
I still recommend the two who had to cut back on their advertising dollars.

This last year, I order more repair and accessory parts for cell phones.
Amazon vendors supply everything.
They build in reasonable delivery times, so nothing is late.

I had a cell battery fail after a month, and the vendor shipped one right out!

Another vendor only shipped half the stylus I ordered, but immediately shipped the balance when I brought it to their attention.
Iin fairness, the "item" was for two 5-packs.
I ordered two and should have gotten 20 pieces.

I needed an iPhone 4 camera. Noticing a 6-pack cost about what two normally go for, I figured 6 was cheap insurance.
About half of them didn't work , but they replaced 'em.

Those are out of 31 orders.

Oh, one local-to-me outfit (25 miles) does something stupid with DHL Express.
Takes several days to get it to DHL.
Then DHL takes more days to move it 30 miles to a post office on the other side of me.
And finally, USPS sends to my local PO, who takes more days to deliver!
10-14 days for what should have been a week.
But the have great prices, so I'm just careful what I order from 'em


Shipments from Hong Kong take 3-5 weeks, usually.
But the vendors have always shipped in one or two days. Air mail!
The package winds up sitting in Customs Impound at the Port of Los Angeles for the rest of the time.