I've been happily buying stuff on the net for years. Only once did anything
ever go wrong and that was easily rectified thanks to a responsive vendor.
Until this year, that is. This year I've bought heaps of bike stuff on the
net - or tried to, in some cases - and it's been one frustration after
another. Well, I had one purchase go right, so credit to Rick Shapiro of
Gear-To-Go Tandems(http://www.gtgtandems.com/) where credit is due, but the
rest have been nightmares. What is it about bike shops that they can't do
business on the net properly? I mean, in one case I had to get the local
BBB involved, and I've never had to resort to them before.
If they don't want to do business with people outside the US or Canada then
fine. Just be up front and say so. But they should not say they take
international orders and then stuff their customers around.
My current nightmare is with Performance. A while back I wanted to buy some
stuff from Nashbar but didn't because they don't use USPS and that's a deal
killer because of the outrageous courier costs of UPS and FedEx. I read
somewhere that Nashbar and Performance were owned by the same people or
organisation or whatever, so I asked Performance if they used USPS for
international orders and they said yes. No worries. I ordered some stuff.
But the order confirmation email said ground shipping, which wasn't right
according to my understanding, so I went to Performance's web site to try to
track my order status before checking with them, only the system couldn't
find my order. I duly fired off an email to customer service saying there
was a problem with the system not finding my order and would they please
check its shipping method.
After much delay it turns out the [censored] cancelled my order. Only they
didn't have the decency to tell me. If I hadn't queried them I'd still be
blissfully waiting for my package and that's just not right.
It turns out they can't automatically verify my credit card billing address
with my bank. They didn't alert me to this problem. They didn't offer to
work with me to resolve it. No, they just cancelled the order and left me
hanging. The [censored].
Now they say if I want I can order again but I have to pay with an
international money order drawn in US funds. That costs me more and I'm not
ordering from them for the privilege of paying more. It's not the only
option either. There is an alternative, one I've had to use once before,
which is to fax a photocopy of my credit card to them. It's an unduly
paranoid pain in the [censored] but it's doable. I will not use a money order.
Stuff them. I have a perfectly good credit card issued by the second
biggest bank in Australia and apart from anything else I'm not giving up the
protection it offers me. When it comes to security it's not all about them.
Why do they have to make it so hard? What is it about bike shops that they
are so clueless about doing business? I'm absolutely serious, I have never
had any problems like this with any vendor in any other market segment on
the net. It's only bike stuff. I won't bore you with the details of how
other vendors of bike stuff have stuffed me around in ways great and small
but I am absolutely fed up with their stupidity. Unfortunately
organisations like Performance get away with being bureaucratic and
unresponsive because they're on the other side of the world from their
international customers. It's a shame.
--
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