Dick Smith online ordering SUCKS
Dick Smith Electronics is the Fry’s or perhaps Circuit City of New Zealand. You know, the kind of place you go to buy components, computer games, iPods, XBoxes, and stuff. The place you try to avoid at all costs, especially given the pimply-faced unhelpfulness of the staff.
I should have known better, but I was hunting for a particular solution: an integrated car charger and line-out device for my iPhone. Please god do not at this point try to tell me I should use a FM transmitter.
So yeah I found something that fitted the bill, and ordered it online. The website said there was stock available. This was on Sunday, almost a week ago. At the same time I ordered a lovely iPhone car cradle from ProClip. The cradle arrived yesterday, all the way from Madison, Wisconsin. So there’s the competition: can Dick Smith fulfil an internet order from their warehouse about 30 minutes away faster than someone across the other side of the world?
No, not they cannot.
I finally called this morning to find out where my order was. They tell me it is due to be shipped from the Sylvia Park store. I opted to go and pick the thing up directly, so I traveled out to the store, bailed up a manager, and asked him to go find it. 10 minutes later, he emerges from the back of the store and tells me he couldn’t find the product anywhere, but he does have the packing slip issued from the online store.
We go and look on the computer together. Several other stores are showing “1″ or “2″ of the things in stock, but he tells me not to bother going to the other stores because “anything lower than about 3 in stock on the computer means they probably don’t have anything”.
Morals of the story:
- Avoid Dick Smith stores like the plague
- It is faster to order online from the USA than it is to buy locally
- Dick Smith definitely need to sort out issues with their stock level system before they even try to fulfil any online orders.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Ah man, tell me about it. Aside from driving from Mt Eden to DSE-Powerhouse Manukau on the hottest day of summer, to be told that the part I’m looking for is at the non POWERHOUSE DSE about 2km away, only to have the manager at that store bring me a cardboard box full of broken electronics, then asking me to take my pick and pay $170 when the listed price on the site was $160… DSE have never done anything right.
A friend of mine worked at their North Shore distribution centre, he had nothing but spite for their systems. Tales of critically borked DVD players (hardware issues causing 1-2 second video/sound delays, loose drives, dodgy wiring (mmm, smell that PCB burn)) etc etc being re-boxed and put back on the shelf…
I guess DSE is useful if you need some Cat-5 or a stereo jack, but yeah otherwise… avoid at all costs.
Oddly enough I find Dick Smith actually have competitive pricing these days on a lot of electronica.
But yeah I’m only ever a walk-in customer. I only use their online store for comparative pricing.
And yeah caveat emptor and always check the box seals.
In future don’t be such a lazy fuck and walk to the store, you proberly need the exercise, but you would proberly complain about something on the way!
I brought a wireless router from them and 9 mths later it just stopped working and I had to wait 3 weeks with no internet before they “fixed it” but instead they gave me brand new one. Then 6 mths later that thing broke and I had dramas getting them to honour the consumer rights warranty since they insisted it was over 12 mths ago I brought the original new one, go figure! They told me they'd fix it under duress and if it breaks again then sad luck…but hang on isn't a router a product you expect to last years…..isn't there a consumer act they should adhere to?
Never ever ever again will I buy anything from DSE