Online Gifts Not There Yet? You're Not Alone.

The Associated Press said in this story that Toys R Us has been telling customers that they are unable to keep their promise that all orders placed by December 10th would be received by customers in time for Christmas. A report on ABCNews.com claims that this is a "universal" problem, not just with Toys R Us, but I didn't have any problem with the online merchants I used this year, none of which were Toys R Us. What about you? Did all the gifts you ordered online this year get there in time for Christmas?

"Untried business model" - not

I like this line from the ABC article

"I would be absolutely amazed if there was an Internet company that did not have problems this holiday season," said industry analyst Ken Cassar of Jupiter Communications. "It's a new business model. People are just figuring out how to make it work."

After several years of net-hype and decades of retail catalogs, to say that [ahem] "e-commerce" is new... Hm, yeah, getting buyers to give you nicely formatted entries in a database for fulfilment--whoa, really radical concept. Stand back kids, it might bite..

Things aren't getting shipped on time because these companies aren't shipping them on time. And the reason they aren't shipping them on time is that their collective heads are spinning with visions of all the money to be made "on the internet" instead of the boring details of running a real-world business. Hate to break the news to you newly minted e-businesspeople, but maybe if you spent more time getting your sh*t together and less time drooling over the wealth of Solomon that flows to anyone who uses the letter "e," you wouldn't have these problems.

Personally, problems like this make me really happy. I hope to god that "consumers" decide that e-commerce is a load of hooey so the whole PR front collapses and we can god back to the Good Old Days of the net. :)

Get the e out of e-xmas and put the x back in xmas, I say.

Ditherati: ToysRUs CEO

Got this in my mailbox this morning from the Ditherati [ditherati.com] mailing list:

PICK IT, BOX IT ... UM, WE FORGOT WHAT COMES NEXT

"We sat down yesterday and felt that there were some orders that we were not able to ship for Christmas."

Toysrus.com CEO John Barbour, on the lack of fulfillment felt by his company's warehouse workers during the holiday rush, The New York Times, 23 December 1999 [nytimes.com]

Service varied

Jeez, reading /. on Christmas Day, how sad is that? Posting on Christmas Day, how sad is that?

Anyway, this was the first time we've done a significant amount of our shopping online, and we have had mixed service. Here's my little review:

1. Amazon.com

We ordered toys, a book, a CD, and a stereo system. Everything was shipped promptly, everything arrived looking in good condition. Even though they couldn't gift-wrap the stereo (which was to be a surprise gift), they did wrap it up in concealing plastic so as not to give the surprise away. Yay for Amazon's service. Boo for Amazon's patent silliness.

2. art.com

My sister-in-law bought us a framed print from here, arrived a little later than anticipated but still well before Christmas. They packed it up nice and securely, and they even have a little pic on the outside of the packaging so you can check to make sure it's the right thing without opening it. Nice touch.

3. eToys

My wife actually ordered from here before I could stop her, but it was at least a week or so before the eToy thing became huge news.. Anyway, eToys' service sucks. We ordered two items, one of which shipped fine (though arrived looking like it had been sitting on a Wal-Mart shelf for a few weeks), but the other one didn't. So we get an email saying it was backordered. Of course, when we ordered it, they didn't bother telling us this - I thought the greatest part about online shopping was a live inventory reporting system.. Anyway, the toy should arrive sometime next month. Happy end of January, son!

3. Toys R Us

We didn't order from here ourselves, my sis-in-law did. Ordered well before Christmas, but didn't arrive, like 90% of the other ToysRUs orders, apparently. When I read about the $100 certificate they promised, I thought "well at least that's something", but as I suspected, they managed to talk their way out of delivering: they told my sis-in-law (who had been waiting a total of 2.5 hours on the phone) this week that it had actually been backordered, so they canceled the order and refunded her money. Funny though, the week before they said it was in transit.

So yeah, it was a pretty mixed bag. On the whole, we got cheaper prices online, and I didn't have to suffer the holiday crowds (my wife did, and she reported toy shelves were picked clean..)

Now all I need to do is find out why Create & Draw in Elmo's World doesn't actually let you draw anything..

All Kinds of Ugliness Here

I had problems with several online shopping sites this year.

First, I placed an order at Toys 'R Us on the 9th and got screwed -- the package isn't here, but their idiot reps claim it was shipped on the 23rd. The problem is that I had to go out and buy the toys at the mall in the meantime, and I can't get the money credited back to my account until I send the stuff back.

Second, I ordered a Palm as another gift. The site popped up an error message when I tried to complete the transaction. I tried for hours to reach their customer service line, but it was constantly busy. It turns out that they billed my card and didn't send the damn thing -- yet more money suddenly unavailable to buy gifts with.

Finally I ordered some silk PJs from Victoria's Secret for my g/f. I paid for next day shipping, but they didn't get the package out the door for three fsck'ing days.

Each and every gift I tried to buy online got messed up in some way, and I ended up having to go to the mall for the toys and the Palm (the PJs made it at the last possible second). Overall, I'm really pissed off at the companies who dropped the ball -- only Toys 'R Us made any real attempt to make right with the situation.

I'm never buying off the Victoria's Secret site again -- in my book, if I pay for Next Day shipping and order before 10AM, the product better damn well be shipped that day, not a frickin' week later. Also, I'm sticking to large online sites for computer gear from now on -- the little places obviously don't have the manpower to handle a holiday rush if anything goes wrong with their website. I'll probably try shopping online again next year, but I'm going to buy extra early so I don't end up getting screwed over as badly as I did this year -- at this point, I'm looking at eating raman and walking to work (in Wisconsin in January) until the double-charges (Toys 'R Us and the place that charged to Palm without sending it) get taken off my stupid credit card.

Christmas would have been far less stressful if I'd just gone to the mall. There ought to be some kind of consumer protection law against what happened to me this year, especially V.S.'s "not really Next Day" shipping rip-off.

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Amazon snafu

A friend tried to send me O'Reilly's Palm Programming book.

I instead received The Power of a Praying Wife.

All things being equal, this sounds like a much funnier book. I might just keep it. heh