I’ve just spent part of this evening re-organising my domain name and one of my old blogs to import all of the old posts into the current blog incarnation. Whilst doing that I noticed the original post about thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk and how many comments it has received so far. It made me start thinking about what DCS say about their own customer service procedures, well according to the FAQs on the website, they should be quite a good company to deal with:

Q. When can I expect my delivery?
A. You can track the progress of your order using our on line tracking facility.

The so called tracking system is the basic of the basic, no based on my story which you can read about here, this is my tracking status to this day:

25/02/08: Received @ 16:01
26/02/08: Status = Part Dispatched
22/07/08: Status = Dispatched

Yeah – great!

We aim to deliver all orders as soon as possible. Orders received before 13.00 Monday to Friday for items that we hold in stock will generally be dispatched from our premises the same day. Orders received after 13.00 for items that we hold in stock will generally be dispatched the next working day (excluding weekends).

‘Generally’, what that seem to mean is, if we have it in stock (unlikely?) then they will ship it out asap, or if the supplier has it in then again, it will be shipped pretty damn quick, however, god forbid you order something from the website which they don’t stock and neither does the supplier – you either won’t see it, or it will take a looooong time. They don’t run a live stock system which makes me think that they don’t actually stock items themselves otherwise, how hard could a stock system be from them?

Should an item be out of stock or a special order we will obtain it as soon as possible. We will inform you via e mail if an item is out of stock and give you the opportunity to cancel your order.

No they won’t, I received nothing more than a small note on the bottom of the delivery item for the part delivery I received. Easily missed but I definitely didn’t receive an email. If my order hadn’t been part shipped and both items were out of stock then I wouldn’t have received any correspondence by the looks of things.

We normally dispatch items using a 48 hour parcel delivery service.

See above.

Despite our best efforts to deliver as soon as possible, unforseen circumstances could lead to a delay in delivery of goods. Any dates / times specified are approximate and should not be taken as guaranteed.

So, basically they don’t really have an idea of when you might get your items, they also won’t keep you upto date, leaving you the ‘customer’ to chase them.

One of the other things that is annoying with the way DCS does business, they take your money immediately whether they will be delivering your goods the next day or the next month – not a bad way to earn a little interest, no matter how small that might be.

One of the directors has recently setup another business which seems to as of yet, be currently in testing and not live however based on the past performance I would be wary about doing business with http://www.camera-box.com/.

Obviously all of this information is my opinion and is based on either my experience of DCS or from information obtained through a credit check.

Enjoy.

Decided to spend a bit of time messing around with some of the photo’s from my recent trip to the states, first attempt but, I like

Well, for those who go off recomendations when deciding to use a new company, here’s one to avoid – thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk. This is my story of why.

On the 25th of Feb 08, I placed an order with thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk for a Slik Pro 700 DX and a Manfrotto 676B Monopod. Total cost was £117.89. The online shop didn’t have a live stock system so I had no idea if either of the items were in stock, that wasn’t really and issue as I reaslise that small businesses can’t have the same or similar setups as some of the larger online shops + waiting for a week or two wasn’t really an issue either!

A few days later, a parcel arrived for me Prompt delivery I thought. Upon opening the package, I realised that I’d only had sent to me, the Slik tripod. So, the next day I called up to enquire about the Monopod as I hadn’t had any notice that the Monopod was out of stock – or so I thought. The person who took my call was pretty rude and after I’d quoted my reference number ‘kindly’ pointed out to me that it was printed on the bottom of the delivery note that the Manfrotto would be delievered in a few days due to a lack of stock. FIne I thought, I got the main item I was after and as mentioned before, I could wait a few days.

A few days came and passed, no Manfrotto and no contact from thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk, something I later find out not to expect from thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk, no contact that is – oh and no Manfrotto either but more the lack of contact

Weeks later and no frotto still, no contact still so I thought, hey, I’ll check on the status of the order so again I gave thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk a quick call only to find out that, surprise surprise, they didn’t have it and still didn’t know when it was going to turn up. At this point I just cancelled the remainder of the order and went into Jessops and bought one.

Some months later I was checking through my bank statements and thought I’d make sure the refund had gone through for the Manfrotto knowing what thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk was like with their lack of contact. Fail, they hadn’t refunded me! So again, I called and this time got voicemail, time, after time during that day. No phone call back and to be honest, I very much doubt I would have got one so I emailed them to ask them what was going on. At this point they were quick to respond – with a basic apology and a promise to refund me the remaining balance of the order. Great, I also asked them to refund me the delivery cost for the order due to the 5 months they’ve now had my money for the order with no contact on what was happening.

22nd July 08, They responded, yipee! They agreed to refund me the cost of the Manfrotto – how could they not but they totally ignored my request for the delivery charge to be refunded so I emailed them again, asking once more, for the delivery cost to be refunded, to this day, they’ve ignored that email as well.

So, in short, avoid buying from thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk, they DO NOT contact you when asked or to give you any updates on orders which don’t get processed immediately, they have no idea about customer service and don’t seem to care one bit.
DO NOT USE thedigitalcamerashop.co.uk!

If you would like to sponsor me then fire a paypal donation my way to paypal@lathwood.co.uk and I will cover the paypal costs.

Thanks,

For those of you that have never been before then go, it really is a lovely place but the entertainment they have on is really excellent, the staff they have dressed up walking around drumming up support do a damn good job about it and made the day all that much better – one of them even propositioned me

After spending an hour walking round to see some of the sites and have lunch, we ended up in the general direction of the ice trail so we headed on over in time for our slot at 2:15pm. The boots that were provided were the same ones as we used at the ice rink in Manchester, Piccadilly and proved to be comfortable enough although my legs were aching after it. The trail itself was a real change from the your usual square or rectangular shaped one, it had a square area where you started from and this is where the staff members ‘hung’ around. Gotta admit, even though they were stood round on the ice all day, they were still willing to help people out and even show them how to try and stop without crash landing in the barriers. From this ’square’ you then head around the trail in a semi circle until you near the centre, at this point you can then skate around a small round-a-bout type circle before heading for the finish/start and doing it all over again – if you wanted to

I’ve put some photos online at http://lathwood.co.uk/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=42