Recently I bought myself a new tripod. I ordered through Bristol Cameras as they were one of the few retailers that said they had what I wanted.
My first experience wasn’t great. I had originally ordered a lens cap from Amazon, but they kept sending me emails saying there was a delay in stock arriving (they never said they had any in but I wasn’t in a hurry), so in the end I cancelled it and ordered from Bristol Cameras instead.
After doing that I got an email from them saying they didn’t have any in, the item had been discontinued and they could replace it with something else but they had no idea when the replacement would be arriving. They don’t have online cancellations, so I had to phone them up and cancel.
This time, when I ordered, I waited four days before they attached a note to my order saying that the item had been discontinued and they didn’t have any, but recommended a replacement item with similar features.
This cost £50 more so I had to phone them up again and make another payment over the phone.
Having done this, the item took another two weeks to arrive. I finally got my tripod, or at least a version similar to what I had ordered, 19 days after placing the original order.
On the positive side, they did answer their phone both times I’ve called them, and here was no big queue, they answered pretty much straight away. But it has felt like a bit of an ordeal, and I think they should be more honest and with no stock information, lead times are a bit of a mystery.
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Tags: cameras, ecommerce, online retailers, photography
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 8th, 2013 at 11:17 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.