Amazon Canada: Satisfied Customer Here
by lavenderfruit - Written: Sep 26 '06 (Updated Sep 26 '06)
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My experience with Amazon Canada
Although this forum is supposed to be for Amazon.com, and not Amazon.ca, I could not find a place to review Amazon Canada. Amazon Canada does not offer the same variety of goods as Amazon.com. But, I have placed over 4 orders in less than 6 months, and have been quite satisfied with their overall service.
I've never really been the type to order from online. Prior to ordering from Amazon, I once made a purchase through Chapters-Indigo--a competitor which sells books and the like. Since I have had such a horrible experience with Chapters, I decided not to order from an online store. That was several years ago. Recently, I wanted to purchase several books, but found that going to the book store would have cost me a lot of money. So I decided to check out Amazon to see if they had the books I was looking for, and of course, the price. It turned out that Amazon had all the books I was looking for, and huge discounts, often between 30-50% off the regular price. But what made me decide to order from them was their safe ordering policy, allowing me to only input the last 5 digits of my credit card, so I can call them and provide the complete number over the phone.
My purchases have now exceeded over a couple of hundred dollars. Since I want to take advantage of the free shipping for orders over $39, I've never had to pay any shipping. Every time I phone to give my credit card number, I'm greeted by professional customer agents, who seem to want to help the customer out in any way that they can. I've also contacted Amazon through their email, and have gotten response from them the very next day. However, I must admit, there is one person at Amazon customer service who projected a "I don't care" attitude while talking with me.
What happened was, when I phoned to give my complete credit card number for my latest order, the customer agent gave me a one time complimentary shipping option of sending out the items that were in stock at the time first, then sending out the 2 items which were not in stock later on, without charging me for extra shipping. Without my asking, she simply extended this complimentary offer as a courtesy.
For those of you who have never shopped with Amazon, the free shipping offer requires that all the items be in stock before being shipped out. That means, they only ship out once, in a single box, with ALL of the items purchased. If you want to have the items that are in stock to be shipped first so that you can enjoy them as soon as possible, there is an option to have such items shipped separately from those that are "currently not in stock" and "pre-order" items. Of course, this would mean that you are changing your shipping plan from "free shipping" to "ship as it becomes available," and you would have to pay for shipping, even if your order is over $39 before taxes.
Getting back to my story, I was really pleased that I was getting a complimentary offer, but, my items did not arrive when it was supposed to. When I phoned Amazon to ask where my stuff was, that's when I got this "who cares" attitude customer agent. She basically said that best thing would be for me to go back to my original "free shipping" plan and wait several weeks for all of my items to arrive. Otherwise, if I stick with this one time complimentary offer, I may be charged with shipping fees, in which case, I would have to phone Amazon again to ask them to remove the shipping fees. I thought it was odd that when I spoke with the lady who gave me the complimentary shipping plan in the first place, she said that I would not be charged any shipping fees, but now this lady was telling me that their computer system has a mind of its own, and may charge me shipping fees. I hanged up the phone and called Amazon again, hoping to get another customer agent. Sure enough, I get someone else this time, and this agent goes on to make sure that I get my complimentary shipping offer, PLUS, upgrade it with priority shipping. Now when I first received the complimentary offer, my items were to be shipped using regular delivery speed--usually 5 business days. But now, not only was I getting the complimentary shipping offer, but also priority shipping. My items arrived in 2 days after they were shipped from Amazon (all shipping is done through Canada Post).
Quality of Merchandise
Most of my purchases have been with books. There was a time when I also ordered a CD as well. The items were all bought as new, and arrived as new. Some of them had some light black markings on the merchandise, but it wasn't bad. It looked to be some dust from being in a warehouse.
Order Accuracy
So far, all of my items arrived as they should have. This was not the case with Amazon's competitor--Chapters-Indigo.
One Final Note
I'm quite satisfied with Amazon, despite that one customer agent who kept on sighing and talking to me in a tone that said: "I don't care." The prices are a bargain, the selection of books and other items are good, and the speed of delivery is reasonable. I have come to trust Amazon.ca as a reliable online merchant, and I hope to continue my business with them in the future.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Books & CD
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