Barnes and Noble: Pros and Cons
by hm8080 - Written: Sep 27 '01
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The Bottom Line
There's plenty of other online places to shop at these days, BN should up its customer service quality or lose present customers who need help.
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| Full Review |
I’ve bought quite a number of items from Barnes and Noble in the past. CD albums, CD singles, DVDs and of course, books. Here’s what I think of them based on my personal experiences. (It should be noted however, that I’ve not used them in quite a while, see cons below):
The pros
- secure online ordering. Credit card and personal information may be stored and there’s an option to disable the credit card info storage. The system then only remembers who you are but you’ll have to re-enter your credit card information when checking out.
- Packages come with sturdy packaging. None of my CDs have ever been damaged and books came in bigger boxes.
- shipping is fairly fast. There are a few choices, next day, ground etc. I usually received my items in 2-3 days depending on availability.
- A wide selection of items and they offer a service where they’ll help you locate a book which is unavailable.
The cons
- Customer service is rather poor (or non-existent). I had two gift certificates that didn’t work and I emailed for help, only to be ignored. That was when I stopped using them completely.
- Not as wide a selection as Amazon in terms on imported titles, international items and other consumer items.
- Shipping CAN be slow sometimes, although rarely unpredictable.
I guess my biggest gripe is their lack of customer service. Even Value America which went under, had very good customer service, based on my past experiences with them.
With Amazon.com and Borders and Books and plenty of other choices to get your books, online book stores have a lot of competition these days. And besides product selection and industry diversification (consumer goods like Amazon), the one most important thing these stores should pay attention to, I feel, is customer service. Making sure customers are NOT dissatisfied and retain them as repeat customers. Word of mouth is after-all, a very powerful marketing tool!
Recommended:
Yes
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