Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Buyer beware

So just had a miserable online shopping experience with World Market. I guess I'm spoiled because I primarily order online from Amazon and also to a lesser extent, Overstock (usually furniture from the latter). I haven't ordered from many brick & mortar stores because why pay shipping if the store is *right there*? But on Sunday, I saw what I thought were super cute chairs on clearance at World Market, but available only online. The first design was already out of stock so I put an order in for the second design and was thrilled when I was able to order four chairs. Summer BBQs, here we come!

Fast forward two hours and I realize that I had only ordered the chair covers, NOT the chairs. I check on the chairs quickly and realize they are way too spendy. $100 for two chairs for our back patio when I live in a neighborhood where things just magically sprout legs and walk away? No thanks. Plus, we had already picked up patio furniture at IKEA for a little bit more than the cost of just the two chairs. So feeling sheepish over having misread the description of what was actually being sold and a bit terrified at the actual cost of the super cute chairs (which mind you, I would totally buy on sale/clearance -- just, you know, they are spendy!), I decided to cancel the order.

Since there was no way to cancel online,. I called World Market, spent 15 minutes on hold, only to be told those speed demons over there told me that on a Sunday -- SUNDAY! -- they had already processed my order and it was ready to ship and there was nothing they could do to cancel it. Okay, fine, I said, but can I return these to the store? After all, isn't that the common practice for online orders from brick & mortar stores? Oops, not at World Market. I'd have to send it BACK to the warehouse with pre-paid shipping AND insurance. ::headdesk:: The rep told me helpfully if I was home when UPS came by, I could just decline the package and send it back. Um, yes. Has anyone actually waited for the UPS man successfully (sans appointment for pick-up??). She then told me that when I got the package, I could call them back and we could discuss how I could ship the package back.

Dollar signs flashed in my head and I was like, man, I'm going to pay more in shipping both ways than the actual cost of goods. Maybe that's World Market's scam. So at this point, we're planning to hold on to the (useless) chair covers and hope to score the cute chairs on sale at some point (they were marked down to $25 for 2 chairs at some point recently) or find some less expensive facsimile. If none of that works, will sell on eBay for about what I paid for them.

All in all, I would say World Market is possibly the worst online buying experience EVER. I love their stuff but I would never buy online from them again, no matter how good the deal (the only exception would be the super cute chairs as, natch, I already have the covers!).