Next Day Delivery - Deadline Commitments

Russinating

Russinating

Russinating

Soldato
Joined
27 Dec 2005
Posts
17,316
Location
Bristol
I ordered a desk from an online retailer on Monday. We're moving into new offices today and a) yesterday was the only day I could guarantee I'd be in one place due to moving today and b) due to the desk being the largest thing in the room it really is required before everything else goes in.

Anyway, we chose this specific retailer because they offered free next day delivery for all orders placed before 12.30pm. We cut it close, but a deadline's a deadline. I got an email saying the desk would be delivered today and to quote the correspondence:

Please accept my apologies – your order was processed at 12.29pm yesterday and you are correct that Next Day Service is available on orders placed before 12.30pm. Unfortunately, we did not make the cut-off time on this order due to the slim margin of timescale which was available for us to get the order processed before the courier made their collection.

I do apologise – as soon as we received notification that the delivery would be Wednesday, we notified you to this effect. We will re-address our cut-off time for the Next Day Service and update the website accordingly.
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Clearly having your customer cutoff time the same as your supplier cutoff time is pretty ridiculous. The 12.30pm deadline has yet to be changed on their website either.

Question is, where do I stand? I know it's only a day late so I'm sure I'll get some of the "live and let live" brigade, but it is a huge inconvenience - we should be in the new office by now but I'm having to wait at home instead - and we ordered with this company specifically for this service and this service alone (the desk is available at tens of dozens of other online retailers).

Thanks in advance.
 
Depends when you got this email? Did you get it Monday or Tuesday..

Cutting it so fine and being important it was delivered Tuesday, would have been wise to call up and check. If they told you Monday soon after you placed order I personally wouldn't give them too much grief.

When you cut it so close, literally less than a minute within the deadline, it's always going to increase the likelihood it doesn't get done.
 
We have the same problem where I work. We offer free next working day deliveries on all orders placed before 4PM, but in the last 5-10 minutes, we get a ridiculous amount of last minute orders and the warehouse struggle to get the orders out. The couriers do arrive with us at approximately 4:30 every day, but obviously each order needs to be made ready for shipping.

I'd say if you ordered it with a minute to spare, then I wouldn't give them too much grief. I'd imagine a desk is a large heavy flat pack item and would require a little more time to make ready for shipping than a laptop (as in our case) would.
 
Atari said:
We have the same problem where I work. We offer free next working day deliveries on all orders placed before 4PM, but in the last 5-10 minutes, we get a ridiculous amount of last minute orders and the warehouse struggle to get the orders out. The couriers do arrive with us at approximately 4:30 every day, but obviously each order needs to be made ready for shipping.

I'd say if you ordered it with a minute to spare, then I wouldn't give them too much grief. I'd imagine a desk is a large heavy flat pack item and would require a little more time to make ready for shipping than a laptop (as in our case) would.
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In that case change the cut off to 3:30pm if you can't promise what you say. I see where you are coming from but look at what can happen to people like Russ.
 
Your options, I'd imagine, would be to get your delivery charge refunded or to cancel the order. Annoying that you didn't get it, but these things happen, not the end of the world.
 
Atari said:
We have the same problem where I work. We offer free next working day deliveries on all orders placed before 4PM, but in the last 5-10 minutes, we get a ridiculous amount of last minute orders and the warehouse struggle to get the orders out. The couriers do arrive with us at approximately 4:30 every day, but obviously each order needs to be made ready for shipping.
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Wouldn't anyone with a modicum of sense then move the deadline to 3:30PM in order to give you plenty of time to fulfil any orders made close to the deadline?
 
play with fire you get burnt!

order earlier net time lol

not saying you are wrong but something important like that i personally wouldn't leave till the last minute for reasons above
 
platypus said:
Wouldn't anyone with a modicum of sense then move the deadline to 3:30PM in order to give you plenty of time to fulfil any orders made close to the deadline?
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Believe me, if I was in any position to change the timing of the next day cut off, it'd be something that would've happened a long time ago.
 
Oh well, what happened happened! Delivery was included in the item price so no chance of getting that refunded.

As a good will gesture we are able to provide you an 8% discount off future orders.
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Happy with that though :).
 
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