Guess I might as well chip in w/my order experience...
On August 18th, I sat down and ordered the parts for my NAS box. After much comparizon shopping, I ordered 4 x 500GB hard drives from Monarch Computers cuz the yahd the cheapest prices w/decent shipping. Having been building and ordering pc parts for over five years, I remembered them having a good record and being a good etailer. I placed my order on a Friday and calculated my expected ship and arrival dates based on past experiences and what I thought was common sense. I received the automatic order confirmation that day and I expected the item to ship on monday or tuesday since most places dont process orders until Monday. I figured the item should ship on Monday or Tuesday factor in the 3 day shipping I paid a little extra for and it should be here by Friday or Sat.
Their website said instock on my hard drives and out of stock or back ordered on other ones. I had no reason to expect any delays or problems. I checked my credit card online over hte weekend to find it had been charged that same day. From past experience with pretty much everyone else Ive ever ordered from, they only charge your card when they ship the item, so I figured they had boxed it and prepped it to ship.
Monday came and went and Tuesday came and went without any email or any change in order status from their website. I thought it odd but figured it might be a delay cuz I have had some places ship b4 sending out an email. Since I had nothing else to do while waiting for parts, I looked up MCs Reseller Ratings and was shocked to see a 6 month average of 6 something. .. I read through like half a dozen pages or smoething about customers experience and shifted to actual descriptions of problems, to possible make believes, to exagerrations and what nots... Most of hte problems in the past 6 months were related to shipping delays, incorrect orders and errors in fulfilling the orders or those who cancelled and were not refunded in a timely fashion. I waited til the following Friday to send an email asking for an order status.
I got an email later that day, which was nice, which said it would ship 8/30 cuz they sold too many, which was not nice... I debated cancelling and ordering elsewhere since I had really wanted it to work on that weekend, but chose not to after reading all the horror stories on resellerratings.com. I figured it would be less of a hassle to wait for hte drives than try to cancel especially AFTER they had taken my money. 8/30 came and I waited for a shipping email. I finally received an email from fedex on the evening of 8/31 that gave me the tracking number and ETA for its arrival. It was shipped fedex 2nd day... but on a Friday which made the ETA Monday.... wait... monday just happened to be a major holiday so it was actually Tuesday before I received it... I was not happy, but I was relieved my order came in and I was semi happy with the price. in the days leading up to my product being shipped, I watched the ratings drop to 5.low and more feedback that didnt help their cause.
Had I known they charged before htey shipped, I would have ordered from ZZF or newegg.
Had I known it would take 2 weeks to receive, I would have recalculated my build timeframe.
I give them a neutral... something like a 2.5/5.0.
In this day and age, I do expect live, automated inventory tracking and automated order updates... automatic email with the order confirmation and shipping details/tracking numbers. If the inventory is out of stock or delayed, I do expect an email asap about the delay and when they expect to ship it.
I did not like paying extra for faster shipping, then finding out they ran out of stock and upgraded everyone elses shipping to fedex 2nd day anyway.
I did like the prices and the ease of ordering, although the website could use some improving.
I do feel like I dodged a bullet by not cancelling and asking for a refund.
I do not plan on ordering from Monarch Computers for well... many months to come, if ever again. The experience was not horrible, but it should have been easier and not left me feeling lost during that time. My expectations have been risen from past experiences with other etailers such as ZZF, newegg, and mwave.
What *would* bring me back to MonarchComputers are low prices, accurate inventory and shipping status updates, and not charging until they actually ship the products. These, in my opinion are the basic essentials for any online business. There would be more, but that would be starters for MC...
Note: I did not give a reseller rating. it was low enough and I figured most people would take a buyer beware approach.