I ordered an expensive camera lens with digidirect. On their website it was nowhere mentioned that the lens was out of stock. After the order was confirmed and my card debited I received another e-mail which said:
"Due to your ordered items being out of stock, we have placed an order for new stock.
It generally takes 7-14 business days for stock to arrive at our stores. However, please keep in mind that this is subject to stock availability, and at the moment many products have been hit with delays due to manufacturing and supply chain issues caused by Covid-19.
We will inform you via email once again once the item has arrived in our store."
That was a month ago. Since then, I havenāt received any further information. My e-mails donāt get a reply. The lens is still advertised on their website without any hint that it is out of stock.
How long do I have to wait? Can I cancel my order and get my money back?
They have a 1300 number posted as well as an online chat. Your first avenue is to request a refund via one or more of those options, assuming you find one that is responsive rather than a black hole.
In each communication be clear it is not a change of mind, it is their apparent inability to timely deliver. You should cite your rights as stated in
If they are not forthcoming for an amicable resolution that suits, follow up with a āLetter of Complaintā. Use the Community search tool to find many links and advice regarding how to write one.
If you get no satisfactory (or any) reply to emails, phone, chat, or a Letter of Complaint contact your card issuer for a charge back refund for non-delivery. Note there is a finite time to be able to do that, so do not let that time expire - it is usually 60 days but check with your card issuer.
When a business accepts your payment for products or services they must supply them to you within the timeframe they have indicated or if no time was specified, within a reasonable time.
(That is to say, I believe they intended to supply the item. This isnāt simply a scam.)
I believe that no timeframe was specified - and of course the supplier is sadly, completely correct about the effect of COVID on the supply chain.
So it comes down to what a āreasonable timeā to supply is.
It does, and this isnāt dependent on the time the person who made the order wants it buy.
If one manages to contact the business and they say that there are none available in their own stock or in that of the Australian distributor, and it will take say 3 months for new stock to arrive in the countryā¦this could be seen as reasonable as the product is unlikely to be available from other retailersā¦and no matter who one buys from, it would be the same time frame.
If for example they say they grey import the product and it takes three months, if the product was far cheaper than other Australian retailers, this could be why there way a delay and may still be seen as reasonable.
If they said it will take 3 months because they have a backlog of orders to get out, then this is the retailerās issue and as such may not be reasonable.
Without being able to contact them, it would be hard to know of the delay and if it is reasonable.
I agree with @PhilT about contacting them and requesting a refund if there isnāt any reasonable reason to why it canāt be delivered in a timely way. If one paid by credit card, one could say that they will commence a charge back if they donāt respond with 5 business days. This might spark them into action.
Thank you for your helpful answers and your time writing that down!
I will try to contact them on the ways you suggested. The link to the ACCC website is also quite useful.
I still would like to purchase that lens. I just donāt want to be kept in the dark about a possible delivery date. Otherwise it might be Christmas ā¦
I am happy to do that.
Furthermore, I also understand that in these times there can be delays. I am also aware that not every business can have all products permanently in stock, since it will tie up a lot of capital. But I think it would be only fair to make that clear before you order. Then you can decide if you still want to wait maybe a long time or not.
I had purchased products with digidirect before and had no problems.
Once bitten, twice shy. Some time ago I ordered something online with a different company. They also had informed me that they had problems with the supply chain etc. etc. Only to learn about their insolvency about 8 weeks later ā¦ maybe thatās why I am a bit uncertain about it.
Yees you can. I had done the same thing a few years back and that was even after ringing to see that they actually had the lensā¦ they said they did, but that was not true. I asked for a refund, received it, and bought elsewhere.
Update:
I contacted them through live chat. I made clear that I donāt want to wait indefinitely and would like some timeframe. Their answer was
āYour order is currently on backorder. Unfortunately, our supplier does not have an approximate date as to when the stocks will be available. I do apologise for this but as soon as we get an update, we will let you know. Once we receive the stocks, we will send it to you right away and updateā
I made a point that their answer was not really an answer and that this could be months before I might receive the lens.
The next answer was similar āwe are still awaiting our supplier to get back to us as to when stock will be coming in of this order at this time. when they do get back to me I can let you knowā
Since I still would like to buy that lens and prefer some amicable solution, I gave them two weeks to find out a timeframe from the supplier. And they should come back to me after that time without having me again to contact them. They agreed. See what happens. I will let you know.
And I also expressed my surprise, that that same lens was still not marked as āout of stockā. but they didnāt really respond to that.
I understand your synopsis was just that, but if you are not happy waiting you need to explicitly ask for a refund. FWIW once you exceed the time frame for a charge back on your card you will be at their mercy and discretion.
While waiting you should research other sources. I can sell you a back ordered widget for $5, but if you want one in stock it is $45. I hope that makes a point in what one can expect from pricing strategies.
This is really the crux of it regarding online retail. Sure, itās cheaper, but there are some online retailers that are really virtual retailers i.e. hold little to no stock (maybe just high volume items) and everything else has to be ordered in. When their suppliers canāt deliver, they canāt deliver.
The pandemic has made it worse in two ways: more customers moving away from bricks-and-mortar retail to online retail (due to bricks-and-mortar stores being closed and/or the customer being locked down or in isolation and/or hesitancy); and ongoing and long term disruption to global supply chains.
Yes, disappointing. Wherever possible an online retailer should be accurately setting customer expectations - whether itās āin stockā, āout of stockā, āorder inā or āunavailableā - and for the second and third option giving some kind of ETA. This is actually a complicated juggling act but it does sound as if this particular retailer could do better.
Iāve been in your position as the ETA on the web site just kept on being moved to a later date, week after week, and ended up being perhaps 6 to 8 weeks (for something that might ordinarily be 1 week) but this wasnāt a large amount of money (probably less than your āexpensive camera lensā) so it wouldnāt have been a disaster if it all went pear-shaped.
Note: I would check with your card issuer now what the charge back period is, apply that to the charge date, in order to calculate the hard deadline for messing around with the retailer. (This was already pointed out above by @PhilT.)
The BIG problem with online buying is that one doesnāt know who isnāt a criminal! Stay away from online buying. The dummy is the one left carrying the baby. I have stopped online buying on platforms like Amazon.and ebay after having very bad experiences. The garbage coming out of one PARTICULAR country (plenty of instant billionaires ( get the clue?) and channeled through criminal sellers isnāt a wake-up call for desperate FOMO fools.
As Phil said, āYour card issuerā ā¦ I have created one card to deal with such bad service; that card is the easiest to get a reversal (and cancel the card, if necessary) when the retailer fails to act. My Credit Union has no problem helping me do that. We should all āget our money backā, if only to discourage such unacceptable behaviour.
Thatās why the Product Review website is always my first stop when purchasing online from unknown dealersā¦ Great site thatās saved me a lot of anguish by avoiding dealing with shonks! http://www.productreview.com.au/
The forum at Whirlpool.net.au is often worth checking out for buying anything at least a bit tech.
Plenty of plain speaking from some well-informed people IMHO!
Hereās the very first result of a search on Whirlpool ā¦
Really? Both Amazon and eBay resolve issues relatively quickly if something goes wrong and we have certainly utilised this. As a regular purchaser on these sites I have never had an unresolved issue.
Last year I ordered a small floodlight (c.$100) from Digidirect and after some weeks delay I was told that the original item was discontinued by their supplier and replaced with a version 2, that was $16 dearer. I ended up speaking to someone Who said they had stock of version two and would send it as soon as they got the extra $16. It was only $16 and it was a slightly improved item so I paid the money and got the item in a couple of days. It did seem a bit unprofessional and I donāt think theyāre very diligent in matching stock availability to whatās available. ā Get the sale!ā Seems to be the mantra. They are then prepared to make some other arrangement if supply isnāt forthcoming, with refund as a last resort. Even with the best intentions it can be quite hard to keep up with stock availability at Overseas suppliers over a varied range of products. I think as consumers do you have to be aware of that marketplace - itās not like buying from a reputable local vendor
Doing a little digging online, it is possible (likely) Digidirect is a dropshipping company. What this means is they are a selling platform which doesnāt hold stock. They advertise products on their website and when an order is placed with them, the product is despatched from the distributor, manufacturer, wholesaler or retailer which they have a relationship with. They in effect work a bit like eBay, with the major difference being they are the seller.
Many businesses use similar models or only for some of their advertised products. Examples are Kogan and Amazon for those products which they donāt keep inventory but sell. They use second parties to despatch an order to the customer when purchase has been completed through them.
This form of selling has risks to the business and consumer. Businesses operating under this model take on seller responsibilities and financial risks (of the second/third party). Consumers can find that products may not be shipped locally, could be grey imports or the business doesnāt respond to communications or complaints adequately.
Our Multi-Function Printer (MFP) started having problems, and after attempting all the solutions I could find on-line I decided to order a new MFP. I found one on the Choice review that had what we wanted and started to search for it. Site after site came up as having no stock, including the manufacturerās.
Eventually I found one that appeared to hold stock, and was actually cheaper delivered than the recommended retail price. I was a bit doubtful about whether they actually had stock, so when I placed the order, I put in the comment section that I needed the printer urgently, and if they couldnāt deliver it quickly, please do not process the order. I documented that in the order so it would be part of the agreement in case the process took too long. I could use that as justification to cancel.
I placed the order Thursday, and much to my surprise was notified Friday that the printer should be here Monday.
