shipping times

[molc]

Just for a bit of balance Il post my good experiences as with most company reviews online its always the bad & rarely the good.

All my HBC orders arrive next day. I can walk into HBW and collect my online orders in person. Never had an issue with either supplier. Great service & between the two I can get everything I need for all grain brewing at a decent price.

If I require my order next day for a brew or something I write that in the comments box on checkout & call them asking if its possible to get it out to me same day. This is usually on a Thursday (probably like most other brewers) or a Friday (pick up myself from DPD depot on Sat morning) & I always get it next day.

Same experience here and it's the main factor that influences my decision on where to order. All things being equal, the faster service will usually win. When shipping is free with one or the other, I go with that option.

[Qs]

Actually shipping is an issue too. I mean if I have to pay €5.95 shipping regardless of weight anywhere in Ireland I expect pretty prompt delivery.

I wish there were lower rates for small items though. I could wait longer for a bag of hops if the shipping cost didn't cost more than the hops. So now I end up having to order way more stuff to make it worth while which means I need to be home when its delivered, etc

[HomeBrewWest]

Thanks for all the comments guys, please let me try to address them as best I can. But first, to try to make it up to you guys on this thread, we are offering you a 20% discount for just 2 days (until midnight Sunday); just use this code at checkout:
sorryForDelays

OK, here goes:

1. Emails: we are Ireland's biggest HBS by a long shot. Our Irish retail alone is much larger than all the other stores combined. And we have several additional sales channels. This meant that we were the only HBS that had to submit Intrastat returns for all of last year, and this year too. The admin overhead for the past few weeks has been horrific. BUT, its now up to date (as of this weekend), so that overhead is largely gone. Since Bianca handles emails and Intrastat returns, email responses should now be much better. Even so, all emails should still have been answered within 24 to 30 hours. If you don't get a response within 24 hours, the please PM me here and I'll sort it out.

2/ Order delays: a key staff member was off sick for almost two weeks. Unfortunately, this coincided with the launch of The Craft Range which is a total runaway success with hundreds of kits already sold. Bad combination, bad timing. Its just not possible to replace key staff at short notice. So yes, orders were delayed. We did work throughout the bank holiday weekend, but it still was not enough. But he is back now, and we have recruited part time staff so things are already getting back to normal and we have nearly cleared the backlog.

3/ The free bottle openers: I asked staff to ship them as of Monday, but for some reason, they didn't start doing it until Tuesday. Sorry. To compensate a little, I've now instructed them to keep doing it indefinitely (we could add fridge magnets too if you like . . . let us know).

4/ Expired finings: Parrot, the worst offence of all. We shipped you a superior 5 star product today (and the missing opener). The original order was packed by a new part time staff member. The lads checked what he placed in boxes before he closed them up (to ensure nothing was missing), but didn't take everything back out to check the expiry dates. We have virtually no expired stock on shelves, it was just very unfortunate that those particular finings are not that popular, and slipped through the net. As usual, it has to be a combination of several factors that permit this to happen. Fortunately its very rare.

5/ Out Of Stocks: Greg2013, out of stock items are dispayed so that customers know we do carry them, and that they will be coming back in. But they are clearly marked as out of stock. So I don't fully understand what the issue is here.

6/ Parcel Motel from the UK: Parrot , this is indeed very interesting, and the final trigger for us to reduce RRPs on some 3 Kg kits (Woodfordes and St. Peters to start with), which we have just done. We have known for months that we are losing a lot of business to discount stores in the UK, and we have discussed this with Muntons. The new pricing is such that it really is not worth while anymore going to the UK. I hope! Let me know if you can still get goods cheaper in from the UK (or anywhere else) including shipping, and we will fix it immediately. In fact, let us know why anybody would import homebrew goods (range? price? speed of delivery? etc) and we will try to address this.

7/ Free delivery: Tigger, bad timing! How unlucky can you get! Next order, email us and ask us to add Euro 10 worth of free goods to your order. Then just list the goods, and we will include them with your order.

8/ Leaking Tap: RedWino, I was furious when I read about this so I asked the lads what happened. Bianca swears she posted a replacement out to you, and presumed all was well when she didn't hear back. To be honest, this is why we don't use An Post except for shipping small replacements (usually missing yeasts etc). Even when weighed, and thus properly stamped in the post office, the goods often just disappear and unless the customer contacts us, we will never know. I've now instructed them to use An Post ONLY for single yeast replacements, and to use the couriers for everything else. PM me the order number (or the email address you used when you placed the order), and I'll get you out a replacement by courier.

My personal apologies to any of you that were affected by recent delays or other customer service issues. I suppose it is fair to say that I have recently been more product focused. There are upsides to that though, The Craft Range is only the beginning, we have hundreds of related products on the way soon. Did you know that the ciders are the first in the world? If you get around to trying one, I think you will be happy that we brought them to Ireland. In my opinion they are better than commercial ciders, and that is defo a first! I'll be drinking one tonight. I am also hoping to put about 50 great new products at great pricing online over the weekend.

Meanwhile, take a look at our 25 Kg base grains; as we don't wholesale these at the moment, we should be able to make them available at good prices.

Finally, the HBS in St Paul's shopping centre is continuing to expand their product range, the pictures posted look very impressive. A goal for this year is to supply about 20 more health food stores throughout the island of Ireland with a wide range of homebrewing goods. That should be good news for everybody.

[nigel_c]

Fair play HBW. Sounds like you lot had a pretty mad few weeks.

[Qs]

20% off. Damn wish I hadn't ordered stuff this week already.

[Garry]

Good man Brian, I just stocked up

No panic with the delivery 

[Greg2013]

Well tbh we have discussed this before elsewhere HBW and i was not aiming that at you specifically but at all HBS nationwide,however seeing as you asked, if we are only talking about 5-6 items up on site marked out of stock that is not a big deal, however all too often its more like 20-30 items out of stock at once and they are not back in stock soon, in stock soon is in a week or two not a month or more, if it takes longer than a couple of weeks for multiple items then it is either bad supply chain or bad stockeeping on the part of the HBS in question, in my opinion (just mine) it gives a very bad impression that the shop in question cant keep up to speed or just cant think far enough ahead to realise that they are going to run out of something in a couple of weeks so they better order now to mitigate that.

The one thing i will say is that for the most part your prices HBW are quite competitive even with the UK shops, however it is my belief that what draws people to using parcel motel these days is not so much the price but the reliability of stock levels and the reliability of knowing that when they say back in stock soon they mean weeks rather than a month or more,also 90% of the time you can get items in from UK for the same price in a week or less and faster in most cases, that is why people use the UK and parcel motel, its not the price its that they are faster and more consistent IMHO.

[irish_goat]

Never thought the home brew shops would be so flat out. Good sign! Cheers for the response Brian.

[HomeBrewWest]

Greg, we carry about 1000 products from Belgium and Italy; we carry just short of 3000 products in total (hundreds not yet on the web site). To get the prices down, we need to get a container at a time delivered . . . so we only reorder every 3 months or so. Its very hard to predict that far ahead in Ireland. Also, our suppliers are often out of stock themselves. I sooo wish we were only out or 30 or so products at any one time; unfortunately the real figure is often closer to 200 (now about 140, we just restocked).

[hopapotamus]

i didnt start this tread to bash the hbs but to see how long deliverys are taking for people ,i feel the delays have been adiquidly explained ,. i personaly dont mind the out of stock items as at least i know what is getable maybe not in this order but probaly the next .
the offer of a 20 0/0 discount is very generous , and i have found homebrew west good to deal with in the past we are in fairness lucky to have them as the last homebrew shop i was in was across from the bemish brewery years ago and lack of a car makes me an online only shopper .
i would say dpd is the better of the couriers imo , the text letting me know the expected time is helpfull as im most likely still in bed lol

[RedWino]

8/ Leaking Tap: RedWino, I was furious when I read about this so I asked the lads what happened. Bianca swears she posted a replacement out to you, and presumed all was well when she didn't hear back. To be honest, this is why we don't use An Post except for shipping small replacements (usually missing yeasts etc). Even when weighed, and thus properly stamped in the post office, the goods often just disappear and unless the customer contacts us, we will never know. I've now instructed them to use An Post ONLY for single yeast replacements, and to use the couriers for everything else. PM me the order number (or the email address you used when you placed the order), and I'll get you out a replacement by courier.

Thank you, but as it happens I received a replacement tap directly from Coopers (via Innhousebrewery.co.uk) yesterday. Nothing received from HBW via AnPost and the last email was on 27/5 to say that "We are waiting for our supplier to send us the spares".

[molc]

Thanks for all the comments guys, please let me try to address them as best I can. But first, to try to make it up to you guys on this thread, we are offering you a 20% discount for just 2 days (until midnight Sunday); just use this code at checkout:
sorryForDelays

This was just the kick I needed to get a mini keg system http://www.homebrewwest.ie/brewferm-mini-keg-starter-kit-1614-p.asp. I'm bottling a spiced ale next weekend, so I'll even do up a review here on the site as a thank you and hopefully it's of some use to the rest of the members.

[Will_D]

Fair play to the HBS I say!

I have just skimmed the revenue VIES and INTRASAT info!

FFS: Europe is allegedly a free market ecconomy - you are ferking joking us!

Free market mean FFS FREE of BS and paper work!

The amount of paper work that the 'effing bean counters in Europe (not just Revenue.ie) are requiring for a FREE markey is ridiculous!

I just thank traders like our HBShops for being 'arsed enough to comply wilth this BS!

As for the nay sayers who expect 24 hour delivery for six quid - get REAL.

Some large letters/packages in .ieland can cost a 1/4 or a 1/3 and take days to arrive.

You get up to 25kgs or more delivered in 24/48 hours and ye're moaning!

I remember when parcel of "stuff" I used to order were shipped by TRAIN form London to S.Wales. Hardly next day service and certainly not cheap!

However BritRail Freight did not have stupid 'elf n safety regs about what was in the parcel else why did they ship half a kilo of Sodium (under oil)  to me! (True Story) Why I wanted it is another story altogether.

So to sum up:

We have an amazing 4 or so HB shops that carry a humungeous product line at very competive prices and ship a huge parcel for €6. When its been picked up from them its down to the courier and where you live!

[/Rantoff]  Feck I enjoyed that!

[HomeBrewWest]

We were the only HBS here (until Jan / Feb) that had to comply. There is a minimum threshold that you have to import before you have to comply. We tried sooo hard to fight it, but lost that battle. Then we had to go back and do all of last year's as well as this years. Over 200,000 items last year alone. Absolute nightmare.

[nigel_c]

Fair play to the HBS I say!

A very big +1 from me.
I have never had any problem with delivery times. If something is out of stock that i need , ok it can be a bit of a pain but then i think that's a good thing because some amount of the product must have been sold.
You have to remember all the home brew shops here are still small enough businesses in the grander scale of things and with the explosive interest in home brewing they are bound to have problems from time to time.
Get over it. If your willing to come on and give out about a service you are not happy with and possibly discourage others you would be better off shopping elsewhere.
As will said, rant over.