shipping times

[cochised]

Nobody is expecting miracles, but there are some anomalies such as the guy earlier in the thread ordering from the UK on a Monday and getting it that Wednesday. I personally have made plenty of orders to all the Irish HBS and never gotten it that quick.
Also, I ordered a big order from the States a few months back and got it within 10 days, pretty impressive if you ask me.

All anecdotal of course and I personally will try my very best to order from an Irish site.
But the modern way of shopping online is pretty cutthroat so shops have to keep up.

[Greg2013]

Wasn't an anomaly m8 that's what happened (i assume of course you are referring to me), as to the others that have basically said stop complaining, i am delighted in fact that ye seem to have no issue with services from HBS here, however not all of us have been that fortunate, and when i complain in spite of what people may think its not to discourage others from using the services of the HBS here its to keep said HBS on their toes and to alert others to issue thus enabling them to make their own decision as to what service to use.

Nobody is expecting miracles, but there are some anomalies such as the guy earlier in the thread ordering from the UK on a Monday and getting it that Wednesday. I personally have made plenty of orders to all the Irish HBS and never gotten it that quick.

Exactly my point m8, if the UK can do it across the Irish sea then i see no reason shops here can't.

Also if slow service is down to crappy couriers then its up to the HBS to get better ones not us, charge 10 euro instead of six if you must to garauntee this, i personally would prefer that setup. 

[cochised]

Think it was yourself alright Greg 

As some one who works in a small business in Ireland, I know how important supporting a local company is.
But bad service will not encourage return business and from that POV things can be quite ruthless.

[Qs]

Have to say f I'd had your experience is just never use that HBS again. Thing is I've had the opposite problem, HBC and HBW have been pretty good for me( tbh HBC went above and beyond) but I tried to order from an English crowd and gave them my CC details yet got no confirmation mail and have no idea where my order stands.

[cochised]

Have to say f I'd had your experience is just never use that HBS again. Thing is I've had the opposite problem, HBC and HBW have been pretty good for me( tbh HBC went above and beyond) but I tried to order from an English crowd and gave them my CC details yet got no confirmation mail and have no idea where my order stands.

Exactly what I did to be fair, to the extent I do feel a bit silly as we are all human and do make errors.

As I said I strive to use Irish companies as much as I can. I realise operating conditions are extremely tough and nobody is getting rich from it so we ain't getting shafted (I hope).

As said above, nobody wants to screw anybody over, we'd love to see an improvement in service across the board resulting from a thread like this 

[Will_D]

Inded there are 101 storis of great/crap deliveries:

Here's one:

Due to a finger cockup I ordered 2 off 3.6kW controllers from China.

One was to be delivered via Parcel Motel via Belfast t'other to me direct in Dubland.

Needless to say the PM one arrived in just over 2 weeks. 6 weeks later no sign of the Dubland one.

Now the good news: email to China, "Please deliver replacement to PM Belfast". 2 weeks later PM is ready for collection. No probs whatsoever with Chinese supplier -

Moral of this story: Sh**e happens. Talk to the supplier and always use PM! ! !

[cochised]

In my instance a phone call and email resulted in zero back from the HBS so methinks my end was covered

Was a busy time of year so can give some leeway there, but had spent a significant amount of money with them and my issue wasn't addressed at all. How far are we meant to go really?

Anyway, at this stage I will probably use the store in question again as I said above, we are only human

[HomeBrewWest]

I guess that unless you read the entire thread (and we hope you will), you may miss the discount. Since it ends tomorrow night, I figured I should put a reminder here for those that may have missed it: we are offering a 20% discount until midnight Sunday; just use this code at checkout:
sorryForDelays

[Qs]

Let's stop saying the HBS and just say who it is. We all know, they've even apologised and offered us a discount. They'd a busy period and that's fair enough.

Right now I will still use both. All things even I'd use HBC but I like those bulldog hops on HBW so of I need a big order of hops I'm there. Or if I need something and it's cheaper there. They've both done a decent job for me but HBC were just great and as I said went beyond good service.

I wish I didn't have a fridge stuffed full of hops because if be all over that offer otherwise.

[HomeBrewWest]

Just got a bounced email that might explain a lot. First off, our retail section ships more than twice as many orders as the next biggest HBS. So this just happens at lot more to us. Bounced email:
-------@@email.com

I presume that should be:
-------@@gmail.com

So there is a customer that's going to be well pissed off because they will not get order notifications etc. The lads can't possibly check this stuff and try to second guess fixes.

Recently, we emailed and called another customer several times. To no avail, but eventually got through to his wife. To cut a long story short, because we send email notifications to all customers, it seems it got marked "spam" in his email so he never got the emails. The moral of that story is: please white list us with your email program.

We are taking all comments here very seriously in order to improve the service we offer. But I can assure you all that our customer service is every bit as good as the major UK retail stores, of comparable size to us.

They too are not perfect. We know this, because like us, they also sell on Amazon. If you want to compare, then simply look at our Amazon ratings compared to all the other major UK stores. We are top (Brewsmarter).

See:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B002JMJUDU/ref=ag_xx__xx/?condition=new
and just look at that page. Or any other page where we sell on Amazon.

We are the only major homebrew seller on Amazon with 100% positive feedback.

Yes UK companies do offer a great service, but if enough of you use them, you will eventually run into a lot more problems! Last year, we shipped about 20,000 orders, and will ship up on 30,000 this year. And yet, complaints on forums only appear every couple of years. Still, its no escuse for those we fail; I hope the 20% discount will help a bit.

[Parrot]

OK Brian, as far as I'm concerned you've redeemed HBW and I'm satisfied with your explanations - shit happens!

Hopefully that will all be reflected in my orders, and others, being dispatched and delivered pronto say, ordered Monday delivered Tuesday (Wednesday if ordered late on Monday)?? That would be really great.

I wish I was near enough to drop in to HBW or any HBS but we've nothing remotely useful like that in the "Sunny South East" - more's the pity or should I say, 'more's the PITA'

BTW the UK thing was just a dig to get you going Har! Har!

Thanks for the replacement product - the Harris stuff is gone in the bin

P

[Greg2013]

I think its only fair that i hold my hand up and say "fair cop guv" to Brian and HBW and the other HBS we use. Anyway i actually reviewed some past orders and it seems that if say i order on Wednesday morning the stuff is sent out from say HBW at latest that evening, that being the case it is down to the couriers because anytime in the past when i have done an order on Wednesday i don't get it until the following Monday.

That being the case is there any better courier service out there that can actually get orders from say HBW to the sunny south east next day delivery ? Is there a way to pay a little extra and maybe get a fastrack delivery, say 10 euro to garuntee next day delivery ? Maybe Brian you could look into that, i don't know if it's possible but no harm in looking i suppose ? It would save you a lot of hassle from feckers like me  :

I should point out that given the exchange rate prices are on a par with UK and better in some cases, the main reason i use UK when ordering is because the orders take so fecking long for the couriers here to deliver, they won't listen to me but maybe a bit of a push from the big boys would wake them up ?

[HomeBrewWest]

Sales have gone totally nuts since we launched the Craft Range, with nearly 400 beer and cider kits sold since we launched them a couple of weeks ago. We are trying to recruit new staff to keep up.

In the meantime, will you please PM me order numbers and I will try my best to prioritise NHC member's orders.

[The Homebrew Company]

Hi,

Just read through this thread. We were away in Brouwland all weekend so just catching up on my reading now. If anyone ever has a problem with an order from us, please contact us via email or landline during shop hours and we will get to it straight away. For the most part our orders go out within the next business day, with Monday being the exception sometimes due to roll over from the weekend. There is the odd rare occasion where it will take longer but these instances are in the extreme. We have adequate staff numbers, all of which brew and are not let near the phones or shop until they have. The last order to be dispatched today by us came in at 16.07. With our new expanded premises and clean room we are geared to handle any volume. If you want to brew this weekend stick your order in with us. There is no need to send me a PM. It will ship tomorrow.

Shane

[Will_D]

In the meantime, will you please PM me order numbers and I will try my best to prioritise NHC member's orders.

Just a thought: If they are paid up members they will be using the discount code so that will tell you they are a priority. Will save you getting lots of emails!!

So one more perk for becomming a paid up member - priority shipping