The Pitfalls of Online Shopping

A big box full of toys arrived today. The problem was that these toys were meant to go to my sister's house in Franklin, TN.

She had sent my children presents from the same online company, Oompa.com, and somehow they got confused and sent both orders to my house. My order had arrived yesterday, so I was surprised to see another box today.

Now my sister is frantically running around so that Santa doesn't fail her little tykes. I offered to overnight her the box, but she was so angry dealing with the folks at Oompa that she declared she just wanted me to return everything. The first guy she talked to was rude to her. She called me in tears, so I called up the company myself and talked to the same guy, who was as cold and unhelpful as possible. It was obvious he didn't have kids and couldn't empathize with the pressure a mom feels around Christmas time.

From my sister's perspective, the company was at fault. She was certain that she put in her address, and that her initial order showed that she wasn't paying taxes since she lives in TN and the company is in CA. But the company did charge her taxes and sent the items to me in CA. Regardless of who was at fault, they certainly could have been nicer about it. And now, it's up to me to send this damn box back to Oompa, which means a trip to the post office around holiday time. And I feel a little bad because I recommended Oompa to my sister in the first place. I guess I won't do that anymore.

I used to love online shopping, but lately I'm not so sure. For example, the last minute gifts I purchased yesterday were wrapped in the store for me, beautifully I might add, and for free. Oompa charges a "wrapping fee" of $4.99 which they don't tell you about until the final stages of check out (and they say "we really do enjoy wrapping presents" on their website!!!!). If they presumably have lower overhead being an online retailer, then why can't they splurge for wrapping paper? They are upmarket, too, and online retailers should realize that people buying expensive, foreign toys expect decent service.

The return process is not as good, either. I would rather go into a store to return a gift than make a trip to the post office. Come to think of it, I would rather do almost anything than go to the post office. And then there's the factor of having to pay to return gifts. That just seems wrong.

And perhaps the most important factor is the unreliability. A few years ago, I purchased all the gifts for my family from Amazon and had them shipped to my parents' house in Kentucky. They didn't ship them because they were waiting for a book that wasn't going to be available until January (even though when I first made the purchase, they said the book was available to ship then). I had to change the shipping order and pay extra just to get the gifts there on time, even though I had placed the original order way before the holidays.

That's it. It's back to bricks and mortar for me.