http://www.sherwoods-photo.com/index.htm
Has a final splurge before times of stringency took over completely and ordered some stuff from the above company. Not had chance to try any of the kit yet but as it was all received in good order, whatever deficiencies may crop up later won’t be down to Sherwoods. I tried to order the items via their website on Sunday but that didn’t work out too well. It took me a while to find the various items I was looking for, I had checked that they had all the items I was looking for previously, and this was the main reason for ordering from them. It may well have been over an hour before checking out and I had been doing other things though the page had remained open but when I went to ‘View Basket’, there was nothing in there so I decided I would ring them on Monday to place the order. There was no facility, as far as I got with the order, to create an account to retain order data and there is no login link on the site. Once you click ‘View Basket’, you get bumped over to a third party site called Romancart.com, whom I have never heard of, without any indication that this is happening, as far as I got, other than in the web address bar. I’m sure this is not an uncommon practice amongst small businesses with a web presence and wanting to have an order fulfilment capability but I would have liked to have had a clear indication that I was being transferred to a third party.
When I phoned on Monday I was greeted by an unenthusiastic operator who took the order efficiently enough but certainly didn’t seem interested in engaging me in conversation which may have led to further sales. I was also informed that, as I ordered by phone, I could not receive confirmation of despatch by email which I didn’t feel was particularly customer friendly. I did learn that the order would be despatched via Royal Mail Special Delivery for delivery Thursday or Friday so I decided to ring them again on Wednesday to check on progress. When I made the call I think I spoke to the same guy who quickly confirmed that the order was being despatched via City Link and came up with the tracking reference. The items arrived at 9.30 this morning within the expected timescale, all the items were there and correct.
The bottom line is that the stuff turned up on time, the prices were reasonable though not exciting and the postage was free. The telephone contact was perfunctory and I didn’t get to see how well things worked via their online offering. I would be happy to use them in the future but it would be price or availability that would drive me there and my preference for most transactions, be it web, telephone or face to face, remains Green Witch.
