Thanks Frugal Corner

[wilson1]

you are lucky. I waited 3 weeks with constant email and voicemail requests, which led to 2 promises to ship my order, only to be told that they did not have my size and could not fill it. One week before i needed it for a function. theynsuck

[ColoradoScots]

Thus far, I am less than thrilled with Frugal Corner.

I originally placed my order on Nov 5, 2007. Whith no reply to my order, no aknowledement of the order, I sent an inquiry on November 10. I did receive an email response that same day stating that buckles were on backorder.

Fine, I understand that things happen, but the lack of response and communication is a big problem.

I replied that I would like more information regarding anticipated ship date and better communication.

No reply until Nov 14 with a message about how they are waiting on an $80,000 order.

We have moved since I placed my order (still in Monument, just a 1 1/2 mile move) and things have been nuts.

I sent another email on Nov 25 asking for an update and if the shipping address could be changed to our new address.

No reply.

I think The Frugal Corner creates a vacuum. This is poor customer service.

I have holiday functions coming up that I need the items I ordered.

They had no problem in charging my credit card immediately. Most reputable businesses wait until the items ship before charging.

Hey Frugal Corner, what's your response?

[Nighthawk]

Thus far, I am less than thrilled with Frugal Corner.

I originally placed my order on Nov 5, 2007. Whith no reply to my order, no aknowledement of the order, I sent an inquiry on November 10. I did receive an email response that same day stating that buckles were on backorder.

Fine, I understand that things happen, but the lack of response and communication is a big problem.

I replied that I would like more information regarding anticipated ship date and better communication.

No reply until Nov 14 with a message about how they are waiting on an $80,000 order.

We have moved since I placed my order (still in Monument, just a 1 1/2 mile move) and things have been nuts.

I sent another email on Nov 25 asking for an update and if the shipping address could be changed to our new address.

No reply.

I think The Frugal Corner creates a vacuum. This is poor customer service.

I have holiday functions coming up that I need the items I ordered.

They had no problem in charging my credit card immediately. Most reputable businesses wait until the items ship before charging.

Hey Frugal Corner, what's your response?

Next time, go with Stillwater Kilts.

[kiltedinUSMC]

Wow thanks for the heads up on FC I will stick with SWK or USAK. At least I know how they treat their customers

[M. A. C. Newsome]

They had no problem in charging my credit card immediately. Most reputable businesses wait until the items ship before charging.

I'm no fan of Frugal Corner for a variety of reasons, but since I'm not a customer of theirs, I have refrained from commenting on this thread.

But this reply isn't really about them individually, but any on-line business that uses PayPal to accept funds.

A lot of on-line shops use PayPal as their shopping cart system, including the Scottish Tartans Museum gift shop. It's readily available, and easy to use. I know we use it because I don't have the know-how to set up our own shopping cart system. Using PayPal's I can change, add, or delete any item information myself within minutes and have the change updated on our web site, as opposed to having to pay a tech guy a high hourly fee to make the update and perhaps have to wait days for the change to be made.

In any case, point it a lot of folks use PayPal for their on-line shopping cart. When you check out, you are essentially using PayPal to send funds to the person/business you are buying from. They get an email from PayPal to say, "Hey! This person just sent you money. This is what he ordered and here is his address."

To my knowledge, this is not all that unusual and a lot of other shopping cart systems out there operate pretty much the same way. So it's not just a PayPal thing, but this is the one I have the most direct experience with.

I don't know how Frugal Corner does it, but we send the buyer an email as soon as we get payment notification either saying, "Your order is in stock and will ship today," or "your item is temporarily out of stock and may take _____ amount of time to be ready to ship." In either case we thank them for their purcahse. In the latter case, if someone replies back and says they can't wait the wait time and wants to cancel their order, we refund their purchase. PayPal lets you do that pretty much with the click of a button.

But my main point is, the business here never actually sees any of your financial information. PayPal handles all of that -- we just get an email saying the funds have been transferred. So you can't claim foul because the business "charged your card" even though the item was not in stock. What happened was that you sent them money, and they would have gotten notification of that at the same time as they recieved your order request.

If you ever get into a situation with an unreputable business that is refusing to refund your money after requesting that your order be cancelled, you can always take it up with PayPal who will immediately put those funds on hold and act as a third party arbitrator to resolve the issue (what it basically adds up to is that the seller must be able to provide proof that an item was shipped, or else refund the money).

For what its worth, I always reccomend to people that if they need to know if something is in stock before they order, to call that order in. That way we can confirm that what you need is available within your time frame before hand.

Anyway, that's it. Like I said, I'm not attempting to defend Frugal Corner here. I just read the above comment, noticed that they used PayPal as their shopping cart, and thought I'd share a little bit about how that works.
Aye,
Matt

[pipesndrumsnun]

Thanks, Matt!

[James MacMillan]

I don't think I have a kilt from Frugal Corners. I do know people who have used them and are satisfied.

They offer a wide variety of casual kilts which are purported to be a pretty good product, for the money.

One thing that was brought to my attention was their on-line inventory. If they have it on hand, it would seem that you would get it sooner. If they have to order it from an outside source, you will have to wait. In the case of Frugal Corner, I think a telephone call to them would solve most problems.

[Larry124]

...I always reccomend to people that if they need to know if something is in stock before they order, to call that order in." That way we can confirm that what you need is available within your time frame before hand.

Helpful but that's an extra and "business hours" step.
Ideally and as much as possible the in and out of stock should be on the website.

I'm currently awaiting my first order from FC. Not overdue yet. I'll post how it turns out.

[pdcorlis]

With all due respect to Frugal Corner it really doesn't matter what they show on their web site if they don't/can't/won't ship the stuff out the door. If I remember correctly they used to post very regularly on this board when they were getting their operation started - something they no longer do. I wonder why?

It all reminds me of something my granny used to say - fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

[James MacMillan]

Let's face if gang - Jerry at Stillwater Kilts has spoiled us. Now that we see how one shop can do it, we want and expect that type of service from everybody. I know I do. Around this time of year, I do a lot of ordering from on-line and from catalogs (I hate the mall!) and the delivery and customer service vary widely from place to place. Delivery is normally late, same day shipping is rare, package tracking is seldome offered, and e-mail notification is not the norm.

Customer service is becoming such a high art, that it will probably be offered as a full subject in college soon, if not already....... In fact it may be? Just what is "Marketing" anyway?