7dayshop www.7dayshop.com Review

Overall Rating

Prices are cheap but beware of possible tax being levied on delivery!

Going through very slow motions to the detriment of customer service and satisfaction.

Some reviewers praise this company and quite rightly so when things go according to plan.
My estimation of a company is formed when things go wrong and 7dayshop.com show themselves to be arrogant, unhelpful and prone to obfuscation.
My own personal problem as of today is I am still waiting for two small items which they say were posted on 14th. October. After a week I informed them that they had not arrived, they said wait a full ten days for delivery. After ten days I again contacted them advising non-delivery but this time was told they could not make a claim for 28 days and I should contact them again on 12th. October. Are you getting the gist of this, delay, delay and more delay!!
I told them I need the items urgently for my holiday so, as I would have to buy locally, would they cancel the order and return my payment. They didn't want to know, they said, "sorry you will have to contact us on the said date I'm afraid as we are unable to refund at this time".
So I've had to buy the same items twice so that I have back-up equipment to go on holiday with. I now expect to be told that until Royal Mail pay out compensation I'll get nothing - watch this space!
Why do I get the feeling this sort of company are hiding something - no phone numbers, no business address, trading from Guernsey and now I'm sure they think I've been delivered of my order and am trying to fiddle my money back.
As I intimated earlier a company is only as good as its customer service when problems are experienced and if this had been a doctors surgery I'd have probably died in the waiting room by now!
Not recommended.

Members' Comments onDennisld's Review

• Abbi7DayShop on 4th Nov 2008

  First off, please be assured that whilst we may fudge a smidgen in the hope that your missing package turns up, we really are happy to refund or replace missing deliveries (well, perhaps Happy isn't the word, but we want You to be happy). We ask that you wait 10 days because sometimes - annoyingly - we're all at the mercy of missing mail items. The 28 days is not an added time period, but the full period we ask you to wait before we replace or refund. So, if you are one of the occasional customers who is a victim of some glitch in Royal Mail's system, contact us after 28 days and we'll sort it out (and we don't get compensated - we have to swallow that loss and it runs in to thousands over the year). No denials about the phone system - we used to do it, but to keep our costs (and prices) low, we decided to stop. Phone calls take up a lot of man hours! And we're at Landes du Marche, Vale, Guernsey (as it says on our website), no secret bunkers, truly nothing to hide!

• Dennisld on 6th Nov 2008

  You only 'fudge a smidgen', well, that's alright then. However, I think a better phrase would be, 'economical with the actuality' as proffered by Clare Short with regard to Tony Blairs' pontifications on the Iraq war.
  You actually 'fudge' a very great deal in my opinion which makes your comments to my original post most interesting. There are 104 posts on this website about 7dayshop.com and mine looks to be the first one you've ever deigned to comment on (although you have commented on other posts at the same time, somewhat belatedly up to two months after the event). Still, only another 96 posts to go and perhaps some of your customers may feel they are worth something to you. Some of your customers I've come across would have loved to have a reply assuring them of a satisfactory finality to their problem but that appears to be the last thing on offer. Here's a few examples, 'I have used 7Day Shop twice. The first time was for a £9.95 memory card that arrived in 7 days which was just within their promised 4-7 days delivery time. The second time was for about £70 worth of film which had not arrived after 13 days. I e-mailed them and got back an automated e-mail that suggested I get in touch with my local Royal Mail delivery office as the postman doesn't always leave a note when unable to deliver!'. This is almost word for word the same email I got but this one is dated January 2005, almost FOUR YEARS AGO! So it appears to me that there has been no change in attitude or customer service.
  'The problems with them continue - I've been frantically trying to get them to either send my stuff or give me a refund, and they refuse outright' from ClaireT in March 2005.
  
  Similar comments have been posted on this site, as well as on others, for the last four years. Promises of improvements and delivery methods seem fatuous in the extreme, apparently nothing ever changes as is evident from reading this website. It seems as though all that's offered in response to complaints is one excuse after another, the vagaries of the postal service, the bad weather that sometimes stops airmail out of Guernsey, slowness of response is obviously a worry for customers who feel unhappy with the goods or service, as a small company we sometimes get overwhelmed with work (which seems a bit perverse to me since they style themselves as 'the UK's largest Internet supplier to the photographic enthusiast market'. Earlier this year Royal Mail misplaced another internet purchase ordered by me, this was the response from the company concerned...
  
  We are sorry to hear that you have not yet received your order. A replacement has been ordered and will be dispatched as soon as possible. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you and thank you for your patience and valued custom.
  
  Kind Regards
  That was from Play.com and stands as a salutary lesson to 7dayshop.com on customer relations and satisfaction.

• Abbi7DayShop on 10th Nov 2008

  Firstly, I apologise if you feel that you have been lied to or misled by anything anyone from 7DayShop has said. That is not company policy. Regarding our 28 day policy, I was saying, admittedly in a light hearted way, that firstly we need a cut off point, and secondly we do all we can to keep our costs and prices low. By addressing your issue on a personal basis I had hoped to assure you that we do not, and have no need to, hide behind a corporate fa ade.
  
  I can only restate that being Guernsey-based we do find that our post can be delayed sometimes beyond our control more than is the case in the UK. Therefore it makes sense to allow a longer period if something goes astray. Play.com (a large multinational company) has a 21 day policy but ask that you wait 7 days, as opposed to our 10 before reporting a missing package. As with our competitors, we do offer a no-questions refund or replacement after that 28 day period.
  
  To refer to your original complaint, an order that is in the post cannot be cancelled regardless of who you buy it from. With all due respect, by placing an order on a website where these terms are clearly laid out, you are effectively accepting them.
  
  However, I accept that is not necessarily the missing items which has upset you so much as the manner in which you feel it has been dealt with. This I take on board fully.
  
  In the future I would hope not to find negative reviews from customers like you who have walked away unhappy because a complaint either went unresolved or inadequately answered. I want these issues resolved in-house and for no one to feel that their only hope of being heard is on review sites like this. In future we hope to have our own forum on our website where these kind of things can be addressed, but more to the point we clearly need to spend more time dedicated to dealing with customer problems as they occur rather than waiting for negative feedback to crop up.
  
  Whilst I accept your cynicism about us as a company, I don't accept your comment that 'nothing changes'. Clearly as we now have dedicated time to responding to these issues then something Has changed. These points can only be addressed from this point onwards and as far back as seems relevant. There is little point in answering posts that are very historic, and of those 104 comments, many are favourable.
  
  7dayshop started very small and has grown organically, always with the emphasis on getting the products out rather than nurturing a public image. I say this not to offer up what you consider to be 'fudge', but to explain that small companies don't have the advantages of big corporations, such as slick software packages or big-budget websites. We're still working with many of the old tools we started with. Thankfully this is changing in the coming year and we know it will make life easier, not just for our customers but for staff too.
  
  Please be assured that the messages of frustration that you and others have posted are being taken on board by those who should be aware of them, and that the changes that need to be made to improve the 7dayshop service are going to be made. If not, I'll see you in the doctor's waiting room where I'll be dying from the effort of trying!
  
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