back to article Currys, PC World websites slated by punters

Dixons Group's websites for Currys and PC World are among the worst online shops for electrical appliances, according to a new study by consumer rights group Which? Out of the 25 sites listed by the research, Currys and PC World came joint 22nd, with only Asda and B&Q rated worse as places to buy electronics online. The poor …

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  1. Bunker_Monkey
    FAIL

    Truly Awful

    Not surprised one bit. Awful to look at and navigate. So never bought anything online from them period.

    ebuyer come top?

  2. Tommy Gilchrist
    Thumb Down

    Postage to Siberia, Antartica and The Highlands & Islands

    If the respondents thought postage was bad, try living in Northern Ireland. £15 - £25 postage surcharges aren't unusual!

  3. Pete Foster
    WTF?

    "B&Q rated worse as places to buy electronics online"

    Because B&Q is the first place I go to when buying electronics.

    1. ElNumbre

      Optional title is Optional

      Its not just electronics that B&Q is crap at. They're equally bad for being able to locate all of their products online and offline.

      1. SirTainleyBarking
        WTF?

        I'd agree about the B&Q site

        Its Firkin awful. More biased to selling you a fitted kitchen, rather than the pot of paint you actually wanted. I've found its actually quicker to drive to the store and wander around it aimlessly for a while than actually go online

    2. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
      Joke

      Yeah, maplins are awful as well, thay have no 9" cavity blocks for sale

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      There's worse places, like Floribunda Roses Direct, Inc.

      They didn't even do memory sticks last time I tried.

    4. Captain TickTock
      Holmes

      Exactly the point I think...

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    >> Dixons Group's websites for Currys and PC World are among the worst online shops for

    >> electrical appliances, according to a new study by consumer rights group Which?

    And in other news,

    Sun found to rise in East and set in West.

    Pope may have religious tendencies.

    Bears treat wood as personal bathroom.

  5. Robert E A Harvey
    Thumb Down

    So the on-line places are as satisfactory as the walk-in ones then?

  6. EzJ

    Huh?

    I'm quite stunned at that result. I'm not a particular fan of any of the high street stores but I have to my amazement found Currys to be the cheapest store on a number of occasions recently (as cheap as my usual online haunts).

    In contrast I find John Lewis's site to be slow and way over priced. For example the WD MyPassport 500gb drive is £49 at Currys and £69 at John Lewis?

    1. Teiwaz

      I've noticed this too.

      See my post about Home Delivery.

      I've also noted that PCWorld has been as competitive (if not more so than) online sellers such as Amazon, that led me to recently purchase online from them as opposed to Amazon (partly due to price, partly due to availablility of the particular product I wanted. I never found their website particularly badly laid out (all online stores have recently gone to a layout that defaults to 'most popular purchases' when you search for something, which I've found irritating recently, try any of them - they all hype what 'most people who searched this term bought...' and you have to dig further to find the lineup of products for that category.

  7. David Gosnell

    "happy enough with the stock"

    Yet in my experience, DSG sites are masters at drawing in customers with attractive prices on products they appear never to have had any intention of stocking either in-store or on-line. Bait and switch, don't they call that?

    1. tmTM

      Exactly

      Several times I've been looking for things on there, see a good deal only to find that not a single example exists in the country.

      At which point the nearest equivalent is £50-£100 more and I go somewhere else.

  8. pompurin

    Well done John Lewis

    It makes me happy to see a company who pride themselves on customer service coming in first place, and the other companies who provide a service that can only be described as 'customer service' coming in last.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dixons hurray!!!

    They ALWAYS come up "tops (or rather "bottoms") in those polls. Perhaps they should rephrase their statement:

    "We have (always) aimed to provide a good service to our customers, it's just that we've never made it!

    ...but the fac that the real tops for electronics is John Lewis says something about the Which clientele ;)

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Said women of a certain age

    Anything Which? publishes I usually file along with anything written by the Daily Mail & Express, and from these results, I'd wager that a large proportion of their respondants are regular subscribers to both of those :-)

    1. kissingthecarpet
      Meh

      Bit wide of the mark

      Your stereotyping isn't very accurate - I certainly wouldn't lump "Which", "John Lewis", older women & The Express together. John Lewis'(they are Waitrose as well,remember) stereotypical customers are Observer/Guardian & maybe Telegraph readers. The Daily Express is read by EDL symps who think John Lewis is a bloke they met in the pub. The sort of dicks who read the Mail shop at Dixons/Currys/PCWorld etc & then moan about it to anyone but the actual shop.

      'Which' actually does do some proper testing of consumer goods. For a mainstream publication they do a fairly good job, its their Marketing droids who have damaged their rep with their dodgy junk mail, & crap press releases.

  11. Allan 1
    Thumb Down

    Agreed

    Horrible sites to use, made worse if you use NoScript, its difficult to work out at a glance which domains need whitelisting for basic functionality, as they use ajax to feed content in from so many pther domains. So I usually end up simply going elsewhere.

  12. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Happy

    Very recent experience ...

    we finally decided to "look at" the possibility of getting a dishwasher. Starting with "dishwasher" in google, we picked off Comet, Currys and appliancesonline. All seemed equally priced, with links to the same reevoo site, so we could start to see what people rated in various models.

    Finally decided seemed to be a choice between Bosch or Hotpoint. Went to a local Currys, to investigate further, and got the sales droid who really didn't want to be selling dishwashers - had no idea what adjustable racking was, and thought the outstanding selling point was the choice of colour (for those of you old enough, recall the Jasper Carrott "it's a microwave" routine).

    As luck would have it, there was an Apollo2000 on the way out of town. We popped in, and were amazed that the higher-spec Hotpoint, I'd scoped at £275 on appliance-planet (although delivery was free) was on sale at £250. As we started looking, a very knowledgable sales lady came over, and explained all the features and comparisons with the other models in the line-up. She was pleasant without being pushy, and pretty much tipped us over the edge. So we left with a dishwasher in the boot. Both my wife and I were keen to ensure that she actually got to make the sale for commission, as she was so good.

    But the appliancesonline site was the best of the 3 ......

    1. spiny norman
      Thumb Up

      Had several good experiences of Apollo 2000. It's quite a shock the first time, finding staff who know what they're selling.

  13. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

    B&Q and PC world

    Yeah, great websites, go to the non-UK domaon and it redirects you to the .co.uk site, all proced in STG. Haven't looked at either in a long long time

  14. Teiwaz

    PCWorld Customer Service Is Broken

    I recently purchased a piece of hardware from PCWORLD (Home Delivery was the only option).

    My product never arrived and I've waited weeks and weeks for my purchase as their reporting system is broken. Nobody replies to emails and phone calls always yield confusion from staff not having gotten correspondance and issues never get raised or get lost in communication.

    Yodel the delivery carrier was at fault (because a very poorly filled out delivery card arrived through the door), but DSG has a very broken Customer Service division which has led to me still waiting for my purchase after more than a month.

    I've had few problems with buying instore or even collect at store (I've never had to use their Tech Guys), but this experience means I will never be using them again for Delivery to my home.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge
      Unhappy

      So is dabs/BT direct broken

      I have been waiting 10 weeks for a refund on a failed PSU from them.

      For similar problems with the local PC store 3000rpm you get it swapped there and then (if in stock), so why can't big organisations actually manage things in any reasonable time?

      dabs/BT also used Yodel to collect the PSU, that along took 4 weeks until they actually came, but I don't know quite who was to blame :(

  15. Simon B
    Meh

    Never had issue with the curry's website, I like simplicity of filtering results although I'd like a few more filters for some items. Other than that I've seen WAY worse.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    For big white goods....

    ... I use Comet/Currys web sites then hit the local store for collection. No delivery cost, usually quick to collect (or deliver to store for collect) - usually best option for really heavy white goods (but Amazon for the rest)

  17. Andy Fletcher
    Thumb Down

    29% put security at the top

    implying the other 71% would buy from an insecure site if it was, say, cheaper or had decent navigation.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Does it mean that? I don't think it does.

      "29% put security at the TOP" - does not mean 71% are not interested in security and would buy from an insecure site.

      Question - when looking for a wife put the following in priority:

      1. Is not a convicted man-hating mass murderer

      2. Is not a cannibal

      Whichever you pick as TOP does not imply you are happy to marry the other.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Personally

        I'd go for the cannibal. She's only half as likely to eat you as the other one is to hate you.

        I suppose though that whether you're looking for good cooking or good sex is what it all boils down to.

    2. friedegg03
      FAIL

      Logic fail

      Or that 71% don't even get to the point of considering security as they are already put off by the site layout?

      Remember - putting things in order of preference doesn't mean that one only cares about the option chosen as most important...

  18. KroSha

    Delivery problems

    I'm now hesitant about ordering anything that won't fit through the letter box. This is mainly due to several dreadful experiences with the Home Delivery Network, on behalf of Amazon.

    If it's coming by courier, then I try to find it in person, or from someone who will ship by Royal Mail. At least they leave a card, have semi-sensible opening hours and you don't have to ring them before going to collect it.

    Online shopping is great, couriers are a PITA.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Precisely why...

      .. I buy from Amazon a lot, lot less than I used to. Their shitty 'delivery network' companies are unfit for purpose. I tried to explain this to them, and got some 'customer service' agent prissily explaining to me how they actually knew better than me what I wanted. Nothing I could do then to help them stop me diverting most of my custom elsewhere.

  19. Matt_payne666

    I try to avoid and dislike Currys/DSG, but they have proven cheapest for several large items, my Fridge Freezer and washing machine.

    Was annoyed as for some reason I could order the washing machine online (wuth a large quidco rebate) and have that delivered, but the fridge freezer - "sorry but home delivery is unavailable in your area" - I live in an average town, 15 miles from a major city! but popping into the store and ordering - home delivery was fine!

    Pixmania which is also part of currys was also the cheapest place for tellys - again with money back from quidco - so thats where 2 50"plasmas arrived from - John lewis was nowhere near in price!

    but i suppose it all depends on whats on special at what shop at any one time...

  20. Juan Inamillion
    Thumb Up

    Surprised too about no buyer.com

    Been using them for years, many many times and never had a problem. Dealing with a couple of returns their customer service was pretty good, hassle free. Their prices are amongst the keenest and you often get free delivery.

    John Lewis is the nicest mainstream online and definitely in-store (free extra 12 months warranty on Apple goods anyone?). Amazon - easy online, keen pricing, returns system excellent, sometimes sending out the replacement before returning the original.

    Dixons group? ... nasty, English bed-wetting types...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      ebuyer.com?

      Do you happen to mean ebuyer.com? Who managed to chase down http://ebuyersucks.com/, swiftly followed by http://ebuyersucks.org/ replacing it?

      Possibly the worst company in the world for returns that I've ever used; I've had better luck with returns on eBay.

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  22. b166er

    How specific was the survey?

    Many of those pissed with DSGi, may be the ones who've rumbled that the online price is wildly different to the instore price. Obviously relying on suckers seeing DSGi group web results being competitive and then blindly walking into the store and not checking the price.

  23. My Opinion
    WTF?

    Paying for postage & packing is "annoying"?????

    "Around 40 per cent of shoppers found paying a high price, *** or indeed any price ***, for postage and packing annoying,..."

    I run an e-commerce site. So far I haven't found any organisation that is willing, FOR NO FEE, to come and collect the items from my premises each evening and then deliver them to any location within the UK the next morning.

    Rather than price everything so that the charge I have to pay is included (hidden?) within it, I charge a price PER DELIVERY - reflecting my actual cost. So if someone purchases multiple items they aren't paying multiple (hidden) delivery costs.

    I consider this approach gives the best possible value to my customers and would have hoped they appreciate it...

    (Incidentally, once the order gets above a certain value then I take a margin loss and do not charge for the delivery.)

    Now I'm being told 40% of people find any charge "annoying".

    ** SO ** - Perhaps any of these 40% can advise me where any of these magical free packing and delivery service can be found so I can start using them? Perhaps Santa's elves are available for most of the year (excluding December of course)...

  24. Ascylto
    Big Brother

    23456

    Strange!

    I wonder what the CEO of DSGi is paid. I'll bet it's more than the boss of John Lewis.

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