Vidshop answer for magoo

[Dave]

Magoo Wrote


Actually, that post did not say they had got their act together, rather that they acknowledged the problems and would ensure things would be started to put it right. The main reason for that post was regarding other matters, namely posts about Pirating Videos, and taking payments with no intention of ever sending goods, those posts made serious accusations of deliberately committing fraud.
As someone who has been involved with the building of their new system for the UK, I am in more of a position to answer some of the points raised without I think breaking any confidentiality.
Automated responses to e-mail. All large companies do this. E-mail customerservice at amazon.com and you will get the same thing; average response time from Amazon is 3-4 days. Vidshop is 4-6 days; this will only come down when we have completed their customer account login system. Reason for so delay in replying? They get more than 1000 e-mails a day, they have 3 full time people working on that, they can?t answer approx 330 e-mails per day each on most days. In April they didn?t answer any, and had no staff to do it. If they were also to take phone calls, this would delay things even more. They want more staff, but they have to base in the Netherlands and are English spoken, and you don?t find new people overnight.
Delivery times on items.
It is funny when I see the comparison of Vidshop to Your Choice, Vidshop sell over 5000 items yes 5000, it is not justifiable to compare with any other UK adult retailer, none of them even have 10% of that figure. The delay in delivery of certain items is down to getting product to the uk, for obvious reasons the agents don?t stock large numbers of each item within the uk it is still illegal. There is a choice from where to buy, Vidshop UK sends from within the country, it will also send from the USA . I also built the USA site, and it has no problems because all the suppliers are within a 10 mile radius of their Warehouse, they can get a product same day. On this forum there are many posts about other USA websites sending to the UK, well I can tell you 3 of those Urls are the same group, and you have nothing but praise for those, why? because availability of product is much easier, its as simple as that. I would say this. If it was easy to put together in the UK, then why don?t a company like Your Choice who have been around for many many years do it? You all cry out for more choice, so why don?t they offer more? Because it is very hard to get right, And UK Vidshop is the example of that.

I don?t want to go over old ground here,the problems documented here by people are in the main accurate, and my post is not to make excuses, simply to enlighten a few people to the reasons for some of those problems.
The new system started to be built in April on Ricky?s instructions and although it is not completed was put live 1st of October, this is not something that could be put in place overnight.
It includes the following
e-mail confirmation of order, with full contact details ( all be it by e-mail) for any problems.
Displays if an item is in stock or not.

We are currently working on the customer account login, this is harder to do for the UK as they use agents for shipping unlike the USA. The information has to be gathered from a 3rd party and has to be accurate, in other words how do you know it shipped when they said it did!!. We have developed a system for it that will do what we need, but that is confidential and I can?t explain it here, other than it will be ready in January.
The UK customer has 2 main choices. Order from abroad from websites in the USA or Europe, or from within the UK. The UK prices are higher from all those UK suppliers because of the difficulties in distributing. And as people have made clear on here you can order from Vidshop and you may have problems and have to wait or you can go for one of the smaller sites that will have a quicker distribution. You are the customer and you decide who gets your money.
Am I biased to Vidshop? I guess must be they pay me !, but they must be doing more things right than wrong to keep growing like they do .
I have told Vidshop to start another site with exactly the same titles as their competitors and compete on the same level with only a few hundred titles, they didn?t think it was a good idea, perhaps after I show them the posts on here, they will think again. And I think they should have their customer service staff spend more time on here, but that is their decision not mine.

B.T.W if anyone here is a good php programmer and I mean good, please please get in touch, I need 2 more.

And if anyone is waiting for Ben Dover?s this end up VHS I can answer that one, Vidshop don?t have any because Ben isn?t answering is bloody e-mail. So Mr Dover look in your e-mail for the order please, the job is hard enough.

[joe king]

I can believe some of the rubbish you are telling us.

You need 50 email responders, but you go 4 2 php programmers, is that the right priority? site looks brill and customer service is shit?

[toXin]

If Vidshop doesn't have any copies of "This end Up" - why are they still showing it as "IN STOCK" on the website?

[Dave]

Like I said, Service isn't up to me, building the site is, and I need 2 programmers.I think I answered the customer service point.
What I said isn't rubbish,perhaps that is why vidshop don't answer if a reply is only going to be called rubbish why reply at all.

[Dave]

because the UK agent has some, but the stock figure here is Nil.

[Dave]

Sorry it does help if I put what he wrote or it makes even less sense )

Magoo Wrote

[mr magoo]

Hang on a minute. I did not criticise Vidshop. Loads of people have complained about Vidshop in much stronger terms than I used. I just answered someone elses post about wether to use Vidshop or Your Choice. Others replied so why single me out and stick my name in the header for this post. Do a fucking search on "vidshop" at the top of the page and you will see that loads of people have had much worse to say than I did.

I just expressed my personal opinion that I will not use any company who have as many dissatisfied customers as Vidshop do. Also why is the phone number you advertise unobtainable , not even an ansaphone? As the poster below pointed out you advertise stuff as "in stock" when it is not. You headed this post "answer for magoo" it should be "answer for dozens of posters to this forum". I seem to recall that when vidshop were upset with Ben Dover over his piracy comments there were references made to the companies connections with New York italian businessmen. So what was all that about?

[Dave]

On the uk site,as far as I can see there is no phone number, just a fax number. I used part of your post, but for some reason it gets deleted when I put it up( Alec give me a clue why ?)you asked why no one answered any of the recent complaints, so I answered you as I thought you wanted an answer. The rest of my post does go on to answer for everyone, and as everyone says, you have a choice, just don't use them.I don't think anyone likes bad press, but I don't think they are hurting over it, I feel the same as you, more work needs to be done to put it right.As for the other part Rick is from New York if that is what you mean ?.

[jj]

I appreciate someone taking the trouble to explain: I'll try and be more patient im future! I'd rather the range was kept as large as possible: if this incurs a time-penalty in delivery, then so be it....if they take on 50 e-mailers, that's a price hike to about ?40 a tape.

[alec]

I'm not the technical one, sorry, so i don't know why the quote doesn't appear.

One of my posts has disappeared too. No idea why.