Anyone else had a bad experience ordering online at M&S?

[YouDoughnut]

I ordered a handbag for my sister's birthday 9 working days ago. Delivery due today. I think 9 days for delivery is pretty appalling but as it's exactly what she wanted I decided to go ahead with the order, even though it's cutting it fine to post it to her abroad.

So they're due today, I arrange to be at home to make sure I don't miss the delivery and can post them straightaway and I get an email from M&S today saying they're out of stock so they've cancelled my order. I'd also ordered a couple of pairs of socks at the same time and the email said those will be delayed by another week. So that's 3 weeks waiting for some socks.

I sent an email complaining and their reply was that it was in their T&C that they can't confirm an order until they go to dispatch it. I really am furious.

[YouDoughnut]

I'm tempted to send them a link to this thread. (that's if you all agree that that's pretty bad customer service, of course)

[Heated]

There are increasingly poor. You can place an order for something online says is in stock but then find out a week later they've cancelled the item. It is particularly irritating as if the remaining goods then fall below the minimum p&p, they also charge you for postage, so you can end up with some very expensive socks!

[InterruptingKid]

it is very slow indeed

[Heated]

And don't get me started on their change in refund policy. It used to be a safe bet for buying Christmas presents in the preceding months leading up to Christmas, but no longer.

[YouDoughnut]

I bloody hope they won't charge me delivery for the socks. I emailed them to say I wanted to cancel them (I don't want to wait another week for some socks) and they said too late as they'd now been dispatched. wtf?

[Heated]

OTOH, John Lewis often deliver the very next day, such as with my lovely boots.

And for Christmas food am going to be checking out Waitrose/Ocado and giving a miss to M&S and their 5 mile queue.

Can you tell I'm a tad disappointed with M&S?

[CMOTdibbler]

Dh once ordered a suit from them, and decided to have some pants whilst he was at it. 2 weeks later they decide the suit is out of stock, and send him the pants - so the 3 quid pants cost 7.50. He was not impressed.

You can't fault JL - their service is immaculate

[OllieWollieWoo]

Same thing happened to me last week - did a big order 2 weeks ago and then got the email last week to say some stuff wasn't in stock anymore. Just wish it was like Next that tells you its out of stock at time of ordering.

[Crazycatlady]

Yes took them almost a month to deliver my order, minus the rug that by that time was out of stock. So paid delivery charge for a couple of outfits for DD who had one month less wear out of them than she should have. One month makes a big difference at 6 months old!!

Won't order online from them again. But their shops are so vile I can't face going in them. Shame, as some of the baby clothes we've had from there have been lovely quality.

Never buy food, clothes for ourselves or homewares there though. Overpriced and terrible quality IMO. Not forgetting the severe lack of style...

[Mcdreamy]

I ordered my mum a 60th birthday cake to be picked up from the shop. Sent DH to pick it up - they said it hadn't come in, not on the van

However, I have to say they handled it really well in the circumstances. (She couldn't make the cake appear). She gave DH a full refund and send him home with one of just about every birthday cake they had in the shop. We ended up with about 7 or 8 cakes of all different sizes plus a box of cake pillars.

Ok so it wasn't what I'd planned for my mum but she saw the funny side, we had fun try to put a tiered cake together for her and everyone went home with a whole cake rather than a slice

[Melfish]

I've not had a problem with the items, but the company who deliver for them (HDN I think) would just dump the parcel on the doorstep and not bother to knock! Fortunately I was in, but I could have easily been at work and my paid for stuff would be happily sitting on my doorstep waiting for anyone to walk by and nick it. Every other company that delivers usually ask for a signature or at least blooming well knocks. I told M&S 'customer' service this but they didn't seem either surprised or bothered. If the stuff had been pinched I bet they wouldn't have refunded it or sent a replacement.

[florenceuk]

agree agree agree! Extremely slow delivery - two weeks to deliver school uniform which should be in stock at point of order. And infuriating habit of saying things are out of stock after you've already made the order so you pay delivery charge for some trifling thing you threw in the basket to make up the order.

[bruffin]

Twice recently I have ordered something that is supposed to be in stock and then had an email to say the item is no longer stocked and their uniform this year has been awful.

In their favour I have sent flowers twice recently and they have been delivered on time and good quality.

[Oumasrusks]

I also had a pair of shoes cancelled at the last minute because they said they were out of stock, even though they appeared in stock when I ordered. I also found that the deliveries could be slow. Plus, I hate the fact that you can't add one order to another. I wrote a letter complaining to them but they just emailed back saying they were sorry (but not changing anything).

[Flightattendant]

Oh don't start me on M&S!

A couple of years back I ordered a mattress, then cancelled it about an hour later.

(In hindsight I think I did this twice, as I was being indecisive)

The mattress turned up and was dumped outside my door when I was out - not even under the porch, just leaning all haphazard against a wall.

I had to give this thing house room for about a week until they could arrange to come and get it. Seriously a double mattress, it's no joke.

They then brought it again, a total of FOUR TIMES a few days apart each time, I was lucky to be in each time and refused delivery - but it wasn't that they had the two orders (and not been told it was cancelled) because it was the SAME sodding mattress each time, same increasingly withered wrapping etc etc.

I had to make about 20 phone calls to various CS call centres, warehouses and delivery depots before someone actually cancelled it from coming back yet again...

then this summer I thought 'they can't mess up a clothes order' and ordered a load of school trousers and tights for me. They didn't turn up...2 or 3 weeks later I rang them and they quoted my old address back at me...I am certain I entered the new one when I ordered, it just defaulted to the old one and there was nothing they could do as the parcel had been sent to my old house...well, presumably, as they had NO TRACKING and had no idea where it was and it MIGHT get returned to them or on the other hand it might not, if the people who lived there accepted it or postman had just left it outside

Thank goodness the sorting office had it. I was fuming, I'm never ordering from them again especially reading this thread. The whole system's just so lax, and ineffectual.

[Flightattendant]

Oh and with the mattress, no matter that THEY had deemed to leave it outside with a high chance of rain, but I was told if I leftt it outside and it was damaged I would be charged for it. So it stayed in our tiny hall for a week.

They also emailed me about the uniform saying nothing was in stock and it'd be about 10 more days before it was sent. Not good enough imo.

[HappyHome]

I've had the same problems too. I paid for nominated day delivery as DH needed a shirt and tie for a wedding. On the morning that the order was due to be delivered I received an email to say they were out of stock - I had changed plans to be in for the delivery.

This also happened to my Mum - she needed shoes for the same wedding - and exactly the same thing happened to her. I haven't ordered anything since as they are just not reliable enough.

[Blackduck]

I have never had bad delivery service from them, BUT my pet hate is the fact they debt your card as soon as the order is in and NOT on delivery.....so my mum had money debted off a card for a bed that wasn't going to be delivered for 8 weeks.....that is just plain wrong.

[Flightattendant]

Yes nominated delivery a complete nonsense ime.

[ProfessorLaytonIsMyLoveSlave]

They do have a habit of waiting a week and deciding that something isn't in stock after all, sorry, so they'll cancel that bit of your order. Last time I ordered, I think, five or six different things and only actually received one of them.

I don't really understand their model. Say you place your order on a Monday, what happens to it in the space between that and the next week (when they actually start contemplating picking and packing your order)? So far as I can tell, nothing at all. Why can't they throw some extra resources at it for a while, eliminate the backlog, and start picking and packing orders the day after they are received instead?

[HappyHome]

I agree, Next, Debenhams, John Lewis etc all can get it right so why not M & S ?

[IMoveTheStarsForNoOne]

I haven't had good experience with M&S! I ordered from them quite a lot when DS was small. There was always on item on my order that was delayed by 2-3 weeks, just crap generally.

Everybody else can deliver on time, why not M&S?

So I don't use them anymore.

[bruffin]

In Which last month they had the top 10 trusted websites for shops and M&S was not mentioned whereas they should be at the top. John Lewis was 1st.

[bruffin]

Sorry what I actually was trying to say that M&S have no excuse for not being in the top 10 with all their resources, they are failing badly with what they are delivering.

[YouDoughnut]

I wish I could email this thread to someone important there, rather than their useless Customer Service.

The other very annoying thing is that I complained using their online form, then someone from Customer Service emailed me but when I tried to reply to that person it came back undelivered (I hadn't realised it was a no-reply address) and had to reply using the bloody online form again.