O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

A read-only and searchable archive of posts made to the BGAFD forum from 11/08/2000 to 14/03/2003.
Koenig

O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by Koenig »

My previous online ordering experiences have been limited to vendors such as jaded and fivestar and delivery times have fluctuated between 7 and 14 days. As has been pointed out here before, Excalibur offer some hard to get hold of oldies due to the sheer size of their inventory/backcatalog.So in late November i ordered 2 VHS tapes and a DVD, i received an email of order confirmation and after a couple of days three separate shipping notices. Even allowing for Christmas, the state of the uk postal service and the fact that in the current 'heightened international circumstances' of Dubyahs iraq jaunt C&E will be extra vigilant i cannot understand why nothing has arrived. My questions to the Excalibur help address have been anything but helpful, so can anyone tell me is this out of the ordinary for them ?

Cheers
Koenig
paul

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by paul »

i ordered 2 dvds got them in ten days but they were in stock
ive just ordered 2 more but they are backordered so i expect
to wait a bit longer.
Crimpo

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by Crimpo »

They can take a while - I'd keep at em if I were you (or wait for the little note from HM Pain in the Arse & Excise)...
jj

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by jj »

I found Excalibur to be peremptory in the extreme when dealing with queries from Brits.
If items are on backorder the best policy is to wait for about six weeks, and then if no joy, cancel the order and look elsewhere. I understand that companies are dependent upon efficacy of the producers, but it is a little disingenuous to advertise an item for sale that you know may be difficult if not impossible to source.......
Ace

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by Ace »

Surely, a reputable company like Excalibur that do specialise in porn from 1970's - 1990's should carry a warning that there will be a delay. Similarly, if an item is advertised that they sell that they cannot locate, it shouldn't be advertised. It no good to anybody recieving a catalogue with thousands of titles and the specific ones you are after cannot be located..........just yet!
buttsie

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by buttsie »

The one timed I ordered from them and the vid wasn't available
they told me upfront it could take up to 3 months before it would be available.They gave me the option to cancel all together or order a different vid.I cancelled as it was available at jaded

Personally i think they are just to big to really care about a few complaints.As long as the profits keep rising they probably don't give a rats

Its long been held that if you can satisfy 80 percent or above of your customers you are doing exceptionally well

cheers
B...OZ
Officer Dibble

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by Officer Dibble »

Hey, buttsie. Well, what do you want them to do? If you chosen DVD is out of stock at the distributors do you think they should maybe, drop everything else, rush out to the pressing plant and have a minimum of 2000 units run off just so they can send you and maybe a couple of others their orders. And should they do the same for each and every one of the thousands of other videos and DVD's in their catalogue and for each and everyone of their thousands of customers.

You just can't do that, it's impossible, both financially and logistically. You have to wait till the distributor re-presses the DVD and then order maybe another ten- twenty copies for stock. You criticize retailers for being disingenuous, but if they limited themselves to a catalogue of ten - twenty tittles that they could always afford to have in stock they wouldn't do much business would they? Everyone has to make a living.

Sorry to point out the tiresome commercial realities, I know it's not what you want to hear; you just want to order, sit back and wait for the DVD's to pop up as if by magic.

Officer Dibble
mike johnson

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by mike johnson »

As I have mentioned, Excalibur is snotty dealing w/ Yanks also.
buttsie

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by buttsie »

No ...I don't expect all catalogue items to be readily available Officer D...it wasn't the point I was trying to make

Firstly I was simply showing IMP experience that Excalibur do inform customers when products are out of stock so henceforth the reason for non-delivery is more than likely mail related

and secondly that the ignoring of emails stinks of a company that really doesn't care....i'd say its there company policy
to ignore these types of enquiries.They probably log how many enquiries there are and if the numbers are trivial in the overall scheme....ignore them or give them the usual run around
its being shipped as we speak sir

Why do customers have this silly idea that all companies will have the same delivery times?
Borders on stupidity IMPO

cheers
B...OZ
Officer Dibble

Re: O/T Excalibur Delivery Times question

Post by Officer Dibble »

Why do customers have this silly idea that all companies will have the same delivery times?
Borders on stupidity IMPO"

Indeed. And have you noticed how irrational and paranoid some can be?

Regarding the ignoring of e-mails I do have some insight into this area and although we never ignore e-mails - because it's easy to respond immediately - we have on occasion ignored letters. These are the ones usually sent by customers a few days after they have posted their orders enquiring why their merchandise has not turned up yet, even though it clearly states on the literature that customers should allow the customary mail order 28 days before resorting to this. If we responded to all these pointless letters we would get absolutely nothing done. The reality is this: it takes a least half an hour to research the customer's complaint and compose a relevant response, put it in an envelope and stick a stamp on, never mind taking it to the post box. So in an eight-hour day working flat out someone could only respond to say 16 of these pointless letters. Now imagine if you had hundreds or even thousands of clients to keep happy. You would need to employ a team of folks just to respond to progress enquiries and customers 'crying wolf' or else take the dispatch crew off dispatch duty and put them onto answering enquiries about why their order has not turned up in the blink of any eye - to which my good pal and PR guru 'P R Mann' would no doubt reply "One, because we are not Federal Express, and two because you keep sending these fucking letters in!"

The reality is in 95% of these cases the 'missing order' is not missing at all; it's just working its way through the system and will turn up in due course. If you were to respond to every one of these enquiries your business would grind to a halt.

If I order anything from the States myself, I just press the button, then sit back and forget about it, - I'm often mildly surprised when, some months later, a DVD drops onto the doormat.

Dibble.
Locked