I am reading the reviews, and it looks like I am the only one satisfied with my order. I got a confirmation email from them OCt. 5, 2009 and I received all of my items on October 15, 2009, and one actually a few days before that. I didn't think that was too bad. When I opened up my stuff, I was pleasantly surprised at the good quality of it all. One thing in particular I bought was the butterfly pencil holder and it was prettier than the pic. As a result, I am now placing another order with them to get the matching picture frame and jewelry box because I love it so! The only thing that I would say about this company that is bad, is the price of shipping is a bit much, but then again, their prices are relatively cheaper, so I guess it evens out with other companies. I am also impressed with Collections Etc. because they have VERY good promotions on shipping, good prices, and excellent quality. I have also bought from them a few times. (If you are looking for catalog companies) Overall, I am very impressed with this company, thus far....Maybe those complaints helped?!

I orderd this for my 12 year old Grandaughter on March 17th, she was so delighted that she took the ad to Lowes and had 2 colors of paint made to match the bedding and with Dad's help they painted the room it looks so cute but it's now June 23rd and we are still waiting! I received a card from Lakeside after a month that stated the items were on back order and I could wait or cancel, I choose to wait as she loved it so much. It's been over 3 months and my poor child is still waiting, no more word from Lakeside. I went online today and looked at my order status..it says canceled, THEY NEVER INFORMED ME OF THIS! Guess we buy new paint and start all over, she is so dissappointed over this! I hope I can find something she likes just as well. :(

Very good prices. Shipping is slow but worth it if you are patient. No problem getting the product I ordered.

WOW!!!! I just move to my new apartment and my mother thought this might be a good catalog to order from, so I did. I ordered things in January of '09, and the first thing I must say that turned me off was the fact that the shipping charges were terrible. I was charged for each item rather than one clear distinct charge. Then I did not get my first iten until almost a month later. That was not so bad. Then about 2 weeks later I got the next item. So I am feeling really good that this is working out for me! Oh, but low and behold---it is now JUNE 1st '09 and I am still waiting on a 'back order' to get here!!!!! What the heck????? I wanted to cancel it, but I really liked the item and I have not been able to find it any where else. Plus I was told that it would be here the end of march which wasn't so bad. After April came and went I ended up forgetting that I had even ordered something! One day I in May, I suddenly remembered that I had a back order and called and was told that it will be here in about a week, well here it is June 1st! So I called and found out that my order was on back order STILL!! or should I say again!!!! So I canceled and was I told them I would NEVER order again and that I was placing a complaint and telling as many people as I could not to order from them, and she said I understand! Do you really????????

Horrible experience. I ordered on Jan 13 2008 the status has stayed ready to ship with no shipping in sight. They charged me right when I placed the order but no one can tell me if and when my order will ship. Never again will I order from them. I wish I would have checked the reviews here first.

Same experience as everyone else. I have currently filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Ordered almost $500 worth of merchandise. Delays for no reason and one item canceled without notification and one item delivered that was wrong. This is the item I am still trying to get a pre-paid tag for and get the shirt I originally ordered. It is ridiculous to wait from December 13, 2008 until the end of January and still not have the return tag. They send general emails will garbage excuses. They are horrible to deal with. DO NOT ORDER FROM THIS COMPANY. They will tell you all items are in stock- LIE they will tell you they will return your email promptly- LIE and furthermore you paid them for this treatment. Please use Harriet Carter or another type of company that sells seasonal items that will be shipped with better quality. One item has broke and the other was a shirt with seam separation upon delivery. Never again.

I am outraged, I placed an order for Christmas on Dec. 19 for 4 of my  
niece/nephews, and had the four items shipped to my mother in Tallahasse  
for her to wrap before giving them to my nieces/nephew. I received a  
confirmation email for the for items that same day from lakeside.  
My mother received 2 of the items, and of course is waiting to give the presents until all of them have arrived. She has just informed me that  
the other 2 still have never arrived!!!  
I went to the website and looked at order status and it says that 2 of the items were cancelled. I was NEVER notified!!!! My family has been waiting for the presents this whole time!!!!  
Why was I sent a confirmation email which was a total lie?  
I used the contact page and sent them the statement above, and they only replied with a form letter saying the status of an order could be checked at the status page. Since when do we have to check the status if the confirmation email states we will receive the package in 7-14 days? Should we just assume Lakeside is unreliable?  
I won't be shopping there again!!!!  

Comment/Question:  
Better Business Bureau Complaint filed:  
Failure to provide purchased products in a timely manner. Failure to  
communicate the status of the order. Cashed check in November 2008 and  
only provided a partial order. Order were partially Christmas products  
and never received. Telephoned for status on non-toll-free number and  
held on hold. Went on the website and listed questions. Never got a  
response. Email on said that they had received the questions. Worst  
experience ever received by an online store. Still no response to email inquiry or complaint.  

Like many people, I wish I read the reviews about this company before making my purchase. To make a long story short, I placed two orders a day apart from each other. A few days later I got a message on my voicemail asking me to call about the second order because there was a "credit card issue". I called and waited on hold for 15 minutes only to find out that they needed to verify my billing address. I gave them both order numbers and was told that it would be noted in both orders that my address was verified. I called a few days later to verify stock and and after sitting on hold for 15 minutes, was told that all of my seasonal (Christmas) items were on backorder and there was no guarantee that I'd have anything in time for Christmas. The next day, my second order showed as being cancelled so I called them again and waited on hold for 20 minutes. The rep told me that when they tried to bill my credit card, it was rejected. When I told her that the funds were authorized so the card could not have been rejected, she changed her story and told me that it was cancelled by mistake and a supervisor would be calling me later in the day or early the next day. A few days went by and I never received my call from the supervisor but I did receive a letter stating that my second order was cancelled because I failed to verify my billing address (which I had done a week earlier). As the weeks went on, items that were originally in stock were put on backorder and things sat in the "ready to ship" status for days before actually shipping and one more item was cancelled off my order without warning. I finally after a month I had received everything I had ordered with the last thing, a Christmas themed item, being delivered on Christmas Eve. Meanwhile I did all my Christmas shopping online this year and received everything else in less than a week from the order date. I completely do not understand why a place that sells seasonal items does not want to guarantee delivery of those items in the season they are intended for. Further more, while many reputable online retailers guarantee Christmas delivery for order placed in some cases up to December 23rd, Lakeside cannot guarantee that in stock merchandise will be delivered in time for Christmas even if the order is placed in November.

I should have read the other reviews on this site before ordering. I ordered 8 items from them. A week later I got a notice that 3 were cancelled permanently. Two days later I got a notice that another 2 were cancelled. I tried to call to cancel the whole order but repeatedly got a busy signal. I sent an e-mail through their web form requesting my order be cancelled. Two days later I checked the status again and the remaining three items are now marked as shipped, and they charged my credit card for the full amount of all 8 items + shipping. Don't buy from them, they are thieves.

Overall awful experience. I wouldn't send my enemy to this company.  
 
Their order status page is a joke. I got an error one day after ordering indicating "No detailed information was found for this order". I sent a message through their "contact us" page when this happened to inform them of this and i got what could only be a canned message telling me that order status could be easily viewed by logging in and clicking on the order status tab. Obviously it couldn't be.  
 
Their phone support also leaves a lot to be desired. Two days in a row i called multiple times throughout the day and each time i called i received a busy signal. I was never able to get through to a person.  
 
Now onto the main problem. I informed that my order was canceled because my item is "out of stock and is no longer available". If that really was the case then why doesn't the page for the item show that the item is out of stock. If someone can place an order for an out of stock item (instead of not allowing it and posting that it is out of stock on the page itself) it makes me wonder if the item was even in stock when i placed my order or if someone was just to lazy or incompetent to bother to update that page.  
 
They'll never get a penny from me in the future.

Same problem as everyone previously with items being listed as in-stock only to have the item be placed on backorder or cancelled altogether. My major problem is with the quality of the merchandise once you actually receive it. They are very poor quality and I actually put one item on the trash today. Another item I turned so that the broken piece doesn't show. The lights don't work so this will be the only Christmas I use it anyway. I would tell anyone who orders gift items, open the package and check the quality before you present them to anyone. These products are very poorly made. Lakeside is on my list of companies never to buy from again.

Placed an order with this rip off company only to run into allot of problems with them and with my credit card, the items when I checked that were supposed to be in stock, were not, however they still put two amounts of my credit card, had to keep calling only to see that they were either keeping their phone off the hook due to all the complaints they must be receiving, so it ended up being e mailing back and forth To be hones the DOORS SHOUD BE SHUT ON THIS BUSINESS, today after talking to my bank they offered to close my credit card to protect myself since there were no credits placed on it for the items that they canceled due to they are not selling them any longer and the items I was told when I finally got a hold of a customer service person by the name of Michelle, who called me, and I told her to cancel all items on back order and they had no right to be billing any amounts to my credit card due to the LAW you can not bill a persons credit card till it is actually out of their ware house on a truck or plain to where ever it is being shipped. I wish I would have read all o f these reviews before I ever ordered from this CO. They are trouble with a capital T and if any one reading these reviews has any sense at all get out of the Lakeside collections web site or catalog there are many better well known sites on the web that have excellent items and do ship quite quickly, shop around but stay far away from LAKESIDE COLLECTION, you might really be better to go to a store and purchase your items, then take them home send them out through the postal service which believe me will be allot cheeper than having packages shipped to you or someone else from this CO. Yes I see that there are complaints listed with the BBB, and I am quite shocked that the BBB has not done a thing about this, for this company from all that I have been through and all the reviews that I have read, they are thieves.So do yourselves a favor RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN AWAY FROM LAKESIDE COLLECTION. Your credit card will be tied up with their boggus charges for items you may never receive and if you do it will be later than when you needed it. Should be a CLASS ACTION SUIT placed against this company.

This review was modified by its author, rippmeoff, on 12/9/08 1:17 PM.

Due to the economy and Lakeside's great prices, I placed an order online on 11/18 for many of my family's Christmas gifts. It is 12/1/08 and I have yet to receive any of my items.  
 
When I placed the order all items showed as "in stock" and in checking on the status online several times a week since ordering, items have been put on backorder through 12/15 and two items were cancelled!! All of this occurred without any communication from Lakeside. As for the items that are ready to ship - they will not be released until ALL items are ready to ship!! As you can imagine I am quite stressed that none of my items will arrive in time for Christmas.  
 
To try to call their customer service you can be guaranteed a busy signal or, if you do get through, at least a 13 minute wait to speak to an actual person. Take note - they operate on CST and although they claim to be open through 4pm CST, you will have a hard time reaching anyone up to that hour. So, if you go the alternative route and contact them via email online regarding your order do not expect a response for minimally 2 business days and pray they actually address the issue at hand. Unfortunately in my case, the response I got back was so very boiler-plate and non-related to the specificness of my case that it was unhelpful and did not provide resolution.  
 
In closing, best of luck if you intend to order from Lakeside. If you do, make sure it's nothing you need immediately or for anything as serious as an upcoming holiday. If so, make sure to order MONTHS in advance, because as you can see here even 37 days ahead of time is apparently not enough for them to seal the deal.

Sold a item as in stock when it was on back order. Gave me a hard time while canceling my order I had made for Christmas(because it wasn't scheduled to arrive until over a month later after Christmas) Poor communication.