5/5

posted May-06-2003

eCost Rocks! Got the best price, got the order in 2 days.

Sales people are nice. Packaging is great.

What more can I ask for? Highly recommend.

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1/5

posted Apr-25-2003

If you want to spare yourself some time and effort please stay away from these guys. I do not understand how they are still in business. Before I start with my story I would like to say that this is my first experience with such rude, inaccurate and quite frankly lying people in the US.
I ordered a Gitzo G1348 tripod from them on 4/12/2003. Their price in the April 2003 Outdoor Magazine ad was $554.95. I called them and I spoke with a sales person named Peter. He was definitely not the most polite person in the world. But the price was OK. So I decided to go ahead...
Peter said that their price was $560(Notice the $5.05 difference). That was OK. After all who can not tolerate 5 bucks. But wait... Then I happened to ask for their shipping price to 64131, and guess what it was $35! The same item ships for $16.20 at B&H. When I complained that the price was high, Peter managed to pull it down to $30. "And that's all I can do" he added...
OK. Still lower that some other stores I thought. Then I asked "Do you have the tripod in stock?". Peter was quick to answer: YES!
And then he added "You'll get the tripod in 3-5 business days". With that firm answer I was expecting the package no later than 4/18/2003. And I needed it badly.
Well I guess my mistake was not reading the postings in this forum before I made the purchase. Today is 4/25/2003 and I am still waiting for my tripod. I called them today and a guy who introduced himself as "SmilePhotoVideo Phone Operator"(I guess a person who operates a telephone, just like a computer operator, or a bulldozer operator...maybe???) told me that although they have shipped my tripod they can not provide a shipping number now. I have to call on Monday to get a shipping number!

The moral of the story is: Smile Photo does not keep merchandise in their warehouse. They do not have a healthy and reliable stock database. They automatically say YES to everything, and then they try to get it from their vendors and ship it to you. A smart strategy to avoid the burden of keeping stock. Kinda the Japanese strategy to keep the stocks at minimum. They just took it to the extreme of keeping nothing in their stocks.

So I ended up getting charged $589.95 on 4/12/03 and they are still trying to get my tripod. If the tripod is not shipped yet, that means at least a weeek or 10 days from today. Which brings the total waiting time to more than a month. Remember I was promised 3-5 business days!
Please do not make the same mistake as I did and stay away from them. For my next purchase I will happily pay few extra bucks at the more reliable store and buy some peace of mind.

This review was modified by gursesl on April 25 2003 10:56:38 AM

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