I am interested in finding out what Ozbargainers think of Dick Smith, I have found so many 'deals' but never find stock or if I do I can not click and collect and when I contact the store the staff will not hold it for a couple of days and there is no delivery available. So frustrating. What do you think?
I've used Click and Collect for an HP ultrabook last year and a Sony NEX camera a week or so ago, from Batemans Bay and Tuggeranong stores respectively, and both were OzB featured specials with limited stock; both purchases worked out fine.
There was a bit of confusion when I tried to pick up the laptop from the BB store, I think because they'd put it aside on the weekend when I ordered, but there were other staff in store when I picked up on the Monday. For a couple of minutes it did look like I could only get the shop demo unit but then they found the unopened boxed unit with my name on it out the back, so it all got sorted out.
I've had success with DSE deals in the past, and I am happy to see them posted.
Today's Macbooks had stock available for delivery when I saw the post, so I could have got the deal (3 posters said they did).
I'd rather limited quanities at low low prices than just average deals at higher prices.
I think they suck at "click and collect". Twice I ordered products for pickup and they did not manage either!
In both cases they seemed to be out of stock, and instead of contacting me to let me know they just did not bother.
Yep, Natt that is what I mean I get this 'non-service' from them all the time. I have tried Click and collect but it is 45mins drive for me, and then when the item is not ready to go, I am so over them.
i don't mind it, sometimes you might find something good.
The thing i really don't like is when a deal gets a huge number of up votes and no one has managed to get one.
So the deal for DECT phones just got 2000 clicks before they ran out of stock. Is that enough, or still a problem?
I've been pretty lucky with getting stuff myself. Got the 3ds cheap the other week, as well as a lot of the games and accessories etc.
Instead of clicking and collecting I've been calling the store, asking them to put one aside for me (the George Street one in Sydney has actually been putting it aside for me which is nice) and then rocking up later to buy it. Click and collect sucks and I'm assuming isn't instantaneous, so if someone else comes in and buys the stock before it is collected by them you miss out.
I am sick of people negging the deals because there is no stock in their area. Just because you can't get it doesn't mean it is a bad deal for other people. Otherwise everyone should have negged that onion deal and other such locality-specific deals
I bought a Kindle online at DSE on Saturday, $159 with free delivery… due to the deal of 'spend over $150 and get a free Bluetooth handset' (see bonus in overview of http://dicksmith.com.au/product/SE3000/ds-retro-bluetooth-ha…) - they threw the handset into the cart automatically. Free stuff, yay! Unwanted free stuff that then charges you $9.95 to deliver it, boo!
I was unable to remove the handset from my cart because it said "unable to remove item separately". So I had to lump it and pay for the delivery of the handset just to get my M-day Kindle delivered to me. Not happy Jan. An email (response: "call us") and a phone call later and the nice gentleman promised to reimburse the delivery charge in 2-3 business days…. but I wonder how many others got caught out and didn't notice?
Today if you add a Kindle Paperwhite to your cart, the handset doesn't auto-add to the cart as the Black handset (which was the only colour available in the deal for online customers) is now Click & Collect only. So although the deal is still valid until 13th May (assuming you actually want the bonus handset), online customers now miss out on it even if they choose Click & Collect for just the Kindle… nor does the handset turn free if you manually add it to the cart and then Click & Collect. Not exactly fair, in my books - would be nice if they gave an IOU until stock levels recover. But hey, at least now you won't get lumped with an unwanted bonus charge to your order.
Bottom line: they are ok at fixing problems (assuming I get the refund), but need improvement in their deal systems to not cause problems in the first place. Delivery quick for rural areas, though pack not well padded.
I would hate to think how many collective hours have been wasted by OzBargainers trying to find products that don't seem to exist. There must be a country DSE store somewhere with a shipload of stock as i have tried nearly every major postcode and can not find a lot of items anywhere in Australia.
Not sure how we separate the "deals" from the time wasters.
I have got some good deals, but also wasted enough time lately to black list Dick Smith.
Time is money, and these ungettable deals waste a lot of it!
The problem is everyone searches the major suburbs. I search 3 points in Victoria, east, center and west. I travel all over Vic for work, so it's not bad. Bit of an advantage.
I don't understand why they don't provide a list that covers availability for every store in a given state / the whole country. Would save a lot of people plugging in postcodes and avoid unnecessary load on the site. You'd think they'd want to clear their clearance items..
They had a list last year… It made its way to ozb, many negs were had..
Yep I remember the infamous list :) I meant that for a given item it should be able to tell you more than a few store's availability at once..
I ordered 5x $100 gift cards when this deal was on, part of my payment was with a $20 gift card which was initially accepted but didn't go through properly, so only $430 out of $450 had been processed. No email or anything to let you know your order is in limbo, you have to log in to the site to see what's happening.
Anyway I had to call up and the first time I offered to pay the remaining $20 but they said they couldn't accept payment because the gift cards weren't in stock at the time, call back in two weeks. A bit perplexing, but ok, I'll play your game. Next call I made they were really keen to cancel my order but I was adamant that I was happy to wait and did not want it cancelled. So eventually I quote my credit card number over the phone (they wouldn't accept a wish card even though I used a wish card for most of the balance already…) and a week or more passes and nothing is taken from my account. Then out of the blue I get the gift cards in the mail and never got charged that $20 after all, they just changed the price for each gift card from $90 to $86 on the invoice.
Never click + collected but I did get a $2 answering machine after asking if they had one out the back :)
My $599 or whatever it was Macbook Air 11" shipped today :)
I predict they are being liquidated soon, or going to undergo massive restructuring. Too many firesales to indicate otherwise.
Same can be said for Target and officeworks, who often sell clearance items cheap….?
They need to clear stock, at any cost, it frees up money that can be used elsewhere.
lately they've been very frustrating, but at least it wasn't as bad as their huge in-store gaming sales last year.
those were almost as awful as those Black Friday sales in USA.
For every 1 person who actually manages to snag something from these DSE / OW deals, 99 people walk away disappointed & frustrated.
I must've just been lucky, managed to snag sh!tloads from all of their gaming sales including the big sale you mentioned last year. In saying that, they're notorious for not having nationwide stocks
That sale was such a debacle I wish I could purge it from my memory, I'd never seen people act so feral without the influence of intoxicating substances.
I managed to get a few nice items too, most notably Vanquish for xb360 for $5 but overall it was an awful experience. By the time it was all over, my pride was a little bruised by unlike most people I saw at least I kept my dignity.
Dick Smith AGAIN I just found a TV 32" online and it said limited stock so rang the store, and they said can not help you we have no stock. I asked why it said limited stock online and the guy said oh we have one of these in our staff room maybe that is why the online page says limited stock. So frustrating, surely they could keep up with their stock levels better than this.
at least they were completely honest. hopefully now that it was brought to their attention they fix it?
Lol, they probably have some dlink routers and some other clearance items in there as well ;)
The trick with DSE is when a product has a green 'click and collect' on the website. Go into DJ's/Myers/Big W etc with your smart phone and find some disinterested teenager to go price match for you.
Works for me brilliantly. Who cares about stock levels?
There is nothing wrong with Dick Smith. Its the ozbargain community that post deals with very limited stock. Its listed on their website what stock levels are like. Its up to the users here to make the effort to check stock levels(maybe try a few postcodes around the country) and if there is sufficient quantity, post a deal.
The items are on clearance. they don't want to 'hold' an item for a couple days in case the buyer never collects and they are still stuck with old stock.
If each store had to handle deliveries instead of one main dispatch center, imagine the amount of errors that would occur, plus time wasted having one staff member package an item and post it. staff levels are ordinary as it is.
I don't mind Dick smith, I bought 2 TV's, one online, the other click and collect. I bought a digicam in store, the shelf price was much higher than scanned price. overall i'm happy with them