Online shopping in Taiwan rant

Life Technology
1

I don’t do much online shopping in Taiwan. I always prefer a bricks-and-mortar store to purchase things when possible. But sometimes the item I want is only available online, especially since I live in the primitive backwaters of Taitung.

I’ve only done online shopping in Taiwan four times so far. All four times with a major (hint: the most popular) online shopping service in Taiwan. I’ll leave it nameless, since I remember not long ago a woman getting jailed for giving an unfavorable online review to a restaurant.

Anyway, of the four times, only two went well. The other two times the vendor fcked-up. The first time fck-up was relatively minor. I bought an electronic item, it was defective, so I returned it. I followed all the instructions on the web site correctly. So a week goes by, no refund. I call the phone number of the warehouse where I shipped the returned item - yes, they received it, and credited my account. Wait awhile, no money. More calls, messages to customer service, once they even call me, but no money.

Well, to make a long story short, I did get the refund, after a full month. Rather too long, but other than the delay and run-around, I guess I won’t complain too much…

…until yesterday. I made another online order in the morning. All looked good. Then in the evening I get a phone call - the item I ordered is not in stock, and maybe will not be available again ever. So I can get a refund. They want my banking details. I’m not real happy about that, but since I don’t have much money in my postal account, I give the number. I check today - no money. OK, I was being optimistic. I decide to call the number of the person who called me - it’s some kind of call center. No, they don’t have any idea when I’ll get the refund, they just do the calling under contract for the vendor.

I think I will be waiting another month, and perhaps longer with the Chinese New Year holiday.

I will never buy from this vendor again. Bad service 2 out of 4 times is not good. An online shopping site should automatically know if an item is in stock or not. If it gets sold out, the order shouldn’t go through, else you get a warning saying it’s out of stock. No such warning was issued - I checked and looks like I could just go online and order it again (and of course, it wouldn’t arrive since it’s out of stock).

By the way, said online vendor sends me junk email all the times. I cannot figure out a way to configure my profile to turn this off. I could just block all email from the site, but then they wouldn’t be able to email me to resolve the current issue - not that they have yet, or am I optimistic they will.

Even if things are cheaper online, just isn’t worth it. I’d rather pay a shop-owner to deliver the goods directly into my hot little hands.

2

I buy stuff from shopping.pchome.com.tw and 24.pchome.com.tw all the time and have never had any problems. It’s pretty sweet being able to order stuff late Saturday night/early Sunday and still have it delivered by Sunday afternoon.

I’ve also had no issues returning stuff, even when the reason was “I’m a dumbass and ordered the wrong thing.”

You have to be more careful with pcstore.com.tw and ruten.com.tw which are B2C and C2C virtual storefronts under the pchome banner. Items listed on these sites are not shipped from pchome’s warehouses, so service could depend on the individual seller.

3

Hi Rik,

Thanks for the warning about pcstore.com.tw and ruten.com.tw, but my issues have been with the supposedly reliable main site.

I’m curious to know how long it took you to get a refund on items you returned. My last experience was a month. For this latest fiasco, I have no idea, and Customer Service won’t say. I realize that if I paid with a credit card, they would just credit the account, but I paid with 7-Eleven’s Ibon system.

cheers,
DB

4

Slow refund processing is not unique to online shopping. I think it’s built in to the system. Better cash flow for the banks and corporations at the expense of the consumers.

Take airline tickets, for example. A purchase is charged to the credit card almost instantaneously, whereas a refund generally takes two billing cycles to show up.

At least in the US, you have the option of disputing the charge, which will get it off your balance until the credit actually does get processed. Not sure if we have that option here.

5

Now it gets worse.

After the big-but-unnamed-for-my-protection online retailer canceled my already-paid-for order because they didn’t have the goods, and are still sitting on my refund, I decided to order the same items from another online retailer in Taiwan. I know of three such shopping sites, all with a supposedly good reputation. So I made the same order again, went and paid with 7-Eleven’s Ibon system. The payment machine indicated no problem, order was accepted. Next day, no goods arrived, but OK, it’s Chinese New Year soon and they must be busy, so maybe I should expect things to be a little slow. Next day, one of the two items arrives - the second is nowhere to be seen. Next day, it still doesn’t arrive, and now the holiday has officially started, so who knows? Checked my order on the online web site, they show both items as “shipped,” no mention that one item was delivered and the other so far not. I have no idea if/when I’ll get it, but everything is shut down now until January 30.

This is failure three out of five times. Remember, the whole point of online shopping is how “convenient” it’s supposed to be. Thumbs-down. :thumbsdown: I’d much rather pay more in a bricks-and-mortar store and save myself the aggravation. As they say, a bird in hand is worth two in the bush. But those particular two items don’t seem to be available in Taitung.

6

I think it’s the other way around, over 10 years I made over 1000 transactions as a buyer through Ruten and the worst problem I had was ordering a baby seat that was already out of stock. It just took a few emails to get my money back.

Most people on Ruten are small business owners who depend on good feedback for business, so most of them have amazing service and usually ship same day.

There are some scammers but easy to spot, for example a seller refusing to meet in person for high value electronic items (especially Macs) and/or prices that are just slightly too good to be true.

Here is an example… a few months ago I ordered a mix of cameras, DVRs etc. to replace the old security system in our office. The guy who I bought the cameras from called to say that he saw I ordered a particular DVR from another seller which was not compatible with one of the cameras I had bought, and also that I probably ordered the wrong lens on another camera (I had). Got refunded same day for the incompatible camera, changed the lens on the other camera and everything else arrived next day.