I just read danshome's thread regarding Overclockers, and it got me thinking we could do with a poll to see what people think of the major online retailers in the UK.

I've got a selfish reason for this , as I'll be building a whole new system soon, so would like to know what your opinions are. Of couse, hopefully it'll be useful to you guys too!

So, the question is:

Which of the listed stores do you think is best?

Criteria - basically the whole experience, e.g.:
- Price
- Delivery Speed
- Reliability
- Customer Service
- Web Site Design/Navigability
- Range of Products

N.B. It'd be better if we could vote for each store individually (either positively or negatively), but as far as I can see the system only allows one vote per person, rather than the many that would be required. Anyone know another way?

N.N.B. Let me know if I'm missing any major sites!

Scan.co.uk scores top marks in all of these areas: good prices, quick delivery, excellent customer service and a wide range of products (including many recommended SPCR products). The only slight negative is quite hefty delivery charges, so best to order all your items at once to save on delivery costs.

This may help. From the overclockers thread mentioned above...



Regularly ==

* You need to have a minimum of 25 posts to be able to qualify for the Scan Shipping.
* There is a minimum order value of £20 EXCLUDING VAT
* You must have maintained an active part in the HEXUS community; this is considered as posting at least 3 posts a week on the HEXUS.net forums.

You could add www.overclock.co.uk. I have used Scan, Dabs, Overclock and Overclockers and they have all been fine. But Scan gets my vote because it has the best site. I like the small technical articles for novices in each product section.

I order most stuff from Scan because of the free delivery and good customer service.

Have ordered from ebuyer when Scan don't have it in stock.

had i read this thread before the poll closed, i would have voted for ebuyer. they have probably the best range, best prices, and best review system in the uk. they have some stonking deals from time to time if u dont mind buying something u havent' heard of too.

delivery has been alright; sometimes its come early, came late once.
customer service, never had to deal with it luckily, but ive heard it used to be pretty shocking, improved rather a bit now..

i find it very hard to browse stuff on ebuyer now thou? they seem to have got rid of the 'show all' button? or am i missing something..

wish i had known about the hexus thing and shipping for scan, (before buying my PSU from them..) having free shipping on stuff really does make it quite and interesting place.. customer services seem alright, they responded to my email fairly promptly. dont really like their website thou.. dunno why.
so u could litterally sign up, post 25 posts in a day and then get free shipping? or how is it policed?

i've used aria a bit, again no problems.. good del, good-ish range, some very cheap stuff, thats pretty good.
cant stand places like overclocker, seem such rip offs, not got anything unique and crap service, packing etc..
edit: er, seems i can now vote. so i did.

To be on the safe side I would take a few days to get the required posts. They do look out for spam etc.

You have to register separately for the free shipping once you've hit 25 posts.

If you don't do the number of posts each week or order over £20 ex VAT they will reduce your post count to 0 so they are quite strict.

Edit: If you want to order under £20 then you have to ring up to place the order and you will pay for delivery.

There's already a thread somewhere on SPCR about 'best UK retailers'.

Hexus.net also have a retailer ratings list, though its somewhat skewed towards favouring Scan in my opinion due to the free postage arrangements they've got in place with Hexus members.

Personally, my favourites are:-

- www.thecoolingshop.com
- www.kustompcs.co.uk
- www.dabs.com
- www.cclonline.com

Scan are 'okay' provided your order is simple, items are in stock and your order doesn't change.

Overclockers.co.uk seem have a horrendous reputation for aftersales and a "we don't give a sh!t about you after we've taken your money" type attitude. Have also heard some disturbing stories about one of the owners.

In my view, ANY decent reatiler should be able to deliver goods to you within a reasonable time of you ordering - that's the bare minimum that you'd expected. The sign of great retailer IMO, is pre-sales advice and how they react when something unusual happens or goods malfunction.

I voted for KustomPCs based on them giving a more personal service. Kool'n'Quiet are also good for that.
Places like Dabs and ebuyer are fine if nothing goes wrong, but they'll make you pay to ship returns back to them (even though they're legally obliged to pay for all shipping if it turns out to be faulty), and if you have an unusual problem, there's no way to get a real person to deal with it. In my case, I rang Dabs' switrchboard, emailed their supervisor, and explicitly stated a half dozen times that they had a mislabelled batch in their warehouse, but all they ever did was ship me the same (wrong) model, in packaging with the right model number on the label. Over and over again!

I can't believe ebuyer and Dabs make you pay for the return. Anyone else had to use their returns service?

I've only had to use Tekheads RMA (2-3 years ago) and Scan quite recently.

With Tekheads I was paying for postage and they were refunding or knocking off next order.

Scan arranged everything and paid for return.

I like Scan. Bought a 19' widescreen monitor from them just recently, got a great deal.

Not on the list, and not always got what I want, but Novatech I have used on and off for years. Never had bad service...

It would be fun to have an avoid poll as well. Boy I've got a couple for that.

Didn't vote, there a couple of other companies I have bought from there that I had no problems with either. Didn't seem fair.

Tried to add it, but once the poll starts looks like it can't be changed. Makes sense I guess, be a bit unfair otherwise.

Seems like there's alot of horror stories going round about Overclockers. Was going to use them as well! Got the cheapest deals on some of the parts I want - though haven't checked everywhere yet.

^i wouldn't worry, althought i haven't looked at them in a while, i've never found them to be the cheapest at anything, IIRC.

Ahh, quite a lot of people do that - you pay for shipping it back to them and then they refund you. Or in the case of Overclockers, conveniently forget and ignore the three receipts attached to the RMA letter for postage and packaging. Then no one can be arsed to argue over £6 and they save some money. It's sneaky, but it works.

That being said, I once bought something from a retailer that needed to be RMAd and they sent over a courier the same day to pick it up. Wish I could remember who it was though!

I've actually found that Dell are good for RMA's, oddly. Twice now we've had the wrong product (not a glowing report for reliabilty then..), and although one was unusable (broken monitor, guess not their fault), the other was fine. They sent a TNT2 card (remember them..? ) rather than the TNT2 Ultra. So they came to replace it the next day but didn't want the old one back! Still got the spare one knockin around somewhere! Guess they've changed the policy now though...

Either way, fast and with freebies!

I've had good RMA service from Dell as well.

Recently bought a laptop from them for £299. Then it was being sold for £239 so I rang them up but they couldn't refund the amount.

Laptop price went up to £299 with better spec. so I told them I wanted to return the laptop. They said they would pay for return carriage.

They refunded the laptop cost but not carriage . When I spoke to them they apologised and refunded the carriage as well - I was called several times to be updated on progress of the refund.

Dell - Good RMA (they collected and refunded because I said it was crap) - Poor TFT (20" widescreen & other models have issues).

Dabs - not the cheapest - No phone contact - Forget about it.

Ebuyer - excellent prices - deliver on schedule - I've returned loads of products within 7 days with no problem - they sent me a wrong monitor but arranged to collect at their expense - good experience with phone support, although can be slow to get through - Recommend.

Loads of other companies that I've used with no problems - Komplett etc

Ebuyer’s standard practice seems to be to refund you the carriage after they’ve received the goods back. They sent me the wrong monitor and as it was an expensive item to return insured, I asked for them to collect and they did. I opened a query on their website and they replied giving me a link to a page where I could choose which day for the return to be collected. It was a quick and seamless process.

bit off topic, but i love these people for media

http://svp.co.uk/index.php

sign up and u get offers every week, + u get free shipping every now and then or shipping at only £2! (great for media / media cards and odds and sods.

kustompc's, i've met them in person at i2x lanparties and they nice people. not brought much from online stores cos i work at a computer store so