The Chronic Consumer

I’m a total Diet Coke addict, and have been for the last 15 years or so. I grew up drinking regular Coca-Cola, but as I got older, I found regular Coke to be far too sweet for my tastes. Now I can only drink regular Coke if it comes from a fountain, and I drink Diet Coke all other times that a soft drink is in order. Nevertheless, I decided to try Coke Zero for the first time a little while ago, mostly because of the huge marketing push this drink has been getting from Coca-Cola. What a mistake that was!

Coke Zero is absolutely disgusting! It has that same overly sweet taste of regular Coke — and yet something is missing. The aftertaste is pretty nasty as well, leaving me feeling like I just ingested something medicinal. I couldn’t even finish half of the 16-oz. bottle before dumping the rest down the drain. It was a waste of time and money.

Consider this experiment over. I will never, EVER drink Coke Zero again. I’ll go off soda altogether before making this my regular drink!

I love shopping online for most things, but one thing I can’t stand about the process is when websites offer limited shipping options. You’d think they’d want to offer their customers the best deals on shipping in order to build good will and loyalty, but that’s simply not the case at all.

For instance, this morning I wanted to order a motocross t-shirt for my husband and was all set to pay the $19.99 asking price — until I saw that I would be charged $12 for shipping! WTF???

It turns out that the website only shipped via UPS, which is why the charges were so jacked.

Obviously, I didn’t go through with the order. There’s no way I would pay that much for shipping on a $20 item. Plus, that site has now essentially lost my business since I’m not even going to bother checking for merchandise there anymore. Why would I when I’d just end up paying so much for shipping?

How hard would it be to stuff the tee into a big envelope and mail it through the post office? It would cost $5 tops, and would probably result in more sales for the site.

Well, whatever, it’s their loss. I just had to vent for a minute!

I ordinarily wouldn’t dream of spending more than $10 on an umbrella, but my husband is a big motocross fan (and rider) and loves any product that bears an MX-related logo. One of the coolest logos out there right now belongs to One Industries, so that’s why I decided to break down and spend close to $30 on the golf-style umbrella pictured here.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures, but I took these at night and my interior lighting sucks!)

According to the product description, this One Industries umbrella is suitable for protection against the rain or the sun, and we have indeed used it for both. I think it works much better for rain, however, as the material is too thin to really keep the sun off.

The umbrella is made of “durable light nylon” and has a 30-inch shaft with a manual release button to open the cover. The words “One Industries” are splashed across one side of the canopy, larger “O” logos are placed three more times around the exterior, and then there are a bunch of smaller “O” logos alternating with the word “One” in a pattern on the rest of the nylon.

While the umbrella looked pretty good when it was new, it wasn’t very durable at all. After just a few months of use, the nylon material has become detached from the spokes in several places, which means that it no longer stretches out to the full length when the umbrella is opened. That in turn means the umbrella doesn’t provide good coverage when it’s raining, which makes it all but useless. In fact, we hardly ever even use this thing anymore!

One Industries is usually a name I associate with quality products, but I can’t put this particular umbrella in the same category. I was disappointed at the way it came apart as the result of usual wear and tear (in just a few months, mind you), and think it definitely wasn’t worth spending $30 on. Save your money!

Okay, I don’t know how long Crocs shoes have been around. I thought at first they would just be a one or two season trend, but it looks like they’re here to stay for at least a few more summers. I have never owned a pair of these shoes and think they’re the ugliest things I’ve ever seen!! Yes, I’ve tried them and I know they’re pretty comfortable, but come on! How can you get past the look?? And the whole charms-in-the-holes trend seems dumb as well.

Yeah, yeah — if I were in junior high right now, I’d probably be sporting a pair. But as an adult? Uh uh, no way.

Like most shoppers, I enjoy purchasing name-brand items without having to pay retail price. So I’m always checking out websites that offer discount luxury goods to see what kind of bargains I can find. One site that specializes in these types of discounts is Jomashop.com. I ordered a Movado watch from the site a long time ago, and thought I’d tell about my experience here.

If you use Google Product Search (Froogle) or a similar tool to shop for a specific luxury item, chances are that Jomashop.com will show up near the top of the results. They seem to offer the lowest prices on just about everything from watches to handbags to accessories, and they have a pretty good selection. However, I found their customer service to be extremely lacking, and I’m very hesitant to buy from them again.

I was interested in buying a Movado Esperanza watch, and saw that Jomashop priced the watch almost $50 lower than anyone else. I checked the site, noted that the item was listed as “In Stock” and therefore, according to Jomashop policy, should have shipped that same day (since I was ordering before 1:30pm EST). I placed my order and sat back to wait for my watch.

I didn’t receive a shipping confirmation the next day, so I figured something must have happened and they’d get to it that day for sure. When I still didn’t hear anything from them by the end of business, I started to become a bit concerned. They had placed an authorization on my credit card for the amount of the watch and everything, so I was sure it wasn’t a problem on my end. I sent an email to customer service asking where my watch was.

Hey, I know it was only two days, but — stores shouldn’t promise same-day or next-day shipping if they can’t follow through.

No one responded to my email, so I had to call in and talk to someone. The rep then told me that the watch I wanted was on backorder and would ship out as soon as it came in. WTF??? I only bought the thing from Jomashop because the site said it was in stock! I would have ordered from someplace else if I knew I would have to wait!! So I told her to cancel my order, which she [said] she did.

I then ordered the watch from someone else and paid a bit more money, but it at least shipped out the next day. Unfortunately, my saga with Jomashop wasn’t over yet.

It turns out that the CSR didn’t cancel the order after all, so I ended up with a UPS package from Jomashop like two weeks later. I called in and asked what I was supposed to do with the box, and they said to mark it as “Refused” and send it back. Well, that meant I had to call UPS and arrange for the pickup, which was obviously just more time I had to spend correcting Jomashop’s mistakes. Then I had to wait until they received the package and put the item back into inventory before they would credit my account for the purchase price.

I’ve read on Bizrate.com that other people have had similar issues with Jomashop. It seems to me that they just say they have everything in stock in order to get your business, and then they give you the runaround until they actually get the item.

Anyway, that one experience was so bad that I’ve never ordered from them again — even though they still offer the lowest prices on luxury goods. If I were you, I’d pay a bit extra just to make sure that you get the item on time, especially if it’s a gift for someone else.

The bottom line: Deal with Jomashop.com at your own risk!!