The Chronic Consumer

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I’m not a huge music fan, as I prefer to load my iPod with audiobooks or free lectures from various universities, but every once in a while, I do add a few songs. I hadn’t put anything new on my iPod in ages, so last week I decided to browse through the iTunes music store to see what they had. I’ve looked at the music store before, but just stuck with the free stuff like podcasts and the aforementioned lectures.

Anyway, this time I decided to make a purchase. I wanted the song “Dice” by Finley Quaye & William Orbit. This song was featured on The O.C., a show that turned me on to a lot of other music as well, including stuff from the Pogues, Ryan Adams, Syd Matters, and Phantom Planet. I didn’t want to buy a whole CD, so I figured this would be a good time to make my iTunes test run.

The shopping process was extremely easy. It took less than 30 seconds to enter my search query and come up with the exact song I wanted. I then clicked another button to make my purchase, entered my credit card and address info, and had the song in my iTunes library shortly thereafter. It was a breeze from beginning to end!

I noticed that iTunes also accepts PayPal, and there’s no minimum purchase amount required (though now that I think about it, my credit card company probably has a minimum purchase requirement….). So you could spend $.99 for one song or $99 for a hundred songs. Because of this, I could easily see myself spending a ton of money on iTunes if I were in the right mood, so I better watch out for that!

Overall, I concur with what most music lovers have been saying for years now: iTunes rocks!

I’ve been shopping online for many, many years now and have only had a handful of problems with the hundreds of orders I’ve placed. The only truly terrible experience I had with an online store was when I ordered a watch from JomaShop.com, but even that was eventually straightened out. There have been several other times when I’ve had to monitor transactions closely and follow up with emails and phone calls to make sure I received my stuff, but I guess that’s to be expected sometimes.

Well, now I’m bracing myself for another bad experience similar to what happened with JomaShop. I recently placed a $100 order at a site called AmericaRX.com, which is a place I’d never used before. Like a total idiot, I didn’t follow my own rules about investigating a website before ordering to see what other customers have to say about the place. If I had, I would have seen a TON of negative ratings about AmericaRX.com, ranging from extremely slow shipping to missing items in the order to packages never being delivered at all.

Anyway, I placed my order this past Sunday (April 20). I received an email first thing Monday morning saying that my order was “ready to ship” and that I’d get another email with a tracking number after it actually did ship.

I waited until 5pm ET today, and still didn’t get a shipping notice — an occurrence eerily similar to what happened with JomaShop.com. I had a bad feeling about things because there’s no way it takes 2 business days to go from Ready to Ship to Shipped, so that’s when I started to check out reviews of AmericaRX.com. Sure enough, their Yahoo! merchant rating is just 2 stars out of 5, and featured many horror stories from harried, dissatisfied customers.

So I immediately called the AmericaRX.com customer service line, waited on hold for five minutes before getting transferred to a CSR named “Maggie” (but who was clearly not a native English speaker), and then told her that I wanted to cancel my order because it hasn’t been shipped yet. She went through the motions of punching in my order number, etc. and then said, “I can’t cancel the order because it shipped out today.”

Excuse me? Then why didn’t I get a confirmation email with a tracking number? Mumbled response about how those all go out at the same time at the end of the day. I then said that I’d like my shipping confirmation email ASAP, and she agreed to find out the tracking number and send me an email right away.

Well, it’s been 15 minutes since I hung up the phone, and I still haven’t received the requested email yet.

Is my panic premature? Sure, I guess so. I haven’t really given AmericaRX.com a chance to perform. But reading through their feedback really spooked me, you know? I hope things work out right, that I get the items I ordered and not a bottle of Orovo or something totally random like that, but I have my doubts. This could end up being a disaster!

At least I feel a little better after posting this and getting it all out there. I’ll be sure to post a follow-up to let you know how everything plays out!

Unlike with other sports, motocross fans can’t just walk into the Sports Authority or Sportmart and find tons of products featuring their favorite riders’ names and team logos. Heck, these types of items aren’t even widely available at bike shops, so I guess I’m not surprised that mainstream sporting goods stores don’t sell them. But you can purchase fun MX-related products if you know where to look — and that would be Smooth Industries.

Smooth Industries was started several years ago by a couple of guys who were already involved in the Motocross industry in a limited capacity. They saw an opportunity to sell licensed MX merchandise, and Smooth Industries was born.

So what types of products can you get from Smooth Industries? Very cool items such as the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit football pictured above, bedding sets, pillows, sleeping bags, backpacks, school folders, pencils, aluminum lunch boxes, pajamas, umbrellas, coolers, chairs, and even refrigerators.

The three riders that Smooth Industries has licensing deals with are Jeremy McGrath, Travis Pastrana, and Chad Reed, so almost all of the items feature one of those guys. There’s also stuff from a few of the teams, such as Makita Suzuki, L&M Racing, and Monster Energy/Pro Circuit.

I’ve ordered a couple of things from Smooth Industries before and have been satisfied with the quality of the products. My only complaint is that the stuff they sell runs on the expensive side, which is why I don’t make purchases more often.

Anyway, check them out if you’re interested in some of the things I mentioned in this post!

I told you last week that I was planning on buying another women’s NFL jersey because I like them so much. I already have a Tom Brady Patriots replica, and this time I wanted to order something different. I spent a lot of time considering which player’s jersey to buy before settling on Alex Smith of the 49ers.

My Brady jersey is a size L, which fits just fine, but isn’t as roomy as I would like it, so I wanted to order the Smith jersey in XL. I couldn’t find that size at any online sporting goods stores except for ESPNShops.com. I kept looking for a few more days, but finally decided to buy from ESPN. Here’s what I thought of the process.

First of all, the ESPN shop’s prices are much higher than, say, Amazon.com or even Dick’s Sporting Goods, but they had the size I needed whereas the other places didn’t. That’s fine, I guess. I’m willing to pay more to get exactly what I want — if I have to, that is.

While I was shopping on the site, I noticed that there was a promo code for $15 off a purchase of $75 or more. I was close to that amount with the jersey anyway, so I decided to buy a Bears t-shirt to put me over the limit.

But when I went through the checkout process, I didn’t see any place to enter the promo code! I’ve been shopping online for years and years, so believe me, I was on the lookout for the promo code box, but never saw it. The only thing I saw was a place to enter gift card numbers (with PINs), and I tried to enter the code there even though I knew damn well it wouldn’t work (which, of course, it didn’t). I kept going, thinking maybe it would be at the very end or something, but no dice.

Oh, another thing about the ESPNShops.com ordering process that bugged me was the way they don’t show you your total price after shipping and taxes are added in. All you get is a subtotal, and you have to confirm your order without knowing what the full total is. Once the order is received on their end, they’ll send you a confirmation email with shipping and taxes included. That’s complete b.s., if you ask me. This is critical information that should be added before shoppers are asked to submit their orders.

Anyway, because of the snafu with the promo code, I had to call customer service right after I placed my order. The girl on the phone said that she couldn’t take the discount out of the order that was already submitted, so instead she would open a new order with the same items (adding the discount this time), cancel the old order, and that would be that.

An hour after talking to customer service, I got a confirmation email for the new order, with the discount code applied and everything. Perfect.

Until yesterday, when I also got a confirmation email for that first order I placed. Yeah, the one that Phone Girl was supposed to cancel!!

So I had to call in yet again to explain what happened and get that first order canceled. This time a different person answered, and he said he would take care of it. But even though it’s more than 24 hours later, the status for that unwanted order still shows as OPEN.

This is crap. I hate having to follow up on customer service requests like this just because employees are too lazy and/or incompetent to do their jobs right in the first place.

The issue is still unresolved as of this writing, but no matter how it plays out, I think it’s safe to say I won’t be spending my money at ESPNShops.com anymore. It’s just not worth the hassle at all!

When I worked full-time in an office (about 10 years ago), I used to love shopping at J.Crew. Their clothes were perfect for the business casual dress code at work, I loved the styles, loved that you could monogram the shirts (yes, I’m a dork like that), and everything fit me very well. Plus their clothes were relatively durable, so I didn’t mind paying their high prices (high compared to, say, the Gap).

But in recent years I’ve been spending less and less money at J.Crew. I now think their prices are pretty outrageous for what you get in return ($68 for a button-down blouse when you can get a comparable item at the Gap for $29). Moreover, they don’t even offer great deals on their website.

For instance, I was just notified today of a special J.Crew coupon code for free shipping. I was excited and actually considered buying something — until I read the fine print. Free shipping only applies to orders of $175 or more and is only valid until 9/19, which is two days from now!

I would never spend $175 just to get free shipping! That’s insane!! Most stores automatically give you free shipping when you spend that much. Heck, the free shipping threshold for most online stores that I shop at is just $50, so this hardly seems like a “deal” at all.

I do still like J.Crew for outerwear and boots (sometimes), but I don’t think I’ll be buying regular clothes from them anytime soon.

I’ll still put the coupon code up here for anyone that wants it:

Just enter SEPTFS at checkout.

There are four “big box” retailers within a 15-minute drive from my house: Target, Wal-Mart (and Sam’s Club), Super K-Mart, and Meijer. Meijer is the newest of the bunch and just came on the scene in this area a few years ago. While I used to divide my time pretty evenly at Target and Wal-Mart, I’ve slowly converted into a Meijer fan. Here’s a quick rundown of the reasons that I prefer Meijer over the other stores.

• Cleanliness. I know it’s hard to keep these huge retail sites clean, especially with hordes of people pawing through the merchandise on a daily basis, but Meijer does a relatively good job. The displays are usually orderly, the clothes are folded, and the bathrooms are actually usable.
• Convenience. This is the only one of the stores I mentioned that’s open 24 hours. Wal-Mart used to be open around the clock, but now they go from 7am to 10 or 11pm (or something like that). I frequently keep odd hours and/or suffer from insomnia, so there’s no telling when I’ll want to go shopping at 2am. Meijer is the only place to go at that time!
• Selection. I like the selection of merchandise available at Meijer. They’ve got a full grocery store with most of the brands that I usually buy, plus they have all the usual products you’d expect from a big box retailer, like cheap clothes, office supplies, automotive supplies, toys, video games, DVDs, etc.
• TV shopping carts. Yeah, the ones that play Barney, Bob the Builder, and The Wiggles videos. For just one dollar, my son can be occupied for the entire visit. It’s so nice to be able to do my shopping in peace, without having the boy whine to go home. Yes, he still gets out of the cart to walk through the toy aisles, but remains quietly seated the rest of the time. I’ll take that trade-off!
• Prices. I’ve found that Meijer offers cheaper prices than Wal-Mart on most items, and is comparable with Target on a bunch of others. While I think Target has the best prices on a storewide basis, I still prefer shopping at Meijer.

I think Meijer is only located in the Midwest, but I’m not too sure on that one. At any rate, if there’s a branch in your area, I highly recommend shopping there as opposed to Wal-Mart, Kmart, or even Target!

In general, I have to say that I really love Amazon.com. I can buy virtually anything from that site, and I’m almost always assured of getting lower prices from Amazon than anywhere else. However, one thing I can’t stand about them is the way their prices change without notice!

When I check a price on a certain product, all it shows is the List Price (usually with a strikethrough to show you what a great deal you’re getting) and then the Price that Amazon actually sells it for. The Amazon price is always lower, of course, but shoppers are never told if the lower price is the result of a special deal or sale or if it’s a long-term price, and we’re never told when that price is liable to rise.

For example, earlier last week I mentioned how I wanted to buy this Victorinox SwissMemory knife/USB memory stick combo tool. I posted that entry on July 3, and the Amazon.com price at that time was $30 (as noted in the post).

Well, I just went back to Amazon.com yesterday (7/7) to actually make that purchase and a few others — only to discover that instead of $30, the Amazon price on that item is now $47.99!! That’s still well below the listed MSRP of $132, but it’s a whopping 60% more than what I was expecting to pay!!

Uh, no thanks.

If I had known on July 3 that the $30 price was temporary, I would have snapped up the item there and then. As it was, I thought had plenty of time to take advantage of that price and am now not getting the Swissmemory tool at all .

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!!