Best online shop(?)

my opinion, your opinion

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Ian Baker 2
22/05/2002 at 09:51
What's the general consensus on the best online shop?

Personally, I reckon Cotswold Outdoor, as the site is easy to use and there's loads of gear.

Who agrees/disagrees and why?
Rob Sutherland
22/05/2002 at 09:54
Field and Trek would be great if the site was easier to work - the free p and p and good service I have had makes it a good one! Rock and Run has some great bargains from time to time and is a shop I really like to get in and browse when I am in the Lakes.

Never really used Cotswolds on line though.
Ben Dover
22/05/2002 at 10:08
IMHO I have to agree with Ian for uk sites, I have tried using F&T and agree with Rob, difficult to get around. Snow and Rock is slow and hard to navigate and Blacks is just a Joke!

REI in the US is a good site for bargains even with shipping the products to the UK!
Jon Doran
22/05/2002 at 10:28
I reckon all the OM shopping partners are great, mainly because I am a shameless pragmatist... Seriously though, since we started the site, all the major retailers have made marked improvements to their sites. The latest Cotswold changes are interesting though, because they've tried to make it much quicker to reach the product you might want to buy without having to go through loads of intermediate steps.

Ironically though, I don't buy much outdoor gear these days, so I'm not a particularly good person to comment. I do get quite a few mountain bike spares online though and reckon then latest Chain Reaction incarnation is as good as anything with stonking delivery and stock information available when you order.

A propos of Blacks, remember it's .co.uk, on no account try .com, you may be surprised... Oh, especially if you're at work. Someone was a bit slow registering their domain name I reckon.

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

joan collins
22/05/2002 at 10:29
Cotswold doesn't carry the sort of gear I use, and it's expensive. I go to www.outdoorgarage.com, www.rei-outlet.com and www.cham3s.com for price, and to www.rockrun.com, www.outside.co.uk and www.needlesports.com for a good selection of climbing gear and the occasional bargain.
Drew
22/05/2002 at 11:55
I reckon
Second Sounds is the best but it isn't an outdoors site. It's a CD site, but they are dirt cheap, and they're good service.



Other than that I'd say Snow + Rock for the quality of goods. Never bought anything from any of 'em, so can't comment on that side of things...

Mark Phillips
22/05/2002 at 12:28
RS Components have a pretty good on-line shop. They're not the cheepest but they usually have what I want and can deliver next day.

Amazon do a pretty good job and you're able to purchase things from their overseas sites, still using your UK account.

Outdoor gear.... Like Jon, I don't buy much kit these days. What kit I do buy I quite often use Outdoor Garage but that's only cos the guy that runs it is an old mate of mine.

M
Mark Phillips
22/05/2002 at 12:30
....and I e-mail him instead of going on-line.
Ninja Marmot
22/05/2002 at 13:00
The George Fisher site has some interesting tech info and you can build up comparison tables for kit, but...


......IT IS SO DAMNED SLOW!!!!!!!

I pop in frequently to Rock & Run and Needlesports as well as less frequently to the ones mentioned above.
John Corteen
22/05/2002 at 13:17
Rock and Run are my favourite for technical stuff. Their Mountain Hardwear range is the best i've seen. Their weekly bargains are often good value too.

I Also use Wildday http://www.wildday.co.uk they're often a lot cheaper than most. Some of the stock is a bit Millets like though.

Hey Jon, see what you mean aboout blacks.com. I just had to have a look...
Jon Doran
22/05/2002 at 13:31
For those who'd rather not risk it, I suppose I should point out that blacks.com is in fact a porn site complete with loads of multiplying windows offering things you probably won't want and I don't mean cheap and nasty walking boots...

OutdoorsMagic Editor | jon@outdoorsmagic.com 

Simon Gibbard
22/05/2002 at 13:56
I don't know about the best online shop, but IMHO the worst has to be 'Ellis brigham mountain sports'.
I had a very bad experience with them & I would recommend buying from anywhere but there. It wasn't just bad service, I was deliberately misled by them & when I complained in person to the MD I was told in no uncertain terms to 'p*ss off'. As far as I am concerned they are a bunch of cheating thugs.

But hey, enough of sitting on the fence...
Si
22/05/2002 at 14:45
As far as service goes, best online has to be Outdoorgarage.com. They are VERY helpful, always polite and they give the impression that nothing is too much trouble. Top marks.

Not sure about the best website as far as content goes, Rock and Run have some good stuff, as do Snow and Rock, but none of them spring to mind as outstanding.

Si(C)
Ian Baker 2
22/05/2002 at 15:00
Simon, you said Outdoorgarage was good customer service. But if the site was that easy to use etc surely you would not have to ask them for help/phone customer service etc?

It seems that since the departure of 9feet.com, no one outdoor site has jumped up to take the title of "best online dealer in the uk"
Mark Phillips
22/05/2002 at 15:08
True if it were a completely faceless on-line retailer.

Meanwhile, back on Earth.....

Personally, I'm very sceptical of e-commerce sites that do not have 'regular' contact information. In most cases I usually use the on-line information as a 'catalogue' and then phone my order through.... even if it's only to make sure my credit card details aren't bounced around the web.

At the end of the day, people buy from people!

M
Si
22/05/2002 at 15:44
Ian. I wanted to know availability for an item, whether it could be shipped to me before a deadline and would they exchange it for a different size if it turned out I had ordered the wrong one.

Personally I prefer to ring somewhere for availability/delivery times rather than accept "no more than 28 days", or "80% of orders despatched sameday" only to find out that the item I want is out of stock etc.

Perhaps I should have said "the service they offered this customer" as you seem to have taken "customer service" to mean how the company reacted to complaints. I was complimenting them on the whole service they provide.

As Mark has already pointed out, its not just a website. There are real people that you can contact if you so desire.

Si(C)
Orange Alex Ford
22/05/2002 at 19:35
I found F&T to be quite a good site.

I also thought that the response times of outdoorgarage was brill when I asked for a quote. But they didn't stock some of what I was after, weren't cheaper of what they did stock, and they didn't offer to get the items in stock for me like I thought that they would (from reading their adverts).
Orange Alex Ford
22/05/2002 at 19:36
9feet was a good site and I used them several times...shame they went under...If I remember rightly they were even still making a profit but couldn't get capital for the future due to the dot.gone bust!
Dave O aka Jungle Dave ;)
22/05/2002 at 23:26
hmm never used 9feet used F+T a couple of times but still like outdoor garage because you can email/fax/phone them for a quote inc. delivery etc and normally if something isn't in stock then they can order it for you if you give them a reasonable tiem period i.e. not next day sort of thing!
joan collins
23/05/2002 at 08:34
I agree it's much the best way to do online business. Keeps their costs down, and they can pass the savings on to the customer. A typical retailer is left with anywhere from 30% to 70% of their stock unsold at the end of the season (pre-reductions), and they have to pass those holding costs and reduction losses on to us in the form of higher prices at the season start.

I saved over £50 by buying a Suunto altimeter through them rather than Snow& Rock, etc. Waiting two weeks for it wasn't a problem at all.
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