[pct-l] marmot driclime & sonoma outfitters - no problems

[yogihikes at sbcglobal.net (yogi)]

My experience with Sonoma Outfitters was fine.  I ordered the jacket I wanted on Wednesday.  It was here on Friday.  I agree that the shipping charge was expensive.  I'd imagine Sonoma has something set up similar to REI where the shipping charge is directly related to the cost of the things you purchase.  The don't look at weight, simply at cost.
 
yogi
www.pcthandbook.com
 
 


Trekker4@aol.com wrote:
Here's my bad experience, as promised; this is sent to S O also for their 
info. A while back, Yogi posted that the Driclime was on sale at Sonoma 
Outfitters for $50; the list price is $100. This was a damn good price; however, I 
wasn't sure I wanted one, and had already spent a lot of money in January - 
hundreds of $ to lighten my pack.
Later I decided to go ahead and get one; going through the order process 
the shipping came out as $9, a bit high I thought, but nothing I could do 
anything about. I decided to add a couple Platypus bottles I wanted, a 1 ltr & 
a 2 ltr; the shipping jumped to $17, a big time rip off for 3 oz of weight 
the could be shipped first class mail for way under $2. Also the bottles are 
flat and could be put in the same box with no strain; and I do realize the 
computer doesn't know this.
I deleted the Platypus bottles, and almost canceled the whole order. I 
changed my mind again and went ahead and ordered the Driclime. The acceptance 
email said 25 Jan @ 8:28 AM CST. After that I emailed an man specifically 
named on their site, complained about the shipping charge rip off, and told him 
he could add the 2 bottles for the same shipping if he wanted to; he's still 
never answered my email, pretty poor for someone who personally solicits 
input on a website. About 11 hours later an email stamped 7:34 PM stated that the 
item was out of stock, would not be backordered, and the card wouldn't be 
charged; to be fair their site says this is what will happen if something is 
backordered. 
However, no other website I've ever dealt with does that. They always 
backorder and honor something they put on the site; basically everyone else 
removes out of stock items from a site immediately. Sonoma Outfitters DOES NOT 
RUN AN HONEST SITE. The size and only color available was still there the next 
day, the 26th; I tried the order again, just out of curiosity; almost 14 
hours later the out of stock email was sent. I just checked again; the item is 
now removed, but it was still there yesterday, the 27th. 
This smacks of a classic "bait and switch" operation to me, or a poorly 
run business at best. The lack of backordering an advertised item, listed as 
available; the lack of a response to solicited email; and the rip off 
shipping charges --- lead me to advise DON'T SO BUSINESS WITH SONOMA OUTFITTERS. 
I'll be adding my "rating" to the sites that rate online "stores" also. Maybe 
I'm out of line, but I'd never run into any of this with any other online 
retailer. 

Bob 
Big Bend Desert Denizen
(Naturalized Citizen, Republic of Texas)
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