Warning - Brew It Yourself (aka The Online Shopping Co)

redpola

I've only ordered from this company once, and that was a couple of years ago. That order went fine. I am still on their mailing list though, and just recently they've had a number of "500 orders at 10% off" type of offers with an email the next day saying "317 special price orders left!". At the time it made me wonder whether they were having cashflow problems, a notion which seems to be corroborated by them listing items as in stock then not shipping them for weeks (as mentioned on this forum).

Essex_Lad1981

This is from their forum, looks like they have had enough of having to answer peoples questions and I guess now this is all in writing they can wriggle out of people having a moan. To reference Amazon, Ebay and Play I find truly amazing. Every time I have ordered from Play and Amazon my good have always nearly turned up the next day or the day after with impeccable comms.

The things that come to mind with Amazon and Play is that that do not take money from your account until the item has been sent and also if it’s out of stock it’s stated on the website. Any pre-orders are also stated on the site. They do not list items as being in stock, take your money and then hold onto it for months, which is what this compnay does.

Get yourself a brew and have a read of the below..........


Forum & Website Questions > Stock, Delivery & Questions Regarding Orders

Although this forum is funded by The Online Homebrew Company, it is completely independent. Therefore we don't allow the discussion of orders. Our customer service staff do not read this forum, so it's not the quickest or most appropriate way to contact them about a problem. Any questions relating to existing orders should be raised through the appropriate channel as detailed in the email automatically sent when you place an order. This is to ensure your question is answered by the appropriate person in a timely manner.

Recently there has been a significant increase in the number of posts relating to orders. Normally we wouldn't publish a response in the forum but some of the posts/enquiries made recently have been extremely offensive, abusive, on occasion threatened violence towards our staff and been designed to damage the company that funds this website. I'm sure the majority of you will understand this is not something we can tolerate.
The following information is clearly displayed within the online shop, but to clarify in more detail....

Delivery Times

Whenever we run special offers and promotions we always specify that delivery times will increase. This is because margins on home brewing products are very small and we can only afford to offer large discounts if we don't increase our costs. We always state that our special offers are not about fast delivery times, they are about saving you money and saying thank you for your custom.
Historically, the 1st three months of the year are a very slow period for home brewing retailers and every business in the supply chain reduces stock levels accordingly. However, this year demand has been extremely high (mainly driven by us). We expected this and notified our suppliers of our plans prior to Christmas. However, we also know it takes time for manufacturers to produce more products and a significant number are imported from as far afield as Canada and Australia.

These products arrive by sea, so it can take up to 2 - 3 months for UK stocks to be fully replenished after the festive period.

To ensure our customers are aware that delivery may take some time we state in every promotional email and on the website that delivery may take up to 28 days (all promotional material prior to Christmas stated 6 weeks). In the majority of cases it is much quicker than this, normally just a few working days. But for a few products where there is a supply issue, it may be longer.

Stock Availability

Our stock & dispatch systems need to be able to cope with processing hundreds of orders ever day. To do this we use a process called Just-In-Time Logistics. Which is the science (and art) of making sure a product arrives on the shelf just before it's needed. Unlike a traditional bricks and mortar shop where you the customer browse the shelves & add items to a basket we pick the items on your behalf. Stock on the shelf at the time you place your order is not important to us... It's stock available at the time when we expect to pack and dispatch that is. For example, if you place an order this afternoon, we need the stock in place tomorrow so we can pick it.

For this to work efficiently, we need information to be passed down the supply chain to us so we can order the correct amount at the right time, update the website and pass information onto our customers. This is exactly how large online retailers like Amazon and Play work. We know how many of each item we sell will be needed on a specific day, order accordingly and receive deliveries almost every day of the working week. The stock we handle is in constant flow.

However, the information we receive is not always as accurate and up to date as it could be. From time 2 time other factors will cause delays, such as bad weather, delayed deliveries and damaged - we posted pictures on Facebook last year when several tonnes of homebrew arrived at our warehouse crushed due to poor loading by the courier while it was transferred between trucks. Thankfully situations like these these happen very rarely, but we always notify our customers once we are aware of a problem.

Please bare in mind if you decide to vent your frustration at us because a delivery date slips by a few days, you are only shooting the messenger and we have the same frustrations as you. Most European branded beer kits are produced by Muntons in Suffolk, just about everything is only available to us via a single supplier in the quantities we need. It's not a case of simply going to a different supplier when something becomes unavailable. So we are work closely with both of these companies to try and improve the quality of information we can make available to our customers.

Part Delivery

Again, due to the very low profit margins in home brewing products we are only able to send orders when all the items are available - we are unable to part ship an order. We have considered some of the policies operated by other homebrew retailers - namely, ship what we've got. But we feel that will only cause frustration when half an order arrives.

During periods when we are not running special offers, we do part ship orders when products become unavailable.

Offensive/Abusive Enquiries & Posts

I'm sure you will understand offensive/abusive posts, enquiries and anything threatening violence are something no business can tolerate and it would be irresponsible of us not to take appropriate action. Our staff work exceptional hard to ensure your order is processed as quickly as possible and that everyone is kept well informed. In fact, many independent reviews found on the Internet praise us for the way we keep our customers up to date. We understand that it can be frustrating if you don't notice something written on a webpage, miss an email or when things don't happen as expected but our staff are polite and courteous at all times and respond best when treated with the same level of respect.

We always advise checking your account before making an enquiry. It's where we publish the most up to date information we have available. Dates and other dispatch/delivery information is taken directly from our management systems and exactly the same as the details available to our customer service staff. Again, this is information given to us by our suppliers. Sending us an abusive enquiry is not going to change the information passed to us and certainly won't get your order prioritised over a customer who has contacted us in a polite and respectful manner.

Contact Details

We took the decision some time ago to remove our telephone number and email addresses from the website as we received thousands everyday making it impossible for us to operate. The phone was engaged from before the working day began to well after we closed, so essentially pointless. Email was worse, our sever simply couldn't cope the numbers coming in. Essentially both telephone and email became pointless and just frustrated everyone. To ensure a better level of service to the vast majority of our customers we decided to move towards a online help system that is available 24x7x365 (rather than just 9 - 5) based around the most common questions we are asked - You will see this type of system in place with large websites such as Amazon or Ebay. We also publish detailed information (which is taken live from our management system) in our customer accounts. There is very little information that's not made available online that we can give via phone or by email and this allows us to concentrate of fulfilling orders, which we believe most of our customers would prefer.

The Forum "Raison d'etre"

I originally started the forum back in 2005 when I wanted to build an online community of people with the same hobby (Essentially, what has now become known as a social network - I just wasn't as successful as Mark Zuckerberg). Today, it exists purely to support anyone with an interest in home brewing and wine making and to promote the hobby to a wider audience. We do not use it to promote our online shop or other aspects of the business. This may sound a bit corny, but it's our belief that we are at the heart of a community and work hard to bring you the best products at the best prices so you can enjoy your hobby. It's this ethic that has allowed the forum to grow into the most successful home brewing social network in Europe over the past 8 years, participially when it comes to experienced home brewers helping new comers. Something we are quite proud of.
We have always lead from the front when it comes to home brewing shaking off it's 70's image and transforming it into a modern, well supported hobby and we'll continue to strive and improve the level of service and products available. This is not always a popular place to be, both with customers & suppliers

Damon (Admin)

chingos

having waited 6 weeks , constantly seeing "in transit from warehouse" on my account, i gave it one last shot at contacting them asking for alternatives or cancel and issue refund.
surprise ,surprise they responded & a parcel arrived the other day.
ok it was not what i ordered ,but hopefully this will give some of you guys a bit of hope in either getting your goods or a refund.
what annoyed me the most was seeing goods i ordered & paid for showing as being in stock all the time during the 6 weeks.
i will never use them again.
having used internet companies for many years ,this was the worst experience i have come across.

Essex_Lad1981

How can this give anyone any hope? you waited 6 weeks only to be sent NOT what you ordered?

Tarmac---

If they're offering the best "product" does that not include delivery...?

Oh and I thought I'd respond to their post by adding my thoughts from above and guess what.... the thread is now locked aaaaand:

"You have been permanently banned from this board."

Awww, was it too much for you Damon? Having a customer who actually spoke his mind about your shoddy company? Not to worry... I'll be back.

Essex_Lad1981

Tarmac--- wrote: »

If they're offering the best "product" does that not include delivery...?

Oh and I thought I'd respond to their post by adding my thoughts from above and guess what.... the thread is now locked aaaaand:

"You have been permanently banned from this board."

Awww, was it too much for you Damon? Having a customer who actually spoke his mind about your shoddy company? Not to worry... I'll be back.

That got locked quickly! I’m very surprised as I’m sure they would have been too busy to look at the internet as they are taking 100's of orders everyday so would be busy packing them up ready for being sent out.

Essex_Lad1981

“Please bare in mind if you decide to vent your frustration at us because a delivery date slips by a few days, you are only shooting the messenger and we have the same frustrations as you. Most European branded beer kits are produced by Muntons in Suffolk, just about everything is only available to us via a single supplier in the quantities we need. It's not a case of simply going to a different supplier when something becomes unavailable. So we are work closely with both of these companies to try and improve the quality of information we can make available to our customers.”

Maybe worth getting in contact with Muntons to ask if they have stock / supply issues, because to me this reads as its Muntons fault for not getting the stock to Damon’s shower. All other online shops do not seem to have any issues. The items that Damon failed to send me, I was able to order online from another much low key online shop and have them sitting on my doorstep within 24 hours.

If I was the main man at Muntons I would not be happy with this being said about my company, to me this reads that Damon is passing the blame onto the supplier (Muntons) for not sending him the goods to send out to customers.

“you are only shooting the messenger” So Damon is willing to take your money but if the goods are not sent its not his fault because he is just the middleman? As for not being able to go to another supplier I think that’s because as already mentioned in this thread no one will deal with them, so they are just stuck to the one.

I reckon they are only allowed to purchase a minimum order of units and have to pay upfront and not allowed credit, hence why people have to wait for their goods until the minimum order can be made for a product with the supplier.

Will chase trading standards up again to see that they got my letter and will also drop watchdog another e-mail.

kondormid

To do this we use a process called Just-In-Time Logistics. Which is the science (and art) of making sure a product arrives on the shelf just before it's needed.

hahha, he does not even know what just in time is. JIT is a manufacturing term not a logistical term. The idea behind it is you build a part just before it is needed, and this should reduce what effectively becomes scrap in the inventory. Infact, in a true JIT system there is no middle man and no stock.

Can you transfer it to logistics? In a simple answer no you can not. JIT does borrow some of its idea from "rotation" that is and should be used in logistics but JIT itself can not be used for logistics due to the fact that logistics "Should" be keeping a steady flow of new stock to replace the old ones.

Basically, he is using the term JIT to cover a system of logistics that is widely used to buy stock at the cheapest possible price. A form of order stacking.

Order stacking is widely used by small low overhead, run at home, chinese online shops, often selling the goods of a factory they work at. The idea is to let the orders stack up until they reach an amount where they can qualify for a bargain priced minimum order delivery. This enables him to buy directly from the manufacturer rather than going through a third party.

What he seems to be doing guys is stacking up the orders until he has enough on the books to buy in bulk at a cheap price. He is not bothered about his actual stock levels, he is just intested in getting enough orders in to reach the required MOD price.

This would explain the constant sales without stock he was promoting for the last three months or so. He was probably trying his hardest to reach an amount before he ordered. When you think about it this is the only reason he has for doing what he has done (unless he has intentions of folding and is trying to clear friendly debts first).

macma

Well I'm grateful to this manky company for teaching me a lesson.
If it seems too good to be true it probably is !
Deal with decent companies who charge a fair price and offer a good service.
And again thankyou to the folk on this thread particularly Kitty (I think) for some brilliant advice,I had never (thankfully) heard of chargeback before.-'hope I never hear of it again;)

Thanks folks :T

Beamer525

Maybe if only to say sorry for wasting peoples time.

Still not sure whats going on with TP, Kasper emailed me last week asking for my phone number which I sent him but he has not called .
Have they asked any of you guys for your number?