Rant: John Lewis click & collect

Yolina

First and last time I use click & collect...

Ordered some stuff from the JL website - normally I'd just get it delivered but decided to try C&C since I'd be out and about. My order arrives and I go and pick it up from the Canary Wharf store, all is well.

Two of the items were sold together at a special bundle price. One of those 2 items is faulty so I pop back to the store a few days later thinking I could just exchange it there and then.
No so simple I am told, the Canary Wharf store is actually a Waitrose, not a "real" JL (despite having 2 floors of JL stuff ...) so my choices are 1) Go to the click & collect desk and ask for that item to be refunded and I can purchase a new one from the store I'm in or 2) Go to the click & collect desk and ask for them to exchange the faulty item (so I'd have to go back to pick up) or 3) Traipse to a "real" JL store and exchange it there.

I decide to go for option 1) but... Not so simple I am told, because it's part of a bundle, I'd lose the discount if I have part of it refunded. So I go with option 2) but... not so simple I am told, because I'd also lose the bundle discount.

After a fairly lengthy phone discussion with their CS and reiterating several times that one of the 2 items in the bundle is faulty (there was no argument about that, the staff in store did check and agreed with me) common sense finally prevailed so it's exchange via click & collect without losing the bundle discount. And yeah I do have to go back and pick it up tomorrow - good thing I live nearby.


I.Am.Not.Using.John.Lewis.Click.And.Collect.Ever.Again.

There, I feel better now

Edit: all their website says about returning stuff to a Waitrose is this "If you’ve collected your johnlewis.com order from a Waitrose shop then you may return your item to that shop for a refund. You may find it easier though, especially if you wish to exchange, to return your order to your nearest John Lewis."
Note that they don't say it's not possible to exchange there - just that it may be easier to go to a JL

tomtontom

You'd have had the same issue whether the item had been delivered to you or collected, it's the way the system deals with exchanges (it sees it as a new purchase). Next time ring up before going to the store, saves a whole lot of fuss over nothing.

Yolina

Well I don't like the way their system deals with exchanges so I'll think twice before ordering from them again if it's going to be such a PITA. It's the first time I've ever had to do an exchange with them, so you'll excuse me for not knowing the ins and outs of it, especially as their website doesn't make it particularly clear.

And surely it would be much easier for their customers if you could do a straight swap in a Waitrose like you can in a JL and they have an internal system to reconcile things.

DCFC79

What did the delivery note in the box say with regarding returns ?

Does this not contradict what the staff told you

• If you've collected an order from your local Waitrose and opt to return it there, please be aware that we process the refund when the item is received in our returns centre, not at the point of return.

From here.

Yolina

Give me a minute to dig it out. Remember, I went in there wanting to exchange a faulty item for a working one, rather than return something because I don't like it or something so thought it'd be straightforward to do that there and then - as in hand in faulty item, and walk out with a working one. My mistake, here, was to think that the 2 floors of JL stuff were, erm, an actual JL store since you can't pay for things on floor 1 & 2 at ground floor level which is the Waitrose food.
The email confirmation for the swap says they will debit my card with £0 so the CS guy I spoke to on the phone while in the store did sort things out (and the person at the c&c desk handled the rest about sending the faulty one back)

Yolina

The delivery note just says this about Waitrose c&c returns:
"The option is available to you if you collected your order from a Waitrose shop, in which case you can return your order to the same shop for a refund to be processed on the card originally used to make the purchase."

Yolina

thriftymanc wrote: »

In future if anyone has a problem with a Click & Collect item - remember that you're always able to pick up an order the following day, so simply place a brand new order for the same item, and then when you go in to collect it, take the original order and tell the staff you want to return it. It's loads faster than faffing around phoning up saying you want to exchange. The original order will get refunded and you've already got your replacement with barely any waiting.

Nice one but depends on the price of the order though. Plus I had the extra issue of the bundle price thing, so in this case I would have had to return both, but only 1 of the 2 was faulty which would probably open another can of worms.

Anyway, went earlier to collect my replacement and there was someone there having the same issues with trying to exchange one item that was faulty and which was part of a special price bundle :rotfl:

Can't be great for the CS people to be dealing with that every time either, I just wish they could make their system a tad more flexible to handle this situation. And it really should be seamless between JL and Waitrose instead of having what looks like a whole bunch of different systems completely separate from each other. Basically it should be handled behind the scenes rather than customers having to jump through hoops.

So lesson learnt

Yolina

When I went to pick the stuff up today, I did have a good look on the upper floors and there's nothing saying that this effectively isn't a "real" JL. Obviously the layout and displays are like you would find in any JL and there are plenty of signs saying "see our full range at johnlewis.com". Plus it's compounded by the fact that you can't pay for items from the ground floor (food) on the upper floors (JL but actually not a real JL ) and vice versa. The only clue is that if you buy something from the upper JL-but-not-JL floors, the bag is branded Waitrose Food and Home.
It's annoying in that they do sell JL goods but they can't deal with the exchanges from JL because they're actually Waitrose :rotfl: Seriously something's not quite right... I'm sure they could implement something if they wanted to - after all their partnership works fine to sell you things, so why not for exchanges?