Ingram Micro's new website, stuffed

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#306847 13-Mar-2010 09:04

exportgoldman:
dimsim: you can email problems you find or enhancements you'd like to nzwebmaster@ingrammicro.co.nz, although im pretty sure they will be workng through a list longer than your arm atm.

To be fair I'm getting same day replies from this e-mail address, I asked for the banner ads to be removed, or a subscription option like geekzone has so you don't have to see all the banner ads (they take up nearly half of the screen) Theres no option to remove the banner ads, but they have globally removed the top most banner ad.

I found this week that datastor's website has been running very very slowly... Perhaps they have had a massive influx of customers. Exceed's website is fantastic.

ditto all of that. ive stopped emailing now after their last response never came to fruition. I was told that my order was being processed and would be delivered the next day, but a few days and a few helpful but totally uninformative phone calls later without receiving my order I gave up and went to exeed.

now using exeed, datastor, dove, expressdata and pbtech.

imho, the adds and the rest of the fluff need to be removed, leave the heavy html for techbyte.

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Spong

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#310300 23-Mar-2010 17:01

After attempting an online RMA, and failing, I found out that the new IM system doesn't recognise any earlier invoice than ones it created itself, so if you need to return any item that's faulty or otherwise, you need to manually email DOS, invoice number, and reason for return. Apparently, this may always be the case. Once you email your request for an RMA number, the turn around for this step is OVER 7 days!

Over last weekend, all my buy prices were shown around 10-30% less than usual. On Monday, staff admitted things went wrong, and we were viewing IM's buy prices. Oh dear! PB Technologies must get much better pricing than we do. Many of the items we buy from them have been sourced from IM, yet they can sell for far less than our IM buy prices. Even PB's retail prices are often less than IM's! We now use IM as a supplier of last resort, whereas they used to be our first choice. I bet we're not alone.

nate

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#310351 23-Mar-2010 19:24

Spong: After attempting an online RMA, and failing, I found out that the new IM system doesn't recognise any earlier invoice than ones it created itself, so if you need to return any item that's faulty or otherwise, you need to manually email DOS, invoice number, and reason for return. Apparently, this may always be the case. Once you email your request for an RMA number, the turn around for this step is OVER 7 days!

It's a similar process if you want a copy of an old invoice - they have to bring up their old system as none of that data has been migrated to the new platform.

Spong: Oh dear! PB Technologies must get much better pricing than we do. Many of the items we buy from them have been sourced from IM, yet they can sell for far less than our IM buy prices. Even PB's retail prices are often less than IM's!

If I can play devil's advocate, PB buy a lot from IM (I think they may even be IM's biggest client) hence why their buy price is lower - they have the buying power to get this.

I know that when we were buying a good volume of HP equipment, our buy prices dropped significantly. It's all a numbers game.

CYaBro

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#310356 23-Mar-2010 19:42

I agree with rma process. It totally blows!
Emailed the details of a couple of items to them last and have heard nothing yet. Have tried a couple if times.

slotherby

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#310363 23-Mar-2010 20:04

Two things I learnt yesterday.

1) The sales guys on the end of the phone don't know how to determine accurate stock levels from their new computer system. Guy told me they had 7 in stock and so I drove out to pick it up, after waiting an hour the collections woman told me that there was none in stock. Rang the guy again and after half an hour he was finally able to confirm that there was none in stock even though his computer was still apparently telling him that there was still 6 in stock. Four of his mates came up with the same answer, took the fifth guy to show them an unknown key sequence to bring up the correct details. Must admit I fell sorry for the guys on the phone that have caught this hospital pass of a system.

2) Any orders that had been paid by credit card and were still outstanding at the time the new website came live are now on hold as while they copied over the orders they weren't able to copy over the credit card details. Ingrams are doing nothing about this and will just sit and wait until you ring them to find out what has happened to your order.

Gosh, I love this company!

Spong

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#310374 23-Mar-2010 20:46

We have a $30K credit limit with IM, and we're just a mom and pop operation, and we've been account holders for over 15 years. Back in the TP days, we often did that much in a month with them, and we've never been late paying our account ever. Never in that time, have we ever had anyone from TP/IM bother to visit us. Synnex people often call in, and have been fantastic over the years. I guess we'd be lucky to do $1k - $2k a month with IM these days, and everything else goes to the many other excellent companies out there. I asked to discuss our pricing with 2x IM account managers, and no one bothered to get back to me. I've been told by CSR's to ask for better pricing on a case by case basis, but this is inefficient when product managers are always in meetings or at lunch. The problems with Telecom's XT network fade into insignificance after this fiasco. I have a feeling something good may come out of all this when IM's bottom line starts to suffer. Sure hope so, and in the meantime I highly recommend Synnex, PB Tech, Datawell, Computer Dynamics (absolutely fantastic pricing, and service), Iway, Datastor, and Morningstar (although they don't seem as good as they once were).

dimsim

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#310389 23-Mar-2010 21:03

Spong: After attempting an online RMA, and failing, I found out that the new IM system doesn't recognise any earlier invoice than ones it created itself, so if you need to return any item that's faulty or otherwise, you need to manually email DOS, invoice number, and reason for return. Apparently, this may always be the case. Once you email your request for an RMA number, the turn around for this step is OVER 7 days!

Over last weekend, all my buy prices were shown around 10-30% less than usual. On Monday, staff admitted things went wrong, and we were viewing IM's buy prices. Oh dear! PB Technologies must get much better pricing than we do. Many of the items we buy from them have been sourced from IM, yet they can sell for far less than our IM buy prices. Even PB's retail prices are often less than IM's! We now use IM as a supplier of last resort, whereas they used to be our first choice. I bet we're not alone.

Yet another shining example of how poorly conceived and executed this project was. Most of this end user frustration could have been alleviated somewhat through communication Just tell us that RMA's for older purchases wont work, here's your new account number (you'll need to quote this to the call centre staff so your order time is not un-necessarily delayed) Oh, and by the way, if you want to look up the details of an old invoice, well sorry, but we can't do that either.

What a total c#$% up.

dimsim

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#310396 23-Mar-2010 21:14

Spong: We have a $30K credit limit with IM, and we're just a mom and pop operation, and we've been account holders for over 15 years. Back in the TP days, we often did that much in a month with them, and we've never been late paying our account ever. Never in that time, have we ever had anyone from TP/IM bother to visit us. Synnex people often call in, and have been fantastic over the years. I guess we'd be lucky to do $1k - $2k a month with IM these days, and everything else goes to the many other excellent companies out there. I asked to discuss our pricing with 2x IM account managers, and no one bothered to get back to me. I've been told by CSR's to ask for better pricing on a case by case basis, but this is inefficient when product managers are always in meetings or at lunch. The problems with Telecom's XT network fade into insignificance after this fiasco. I have a feeling something good may come out of all this when IM's bottom line starts to suffer. Sure hope so, and in the meantime I highly recommend Synnex, PB Tech, Datawell, Computer Dynamics (absolutely fantastic pricing, and service), Iway, Datastor, and Morningstar (although they don't seem as good as they once were).

Whatever the cause/current situation/end result, the winners here are the other distributors/wholesalers, and well the losers, us, the existing IM clients who relied on their service and ultimately in the end IM. I hope it hits their bottom line big time, because its only the numbers that will wake this giant from its customer service coma.

mushtac

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#310503 24-Mar-2010 07:31

Thanks for all the posts, made very interesting reading. This is the sort of topic that's makes me appreciate Geekzone & it's ability to network & keep me informed.

sampler

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#310559 24-Mar-2010 08:59

The latest,

Ordered a small item 11th, item was in stock (400ish). Had a pickup date of 22nd. Check on the IM website this morning, the order was listed as "in progress". Our single item was on backorder, with 100ish in stock. Talked to CS and they manually allocated stock and process started as normal.

Direct quote from CS person "Thats not the first time I have seen a problem with forward orders". As normal I was asked to ring CS if anything "weird" happened.

It continues!

Spong

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#310571 24-Mar-2010 09:16

Same thing happened to me. I ordered a printer on 18/3/10 requesting delivery on 22/3/10. It never left "in progress" until a CSR manually intervened a short time ago. It seems many processes are done manually there these days. No wonder they're so behind.

Tivo upgrades to operate with the new OzTivo EPG, support and service. Over 400 performed here so far. See: www.hillcrest.net.nz

dimsim

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#310585 24-Mar-2010 09:39

mushtac: Thanks for all the posts, made very interesting reading. This is the sort of topic that's makes me appreciate Geekzone & it's ability to network & keep me informed.

seconded...when your deep in it, it's reassuring to know that someone else is there with you.

dimsim

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#310598 24-Mar-2010 09:53

Spong: Same thing happened to me. I ordered a printer on 18/3/10 requesting delivery on 22/3/10. It never left "in progress" until a CSR manually intervened a short time ago. It seems many processes are done manually there these days. No wonder they're so behind.

its laughable really, extract from their Website Update 15th March Email

"The ordering side is working fine, and web orders are flowing through ok. However, other areas still require work."

"After the poor performance on launch day, I am pleased to report that the new website has proven stable since that first day"

They should have saved this til April fools - now that would be something to laugh about.

The most worrying aspect is this

"We have already begun the next phase of tuning the site further for local requirements here"

Isnt it standard practice to tick off phase one before jumping into phase two?

Phaedrus

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#310600 24-Mar-2010 09:55

It seems the saga continues by all the posts that have come through recently..

I thought I'd give them another go as I need some laptops (Toshi) but instead of trying to navigate their website yesterday I emailed the Toshi CSR directly. However I haven't heard back so I'm guessing that's going to be a fizzer too.

Now a while back someone suggested Monaco were also a distributor for Toshiba but after a call to them just now they tell me they don't do the Laptops. Does anyone know who in NZ other than IM do Toshi Laptops? I see Cyclone have a few but it doesn't seem to be the whole range so I'm guessing they're leftovers from something/someone else perhaps.

Incidentally I'd add to the satisfaction ratings for Datastor - thanks for the info on alternates for APC UPS's!

Cheers, P.

Spong

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#310641 24-Mar-2010 11:02

PB Technoligies give good pricing on Toshiba and generally better than IM (who isn't?), but their range is not complete.
Computer Direct have also given me good wholesale pricing in the past, but need payment up front. You maybe surprised how much you'll save by bypassing IM.

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