The e-tailer, now 99 percent owned by US-based World Callnet, was slammed by disgruntled customers late last year when customer service and goods delivery hit the skids in the lead-up to its demise and subsequent acquisition. E-store bigwigs today blamed the latest spate of delivery failures on the loss of telephone systems during its move of premises from Mosman to those in North Sydney recently vacated by liquidated laptop reseller Laptop Land.
-A few unprecedented problems have certainly slowed up some deliveries [and] put them in some cases well behind," company director Gerard Farley told ZDNet Australia.
According to Farley, during the mid-week move the plug was pulled on E-store's telecoms system and lines weren't reconnected, -synchronisation went off the rails," he said. Furthermore, E-store had opted to ditch its Telstra analogue Commander system used in Mosman for Laptop Land's digital Ericsson system provided by iPrimus, and diverted all its Mosman numbers to the North Sydney system. In the meantime, Laptop Land receivers instructed iPrimus to remove all telephone lines from the property, when one or two were still needed. Subsequently, ISDN lines and telecommunications were down for a day and a half during last Thursday and Friday, Farley explained.
Initially told it would take 10 days to reconnect, technicians worked all day and night to get telecommunications up and running again, resulting in a day and a half hole when the company was off air.
-Even before that one of E-store's two ISDN lines went down," Farely said.
Although the E-store site, which is hosted independently, was still able to take orders, lost ISDN lines meant orders couldn't be reconciled and a host of other issues that resulted in -more than the normal backlog of fulfilment issues," according to Farley.
-Delivery had slowed to a crawl...we're now managing the backlog," he said. -That's the cost of doing business and trying to lift [your] profile by moving premises."
Farley wouldn't specify how many customers had been impacted, saying only that it was -significantly more customers than normal" and said E-store was doing everything it could to get things back on the rails.
Its fulfilment centre, he said, is ready to go, with people on standby for the surge or backlogged orders. -I'd hope by the end of the week, if not early next week, we'll be 100 percent up-to-date," Farley said.
Surprise surprise, E-Store giving poor service, how unheard of... apart from ripping people like myself off last year who paid for goods and never received them or a refund. Wankers!