I so feel your pain. First I decided on a Julien stainless sink and once I talked myself into spending the money I tried to order it only to learn that the dealer was no longer a Julien authorized distributor. Next I looked for a similar sink and found a C-tech sink that never arrived because it didn't exist. After several more weeks of searching I finally settled on a Rohl Allia fireclay sink. The local dealer assured me I would have it in a week, but it took nearly 3 weeks of course. I ordered white, but after installation of the granite last week we realized we actually got bisque. Thankfully it matches our cabinets and looks great, but it seemed everything went wrong with our sink search from the start. I had similar problems with faucet shopping, I hope you have better luck from now on! I'm glad to know I'm not the only one, I was beginning to think I was cursed.

That's the risk when ordering online. You will save $$$ because these places are basically ordering machines. Buy in bulk and little markup. More and more of my clients are ordering their fixtures online, instead of through me. Farm sinks make me the most nervous. I like to have the farm sink in my warehouse, so I can measure it and order the sink base properly. Right now, I'm waiting for two clients to receive their farm sinks. It's frustrating and it might delay their cabinet order if they come in defective or damaged. If that happens, then there goes the $100 savings right down the drain. Don't you think for peace of mind, they'd just let me handle it? Oh well.

jessie, thanks for posting this info about Galaxy Tool Supply and homecenter.com. I had planned to order some items from Galaxy but have now crossed them off my list. I refuse to do business with a company like that. I can't believe they made you pay for return shipping.

I agree with kompy, it is usually not worth the hassle of saving money, plus it puts contractors like me in binds, because we have to deal with the issues. I know it sound horrible but if a customer wants to buy their own products, I charge them to install it and they end up paying the same price as if they bought it from me. I can tell you the few times the customer has opted to buy their own they almost always have issues.

I had the SAME problem with homecenter.com. Confirmed sink was in stock, ordered it, got an email it was on back order, cancelled, and after finally! getting someone on the phone, I confirmed my credit card had been credited, less a restocking fee.
I ended up getting a Blanco silgranit through Amazon for a great price

I ordered my sink from an ebay retailer and everything came quickly and in good shape. I don't tell you this to make you feel bad. Believe me, I've had my share of issues in other areas of my remodel. But, it does sound like the last company, the Kindred dealer, has their sh-- together with free pick-up and customer service. They've got a replacement already on the way to you. I don't think that lightning will strike twice with the same company. I ordered a half dozen items for my kitchen on-line with only one snafu. Sorry for the aggravation! Hopefully the rest of the kitchen goes smoothly.

bservaites, wow they charged you a restocking fee after lying about it being in stock?? Were you able to contest that with your credit card company? Unbelievable ...

thanks for all those who give empathy and support!!! it's all I needed.

erika, virtually everyone here LOVES gts....don't know why it went bad with me, but the shipping was like 15 bucks and just irked me to have to pay it for their defective sink. by the way, i ended up going with a 28 inch ss.

bservaites, homecenter.com charged me a restocking fee too. they do disclose this in their "policies" but still...

and kompy and mcr1, you are both so lucky to never be sent a defective item or never have your suppliers lag in delivery! Me? I don't have nor can I afford a kitchen designer nor a general contractor, lol. I just get by the best I can.

I understand a restocking fee, but NOT when you're first told the item is in stock and then you cancel when they say it's on backorder. That's nuts.

I've heard raves about GTS here but your one bad experience with them is enough to make me cross them off my list. I'll gladly pay a little more for a company that puts a higher priority on customer service/satisfaction.

Thanks for sharing, Jessie.

Restocking fee? When the item is not IN-STOCK? That is ridiculous. Thanks for pointing out a company to avoid!

It sounds like you had a horrible experience with Galaxy Tool and then again with the other retailers. I hope you find a sink you love, that's available and that actually makes it to your door unscathed.

I do want to report that I had a much better experience with Galaxy Tool. We ordered a sink that arrived damaged. I reported that to GTS and they first offered us a 10% discount if we could still use the sink. I took them up on it and then several days later decided I wanted a new sink. GTS had FedEx come and pick the sink up at no cost to us. They said they'd have to get the sink back before they could credit our account. I went ahead and reordered from them, got the new sink in 2 days in perfect shape (it's now installed and we love it). About six weeks went by and I realized I hadn't heard from Galaxy or seen the credit on my account. I called and they said "oh yeah FedEx returned a sink but removed all the customer info so we didn't know who to credit. We'll credit you right now." And they did, with no charge for shipping or restocking.

oops, I should correct something here. The fee that homecenter.com charged me was called a "credit card transaction fee," since it was a cancellation. But I only cancelled because they clearly didn't have it in stock (when they told me they did) and kept lying to me about shipping dates. I could have been waiting forever. I've never been charged that kind of fee in my life.

sw, thanks for the kind wishes. Maybe they made me pay for the shipping because I didn't order another sink from them. That's not right. I would have ordered a different one, but they didn't have one I wanted.

You're going to cross GTS off the list because of one bad report?

I doubt you'll find a retailer out there with 100% positive feedback and GTS must have 99% positive based on this forum alone!

I don't expect 100% positive feedback. But a company that has a policy of charging customers for return shipping on defective products will never get my business. Same goes for a company that has a policy of charging a restocking fee for a customer canceling after an item is backordered.

I love shopping online. Amazon is my favorite retailer. I have found their customer service and their policies to be excellent. I would rather spend a little more $$ at a local merchant or another online retailer who I know treats their customers well.

I know there are other negative GTS posts as I posted one myself quite some time ago... :-)

I've never liked the term "buying online" - you are buying from a retailer. It's similar to the old days of ordering something from a catalog. I've had many positive AND negative experiences buying things from BOTH local retailers and "e-tailers". I've learned from experience that price should never be the bottom line factor when making a purchase - period. There are too many other factors to consider that are equally as important. For example, I have a big problem buying from any etailer that I cannot pick up the phone and call (and get to a customer service person without a great deal of hassle). ...and the list goes on...

I've posted experiences about buying many different home improvement products including a recent one about the hand blown glass pendant lights - sight unseen. Because of the company I was dealing with, this was a wonderful buying experience and the pendants are incredible. This is not something I could have found locally in a showroom. I never considered I was "buying online" - I was simply buying a unique product from a company that has been around for a while and a customer service person that was helpful and who I could call back if I had more questions (without going through voice mail hell). ...I just happened to find them online...

It is too bad that GTS has not empowered their customer service people to make an exception to their policy and make the right decision in this case. ...it will cost them in the long run.

FWIW - I was all set to order a Ticor sink from GTS when I read this post. Then I got nervous. Then I read all the positive posts and decided to take a chance. I placed my order by phone, held my breath, and received an undamaged sink the next day. It looks really, really good though I'll have my GC look it over. It was missing one of the sink grids which I was told was on backorder when I called today. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. We'll see. If it doesn't show in a couple of weeks, I'll call again. -- In the meantime, I have a great sink and no complaints about GTS.

Follow up to my previous post: I just received the backordered sink grids today. They sent me both grids, though I was only missing the large one, so now I have three.

ellen, so glad it worked out for you. here's my update (i'm the OP).

well, faucet depot was true to its word...my replacement kindred estate sink arrived within 5 days of my complaint. And the delivery guy from fedex picked up the first one at the same time. this was really nice.

however, the 2nd sink has the same problem as the first. oh. man. well, i decided to keep it anyway cause i just cannot drag this process out any longer and to me, with the luck i've had (or haven't had) i feel like what's the point. (please don't be mad at me!!) i wrote an email to them this time, addressed to both the sales dept and the customer service dpt, letting them know that it was not right...just like the first one but that i was keeping it since blah blah blah but that i wasn't satisfied and that i think they should take the sink off their site until the issue with kindred was addressed. they didn't respond...except for the auto response, we-got-your-email response. disappointing, it's still on the website:

http://faucetdepot.com/faucetdepot/productdetail.asp?link="5A5A7C46-8C78-454A-81C1-9A13A7359A69>&Product=3336

i would advise all not to order this sink.

now, one other good thing about faucet depot....i know i sound nuts, but i always tend to see the good and the bad of most things.....

when i first ordered from them by phone (you should ALWAYS try that), i asked if they could do any better on the price. no trouble or difficulty of any kind here. she told me she could sell it for 380 instead of the listed 462, a nice savings.

still, i would rather have had a better sink!

so, that's my update. templater was here yesterday for my himac volcanic solid surface counter which i cannot wait to get.

in case you are interested, and in case this works, here is a shot of the sink rim:

Here is a link that might be useful:

hope you can see the different finishes on the rim. the small stripes are the smooth, nice ones. the others are rough.

But it's an undermount sink, correct? The rim gets caulked and snugged up to the underside of the countertop. So the rim isn't meant to be a finished surface & the roughness may be intentional 'tooth' so the caulking gets a better grip/ seal.

Wow, I'm sorry you had so much trouble with your sink. I had a similar saga with the countertop in my laundry room. Every problem you could imagine. It was really strange.

But I disagree with those here who dismiss online sales outright. I ordered many things online and found substantial savings--often 50% or more. And on a $1000 sink, that's a lot of money. I did not run into a single problem with any of my online orders, and I was able to find products, such as period-specific light fixtures, that were not available to me locally.

On the other hand, I was very unimpressed with the process of ordering things through local showrooms. (And I usually go out of my way to shop locally, so this was a big surprise and disappointment to me.) It's very difficult to comparison shop, because showrooms rarely display prices. Also, because little info is made available, you must rely on a salesperson, but the salespeople--even when they're incredibly helpful--don't always know the details you might expect them to know. Like the fact that a particular sink is not a good fit for the faucet you simultaneously selected (actual example). And because you don't place the order yourself, there is a lot of room for error. (I could create quite a list of the ordering errors that occurred with my local purchases.) And because the items are often delivered to the contractor or the sub rather than to me, the person who selected and purchased it, there's room for even more error. Again, I could create a list of the things that were installed in error because the sub didn't seem to know what I ordered, even though they all supposedly receive copies of the order once it's placed. "Gee, why are you putting in Moen valves in the bathrooms? I'm not getting any Moen fixtures." No joke. And just because you order locally doesn't mean that your items will come in perfect order. You should have seen the condition of the doorknobs I got, as compared to every item I ordered online, which came so well packaged they would have been safe in a hurricane.

In my experience, at least, shopping online beat showroom shopping hands down for service, selection, reliability, and price. Because I like to support local businesses, I am very sorry to report this, but it was true.

mmme, I think she was referring to the same reason I have also advised people to call faucetdepot and ask for their best price; you get a better price than if you just order online. Their online price is NOT always their "best" price. Not because online ordering presents any problems. She saved 82.00 off that item by calling in the order as opposed to ordering straight from the same companies website.

Sue

No, sue_ct, I know she isn't saying this, but a couple of other posts on this thread say that online ordering is a bad idea in general--not worth the minor savings.

With the experiences I had, I just felt compelled to defend the idea of online sales!

(And I totally agree with the benefit of calling in an order rather than doing it online. The comparison to catalog shopping is right on.)

ci lantro, no, i don't think it's intentional. the sink is designed for a positive reveal....which is what i wanted.

and to others, yes, i believe in online ordering!!! it's just that i think you can get a better price by calling them after you select your sink.