Design Within Reach Fullfillment F$%^ery

4 years ago

W(a)TF, Design Within Reach?

In February, I ordered three counter height stools from DWR. They were backordered. In May, they finally arrived. They are beautiful, however, not counter, but bar height. This was not going to work, so back they went. DWR assures me that they will send the correct stools once they have the wrong ones back.

A few weeks later, literally fifteen minutes before we are leaving to go on a four day camping trip, their replacements show up. The boxes are obviously different sizes: two tall, one short. You guessed it: this time we’ve got two tall stools and one correct one. The two wrong ones go back, and I’m assigned a direct line and email for a guy is customer service. They are (as they should be) extremely embarrassed.

Today, (again with no notice - apparently they have no ability to generate any updates other than “your order has arrived!” on replacement orders for some reason) two boxes arrive. They are different sizes. This is not looking good. We pull out the stools. Now we’re up to a pair of correct stools and one wrong one. Did I mention these are large boxes and are all going back and forth via Fedex? They’ve probably spent more shipping these damn things back and forth across the country than I spent to buy them in the first place!

Now I’m waiting for Roberto to send me another return label. I was going to offer to just pick the stool up in Portland or Seattle (we are driving to Seattle this weekend), but we’d have to take the truck, as it won’t fit in the Volvo. So, no.

I love their stuff, but their grasp of basic logistics seems tenuous at best. The worst part is that I have described to them exactly what the problem is. I literally told them what to look for*: The description on the box itself is correct - counter v. bar - but the sticker with the SKU on it says counter regardless of what kind of stool is actually inside. Someone mis-labeled god only knows how much inventory.

*not that two of the “same” stools’ coming in two different height boxes shouldn’t itself have been a tipoff that something was amiss.

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Comments (4)

Jilly
4 years ago
Ugh, sorry that’s been happening. What a pain.

Sounds like a common issue with them: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.dwr.com
theotherjaye thanked Jilly
A Fox
4 years ago
Well this is now 8 years after my last shipping experience with DWR. I ordered 4 indoor/outdoor powder coated cafe chairs from them. They came packaged two in one box with no packing material, and the box was so flimsy the chair legs had broken through the bottom. Two were scratched up and needed to be sent back. It ended up taking eight chairs and 3 deliveries to receive 4 satisfactory chairs seemingly only because someone didn't know how to properly pack something to keep them from rubbing against each other or breaking through the box.
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LH On the Move
4 years ago
We're having this issue in a number of situations. @A Fox, we're going back and forth with some Top Knob handles that are heavy metal handles packed with very thin foam envelopes and the mounting screws keep denting and gouging the metal and finish during shipping. We're on our third attempt to replace.

And, we had some lights sent to us and the square glass enclosure was broken on one. Replacement came in a much larger box, but the glass was completely shattered. Second replacement came in again in a larger box, also shattered. But, one shard was intact enough to realize it was way too tall to be the glass for our light. Looked up the sku and they had been sending us replacement glass for their 25" light and we had ordered the 14" -- clearly noted on our order and the replacement orders. Third one finally arrived, correct and intact.
theotherjaye
Original Author
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
I’ve had mainly excellent service from DWR over the years, but this is really infuriating. Had no idea that this was a ”thing” with them, although now that I think of it, when I ordered our ball clock they sent the wrong one - it was NBD because we were in the Bay Area at the time so all I had to do was bop over to Fourth street and exchange it. One of the problems with living in a smaller city is that I have to either drive to Portland or Seattle, or depend on deliveries.

I’ve actually had excellent luck with getting lighting shipped. Lumens at least seems to get the need to adequately package glass.