I do a lot of online purchasing.  Part of being a busy small business owner is maximizing your time, and being able to do product research, price comparison, ordering and get delivery usually within a day or two is super valuable.

I’ve had great service from Oakwood Broadcast in Winnipeg, Vistek in Calgary/Toronto and even Epson. I use them regularly and to great satisfaction. In the case of Epson, who knew it would be cheaper to buy paper from them (they pay shipping) than buying it at my local office supply house.

I had high hopes for NCIX.com because the first time I ordered some gear from them it showed up within a couple of days and prices were good. 

A few months ago, they shipped an incorrect item, and because they didn’t have the correct item in stock, made me jump through tons of hoops in order to get the wrong item back to them. And they never were able to get me what I wanted.  

The rather unhelpful customer service person I talked to on the phone was unable to arrange to get the incorrect shipment picked up – I had to get a form and go down to the courier company – which puts a bit of a wrench into online shopping.

The thing that really ticked me off was that they refused to credit my order until the incorrect item had been returned and arrived at their office.

A couple of weeks ago I thought I’d give them another try.  My mistake.

I ordered 2 identical wireless print servers. 

They shipped one and charged me for two.  No word on a delayed shipment, nothing.  

This may be news to them, but here’s one of the basic tenets of merchandising:  only charge the customer for what you give them.

After getting lost in their voice mail system, I’ve left an online ‘customer care’ message. I’m sure this will mean a long phone call on Monday and a bunch more hoop-jumping.

NCIX.com , you’ve lost my business for good.