Recently I purchased the Bloodbowl game minus the Human and Orc teams from UK bits supplier Bits & Kits. I have used these guys in the past and found them very good both from a supply point of view and also in relation to customer service.
Unfortunately this time was not a great experience. Rather than bagging them, this post is a heads-up when using them in specific circumstances.
The price on the box less figures was GBP30.00 with postage of GBP3.00. This made them very competitive in terms of price and - given I had used them before - I ordered from them, mid-November. I received an email update that my order had shipped on 19 November.
When the item had not turned up a month later I checked my order history on their website and found no record of my order. Being holiday season I thought it might take awhile to get here so sent them an email checking the order was "real" and method of shipping. I received no reply. It wasn't until my fifth email in late January that Bits & Kits replied.
"Sorry for the delay in response, the package in question was returned as undelivered, this has happened with large box sets before, we assume that due to the weight or the size of the box that it cant be delivered and get held by your country's postal service and get returned to me."
This seemed very strange as this has never been a problem with NZ Post before. I'd hazard a guess that they are probably one of the more progressive and reliable postal services in the world and the handling of large boxes is never an issue.
The cynic in me suggests that the cost of postage made the order uneconomic for Bits & Kits. If that was the case then I would have preferred that they had just contacted me and told me so rather than the rigmarole I went through. I post this only as a heads up to people using the service for more than isolated bits.
In the end I received a quick refund (3-4 days) but the experience cost me two months delay and $6 in transaction charges. The good news is I have the same purchases en route from eBay.
I have used them for years without issue, but never picked up anything that wouldn't fit into an A4 sized courier pouch. Shame it didn't work out this time.
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