On 2007-12-22 22:40:30 +0000, "Clive George" said:

"Stuart Noble" wrote in message
...

Not that on-line shopping is that much better, although much less time
is wasted. It's still necessary to ensure that suppliers meet their
commitments, however.

And still necessary to hang around waiting for deliveries or, in the
case of a friend of mine, lining up for an hour at the courier's local
depot at 7 in the evening

Should have used Royal Mail (waits for AH rant :-) )

You've had that one before.

This week's more successful result is with Marks and Spencer. I
ordered some items totalling about £50 from their web site and selected
the nominated day delivery option for £4.95 with today selected as the
delivery day.
The items were not required for a Christmas present or anything like
that but it suited me to have delivery today.

This morning I received an email from them to the effect that they
hadn't dispatched the items and wouldn't be able to until next
Thursday, but they wouldn't charge for the shipping. So I telephoned
them and we had a discussion.

After the opening line with the excuse that "it's because of Christmas"
we had another discussion with the supervisor in which I explained
that it's irrelevant that it's Christmas and that if they commit to
something then that is what I expect to happen, Christmas or not.

We agreed to confirmed delivery for next Friday, no shipping charges
and a credit for half the price of the goods.

"Christmas" is the universal excuse for poor service from traders,
restaurants and most other places selling goods and services. It
isn't as though this is the first year in which Christmas has happened,
so there is no excuse for not planning for it.

If traders don't want to give full service, that's fine as long as they
don't expect to receive full price.