August 30, 2022 – So I read about restock.ca in a news story, and was intrigued. I went to look at the site and saw a pallet that fit inline with my honey’s upcoming party.
Sometimes a deal looks too good to be true. In this case it looked really good. While the site, and then the staff after purchasing inform you some of the items can be damaged or defective, they also infer that there’s a 20% limit. If some item is really defective there’s some sort of safety net.
From their website:
Q. What is the accuracy of the manifests?
A. We are proud to offer an accurate manifest to our buyers and, as much as small discrepancies may happen on large returns lots, the overall value of a lot should not be affected by such differences. If there is more than five (5) % discrepancy between the manifest and the products you received, you must inform us within 3-days after receiving the merchandise, by e-mail at info@restock.ca. The buyer assumes a discrepancies risk of 5% between the manifest and the products received.
In the end, as our economy goes into the tank, there’s lots of truckloads selling lots of stock. Restock.ca isn’t the only game in town. However they had a facility where I like to shop so I tried the pallet.
Most of the items were frankly great. The office chair in the lot clearly looked like someone failed in putting it together. All the pieces were there however and it’s working fine.
However the biggest lure in the photo for us was a patio set with an umbrella and four chairs. The only problem was that it didn’t arrive with the four chairs as the box clearly stated it did. IE, only the table and umbrella arrived out of the six pieces expected. This was not a 5% or even 20% error. It was 66.67% missing box.
Having been impressed with the staff I’d interacted in I expected to get some sort of credit or refund as this clearly could happen and surely a buyer would be protected?
At first “Jonathan” tried to essentially do the “manspeak” and blow me off. I suggested that he might win an argument and lose customers.
He then came back the next day and offered a $20 refund on an exceptional basis from their contingency fund.
It was never about the money. Every consumer likes to feel appreciated when they spend money with someone. Clearly all Restock.ca had to do was show the text book empathy and fix the issue. Easy enough. Offer a credit or refund.
Jonathan at Restock.ca chose not to. When I suggested to him that I write this story this was his email response.
Ok sounds good, thanks, we will have some good content for our blog too.
Jonathan from Restock.ca
This was the first, and probably last time I’ll buy a pallet. When you have a bad experience you tend to not repeat it.
The lesson learned is to inspect your boxes more thoroughly when you pick up, even if it adds a lot of time to your pick up window, and don’t expect a business to act with integrity, and frankly, common business sense. Many do. Some don’t.
In this case Restock.ca lost several potential customers who I’d talked about the order I put in.
Ordering pallets like this has risks. Parts can be broken or missing. It’s part of the adventure, and there are deals to be had. There are also boxes missing 4 out of the 6 pieces you were expecting to find.
info@cornwallfreenews.com
Too bad.. I just hope I have read your post before I bought something from them (couple of thousands of dollars)..
Restock has been an excellent site to source inventory for my small business at a good price! Customer service has been top notch, I always got replies promptly to help resolve any issues with fulfillment. If you are interested in purchasing do caution their terms of service and your appetite for risk, as sourcing returned goods or “like new” goods are as stated in their terms and conditions. One area of improvement would be how boxes are packaged for shipping. There were occasions where I received liquid products leaking or makeup shattered during transit, but all in all it was a wonderful and great experience. I’m still purchasing from them!