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soren's avatar
soren
Explorer
Jun 06, 2018

Camping World online...........Seriously?

I generally limit my CW purchases to stopping in one of their stores, while traveling. This is almost always done to replace something RV related that's broken, and needs to be replaced immediately.

While renewing my Good Sam membership, I noticed an offer for essentially getting a second year for free, as the two year plan came with a $25 gift certificate. Since I needed new sewer hoses, I took this option. When the certificate arrived, I went online and bought a hose kit. Not factoring the certificate, the kit plus shipping was 7% more expensive that ordering it from Amazon Prime. Not a huge deal, less than four bucks in the end. The amazing part is that it took ELEVEN days to arrive. Four days after placing the order, they sent an email that it was shipped. (great job there, BTW, no rush, when others get product out the door in minutes to hours, I'm sure that most of a week is totally fine, eh?) Seven days later it arrived. If I were to place the same order with Amazon at this moment, it would not only be cheaper, Amazon will have it on my porch by 6 PM tomorrow!

It might be time for Marcus to give some thought to finding whoever is in charge of the online sales mess, ask them to change out of their parachute pants, turn their cassette Walkman off, and head out into the world. Maybe find some of those "hipster, millenial" folks with those shiny little computers in their hands, and ask a few questions. Things have changed a bit in the last few decades, and having an online presence that performs like it's 1999 is a great way to alienate customers. I can say for sure that I'll never waste time ordering anything else from the online CW store.

To put this in perspective, I can remember being a kid, FORTY years ago, and calling the west coast from PA. I would order bike parts from a black and white newsprint catalog, and hand the phone to my dad, so he could put it on his credit card. Six or seven days later, the parts would be at the front door. Almost half a century later and CW can't do better than eleven days? Amazon and others are doing deliveries in hours in some markets and testing nearly instant drone delivery. CW is apparently longing for the 1940s, and testing various mules and horses to fine tune their delivery system.

40 Replies

  • lazydays wrote:
    I'm trying to figure out your beef with CW. Sounds like to me you should be complaining about the carrier. Was this UPS, Fed EX, ect....


    This is Not about the carrier
    It's how long it takes the seller to process and pack and ship the order

    Stick and brick are dipping their toes in the water, trying out online, but it is not their major market

    Amazon is exclusively online, while testing things like grocery delivery in select markets

    Camping world doesn't have the localized warehouse distribution that Amazon has

    Although I agree eleven days is too much , in this age
  • Looks like Marcus will not be improving on this aspect anytime soon.

    In fairness CW can have some lower prices.

    Try visiting their store. The staff will put in you the burden of proving the price you saw on the internet -- and then that the item exist in their inventory.

    Then more frustration on CW's Service Center and you'll get the feeling that you owe it to them that you were given a date to take your rig to them -- even when weeks from the call. There is no such thing as "emergency" to them.

    Coming from a corporate world, that and the fact that the delivery turn-around sucks big time too, it's symptomatic of dysfunctional customer service culture.

    And then you hear and see Marcus on TV making common-sensical proposals to businesses he intends to invest in and you murmur to yourself: doctor, heal thyself.
  • goducks10 wrote:
    Did CW actually stock the part or were they having it sent from another distributor?
    Stocked and shipped from their location, in a box that was roughly 2-1/2X the required size...............why? Who knows.
  • lazydays wrote:
    I'm trying to figure out your beef with CW. Sounds like to me you should be complaining about the carrier. Was this UPS, Fed EX, ect....


    Yes, because clearly the carrier sat on the order for four days before shipping. The carrier made the decision to ship the product from the other coast. The carrier made the decision to ship it as slowly as possible, for the lowest cost. Sound like you have this all figured out.

    Oddly enough I just purchased a bike rack that was direct shipped from the manufacturer. The company received my order, processed it, shipped the rack, and had it on my porch in less than 96 hours. Phoenix, AZ to rural south central PA. Amazing eh? Free shipping and all. Was it done by slipping through a wormhole in time and space, or was it a well run company that runs a tight operation? Take a guess..............
  • Did CW actually stock the part or were they having it sent from another distributor?
  • LittleBill wrote:
    Do you pay Prime membership to CW? so its not an apples to apples

    Amazon free ship non prime has taken as long as 9 days for me. and i order DAILY from amazon.

    go order free ship from Home depot, i have stuff taken 14+ days..


    Sorry, but a Prime membership has little to nothing to do with CW's lack of performance here. I pay for Prime, which gives me a massive video library, AND subsidized shipping, for less than my Netflix account. Prime is far from "free" or guaranteed instantaneous shipping, nor does it create a system when "non-prime" customers are treated poorly, with the shipper waiting a week or so, until they get around to throwing your order in a box. The issue here is a CW system that doesn't drop ship, has no distribution for the product I ordered that is closer than three thousand miles distant, AND apparently finds a four day lag in actually getting the product out the door to be acceptable. If you have a issue with Amazon, as another posted noted, give Walmart.com a try. They blow the doors off CW's performance in this case. Any everything, no matter how heavy and costly to ship, can be picked up at the closest store in a few days, at no additional cost.

    If you really want to see mind blowing service from a smaller online provider, and the exact opposite of my CW experience, try Rockauto.com. I have placed orders with them and gotten massively heavy truck parts to my door within 24 hrs, for a fraction of what the local NAPA charges, including shipping and taxes. In ordering dozens of parts and spending thousands there, I have yet to have anything take more than four days to get to me.

    Finally, the Home Depot comment is really odd. So, if CW is failing at this game, we should accept that, since HD sucks even worse?
  • I don't know why people buy from CW online anyway (or in their stores for that matter). Their online stuff is always on sale but you can just about always find it cheaper elsewhere online and often by quite a bit. Item descriptions can be lacking important or useful info. Then there's their lousy customer service, shipping and returns policy.
  • I'm trying to figure out your beef with CW. Sounds like to me you should be complaining about the carrier. Was this UPS, Fed EX, ect....
  • LittleBill wrote:
    Do you pay Prime membership to CW? so its not an apples to apples

    Amazon free ship non prime has taken as long as 9 days for me. and i order DAILY from amazon.

    go order free ship from Home depot, i have stuff taken 14+ days..
    That's why I switched from non-prime Amazon to Walmart.com.

    Dave
  • Do you pay Prime membership to CW? so its not an apples to apples

    Amazon free ship non prime has taken as long as 9 days for me. and i order DAILY from amazon.

    go order free ship from Home depot, i have stuff taken 14+ days..

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