Shopto for Pre-Release Orders - Don't

cnocbui

Shopto are untrustworthy.

They say:

For every pre order of an unreleased product you place with us, you will automatically qualify for a £5.00 store credit should we fail to deliver this product on time with First Class Signed For Delivery. Full information on this can be found here

I pre-ordered Cyberpunk 2077 from them and a day after the launch date and Royal Mail says they haven't received the package from them. And here was naive me thinking they might have posted it two days before release date to compensate for the postage time. Helped by them admiting they had received stock last weekend, so had plenty of time.

The sender has let us know this item will be with us soon.
Updated on: Thursday 10 December 11:17pm

Sender preparing item

I should have paid more attention really:

Don't have email for customer support.

Don't take Paypal due to fraud: Likely theirs and the alacrity with which Paypal retrieve funds from rogue sellers.

If you cancel a pre-order, and no doubt this applies to returns, they say you have to raise a support ticket to have them do a refund instead of giving your account credit.

I'm usually fairly conscientous about spotting potential scammers, but have to admit they got me and I should have been more thorough in looking for warning signs. After the fact they are like neon signs, so my bad.

I doubt the game will arrive before a full week has passed since the release date. I was thinking of returning it to them for a refund, but clearly I would end up having to ask my CC issuer to do a charge back, so don't want the months of strife that is likely to take.

I certainly would never order from these people ever again. They remind me of the rogue traders and scammers from the early days of eBay.

sniper_samurai

cnocbui wrote: »

Shopto are untrustworthy.

They say:



I pre-ordered Cyberpunk 2077 from them and a day after the launch date and Royal Mail says they haven't received the package from them. And here was naive me thinking they might have posted it two days before release date to compensate for the postage time. Helped by them admiting they had received stock last weekend, so had plenty of time.



I should have paid more attention really:

Don't have email for customer support.

Don't take Paypal due to fraud: Likely theirs and the alacrity with which Paypal retrieve funds from rogue sellers.

If you cancel a pre-order, and no doubt this applies to returns, they say you have to raise a support ticket to have them do a refund instead of giving your account credit.

I'm usually fairly conscientous about spotting potential scammers, but have to admit they got me and I should have been more thorough in looking for warning signs. After the fact they are like neon signs, so my bad.

I doubt the game will arrive before a full week has passed since the release date. I was thinking of returning it to them for a refund, but clearly I would end up having to ask my CC issuer to do a charge back, so don't want the months of strife that is likely to take.

I certainly would never order from these people ever again. They remind me of the rogue traders and scammers from the early days of eBay.

Shopto are fine, they have shipped your item, Royal Mail just haven't sorted it yet for it to be scanned in. I currently have multiple packages in their system just sitting unsorted in depots for up to a week. They are coping extremely badly atm between the double whammy of increased parcel demand due to Covid and Christmas, An Post aren't faring much better taking days for entry scans for parcels incoming from abroad.

Mr Grumble

Yep delays everywhere these days due to postal systems being overloaded

But curious choice of retailer I have to say considering the game can be purchased just about anywhere mainstream.

sniper_samurai

Mr Grumble wrote: »

Yep delays everywhere these days due to postal systems being overloaded

But curious choice of retailer I have to say considering the game can be purchased just about anywhere mainstream.

Shopto are often pretty cheap as they appear to not charge VAT on non UK orders.

Grumpypants

They pulled a fast one on PS5 orders. They cancelled orders to parcel motel, emailed people calling them scalpers and charged them £20 to process the cancellation.

Stay well away.

cnocbui

sniper_samurai wrote: »

Shopto are fine, they have shipped your item, Royal Mail just haven't sorted it yet for it to be scanned in. I currently have multiple packages in their system just sitting unsorted in depots for up to a week. They are coping extremely badly atm between the double whammy of increased parcel demand due to Covid and Christmas, An Post aren't faring much better taking days for entry scans for parcels incoming from abroad.

You have lower standards so I am sure you will be happy giving Shopto your future custom. I have Higher expectations and Shopto didn't meet them and they wont be getting any future business from me.

The standard retailer practice for a pre-order game is that it is posted at 'least' one day prior to the release date to local purchasers. Given they offer a £5 credit to local UK customers who don't get a pre-release on release day, they seem to have this same expectsation of themselves, and given they exclude non UK customers from this, they are obviously aware the postage transit time is longer, so are well capable of posting two days in advance.

They did not meet the normal retailer criteria or their own. They didn't post it a day before the release day, they posted it a day after - 3 days later than expected. They even stated they had received the stock on the Sunday so had 2 days to pre-process orders for dispatch.

The delay has nothing to do with Royal Mail, as Shopto didn't send an email stating they had shipped, until after Royal Mail had said they had been notified an item was to be handed to them, both events taking place on Friday, not Wednesday, which is when it should have been posted.

sniper_samurai

cnocbui wrote: »

You have lower standards so I am sure you will be happy giving Shopto your future custom. I have Higher expectations and Shopto didn't meet them and they wont be getting any future business from me.

The standard retailer practice for a pre-order game is that it is posted at 'least' one day prior to the release date to local purchasers. Given they offer a £5 credit to local UK customers who don't get a pre-release on release day, they seem to have this same expectsation of themselves, and given they exclude non UK customers from this, they are obviously aware the postage transit time is longer, so are well capable of posting two days in advance.

They did not meet the normal retailer criteria or their own. They didn't post it a day before the release day, they posted it a day after - 3 days later than expected. They even stated they had received the stock on the Sunday so had 2 days to pre-process orders for dispatch.

The delay has nothing to do with Royal Mail, as Shopto didn't send an email stating they had shipped, until after Royal Mail had said they had been notified an item was to be handed to them, both events taking place on Friday, not Wednesday, which is when it should have been posted.

The delay has everything to do with Royal Mail. Deliveries are days late, even over a week atm for domestic post in the UK let alone for export.

Shopto always ship early unless they are contractually obligated to not ship before a certain date as in the case of Cyberpunk.

Basically you got f'd over by the Christmas delivery rush.

Cop the f on, there was never a chance in hell of getting any parcel at this time of year in a quick manner. Enjoy your game when it eventually turns up, probably in January.

Dcully

I havent pre ordered a game in years and saved a small fortune on countless rubbish games.

cnocbui

sniper_samurai wrote: »

The delay has everything to do with Royal Mail. Deliveries are days late, even over a week atm for domestic post in the UK let alone for export.

Shopto always ship early unless they are contractually obligated to not ship before a certain date as in the case of Cyberpunk.

Basically you got f'd over by the Christmas delivery rush.

Cop the f on, there was never a chance in hell of getting any parcel at this time of year in a quick manner. Enjoy your game when it eventually turns up, probably in January.

You cop the F* on. Shopto did not ship early and were contractully capable of doing so, just like every other retailer. Royal Mail have nothing to do with the issue. Shopto not doing what they should have is the issue, not the Christmas rush. You are either massively obtuse or being deliberately obtuse. Most likely the latter.

sniper_samurai

cnocbui wrote: »

You cop the F* on. Shopto did not ship early and were contractully capable of doing so, just like every other retailer. Royal Mail have nothing to do with the issue. Shopto not doing what they should have is the issue, not the Christmas rush. You are either massively obtuse or being deliberately obtuse. Most likely the latter.

Royal Mail are always a factor in any online purchase from the UK, they aren't teleporting the bloody thing directly to your house.

cnocbui

sniper_samurai wrote: »

Royal Mail are always a factor in any online purchase from the UK, they aren't teleporting the bloody thing directly to your house.

Tell me how Royal Mail made Shopto post it 3 days later than they should have? I am not complaining about the delay in transit, I'm complaining about the time taken to process the order and post it.

sniper_samurai

cnocbui wrote: »

Tell me how Royal Mail made Shopto post it 3 days later than they should have? I am not complaining about the delay in transit, I'm complaining about the time taken to process the order and post it.

How are Shopto supposed to put packages on Royal Mail vans that are already full or nearly full by the time it arrives at their warehouse. This is purely a logistical issue.

Carfacemandog

sniper_samurai wrote: »

The delay has everything to do with Royal Mail. Deliveries are days late, even over a week atm for domestic post in the UK let alone for export.

Shopto always ship early unless they are contractually obligated to not ship before a certain date as in the case of Cyberpunk.

Basically you got f'd over by the Christmas delivery rush.

Cop the f on, there was never a chance in hell of getting any parcel at this time of year in a quick manner. Enjoy your game when it eventually turns up, probably in January.

My other half made an order on Amazon last Sunday that was in the house by Thursday morning, if anything a marginally quicker turnaround than usual. I did likewise last Wednesday and had it by Tuesday gone.

Not to say there are no delays, but your claim that there was "never a chance in hellof getting any parcel at this time of year" is wildly inaccurate.

sniper_samurai

Carfacemandog wrote: »

My other half made an order on Amazon last Sunday that was in the house by Thursday morning, if anything a marginally quicker turnaround than usual. I did likewise last Wednesday and had it by Tuesday gone.

Not to say there are no delays, but your claim that there was "never a chance in hellof getting any parcel at this time of year" is wildly inaccurate.

Amazon do their own logistics in the UK.

If you look at your parcel despite coming from the UK it has an An Post postal label on it.

cnocbui

sniper_samurai wrote: »

How are Shopto supposed to put packages on Royal Mail vans that are already full or nearly full by the time it arrives at their warehouse. This is purely a logistical issue.

Wow, you really don't get it. Don't bother replying, I've had enough pathetic misdirect attempts in order to cover up your original comprehension error.

Markitron

Ordered Cyberpunk weeks ago from them, they charged me 8 days ago, here we are 4 days after release and my copy is still in the UK.

Never ordering from them again.

sniper_samurai wrote: »

Amazon do their own logistics in the UK.

If you look at your parcel despite coming from the UK it has an An Post postal label on it.

ShopTo didn't even hand my order over to Royal Mail until 2 days after it was released and 6 days after they charged me, I pre-ordered it a month in advance.

This is 100% on them.

blockfighter

Ya I've used Shopto before with no issues. I used Smyths for a pre-order recently and was left waiting 12 days for it. If you want a game Day 1 at this time of year you need to go into a store. An Post can't handle it.
Shopto usually have good deals and I'd have no issue using them again. I defintely try and shop local more lately though if there isn't too much of a price difference.

sniper_samurai

Markitron wrote: »

Ordered Cyberpunk weeks ago from them, they charged me 8 days ago, here we are 4 days after release and my copy is still in the UK.

Never ordering from them again.



ShopTo didn't even hand my order over to Royal Mail until 2 days after it was released and 6 days after they charged me, I pre-ordered it a month in advance.

This is 100% on them.

Your parcel will still be in the UK by Friday. An Post are having issues as well and will be lucky to be in their system by next Tuesday. As I said it is currently taking over 2 weeks for delivery from the UK where it would be normally 2-5 days.

Shopto get their stock collected by Royal Mail and if there isn't physical space for their packages on the van it stays there for the next collection.

But if you want to believe that they singled out your copy to ship late go ahead.

Markitron

blockfighter wrote: »

Ya I've used Shopto before with no issues. I used Smyths for a pre-order recently and was left waiting 12 days for it. If you want a game Day 1 at this time of year you need to go into a store. An Post can't handle it.
Shopto usually have good deals and I'd have no issue using them again. I defintely try and shop local more lately though if there isn't too much of a price difference.

I would have just bought it in Smyths by now, but they charged me for it over a week ago, which is a really ****ty move.

blockfighter

Markitron wrote: »

I would have just bought it in Smyths by now, but they charged me for it over a week ago, which is a really ****ty move.

Smyths usually take payment a few days before a game gets released too. Not an un-common practice to be fair. Even my recent pre-order of Cyberpunk on Stadia was charged to my card about a week before launch.

Markitron

sniper_samurai wrote: »

But if you want to believe that they singled out your copy to ship late go ahead.

This is an extremely weird thought to extract from my posts

dudeeile

Also pre-ordered using shopto, looks like my copy is still in the UK, these are the risks I'm willing to accept considering the price paid, most online orders I've placed over the last few months have had some issues or delays.

I've used shopto before and never had any issues so I'm more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time around.