Love MoreBeer, but...

[lunitick1976]

I have never ordered from B3, I normally order from Midwest and yes I have gotten the "Ben Dover" but come on man that is all in good fun, or it is his name. I have alwayse had GREAT service from them. I have called for questions and they have answered them promptly and accuratly every time. I have only ordered from Northern Brewer once and it was a good experance also.

Cheers man.

[bk2ftr812]

Not to dig this thread up again, but I ordered a chiller from B3 last week and it took a full week to ship. I emailed their customer service, and they were sure to let me know that becuase I had chosen the free shipping option, that gave them license to take up to 4 business days to process/ship my order. I fully understand that B3 is not Amazon, but I've thought about it long and hard and can't figure out why it takes any longer to process an order, just because the shipping is free. Their reply email also gave no explaination for this. Honestly, if that's how long it's going to take, I'll just buy from a place where the prices are lower and pay for the shipping. Just becuase you clearly state your policy on your website, doesnt make it a good policy. I'm sure they're a great company, but this just seems sketchy to me. My .02

[PSUHomebrewer]

With the free shipping option I think your position in the pull que is lower. If you think of it as ranks instead of options it seems more accurate. If you pay for the higher rank you get placed at the top of the list, and reverse for the lowest. That also means that if someone orders after you and selects a higher rank shipping option they will get picked first.

Just remember someone needs to pay for the shipping, you or the company, and the company isn't going to do anything to lose money. I've actualy did this before with NB where I ordered stuff with 7.99 & 9.99 shipping and it does matter(about 1-2 days in processing not the actual shipping).

[bk2ftr812]

That, I guess, is just my point. The only thing that changes is the time it takes to process/ship your order. The shipping service itself (in my case UPS Ground) is no different, and presumably costs exactly the same as UPS Ground for a person who paid for shipping. So the question remains: how does the extra time it takes to process your order enable the company offer the shipping for free?

The reply email from B3 stated that they in no way intend to "punish" customers for chosing the free shipping option, but if you think about it, that is technically what they're doing, intended or not. If you use free shipping, and you are placed lower in the pull queue, that signals to me that my order is of less importance.

Perhaps I expect a lot from a company that I'm spending my hard-earned money at. When you order from Amazon, they also threaten a longer processing time when you choose free shipping, but does it ever actually happen? No. I still get my items just as fast as if I used free shipping or not. I guess B3 just needs to make it more clear that when they say it will take UP TO 4 business days to process, they actually mean "We're NOT kidding, this is going to take a FULL 4 business days."

[alanzo]

As the OP's situation turned out, my biggest issue with ordering from MB is that their website does not accurately reflect their current stock. Obviously, this is not an easy thing to do and I hope they have plans to and are currently improving on the issue.

I've been there, though. I did place an order this time last year that I didn't receive for a month due to about 1/3 of my order being out of stock (it wasn't out of stock on the website). I could have told them to just ship what is in stock, but I wasn't in a rush, so I just waited until everything was available.

Regardless, I continue to order from MB simply because of the great value and deals they offer.