Ordered an item, their delivery estimate was 3-5 days. 7 days passed and the item hasn't shipped. No updated ETA or any information/communication on how long it might take.
Decided to cancel and order from an alternative vendor (who would communicate better, frankly). Was unable to even cancel it online (cancel button was missing, in contradiction to their help docs).
Tried to use Online Chat to cancel, which was seemingly offline/broken for multiple days. Finally called their customer service number, and it was cancelled within the hour (which credit where credit is due was one of the best telephone customer service experiences I've had).
Took all of 10 days to NOT receive a 3-5 day item from Costco.com, the replacement item ordered elsewhere arrived in 48 hours. Still don't know how long the Costco.com item would have taken because they never communicated that.
From experience internally (not at Costco, but other t20 retail), here's what happened, from most to least likely.
1. Your order type fell into an edge cast that an incomplete batch system -> system transfer job choked on. Naturally, it silently failed.
2. Inventory count mismatch.
3. Incomplete transportation handshake.
Logistics looks simple from a customer perspective: (1) order, (2) ship, (3) receive. From a vendor perspective it's (1+) bulk source, (2+) distribute, (3) maintain consistent inventory counts, (4) receive order, (5) source order items from stock most efficiently, (6) orchestrate multi-sourced items, (7+) provision & batch transportation, receiving and reshipping at multiple legs, (8+) fulfill last mile.
All while stitching together 30+ year old systems for each of those. And the +'d items are all semi-outside of the company's control. (Ever wonder why there are so many transportation-abstraction companies?)
Which is to say, no excuse for bad service. But it's a bear of a problem.
Incidentally, why most retail has excellent customer support phone centers (usually onshore): they know their systems break a non-zero amount of time, and want the best touch when you need to have things fixed.
Ordered an item, their delivery estimate was 3-5 days. 7 days passed and the item hasn't shipped. No updated ETA or any information/communication on how long it might take.
Decided to cancel and order from an alternative vendor (who would communicate better, frankly). Was unable to even cancel it online (cancel button was missing, in contradiction to their help docs).
Tried to use Online Chat to cancel, which was seemingly offline/broken for multiple days. Finally called their customer service number, and it was cancelled within the hour (which credit where credit is due was one of the best telephone customer service experiences I've had).
Took all of 10 days to NOT receive a 3-5 day item from Costco.com, the replacement item ordered elsewhere arrived in 48 hours. Still don't know how long the Costco.com item would have taken because they never communicated that.