Value Buy: When You Don’t Care Enough To Send The Very Best …
Value Buy
I was looking for a gift for my sister and a search brought up Value Buy so I clicked to see what the site had to offer.
What the Site Sells
This site has many categories of discounted or wholesale (or so they say) items for the home, gifts, jewelry, lawn décor, and other fairly trivial items that are not needed but are somewhat of a novelty.
Navigation
I am on DSL and the site loads slow. Because every category you click on has every item they sell in that category on one long page with thumbnails, it slows down navigation while all the images load.
The site is simple and looks to be a premade storefront. There is a list of categories on the right side and a search box for you to try to find what you want quickly.
Click on the thumbnail and all the offerings in the subcategory come up and you have to click again to see the actual item you want to see. The photos are small and stock. I have seen the exact photos on many “wholesale” websites. The descriptions are OK, more fluff than fact, and the prices are average for most items.
Click to add an item to your cart. The checkout is the typical yellow and white Yahoo one that, if you shop online as much as I do, you have seen dozens of times before.
You must input your address and phone number before you can get a shipping price, a pet peeve of mine.
You can choose from UPS Ground, second day, or overnight but have to do it before you know what the cost of these services are.
Next, you pay with a major credit card, or you can call your order in, and you will receive an order number when the transaction is finished.
Orders arrive in the time frame you selected for shipping. Mine arrived in about a week.
My Experience
I wasn’t blown away with the offerings on this site. I have seen the same things on many storefronts — especially the cheap patchwork leather items that everyone who gets a wholesale storefront sells. However, I found a cute “As Seen on TV” item that wasn’t too high priced (but by no means wholesale) and ordered it. The shipping was over $9.00 for a fairly light product and, with shipping, I didn’t get a deal. But I was pressed for time and sick of looking around the net for something my eccentric sister might want so I went ahead with the order.
Checkout was painless. I used my Visa and got my confirmation number.
My order arrived in about a week and was as described but somewhat low quality — which I should have expected, I suppose. I didn’t have the need for customer service but I doubt I will shop there again. It’s very average, low to average quality items, and the prices aren’t great, plus shipping is fairly high.
Shipping and Return Info
This site uses UPS to ship and you have three choices of shipping methods — Regular Ground, Second Day, and Overnight. Prices are higher for the faster options.
You won’t know what your shipping cost is until you are done shopping and about to check out. You may be surprised at how high the shipping charges are. They obviously add a “handling charge” in there somewhere because I have purchased similar items on other sites and the shipping method was the same bit quite a bit lower.
The returns policy is average. They accept returns but only within 15 days of receipt. You must call to get an authorization number and pay for return shipping. I think 15 days is cutting it close to get the item, check it out, call them, get an RMA, pack the item, and send it back and hope that it gets there fast.
You will receive a store credit or a refund minus original shipping charges.
They also have no toll free number and are open short hours making obtaining authorization to return a product difficult for many.
They have a number of specific returns policies for certain items like fine jewelry, watches, and clocks. You should carefully read the returns policy before ordering from this site so you know exactly what the deal is with your particular purchase.
Contact Info
Discount Home Decor Gifts
Customer Service Department
9603 WEYBRIDGE
HOUSTON TX 77031
Customer Service: 281-495-0449
Fax Number: 281-568-7018
E-Mail : custserv@valuebuy.net
I have no idea why they call themselves Value Buy but have a different name for correspondence. It seems to me like a larger company picked up a wholesale website and is drop-shipping products to consumers. This is not a bad thing but can get a little confusing if you have an issue you want to deal with or a return.
Recommendation
I didn’t have any problems per se. the item I wanted was in stock and the price was average. Shipping killed the discount though. I did get my item in a fairly timely manner and didn’t have a problem with it.
Still, the offerings on this site are very generic and much is low quality or “As Seen on TV” type novelty items. I just wasn’t overwhelmed with anything. The site is OK, the items are OK, the prices are OK, the shipping is a bit high, the quality is a bit low.
I give this site 3 stars. There is nothing wrong with it — just not enough right with it for me to return. I am, however, recommending it as you may find what they offer to be just what you want and I had no problems with the site so I won’t tell you that you should stay away from it when shopping.
Just do a little comparison shopping first (remember the shipping charges) so you don’t end up paying more than you have to for an item.
Recommended:
Yes
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