What is happening to our orders?

Inside Lovehoney
1

I am always enthusiastically recommending Lovehoney to everyone interested for all the usual reasons… BUT: lately I’ve been having problems getting my orders and am becoming slightly disappointed with the service.

My last two orders got strayed somehow… My last one from June got its way back to Lovehoney after a week in some postal facility as it was sent out with 24h tracked and Royal Mail probably didn’t know what to do with it given it was supposed to be shipped internationally (they usually ship it with Priority Air Mail and arrives within 7 days). So Customer Care contacted me and sent it out with FedEx as a courtesy to make up for the lost time (and it got here in about 5-6 days none the less, so no difference really…). My next order was made Monday, and it is still strayed somewhere. Somehow and for some reason this also got sent out with 24h tracked so it seems to be stuck somewhere on the Royal Mail track. Both orders were manually modified by Customer Care, the first one on my request for exchanging an item before it was packed, the second one because one of the items I put in my cart was not really available in the warehouse so I needed to choose another one instead.

But, I have another problem too. Both my Monday’s order and the first one I placed today were confirmed via the usual Lovehoney email before the 17:30 cut off time for same day despatch. Monday evening I even asked Customer Care via LiveChat (I have the transcript) if it was going to be sent out that day as I did not get the despatch email by the time I normally got all others. They confirmed it was going to be sent out that day and I should get the confirmation email. Instead I got the email about half an hour before cut off time Tuesday saying one of my items was not available and I should decide promptly what to do if I want my parcel shipped out that day… I did not appreciate this at all, not so much because of the unavailable item, but the fact they only contacted me about it half an hour before cut off time Tuesday even though it should have made it to despatch on Monday!

Then today too, my order is still “being processed” even though the order was made before 16:30 UK time. I now placed another order, which says it will be despatched tomorrow. Except, as far as I know, Lovehoney does not despatch anymore on Saturdays as once did.

I know they are a lot of changes going on in the system nowadays, and I’m trying to be patient about these to see where they will end up, but this to me it’s starting to feel like disrupted service. Then again, it might just be an isolated incident and things will get back to being very reliable soon.

I didn’t want to complain to Customer Care without asking first all you guys: am I the only one this has been happening to?

2

I've had no problems but I am based in the UK, sorry

3

Was your more recent order on the lsrge side of things? I placed a large order one day about an hour before the cut off and with the orders LH having constantly flooding in, I figured that understandably my order may not make shipment till the following day. I was correct but you know what it didn't bother me in the slightest because the customer service here at LH is the most spectacular CS I've experienced in my entire life. They're all such lovely, wonderful people.

Yes obviously there is some error there with the shipping of one of your orders but for them to ship it via FedEx..... C'mon what other online retailer would do that to make it up to you in some form.

Again with the product not being available, these things happen. No body is perfect but the LH staff are close enough for me.

Perhaps place you're orders earlier in the day if that's possible?

4

Double post, sorry.

5

Was your more recent order on the lsrge side of things? I placed a large order one day about an hour before the cut off and with the orders LH having constantly flooding in, I figured that understandably my order may not make shipment till the following day. I was correct but you know what it didn't bother me in the slightest because the customer service here at LH is the most spectacular CS I've experienced in my entire life. They're all such lovely, wonderful people.

Yes obviously there is some error there with the shipping of one of your orders but for them to ship it via FedEx..... C'mon what other online retailer would do that to make it up to you in some form.

Again with the product not being available, these things happen. No body is perfect but the LH staff are close enough for me.

Perhaps place you're orders earlier in the day if that's possible?

6

The Monday order had a mystery bundle and a 3 for x bondage one. The one today placed over an hour before cut off time has two items, one from the blowout and one freebie. Anyway, cut off time and same day despatch issues I can be understanding with if needed, products becoming unavailable too as explained above, but in over a year and a half and close to 70 orders I never experienced anything like these late issues. And problems seem to arise with every consecutive order, not just once in a while, so that's what triggered my alarm system. I'm not trying to be unreasonable at all, except it's precisely the "close to perfect" thing what gets to me as I have never had anything but praise for all services provided by Lovehoney! So these consecutive "slip-ups" seem pretty out of the ordinary...

7

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Lovehoney are likely very busy atm. I had a pretty odd mishap where they sent me an empty box instead of the boxers I had ordered. They told me they'd ship a replacement pair, but then wrote back a while later saying actually there was no stock. I did find it odd they weren't as on the ball as usual so assumed they were a bit overworked atm. But no abnormal delays.

From what you've written it sounds like they're having a bit of trouble with the international shipping, either through their own system or Royal Mail's system. Or they're just swamped and struggling. Either way hopefully a temporary thing, sucks you've been having nothing but problems though :/

I am not sure I'd complain though as they are likely aware they're being a bit slow and are working on it?

8

I've made a couple of orders recently and had no problems whatsoever, but, like others, I am based in the UK.

I don't think "complaining" is the right thing to do here, but I would definitely recommend contacting the customer care team and explaining your problem. No doubt they will do everything in their power to put it right and will probably have a better explaination for you than any of us could come up with.

9

I'm actually hoping it would sort itself out soon and that all is due just to them being overloaded recently as Lovebirds said. At least, this, together with the changes they are implementing, would be my first guess, so the small issues about all of my latest 4 orders I can let go of, unless they will repeat over and over again. I'm not looking for advice, nor to complain really (not yet at least), I was just trying to find out precisely if mine are more the "isolated incident" type or if anyone else has been experimenting these small disruptions. If it's just me, I'll just try and wait it out for the next couple of orders and see what happens. But if it's not just me, there is a reason why frequent mishaps happen recently and Lovehoney should be made aware. As said before, Lovehoney was always on top of things with any issues I might have had before and I never ever suffered delays with my orders before. So I'll surely give back the love and understanding they provided me with thus far! ;)

10

I admit I was surprised when I placed an order last weekened on Sunday and expected it to be dispatched Monday. I was bit suprised that I did not receive the dispatch email on Monday, but late Tuesday evening. I even checked and did not seem like it was bank holiday in UK.

I was ready to contact LH to see what was going on with my order, if the order was not shipped on Tuesday.

So fingers crossed it arrives safely.

11

My last order seems to be taking longer than normal. I am.in the US, if it's not here Monday I will be checking with Customer Service.

12

ive had so many parcels go missing through royal mail even ones from other places and it annoys me royal mail are getting a little lazy with deliveries latly

13

Hi, new here from the U.S.

I can't seem to find a forum for US users but maybe you guys can help. I placed an order July 17 and it said it would be delivered by July 24. Does anyone know if it takes much longer to get to the U.S.?

14

Hi, zednib,

There is no special place for US customers, we are all gathered here. :)

As far as I know it takes about a week for an order to arrive wherever on the globe. I'd recommend you to wait another couple of days as parcels might get delayed by customs, and if it doesn't arrive you can contact the very helpful and fast customer care (find them here: https://www.lovehoney.co.uk/help/contact-us/). They will sort it out for you one way or the other.

And welcome!

15

zednib wrote:

Hi, new here from the U.S.

I can't seem to find a forum for US users but maybe you guys can help. I placed an order July 17 and it said it would be delivered by July 24. Does anyone know if it takes much longer to get to the U.S.?

Hello form a fellow US customer. There is just this forum for all customers, I know it can be a bit confusing becasue this is not directly linked off the US site.

As far as the timeing of deliveries I usually add a few days on whatever the email states, but I think ti depends on the region you are in. I would also say that for a while stuff was getting to me super fast, but my last order... placed July 16th still has yet to arrive which is longer than I had been experiencing.... so a bit of hit and miss maybe?

I have choose to keep coming back to shop here thought, it is worth the wait at times!

16

Hi

Sorry to hear you have had problems. As I have mentioned before, I cannot comment on individual cases for your own privacy reasons!

That being said, it does seem like you have actually had a bad run of luck. We are busy, but that is not a reason to have delays. Sometimes events come together and these can make you feel like things are going down hill.

Every time a customer reports any sort of delay we make a note, which enables me to keep an eye on all services. The USA for instance a few months ago had a higher amount of delays than I would expect. I raised this with Royal Mail who made some enquiries and the service is now back to normal.

I am sure you have just experienced some unusual circumstances all at the same time, but would be happy to check what has happened? Don’t hold back on contacting me- if you want to complain then please do!!! We accept all the great feedback so have to take on the chin when we do not get it right! The complaints help us improve, so it’s always good to hear them as opposed to people staying quiet.

Give me a call or drop me a line and I will be happy to review what’s happened.

Sorry again for any hassle with your recent purchases!


Matt

17

Thank you, Matt!

About changed delivery method (what happened with my last June order and the one from last Monday): I think that you might have a glitch or something on the site, so when Customer Care manually modifies orders for whatever reason, it updates the delivery method (in my case due to the order’s total, I'd guess) to the one you would be eligible for in the UK (so it doesn’t consider the actual shipping address like at the checkout). That’s why I got 24h tracked instead of the usual priority air mail, I suppose. While the June one got returned by Royal Mail to Lovehoney after a week from despatch, and the tracking number actually turned up empty handed all along, the Monday one (despatched Tuesday) was delivered today, even though the tracking number still says “Sales Order Raised” since last Wednesday. However, I’d just look into this, for the method not to change when CC intervenes manually with orders.

About delayed despatch: 99,99% of the times I really don’t care about next day despatch, as my parcels take about 6-8 days to be delivered anyway (looong time to wait sometimes, but small price to pay for an otherwise excellent company), so I don’t normally have “sex toy emergencies”. On Monday however I tried to make cut of time on purpose because that way I would have gotten all my treats by Saturday and that would have been fun! Friday on the other hand I placed my first order on purpose before cut off time because I wanted to use the order’s Oh! Points (accredited at despatch the same day) for my second order’s partial payment… In the end I placed my second order without being able to use the points from the first one. While I might get that my Monday order was placed only a few minutes before cut off time AND contained a lot of items (one of which later was found to be out of stock too), my first Friday order only had one item from the blowout and one freebie AND was placed over an hour before cut off time. Should you want to look into it, it’s only this Friday one you should check out. Anyway, both my Friday orders were despatched Saturday after all, so I’m glad you once again despatch orders on Saturdays (am I wrong in thinking that for a while in recent times you despatched only Mon-Fri???).

In all of these incidents they are really only two things that truly bug me: Customer Care that Monday evening confirmed via Live Chat that my order will be despatched that evening (and then it wasn’t) and that they only contacted me about the out of stock item half an hour before cut off time Tuesday for an order that was placed before cut off time Monday. If I were in a position not to have been able to see the email/choose another item instead in time, my parcel would have been only despatched Wednesday.

I will add just one last remark: on the other recent thread about the parcel being opened, I defended Lovehoney’s honour out of convincement, however the order I got delivered today was also missing the top plain paper. There was no foul play, my box was unopened, but I just find it an odd coincidence as I always had the paper on top before.

All in all I think you might be right: it’s just an unlucky stream, and I’m sure things will be back to normal now!

Anyway, thank you for your attention and care!

18

Thank you both era I shall remain patient then. =)

19


I was told today my current order appears hung up in customs.... I think sometimes a lag is just timing of how busy they are processing.

20

Hey era

Just to let you know, Customer Care don't always come back and check the forums as they're super-busy. 

If you want Matt to see your reply, I'd recommend copying and pasting it into the usual contact form with FAO Matt O in the header, 

I'd hate for your feedback to be missed!