1. Free delivery within 24-48 hours nationwide.
2. A wide selection of products including some that are difficult to source locally.
3. Knowledgeable staff that are willing to help their customers.
4. Prices that are competitive and not inflated to cover point 1.
5. A good reputation (this is achieved by repeating points 1 to 4 for a long time).
Easy points that are very difficult to achieve. There are a number of shops that can cover a few of those points, but I've never seen one manage all 5.
Being in this business and importing some stuff I can tell you that even most US and EU based online stores will have difficulty with your 1st request. Unfortunately online stores don't usually carry any stock, they also wait till payment clears before ordering stock, so if your eft takes 24 hours to clear then you've already lost a day. On top of that, stock then has to be delivered to the online store and then sent out to the respective address, some people stay out in the middle of no where so overnight shipping isn't possible especially if you expect it to be free. (Can cost anything from R200 up to R800 depending on size, weight, destination). So again very difficult to achieve that 24-48 hour turn around time.
There are some companies that strive for the above mentioned turn around times and some (Rebeltech) Almost always deliver within 48 hours of my order being placed which is why I stick with them.
In my experience most online stores don't really bother with parts that are not from locally sourced suppliers, although some will order parts for you at your request. Again Rebeltech ordered a monitor and some watercooling bits for me that wasn't available locally and I received it within 2 weeks of placing my order, which is astonishingly good considering the distance and how slow the local custom clearance is.
I also think people that want to order from an online store should do research about the product/s they are interested in, I agree that the staff must be knowledgeable but you can't expect them to know everything (30 000 products). We live in a world where almost everyone has access to the internet (Your buying from an online store...duh). The staff should be friendly and helpful..yes.
Most online shops work with very small mark ups, they tend to be cheaper than walk in stores because they don't have to spend money on carrying stock in the shop. That said, there are some that are insanely over prices...not mentioning names.
Having used pretty much every local online shop and some international shops I would have to rate Rebeltech as my number 1 go to shop. I've spent a TON of money with them and will continue to do so, there have been some slip ups here and there but for 95% of my orders things were delivered on time and in perfect order (300 orders +).
I think one thing that should be added to the list is that customers should realize that they are dealing with an online shop, they can't expect to order something Tuesday morning and then they want to collect it by lunch time, that's just being retarded as far as I am concerned.
My thoughts...
