After 29 years, B&H has lost my business

[Beemermark]

I remember years ago when all orders to B&H were placed over the phone. It was that or filling out the order form from the book-like B&H catalog and mailing it in (a signed cheque included in the envelope with the form) . I used to read the B&H catalog like it was a number 1 best selling novel. 😀

All the best,
Mike

BH kept up the paper catalog long after everybody else had stopped. I miss paper catalog. Still made good reading in the bathroom.

 

[DougK]

I guess that explains why I haven't seen a paper catalog in a while. I loved reading that.

 

[henryp]

The most recent order I placed last Thursday morning (April 15) and the B&H website said Fast/Free shipping would get it here Wednesday (April 21). I needed it right away, so they offered the option of Overnight shipping, for an extra $25, I was willing to do that until I saw that overnight shipping would have gotten it to me Tuesday (April 20) how exactly is that overnight? So I just ordered it Fast/Free and came up with an alternate solution for my immediate need.

Thank you for your order and this feedback. We regret your dissatisfaction. If I am looking at the correct order, it is one we received on Thur 04/15/21 and it was shipped on Fri 04/16/21. FedEx says it was delivered on 04/20/21. Since FedEx does not include weekends in their delivery schedule, this was the 2nd business day. I am very sorry you were dissatisfied and apologize.

We send and receive thousands of packages almost every day from our NYC and NJ warehouses and monitor our shipping vendors' performance and customer feedback carefully. I am not discounting any individual's opinion, but when we weigh all the customer feedback and performance metrics we can aggregate, FedEx has been performing at an excellent level throughout. They are not perfect, and there is certainly room to improve but based on current performance I do not envision us changing to UPS in the near future.

Can practically guarantee B&H don’t care, as you’ve probably already realised.

You are entirely mistaken.

 

[Bill Clark]

Hi Mr. Posner,

I’m retired now. When I had my business I could always depend on B & H.

Monte Zucker was my mentor and friend. He pointed and guided me in the direction to achieve success. One of them was buying from B & H.

You and your business are like Monte. A class act.

Thanks for posting here.

 

[jszokoli]

I am not discounting any individual's opinion, but when we weigh all the customer feedback and performance metrics we can aggregate, FedEx has been performing at an excellent level throughout. They are not perfect, and there is certainly room to improve but based on current performance I do not envision us changing to UPS in the near future.

You need to look at your metrics. Fedex ground is a disaster. If your metrics are saying they are doing a good job this is simply not true here in NYC. Since your move to NJ delivery has not been as reliable as before.


We have had a large number of packages go missing here. They will be shown as delivered, they are not delivered. The Fedex ground driver simply leaves packages at our buildings front door in a common space, rather than bringing them to our suite. Our building had had an issue with someone stealing packages from that common area. We did not receive a single package that was sent via Fedex ground or USPS for the entire month of February. We were not the only tenant in the building who had this experience.

Other carriers 'normal Fedex', UPS who actually delivered to our suite did not have any issues. We are currently paying the premium to use UPS when we order from you, no more 'free' delivery.

To our address UPS is vastly superior. We know our driver and he knows us...

Your use of a substandard carrier who considers a package delivered when left in an unsecured space was the cause of these losses.

Joe

 

[Retro-Grouch]

Let's not confuse B&H and FedEx. I've often said that, if everyone did customer service the way B&H does, the world would be a much happier place. They are exemplary, and I purchase only from them whenever possible.
FedEx? They have their issues, but for many years (until Covid eliminated my job) I did shipping and receiving from a central terminal for a national chain. Across the board, I found FedEx to be consistently more reliable and professional than UPS. In fact, we had so many problems with UPS that we dropped their account. US Postal Service, of course, is the poster child for dysfunction. 'Nuff said.
Covid has created mayhem worldwide; I think we need to alter our expectations about the efficiency of our global systems, and on the personal level, cut everyone a little slack.

 

[jszokoli]

Let's not confuse B&H and FedEx.

As has been stated earlier in this tread, Fedex, and Fedex ground are for practical purposes separate companies.

I'm not confusing B&H and Fedex, I'm stating that B&H's level of service is being impacted by their use of Fedex Ground.

B&H chooses their method of shipping, it IS part of their product...

Fedex ground makes me miss Lasership, and they were way less than stellar.

Joe

 

[Timmyjoe]

B&H is currently closed for Shabbat so I will hold off on responding to Mr. Posner until he is back and in a position to respond to my response.

Best,
-Tim

 

[raydm6]

You need to look at your metrics. Fedex ground is a disaster. If your metrics are saying they are doing a good job this is simply not true here in NYC. Since your move to NJ delivery has not been as reliable as before.


We have had a large number of packages go missing here. They will be shown as delivered, they are not delivered. **The Fedex ground driver simply leaves packages at our buildings front door in a common space, rather than bringing them to our suite. ** Our building had had an issue with someone stealing packages from that common area. We did not receive a single package that was sent via Fedex ground or USPS for the entire month of February. We were not the only tenant in the building who had this experience.

Other carriers 'normal Fedex', UPS who actually delivered to our suite did not have any issues. We are currently paying the premium to use UPS when we order from you, no more 'free' delivery.

**To our address UPS is vastly superior. We know our driver and he knows us...**

Your use of a substandard carrier who considers a package delivered when left in an unsecured space was the cause of these losses.

Joe

**Bolded**- this is my experience also at work. UPS is vastly superior. Our driver interacts with us and has even given us some shipping logistics tips. Great guy. We don't use Fed-Ex. UPS even calls me if I forget to enclose a Commercial Invoice for international shipments and holds the packages and allows me to email them a PDF copy of the invoice so they can keep things moving.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Mr. Posner,

As previously mentioned, I’ve been a loyal customer of B&H since 1992. I was one of those local photographers that would be sitting on the curb on 17th street, waiting for you all to get off the subway and open the doors on Sunday mornings in the summer. I’ve bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear and film from you folks over the last 29 years.

But B&H has a serious shipping problem. The microphone I’ve been using on a project broke a week and a half ago, so I needed a new one. Thursday morning April 15th I went to B&H site, found the microphone I needed, and went to order it. I saw Fast & Free shipping would get me the microphone on Wednesday April 21st, couldn’t wait that long. I then looked at overnight shipping, which said it would get here Tuesday April 20th (how is overnight from Thursday April 15th, Tuesday April 20th?) I am well aware of B&H’s Shabbat schedule and know I can’t count on anything shipping on Fridays, but this was a Thursday morning? The same microphone could have been ordered from Amazon, for the same price, and it would have been delivered Friday April 16th with Prime shipping. But I’m a loyal customer, so I ordered from B&H.

B&H sent me an email, Friday April 16th, that said you gave the package to FedEx on Friday April 16th. You gave me the tracking number. I followed that tracking number to the FedEx website where I was told that package was to be delivered on Saturday April 17, by end of day. That did not happen. Your B&H website said the package would be delivered by Sunday April 18 (which was also incorrect because FedEx does not make deliveries in my area on Sundays). On Sunday April 18, in the morning, after not receiving the package, I checked the FedEx tracking and it still said package would be delivered Saturday April 17. It was still saying that Monday morning when I called B&H customer service.

I expect Customer Service to respond to customer’s needs, but after waiting twenty minutes on hold, when I finally spoke to a supervisor in your Customer Service department (I believe his name was Miles), he said there was nothing he could do about the situation, and when I mentioned B&H could go back to shipping with UPS (which had been very reliable for years since I moved back to Chicago) he said B&H would not change their shipping just because one customer wasn’t satisfied (even after I explained to him that I had been a customer for 29 years). His attitude was quite dismissive, which did not reflect well on B&H.

Later in the day on Monday April 19, the FedEx site changed the delivery date to "No scheduled delivery date available at this time." The microphone arrived late in the day Tuesday.

To be crystal clear, this is not an isolated incident. Over the last few years that B&H has shifted from UPS delivery in my area, to the cheap FedEx Ground/Home Delivery, this has happened numerous times. Your web site had incorrect shipping information, and the FedEx website had incorrect shipping information. In particular, the FedEx website repeatedly lists delivery information that is wildly inaccurate, like they did Saturday, saying the package will be delivered by the end of that day, when it was actually delivered three days later.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this, B&H has a serious shipping problem because of your use of FedEx Ground/Home Delivery. If I was in New York, I would buy from B&H without question. But if I can’t rely on B&H to ship me product in a timely fashion, I can’t keep sending you business. And if Miles is any indication of where your Customer Service is heading, I can’t count on B&H giving a damn about your customer’s experience, then I don’t want to keep sending you business.

I look forward to your response Mr. Posner.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Luke_Miller]

I can't imagine a solution to this issue that will please everyone. No matter which shipper B&H chooses to use for its free shipping there will be those who have bad experience with it. If everyone is to be satisfied with B&H shipping I suggest they discontinue free shipping and let the customer select and pay for the shipper of his/her choice. Of course that will cost us more, but instead of B&H we can complain directly to the shipper we chose.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Luke, that's an option I could certainly live with. I would be happy to pay whatever the extra cost would be to have packages shipped from B&H via UPS.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Dogman]

Then those of us who are getting decent service from FedEx could complain about high shipping costs on top of state sales taxes charged by B&H. It's not possible to please everyone.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

OK, we get it. You won't use BH because they use FedEx. Use Adorama or a host of other companies.

Just like others who launched into long expository posts that told me what I already knew, you apparently misinterpreted what I wrote.

First, for the others, I was and am completely aware of the history of FedEx Ground. When FedEx purchased RPS, for the first twelve months or so I referred to that service as "FedEx Ground Up" due to its outrageous mishandling of packages delivered here and resultant content damage. That was many years ago. In recent times, as I've posted earlier in this thread, FedEx Ground in my area has performed exceedingly well. Much better than UPS Ground. Since DeNoJoy trashed USPS, FedEx Ground has regularly outperformed the Postal "Service" around here too.

My nomenclature post was not incorrect. There's one company with the name FedEx. How it operates the networks that provide its different services doesn't change that.

As to the above quote, it completely reverses my position and ignores what I posted earlier in the thread. Carrier performance today is almost entirely related to addressee region. I've always (since walking into their store in 1976) ordered almost everything photographic from B&H and continue to do so today. The few exceptions are some chemicals and films that are only available from Freestyle. And those are delivered -- the next day without exception -- by FedEx Ground too.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

Then those of us who are getting decent service from FedEx could complain about high shipping costs on top of state sales taxes charged by B&H. It's not possible to please everyone.

I'm certainly happy to get free shipping from NY to Western Canada for gallon containers of chemicals....and oversize boxes of FB paper

 

[Bill Blackwell]

Although Tony Rose at Popflash Photo is my regular go-to, I've shopped at B&H for items Tony doesn't sell (such as film) for years without ever having a problem. Although I absolutely hate FedEx myself, I've never had a delivery issue with B&H other that a delay of a day or two. C'mon guys, this shipping is free!

 

[Doug]

"FedEx is far superior to USPS!" 😀

 

[CLAdictic]

I started with B&H in the 70's, everything fine. A couple of years ago I was getting disgruntled with them. Their way of attaching an extra item to the order caused me to look carefully before submitting the order. They seem to me to have evolved into an electronics store rather than a primary camera store. I have switched to Adorama, free shipping on orders over $49.00. Even a simple $20.00 plus filter is quick.

 

[randy stewart]

Equipment Sourcing

Equipment Sourcing

I have not used B&H in years
I prefer Adorama ...
Stellar service, great customer service !!

For years I split my business between B&H and Adorama. However, after a B&H screw up in what was for me a critical order, followed by their lying to me when I tried to follow up a get a correction, that I stopped using them about 25 years ago. I could accept that someone fouled up the order; I would not accept the lying.

 

[Timmyjoe]

I did give B&H another try last week, and because they shipped the order FedEx, and did not give me any other option, it was again a total cluster. I placed the order on Thursday and needed one item as soon as they could get it to me, so I willingly paid an extra $20 to have it Next-Day Air'd and let the rest of the order go FedEx Home Delivery, because I was in no rush. Friday morning I get an email from B&H saying the FedEx Home Delivery package will be delivered to me on Sunday (which is BS because FedEx Home Delivery doesn't deliver in my area on Sundays) and the package that I paid an extra $20 for delivery would be delivered to me on Monday, with a signature required as it was an expensive item.

As usual, Friday morning I check the FedEx site and it says my FedEx Home Delivery package would be delivered by the end of day Friday (which again I knew was BS as the package hadn't even been picked up from B&H yet and it was already 11AM my time in Chicago). As suspected, no package arrived on Friday. Late in the day on Saturday, the FedEx Home Delivery package arrived, a day and a half before the package from the same order where I paid an extra $20 to have it overnighted. Mid day on Monday the FedEx driver leaves the "Overnight-Signature Required" package on the front porch, getting no signature, and no verification that I actually got it.

Plain and simple, FedEx sucks, and B&H shows they don't give a damn about their customer's needs or preferences because they refuse to give us any other shipping options.

Best,
-Tim