Palmers Department Store - www.palmerstores.com

I bought a £89 crocodile garden ornament from Palmers. A few months later most of the paint had fallen off, I contacted the company a few times via telephone and e-mail and finally spoke to someone in authority who implied it was something I had done, and said there was nothing they could do.

Very poor quality product and appalling customer service.

I ordered a stockpot and a slow cooker from Palmers in the first half of Decmber last year. They arrived in great packing in a reasonable period of time.

However, the stockpot had a significant dent in it and the lid of the slow cooker had an extremely poor fit on the main bowl. Where was the quality control?! We were happy with the models we’d chosen so we returned both items and requested replacements.

The refund of the return postage was handled in a timely manner, and replacements duely arrived.

Unfortunately, although the replacement slow cooker was fine this second stockpot also had a large dent in it. I was extremely annoyed as I had spokent to Palmers and specifically asked them to make sure that this didn’t happen.

At this point I wasn’t prepared to accept any further attempts by Palmers to supply me with a stockpot so I returned the second stockpot and requested a refund.

Their courier collected the item (so no further postage charges were needed to be reclaimed by myself), but it took a lot of phone calls (wasting both mine and their time) to chase them before I finally received a cheque covering the stockpot refund.

This was all very simple stuff, yet they failed on multiple occasions with respect to quality control of the products they were supplying and simple business administration – and it took nearly 2 months (until the end of February) for my refund cheque to arrive.

At the end of the day, they must have lost money on purchase:

£65.79 original total cost for stockpot and slow cooker

minus £31.10 postage refund, plus the cost of the courier collecting the second stockpot (sat £10).

Minus £36.99 stockpot refund

So I estimate the net cost to Palmers of supplying me with one slow cooker at £12.30.

Surely this is not good business?!

My first order with Palmers was an excellent experience. The item was a lower price than anywhere else. The postage & packing fee was reasonable. The delivery was prompt. Best of all my fragile item arrived extremely well packed and therefore in one piece. Would definitely shop with Palmers again.

The help I received and information about the product was excellent and the saucepans were posted the same day.. very fast efficient delivery. I am very pleased with the saucepans which are very high quality and should last a good few years. Once again thank you so much for an excellent service and I shall certainly be shopping online with you again.