NZSale delivery delays frustrate waiting customers

Wednesday, 8 January 2020

Sarah Cooper, with her daughter Milly. Cooper says she is still waiting for a Christmas gift bought through NZSale, two weeks after Christmas day.

Shoppers have been left frustrated by delays with NZSale purchases that were meant to arrive before Christmas.

A number of items that were billed as being delivered before Christmas have only turned up on customer doorsteps in the first week of January.

The site uses bulk purchases to get deals for customers. A sale usually lasts for a few days, and at its end the purchases are collated and sent to the supplier.

Delivery then depends on where in the world the stock is coming from. The site usually offers an indication of when a product can be expected, but this is not always guaranteed – as shoppers discovered this Christmas.

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Sarah Cooper said she was still waiting for a $90 Christmas gift to arrive. She placed an order in mid-November and was given a delivery date of between December 5 and 10.

'I thought, sweet, heaps of time for it to arrive in time for Christmas, even if it was a wee bit delayed,' she said.

Have you had an experience with NZSale? Email susan.edmunds@stuff.co.nz

When she received the parcel tracking number a few days after ordering, she followed the parcel but it didn't seem to progress smoothly like other international orders, she said.

'My ears pricked then. The tracking details said it arrived with the rural postie finally on the 20th of December,' Cooper said.

'We have a pretty good relationship with our rural postie, who had not seen anything of this parcel who then kept an eye out for me until the 24th and there was nothing.'

Cooper then contacted NZSale but she was just sent the same tracking information.

Upset customers also took their complaints to Facebook.

In one post, Jess Hallows said she was very angry and disappointed as she ordered things for her children's Christmas presents at the beginning of November.

'They have not arrived, despite an email saying they are in NZ and have been dispatched. There is no contact phone number anywhere to contact NZSale to find out where the products are and I have sent repeated emails which have gone unanswered,' Hallow said in her post.

'I will never buy anything from NZSale ever again and I will be sharing my opinion and negative personal experience with anyone who will listen.'

NZ Sale did not respond to requests for comment. It and OzSale are part of the MySale group.

A Commerce Commission spokeswoman said it had received 46 complaints about NZSale relating to undelivered items or delays with delivery since January 2018.

MySale was founded in 2007 by Australians Carl Jackson and Jamie Jackson to offer 'flash sales' on surplus branded fashion and beauty products.

The company expanded into Britain, the United States and South-East Asia, but struggled over the last five years, leaving the British and US market in 2018 to focus on Australia and New Zealand.

In December, the company reported a pre-tax loss of A$58.2 million (NZ$60.4m) to June, 2019.

New Zealand Christmas shoppers were caught out by the failure of NZSale to deliver purchases on time.

Consumer NZ head of Research Jessica Wilson said the Consumer Guarantees Act gave shoppers rights when a retailer failed to deliver a purchased product.

'Where the retailer is responsible for delivery, it must get the product to you within the time agreed, or within a reasonable time, if no time was agreed beforehand,' Wilson said.

'If the retailer fails to do so, then you're entitled to cancel the sale and request a refund.'

Wilson said all retailers operating in the New Zealand market, including online traders, must comply with the Consumer Guarantees Act.