Rating: Focalprice.com

Buy / Sell Budget Dealer Experiences
41

Just received my second Focalprice order. The three cheapo flashlights arrived in working condition, but the packaging left a lot to be desired. The box of one flashlight was totally destroyed, and it wasn't bubblewrapped, and the metal carabiner was scraping against the flashlight body. Nice lights though.

Both of my FP orders shipped out of their warehouse quickly enough, but shipping time was very slow. They use Hong Kong Post, which is usually a tad bit faster than this to my post office.

42

Pros:

  • Customer support is pretty good, in my experience. I have about 40 orders with them, including some highish value items. One RMA (watch arrived DOA so being a long-time DX customer, I sent them high-resolution pictures and a video as evidence; after the usual back and forth (find someone to fix it locally, etc), they asked me to cover the tracking number and promptly send me a replacement) and more recently a no-show order (around $19 worth of flashlights I ordered two months ago, no tracking number, was asked to check with post office and then offered a $19 coupon valid for any $20+ purchase; response was quick, friendly and helpful). If you make a convincing business case, they will also work with you to get stuff from Chinese wholesale suppliers (with an acceptable markup).
  • Prices mostly comparable to DX. Selection is more limited but still pretty good, especially if you look outside the flashlight category. Often a bit quicker than DX to get stuff out the door but after that your package is at the mercy of HKP's logistics operation so either way, it's pretty much a lottery.
  • Edit: One of the things I always liked about FP is the little chart icon next to some item's price. If you have JavaScript enabled, hovering over the icon will display any recent changes in the item's price. Granted, knowing that something you want used to be a buck cheaper isn't going to help you but I still think it's a nice touch.

Cons:

  • Website appears overloaded ("Service unavailable", images not loading or not loading properly even on a fast connection, frequent timeouts)
  • Customer loyalty (aka points) system is overly complicated and pretty much worthless (349 points get you $5 off any $100+ order and they frequently run promotions with coupon codes right there on their homepage that are usually better, eg. right now it's $2 off $50+ and $6 off $100+)
  • The "deal of the week" usually isn't all that great. Sure it's 70+% off the MSRP but more often than not, they sell the item for close to the "deal of the week" price anyway so you're really just saving pennies, if that.
43

Thanks Oxy Moron. That's a pretty good overview of the company. Basically a decent business with a standard dose of chaos. Acceptable so far.

44

i still disagree

in my case all they done was to employ delay tactics until the pay-pal 45 day dispute period was up then completely ignored my emails

i will not deal with them again nor will i recommend them

and i will advise not to buy from them to any one who asks my opinion

as I'm sure you have gathered my dispute was never put right

45

Scruffy if Paypal wont help take it up with your bank, I *think* they all still cover against online purchase problems.

46

thanks for the advice

but it would probably be more trouble than it is worth

they were pretty cheap lights i will just not buy from them again

Barrie

47
  • Live chat support, speaks decent english, honestly mentioned that shipping would be delayed for the Chinese New Year holiday
  • Excellent, responsive, pre-sales customer support
  • Decent selection, some unique products
  • Nice website

None of the above apply to my limited experience there, three orders , two in october shipped super fast

First one the 'fake' 6 dollar C78 arrived 50 days after ship and if wasn't for the fact that in my job deal with way more complicated equipment never would work, almost two hours took fix that crap...however I like it a lot more than the 'real'...

Second order , one cheap 'professional' soldering iron was wondering three months until arrive, this POS deserve a special thread, when the delay was more than two months I tried to communicate with this people many times with no luck , all ways appear unavailable , finally given the small amount involved I give up.

Third one , the last, one very cheap flashlight aimed at use as host , the site is most of the time down , after payed happen to appear as unpaid in 'my orders' ....well , three days trying to contact them with any of the ways provided were unsuccessful , the system don't send the email confirmation and all fail...the forum when work is a joke...

Of course all that wasted time for a 4 dollars stuff is a very bad business , in the real world my time worth a lot more when not playing as right now....

48

It's probably nothing but Focalprice's website has been unreachable both from my house and from work for at least a week now. Isup.me and any looking glass site I have access to report that the site is down as well, even though Netcraft says it's up. If you have any outstanding orders, it may be a good idea to mark your calendars, just to make sure you don't accidentally miss the 45 day PP buyer protection deadline. :)

49

I have just accessed it from Spain.

50

Thanks, Smelly!

I'm guessing it's some sort of routing and/or proxy problem then. Strangely, any IP packets from my end of the world seem to get there just fine, at least according to the output I'm getting from running a traceroute (both the UDP and the ICMP type) but there seems to be nothing listening on port 80 or any other port you'd expect a webserver to be responding on.

Anyway, sorry for the false alarm, folks.

51

They are scum..If you buy from them you're asking to get lied to play games senl wrong item and don't admit it's there fault ... They even did a dino direct and changed the decscription of the item.. they really really suck .. some of the lowest of the low .. if you bite when they put out prices that are very low they will send you the wrong item and .. tell you to send it back .. shipping was 25% of the total already and It isn't my fault .

I give them a zero rating ...avoid

52

I've had good luck ordering budget knives from them. Perhaps not the best prices for flashlights (I've bought a few cheapies from them) but knife prices are good. Deliveries have generally been prompt (~3 weeks) and complete.

53

Worth noting the PP 45 day TT is irrelevent if you've funded the PP transaction with a credit card.

There is no set time limit for a credit card chargeback for non-performance. Just ask your card company

to do a chargeback against Paypal.

54

they say "we're having a hard time believing that all 25 lights are defective

Now remember for 30 days I been telling them the reason i wasn't gonna pay return shipping was because They sent the wrong damn items ... somehow that's not really their fault ...I'm positive some guy is busy emptying 55 gallon barrels of benzene and heavy metals up stream from these idiots..

I used a debit card ....mmm

EDIT:...I finally got a 100% refund from WSdeals / Focals wholesale side thanks to BLF and Sunday :)

55

I was very lucky with those crooks , only rob me 4 usd haha...say order 'unpaid' , I give up after many attempts to fix it...nothing work ,never again..

56

What happened to the site. Cannot view the site with firefox

I have to download the file "index_0html"

Does anyone know whta this is?

57

I'm not trying to brag, but I can view focalprice with firefox, chrome, and internet explorer: http://www.focalprice.com/index_0.html

58

Connectivity has been spotty the past week. One thing's for sure - my old bookmarks don't load.

59

I just received my first order from fp and, tadaa! - wrong item... 14mm XM-L turned out to be 16mm.

Lets see how they handle it.

60

Got my money back, no problem and a free 16mm XM-L