exactly Baron,this is what i ask myself….i had years ago also flashlight business…I almost killed my self to make the customers ok with all the service.People are still more and more difficult…And i finished in minus…And left it)))
I ordered a light from him with DHL rush delivery about a month ago. Directly after I ordered, there was a pop up saying that there was a covid-related delay to all orders. Which is fine, except that information would have been much more useful before I ordered. So I contacted him, saying that I would like to cancel my order due to the delay. He said basically “why? It’s in stock.” I told him I needed it by a certain date, and it said “that should be fine.” It did not arrive by that date, not even close, which has caused me significant inconvenience. To be honest the way those delay warnings are set up seems deceptive, and the fact that he underestimated delivery time by a week (when paying $20 for rush delivery) has left me not wanting to do business with him any more.
Be a little more forgiving when shipping is entirely out of the seller’s hands.
You had the opportunity to say no but you went ahead, that’s on you
He delayed shipping it out until it was unlikely to arrive by stated time. He stated it would be shipped on on the Monday 8 days before I needed it. It was not actually shipped until Friday, 4 days before I needed it. I would have said no if he was accurate either about it arriving on time, or about when he would actually ship it out. It was never going to arrive by Tuesday according to the initial delivery time estimate. Minus the time spent in customs (5 days) it took 5 days to arrive. It seems that he did not want to be transparent about the likelihood of it being shipped out and arriving by the time I needed it.
Update to the missing 18350 cell. I got an answer to the email and a refund, which is ok, but I had to chase it up and shouldn’t have had to. Because the copper FW3 is vac pac, and the battery needs to be installed, it wasn’t sent. I should have been informed and not charged the cost of the cell.
Other questions involving several repeat emails, like a chipped optic, and a friend of mines enquiry about changing his order to the package deal for FW3A with battery and glow gasket, weren’t answered. My friends order shipped two days after his email. Emails regarding anything other than a sale are ignored. It’s a shame really, but I’ve seen it many times across forums, people and makers struggling with the logistics when the product catches on.
In his favour, he did email me prior to sending me the FW3A asking if I wanted the glowy tailcap button fitted. That’s a plus, as I’ve unscrewed it and fitted it to my copper shorty and it was a PITA to unscrew the internal locking ring and swap them.
I would like to quickly share my negative experience. I ordered on May 26, 2020 for a battery that was listed on the site as “in stock” and did not receive any correspondence for over 3 weeks after the order was immediately confirmed. Today I contacted Neal via email, Facebook, and Instagram (I didn’t try hard enough to look for his WhatsApp), and I received a cancellation/refund from PayPal. Not sure if this bad customer service is because of COVID or what…
…But at least in this environment, I’d stay away.
It’s bad customer service but most likely no shipping available due to covid
I’ve got to admit, I’ll avoid ordering from Neal if at all possible in the future. What concerns me, is that he seems to be getting leads on certain exclusives, like loneocean’s lume1 driver…
Wow. I wish I had seen this thread before I just placed an order. How long are shipping times? I’m wondering if I should cancel my order and order from another company?
I aslo placed my order yesterday, because I ordered my dreamed Nightwatch NS43 and also you can find it only on Neaslgadgets site. I knew about the possible problems, but I ordered it anyway. I hope all to be fine. If something go wrong we have Paypal protection.
It is with great reluctance that I post here but Neal really needs to sort out his communication and backup procedures.
Of the nine orders placed with him I have had problems with two of the lights. I contacted him on both occasions and received no reply.
As has been pointed out previously his prices are no better than average and although he stocks some interesting lights I will have to think hard before ordering anything else from him.
I have left neutral feedback on his site but there is little criticism there,it all seems to be glowing reports. Has anybody else left neutral/negative feedback there?
Good thread, I was gonna buy from him but will pass now.
I have had a few orders with Neal and have had no issues previously.
however i placed an order for two lights last Friday (12/6) and selected DHL shipping only to find that my order is still sitting as unfulfilled and has not been posted!
i hope everything is ok for Neal and there are no problems over there.
some level of communication would be great , i sent an email on Tuesday and got no reply Ive just sent another one and hopefully i get a reply.
if not im going to have no option put to talk to paypal and get a refund which i really don’t want to have to do.
not been so bad with me. replies to messages on his fb back to me ok .
Neal Zhang
Do you know how many days is needed Neal to proceed my order. Five days and my order still not shipped yet. Maybe this will be my first and last time when I order from him 
.
In my experience:
- Pre-covid shipping from Neal to California via DHL took about 4 days. Very impressive. That’s faster than Illumn, which is only 10 miles away from me.
- Post-covid shipping to California via DHL took a week and cost three times as much.
- Post-covid the free shipping option only took a week and a half to arrive. That’s still at least a week faster than most other shipments from China.
My recommendation: skip DHL and go with free shipping. It’s much cheaper and only a little slower.
If you absolutely MUST have a light delivered within 3 or 4 days I recommend avoiding the small shops. Due to limited personnel sometimes there is a delay in packing your order and shipping it. You’d be better off buying something from Amazon.
I wish you luck icpart.
IF he had a business in USA I guarantee he would be OUT OF BUSINESS.
Not only is there a lot of competition, but companies thrive on customer service knowing that is the primary reason for getting return customers. Without it customers leave and the business fails. I could name at least One dozen American businesses that excel in customer service and their customers continue to come back.
The record for him speaks for itself when you read all the comments on this thread and others.Too many dissatisfied customers. I was one. One and done!
I understand what you are saying. But that has NOTHING to do with his lack of consideration/Customer service skills[none], responsibility and responsiveness which is feeble at best.
This is not about shipping. It is about his inability to communicate and respond as is his responsibility as a business owner.
Covid is not anymore excuse for delays. From Aliexpress I ordered some bike parts before two weeks, and they just arrived so quickly with Singapore post this week from China to Europe. Also processing time was just 2 days.
Also Nealsgadet doesn’t offer free shipping anymore. I made order over 50$ and was charged 6$ shipping cost. For odrers under 50$ is was 10$ shipping cost.
Regarding Free Shipping:
Maybe availability of free shipping depends on what country you are located in?
It says right on the website free shipping on orders over $50. I placed two orders 4 days ago each over $50 and got free shipping on both of them. I just double-checked the orders and confirmed that there was no charge for shipping. The shipping was indeed free.
My orders shipped fairly fast too. I ordered on Sunday and they shipped on Monday. Based on my previous experience with Neal, I hope my shipment arrives by the end of next week. I’m quite pleased with Neal’s shipping so far since having something arrive in less than 2 weeks is way better than ordering from places like Aliexpress or Banggood where I typically expect shipping to take anywhere from 3 to 8 weeks.
Regarding Customer Service: Neal is a small online boutique discount shop with limited personnel. I typically don’t expect much in the way of customer service when I order things online. If I have a problem with something ordered from Banggood or Aliexpress it’s not even worth trying to get hold of a customer service rep, if they even have one available.
Even the biggest services like Amazon have their issues with customer service. Last year I had a huge amount of difficulty with Amazon. Numerous deliveries worth hundreds of dollars were marked as delivered but failed to ever arrive. I wasn’t the only one either… numerous other people at my building had the same issue. We even knew the cause of the problem: Amazon had switched delivery services to using their own in-house service. My office building had a bunch of small tenants (including me) on the bottom floor and Apple Computer on the top floor. Amazon assumed that any deliveries to the building were for Apple and instead of delivering them to the building sent them to Apple’s main mail center elsewhere in the city where they were never seen again. We tried calling. We filed online complaints. We told them the issue. They said they would look into it. But they never fixed the problem. Result: it’s no longer practical to order anything from Amazon for delivery to that office.