German electronics webshop www.conrad.com ? I'd say: [AVOID]

Haha, I demand a full-blown review. ;-)

It is the older, the V1 version of that. Let's see, maybe I take some pics or vid :D

They are here sold (not a 100% sure fact, my wife said it looks just like that one) at 250EUR so a bit too much to my budget for a toy that came to market several years ago.

Conrad is very budget compared to locals, even with DHL (12EUR).

They are not the cheapest but reliable. I get their catalog and direct mail advertising. Expensive freight is the bad thing.

I too can recommend Conrad.

They have a reppresentative in Slovenia, who receives the ordered items from Germany within a week, grouped, at a small surcharge over Conrad's domestic prices.

Quality has never been an issue and their assortment is huge.

I know both stores (Conrad and Reichelt) - if you need something for a eletronic hobby (resistor,electrlytic capacitor, soldering iron/station/flux), it is a really good shop. They have a lot of things (for the garden, eletronic parts, something for the car and tools) and if you need them fast, they are perfect.

I now noticed, they claim 2 years of warranty on all (?) products on their page?

That's kind of mandatory for all German shops, so it's nothing special.

Ahh, ok.

I have some expedience with them. Very complicated way of paying since they have to send me a proforma-invoice. Then I have to transfer money, which is about 11.5 Euro for any sum of money I transfer to other EU countries (bank transfer). They have sent some wrong items. I have sent them back at my cost. After two week of waiting for the replacements I contacted them to find out that they have not sent me the replacements yet.

You have only the high bank transfer fee, if your country has not the Euro. I can send money to all Euro countries and it costs me nothing.

Other way: Paypal

They do not accept Paypal from my country.

I have used my account which is in EURO, but my country does not use EURO at national bank level. The bank I use is Dutch.

How can you send anything without any fee what so ever? What does the bank gain from that? Does that mean you have a high administration fee on the account?

Send, yes. That's because the recipient pays the fee.

On one instance, I wanted to pay the transfer fee myself (as a sender) and the bank replied that they have to charge the recipient.

Update:

Received the toy, which functioned about half an hour.

Took contact to customer care, answer was something like “try changing the batteries”.
Did it and replied = no answer.

Took another mail to them stating, that I’m not very pleased with a not-misused toy which does not work.
Then wait…
Got mail to send them back for refund a) the toy and b) the shipping back.

Now, some time ago got 2 receipt to mail.

Not sure but getting the idea, there will be no refund but DISCOUNT on future purchases…. meh…

Just remembered this case I’ve tried to forget, sent another mail asking what’s this all about.

Certainly nice shop, no doubt. But still, I have had in general much better customer care from chinese sellers.
Really hoping to get refunded, not too eager to shop again. :expressionless:

No, within the Euro countries I do not pay anything if I use the IBAN and SWIFT number.
With ebay I sold some items to people of different Euro countries and they use the same way (IBAN and SWIFT number) and I (as the receiver) do not pay any fee. The people were from Spain, Belgium, Austria, Italy and France.

I know, that there is a regulation in Euro-Countries, that a bank transfer to other Euro countries cost the same as a transfer in your country, if you use the SWIFT and the IBAN number. In Germany I do not pay anything for a domestic bank transfer and this is the reason why I do not pay anything for a transfer to an foreign Euro country.

Do I have a high administration fee?
Not really. I have two bank accounts. One hasn’t any fees (is a internet bank with only one office - I communicate with staff via. email or telephone and work with internet banking, the other cost 2,50€/per month and has many branchs).

In Germany more and more banks have not adminstration fees anymore.

First mail to Conrad sent 5/18/2012.

After that, many “lost connections” in mail exchange.

11 days ago, after a long quiet period, I asked about how is the refund thing proceeding?
They told to give bank account data, 11 days but nothing.

I think I should contact VISA or Finnish consumer agency to get more instructions, this seems to be going nowhere and I have almost 100EUR lost already.
At the moment got not even the DOA product at hand and no money.

This has absolutely the worst customer care, they get mails, they send “automatic reply”, even give actual replies but nothing happens.
This is on par / worse than DX or DD.

PLEASE consider this making purchases OR make just purchases, that you are absolutely sure you WILL NOT NEED any CC.

In the end after exchanging e-mails and reminders (aparently the person you talk to changes in 48 hours) I have received my replacements and they agreed to send me another cable instead on refund me the shipping costs that I paid for the wrong items they sent.

I have ordered items from Conrad on several occasions some years ago.

The following is based on my dealings with Conrad as of several years ago. So their pricing and/or customer service may have changed since then.

Cons: Some items were a bit expensive

Shipping a bit expensive (to NZ)

Minimum order required (on some items)!

Pros: Good range of items

Fast to respond to emails

Prompt replacement of faulty items

I have had bad experience with Conrad.

I was looking for some pinion gears in sizes similar to ones used for RC models, but with a different gear pitch, and it appears they had in stock the ones I was looking for.

After some troublesome order placing and paying, I waited less than a week, and received the wrong gears: size was right but pitch was different. I emailed them about it and after some days they first answered that those were indeed the right gears, then I explained in another mail the difference in pitch between what they sent me and what I was looking for, and the evident discrepance between what they sent me and the site description, and they answered it was the same thing (which obviously is not!) and that if I was not happy with their product I should send it back and they would send me a coupon of same value for other purchase.

I wanted my money back, not the stupid coupon, and as a result they stopped replying to my email at all.

The value of those gears was small, so after a while I abandoned the whole thing.

Anyway this is my experience and warning: sometimes they have no clue of the specs of items they have in stock, and their customer service sucks big time!

:(

I only had good experiences with Conrad, but since I live in Germany, I usually just go to the local store, to “hunt” for new toys ;).

Are their products so special, that you can’t get them from a shop in your country? Saves a lot of time (and probably money, aswell).

I happen to live near one of their stores and I'm a regular customer. It is about the only source left for DIY electronics stuff here.

I avoid their online shop though, often I need only a few parts and the cost of shipping is just too high even here in Germany. They gave me a 5€ coupon for my birthday and it wasn't even enough to cover the shipping, so I said thanks, but no thanks.