TravelCountry.com

Full review
I was not impressed with this online store. I went to TravelCountry.com because they had the best price on the North Face Arctic Parka (Women’s). They were selling it for $239 with free 3-day air shipping. This was a great deal compared any other store out there. Prices have dropped at other stores since then, but size (medium) and color (brownie) are not available. I do believe that I got the best deal available from Travel Country but overall the web store was less than impressive.

The Look

I found the graphics to be kind of dinky. I copied this sentence from the home page.

“Hit the trail this Fall wearing North Face Jackets.”

Since I am writing this on 2/28/08, they have obviously not bothered to update their promotions. The home page appears cluttered with mixed presentations. There is a rudimentary scrolling list of brands next to a banner with rotating promotions. On the top right, there are tabs with too long drop down lists for each category. There is a repetitive tab for brands

Finding Product

I have looked for different products on the website without much problem. The products are presented in grid with very small pictures that don’t really advertise the product. I did not buy anything but my jacket. They have a lot of products for good prices, but they don’t promote them well enough to be interesting. The one thing that brought me to this site was other price comparison websites. I checked several including epinions. Travel Country had the best price for this coat, $60 less than any of the competition.

Checkout

Checkout was not too difficult, but not completely smooth either. I looked for some coupon codes and found one that I though might apply. It didn’t work, I couldn’t tell the reason. The other problem is that I actually had to delete the offending coupon code before I could proceed. Most websites just flash you a message then carry on, but not here.

Shipping and Poor Customer Service

Travel Country had this amazing offer for free 3-day air shipping from UPS. I ordered this coat on a Sunday (1/27) and the checkout page said that it would leave the store on Tuesday (1/29). However, the shipping confirmation was not emailed until 1/31. I sent two emails asking about whether my coat had shipped on 1/30. I did not receive a reply until 2/6. This is the reply I received.

“Travel Country Outdoors wrote:

I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but we don't have records of any email
correspondence from you.

Your order is out for delivery today. Enjoy. “

I found this pretty flip and rude. I believe that the problem with the shipping came from Travel Country not UPS. Since they didn’t bother to explain I don’t know why it took 2-3 times the advertised time to send my purchase. I did receive my jacket on 2/6 and I love it. I got a great price with free shipping. At first I was pretty aggravated, but overall I realize that I got the best deal out there for the coat I wanted.

I found this website unimpressive and the customer service poor. I probably won’t ever shop this merchant directly. If they have the best deal on a specific item that I want, then I probably will overcome my annoyance to return.