Amazon.co.uk Delay Fulfillment of HP MediaSmart Server Orders Until After Xmas

By on November 27, 2007 in Hardware, Windows Home Server

We’ve just had a report in that Amazon.co.uk are issuing emails to customers who pre-ordered the EX475 a couple of weeks ago indicating that due to supply issues from the manufacturer (HP), orders will not be fulfilled until *after* Christmas.

Dear Customer,

We wanted to give you an update on the status of your order #xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Unfortunately, an unexpected delay from our supplier may prevent us from delivering some items in your order by Christmas.
The following items have been delayed:

“HP MEDIA SMART SERVER” [Electronics]
  Estimated arrival date: 28/12/07 – 10/01/08

To ensure that any other items you ordered still arrive in time
for Christmas, you may wish to cancel the delayed item(s) from
your order or change the shipping option to ‘I want my items faster. Dispatch
items as they become available’ (at extra postage cost).
Please read the FAQs at the end of this email for more details.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes.

To view your order or make any changes, please visit the Your Account
link located at the top of any page of our website. Through Your
Account, you can cancel items, change delivery addresses or make other
changes to your orders for any items that have not yet entered the
dispatch process.

Once again, we are sorry that we will not be able to fulfill your
expectations for this important order. We value your business, and we hope that you will continue
to consider Amazon.co.uk for your online shopping needs.

For your reference, here is a summary of your order:

1 of “HP MEDIA SMART SERVER”

On the date of dispatch, you should receive an e-mail message confirming
the date, contents and delivery method.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.co.uk, we hope to see you again.

Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that
cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.co.uk

This is fascinating as I was at the UK product launch yesterday, and the UK Category Manager for HP told me that there was lots of stock available in the UK supply chain and retailers would be receiving units this week.

Will try to find out more, but this is a big disappointment for those people who placed early pre-orders.


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About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
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  • Mark

    At last got my email from Amazon saying it has shipped, expected delivery tomorrow.

    JeffP – thanks for the tip on the price reduction (from £456.61 to £449.99), have sent them an email asking for a credit (and for the shipping which should have been removed as I joined Amazon Prime).

    Seems strange to reduce the price when they are in short supply but I am not complaining.

  • http://gaulton.co.uk/ Pete

    Received mine today, just setting it up now :)
    Glad I didn’t have to wait till the new year

  • Mark

    Just received mine from Amazon. Am sure I have had laptops delivered in bigger boxes!

    Even received a credit for the price reduction after sending them an email last night.

    So now the fun begins….

  • Adam

    I was kicking myself for cancelling my Amazon order. I must have cancelled it a few hours before the status changed to “shipping soon”.

    I ordered it from Play instead, but then after noticing that Amazon had dropped the price even further, I thought I’d just re-order from Amazon, save myself the 50 quid, and just wait until January… Effectively I’d simply put myself at the end of the queue again .

    Then this morning, I noticed that LambdaTek had them in stock, and were selling at virtually the same price as Amazon (£451 inclusive of VAT and delivery), so I ordered from them (errm, and cancelled my Amazon order *again*!).

    I’ve just received a phone call from LambdaTek saying it’ll be with me tomorrow! :-)

  • Martin

    Mark, how did you word your e-mail? I was not aware of any Amazon policy to price match pre-order prices with post-release prices, so would be interested to know if there is one.

    Thanks

  • Mark

    Martin, I knew they had a policy of lowering the price on your order if it changed before shipment, but from their email it looks like they will do it within 30 days…..

    “The discounts we offer for items on our website do vary from time to
    time. I’ve checked your order xxxxxxxxxxxxx and found that we
    now offer a greater discount on “HP MEDIA SMART SERVER” than at the
    time you placed your order of 6.52 GBP.

    We are only able to adjust the price of an order in instances where
    less than thirty days have passed between the date on which an order
    was dispatched and the time that an item is reduced in price on our
    site.

    ……….. The refund should appear as a credit on your next bank statement.”

  • Pingback: HP Statement Regarding Amazon.co.uk Shipping Delay Emails | We Got Served

  • http://www.imajes.com imajes

    Ordered mine on Sat from CClOnline, none in stock but 5 were due to arrive at store on Tuesday, so I took a chance of them living up to their promise and was pleasantly surprised . I got mine first thing Wednesday morning. So no complaints about false promises there. :-)
    I bought the 1x500G version as the 2x500G version was pointless as I’m going install bigger drives ASAP.

  • rockly
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