Morebeer Will Not Get Another Order!

I would expect you'll have good luck with Midwest. I've ordered from both them and NB and had 0 problems. With one of my orders from Midwest I had ordered a strainer. The called to tell me that that particular item was out of stock, but they could refund my money for that item and they throw in a similar one for free. I thought that was kind of nice.

I gave on B3 when I got into kegging. Simple order on swivel nuts. Package includes (1) stem and (1) nut.

Apparently not.

Order arrives all nuts. (5) TIMES I deal with B3 customer service and EVERY time they send ANOTHER nut and no stem.

Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhh!

The Pol said:

Yeah, NoBeer sucks... thier problem isnt inventory management, it is lack of common sense.

Cmon, a guy orders LEAF Cascades and you dont even THINK to offer him PELLET Cascades?

No call, no substitution offer... nothing. Thier problems reach much farther than inventory management.

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I dont think its a lack of common sense. I think it is because it would take a minute or two of effort to email or call. That is the way some companies do business these days unfortunately.

If you want fast shipping you can't go wrong with Midwest. After about 10 shipments, 9 have arrived the very next day via FedEx Ground (I'm only five hours from MPLS) and the other one was ordered around the holidays at 4:00pm. Midwest's website seems to always indicate when something is unavailable, even if only for a few days (they'll tell you exactly how long if you call).

Kudos as well to Adventures in Homebrewing where some of us here took advantage of $16.99 soda kegs. I ordered replacement O-rings for all four kegs I ordered. When my shipment arrived a week or so later I had the kegs (all in good shape), four big O-rings and eight ball-lock O-rings. I called and told them they must have accidentally forgot the little O-rings for the dip tubes. "No sir, we didn't want to hold up your order so we are shipping those separately." They arrived about three days later.

I get all my stuff from Larry's and like Cheshire Cat I also don't pay shipping because I drive there. Larry's is HUGE and I wouldn't doubt it one bit if Homebrew Heaven bought malt from them.

I ordered for the first time from MoreBeer the other day. They did not have one item, so they sent me and email notifying me of this. I called, and they shipped the other items, and told me they would ship the rest at no charge when it came in.

I ordered some belgian style hops and yeast from Midwest Supplies the other day. When I got my package(fast shipping), I had all the ingredients that I ordered, PLUS their Trappist extract kit!!! I guess they are figuring that I'll like it and buy it again? The Wyeast package manuracturer date was less than two weeks old! Talk about fresh! So far I'm liking Midwest.

The Pol said:

I already ordered from Midwest... they have the stuff I need in stock, good prices and they show it on thier site. I have waited (2) weeks already for these ingredients, I cannot wait any longer.

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Pol, thanks for checking out the store. I know you had already asked me about some of the things that you wanted to order that were not listed on the site. Timing is everything as the spices you were looking for are scheduled to come in today, and will be listed on the site by the end of the week. I will be here for you next time.

I've been happy with Midwest Supplies since I got started in brewing.

Also, William's Brewing also sells coffee roasting items.

I had the same issue with B3 , a $300 order and they delay it cuz a $3 carboy cap is on back order. Then when I call them to send the rest of the order and they say they will, it gets delayed yet again cuz now the 3 pc $.99 airlock is on back order. They made good on everything, but I suspect common sense is lacking or they just don't care to flag these orders for follow up (email, vm, phonecall) or something. I am so used to real time inventory like Newegg for pc parts, that coming over to the brewing arena has made it hard to understand. I order and pay for stuff that you dont have on hand, and my money sits in there account, hmmm... Sorry I just dont get it. But they are not the only folks that do this.

Brewmasters Warehouse said:

Pol, thanks for checking out the store. I know you had already asked me about some of the things that you wanted to order that were not listed on the site. Timing is everything as the spices you were looking for are scheduled to come in today, and will be listed on the site by the end of the week. I will be here for you next time.

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Hey thanks Ed for chiming in here... I am really frustrated with vendors right now. Like I said, when I have on ly 8 days a month at HOME... time is of the essence and the dudes at B3 dont care about me, or my time.

Thanks for the heads up on the spices... I always check your site, so I will be lurking there again in a few weeks as I buy ingredients about every three weeks.

I looked at some vendors last night who were out of stock on CASCADES and MARIS OTTER... cmon. My biggest pet peeve, OUT OF STOCK items. If I come to someones store and they are out of stock several times, I never go back there. My one word of advice would to make sure things are in stock, people dont like to take partial orders, OR split orders between vendors.

I totally understand your frustration. I went through several instances like the one you described before. Out of my frustrations, and a couple of ideas for a cool website (Brew Builder) Brewmasters Warehouse was born. I try my very best to ensure that we live up to high standards.

I'm having the exact same thing Pol...they held up a $200 order because they were out of whole Willamette. They sent me an e-mail so I called and they said; "Oh looky here...some whole Willamette just came in...we'll ship it out tomorrow." I needed this stuff for this weekend so if I don't get it I won't be brewing either. I only chose them because they have the cheapest large SS pots I could find.

I just placed an order with Midwest and I like the selection and prices. So I'll def be using Midwest over Morebeer...but I'm gonna try Brewmasters Warehouse and Austin Homebrew as well since they both appear to have good customer service (just based on the posts they have made on this forum).

I wonder if the Midwest order will get here before the Morebeer order? I gave Morebeer a full week head start.

I've ordered from all the larger online stores and had problems with them all. Most of the problems have been shipping the wrong items. You think not getting the order sucks? Try having the starter ready, gear out of the garage, and open the box to discover you have 10lbs of Vienna malt instead of Maris Otter. In all the cases the shop has made it right. Some times it takes a while though. I order from MoreBeer for one simple reason. They are the least expensive for what I order. I'd recommend anyone who orders online to order way in advance. There are always going to be surprises. btw, last time I went to the LHBS it was for a hydrometer. I got home to find out they had a floating thermometer in the hydrometer tube by mistake. We have to remember to enjoy the brewing and let the other stuff go.


I need to add one disclaimer: I've never ordered from Brewmasters Warehouse. Ed is probably my new LHBS, but I haven't made it over to his store. Yet.

Hey Guys, not really sure of the best way to start this. It's hard because when name-calling begins, you know things are just short of disaster.

First, I'm sorry to hear about the OP's issues. The hard part about being a growing company in the stage we are at is there are lots of things to address but no staff to address them with. I know some of you are saying "hire someone else" ... not that easy in this economy.

The OP was really mad because we did not offer to sub out Cascade pellet hops for whole hops. I personally have been screamed at - Screamed at - for being "so dumb" as to offer pellet for whole. I still remember this quote - "If I wanted pellet hops, you dumb ****, I would have ordered them!" ... This is the reason no one asked about the sub - because there are a lot of irrational people out there, and at times when we think we are doing the right thing, it is the wrong thing. And vice versa. So please don't judge the CS department too harshly simply because they did not do something you would have. They are good kids who work hard. Yes they should have contacted you, I don't know why they didn't. Some times our e-mails get caught in spam filters, so you may want to check that.

I can't blame you guys for being mad at us. We totally messed up, and I'm really sorry about that. I'll put this out here now ... if you order again from us, put in the comments section to have JP confirm the order before it ships. I will personally go down and verify that the contents are correct.

As for the inventory stuff, we have a new purchaser who has ran a homebrew shop before and knows what stuff to bring in and when. One of our problems, IMO, was that we tried to have software dictate what to order and when. That just did not work.

We are always working on improving things here - less than 1% of our orders go out missing items, and for those of you in any sort of warehouse job, you know that is a pretty good stat.

Please send me an e-mail at jp at morebeer dot com if you guys ever have issues like this. I'll do my best to help you out.

I like their prices and free shipping, but nothing is ever in stock. Seriously. nothing. Everytime I go there to buy something, its out of stock. Basic ****, that any brew site would keep in stock.

Thing is, Jipper, this isn't the first time I've heard someone ***** about their whole order being held up because of one (usually small) item being out of stock. In fact, I'd wager to say that Morebeer's reputation in many segments of the homebrew community has suffered mightily because of this.

Would it be that hard to send out a quick email when something IS out of stock, suggesting either a replacement, or to send out the order sans ingredient? Communication's your friend; you might come across an occassional a-hole who yells at you because you dare suggest a substitution, but it seems like you piss off a lot more people who end up waiting for days and days - often needlessly.

You are 100% correct. Like I said, I have no idea why some people are not contacted, as I don;t work in the CS department. And I'm not saying that my experience is the sole reason we don't offer subs. Sorry if it came across that way.

I've never heard of ANYBODY being contacted; I don't think this is just one or two incidents falling through the cracks.

I've done virtually all of my online orders through Northern Brewer (never had an issue), and I HAVEN'T ordered from B3 in large part because of how many times I've read:

1. It took them three days to pack up my order
2. They held my order for a week and a half while they got in my (fill in random $3 item).

Really, it seems to be MOSTLY a B3 issue with people placing orders, then finding out later that you're out of stock. That just doesn't seem to happen at NB or Austin Homebrew Supply; either they just keep more inventory in stock (which I know, ties up more capital) or their systems are smart enough to know when they're out of something and update the website accordingly.

I've never personally had a bad expierience with morebeer and see no reason to not order then again (of course until I get burned I guess)

One thing I gotta say that I think may sound a little silly is that you feel that the customer has to take it too another level to insure Quality control on your end? I mean to say that we should make a note in the comment section to have JP physically double check our order doesn't say much for your staff. It's that type of inconvienance that could turn people off

If we are paying $ we expect to have the QA be your responsibility

I have had the same thing with the order being held twice. But a good thing did happen recently (well a bad thing followed by a good thing). I ordered an easy siphon and I left in the package until the day I went to first use it. Well I open it up and the thing was cracked in half. I emailed them and they sent out a replacement rather quickly, no questions asked.

I will have you know, if they hadn't done so it would have been the last order. I don't have time to screw around with poor customer service. My time is valuable.

Jipper said:

You are 100% correct. Like I said, I have no idea why some people are not contacted, as I don;t work in the CS department. And I'm not saying that my experience is the sole reason we don't offer subs. Sorry if it came across that way.

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Jipper, tbh you should contact your CS guys or someone that can look into this issue (in general). This forum alone is in part (indirectly) responsible for the tremendous growth of some online Homebrew shops. Many of them have reps on here.

Bird,
I got contacted via e-mail that they didn't have Willamette...I called...they said the Willamette just came in.

I have ordered from other vendors (not HB supplies) and they have a check box that says something like:
_ - Ship order without back-ordered items
_ - Ship entire order when complete

But the vendor pays the extra shipping if they have to ship a backordered item later.

I think the gripe some people have is this:
I can brew this weekend without the <insert random $3 item here> but I can't brew this weekend without the rest of the order.

Also, can't remember if Morebeer has this but my LHBS has a check box for: Allow us to choose a suitable replacement
...but I can see how that might be a Pandoras Box.

We've heard both sides of the issue- thanks Jipper for chiming in and accepting responsibility. As we've had both sides, there doesn't seem to be any reason to leave this thread open.

Thanks for everyone's input.