Takealot makes empty promises
On the 17th of August before 9AM I ordered 3 items. A book called chasing excellence by Ben Bergeron and 2 Harry Potter tshirts. The shirts were part of the daily deal. The book initially said delivered within 13 to 15 working days and stated that it was “in stock”. After payment was cleared my order was updated, the book was ordered from the supplier and the tshirts were allocated to my order, the order was to be delivered by 11 September as promised by the takealot team. On the 11th of September I was surprised not to have received any email or sms on my order’s delivery details. I followed up at about 14:40 PM but I did not hear anything except for the automated ticket reply with reference # ********** . On the 12th of September at about 8.30AM I followed up again by submitting another 2 tickets, at this time I was really surprised that nobody came back to me and my order status on the website still said delivery 11 September despite the fact that it was a day later. My tickets were finally attended to about half an hour later by a friendly and understanding support agent. I was advised that the book I ordered was out of stock and was going to take another 3-5 working days. This agent was able to update me with this information very quickly, but what I do not understand is why no one from takealot contacted me earlier or updated my order online. I ordered this as a gift for the 13th of September and thus I was not happy about this news and if I had known earlier I might have had a chance to make a plan. I asked for the book to be cancelled and my shirts to be delivered which had then been confirmed by the support agent. When logging into takealot to check my order status one of the shirts (which was previously allocated to my order) was now updated to say ordered from supplier. After following up it seems like the stock was not initially assigned to my order and I now had to wait again. At this time (12 September at 8PM), I was really irritated by this situation and asked the support agent to cancel my entire order and refund my money. I received a reply at 13 September at 9AM that the remaining shirt was on route to my delivery address and cannot be cancelled at this stage. The support agent suggested that I can log a return when the item arrives, again making all of this my problem. I am really disappointed and dissatisfied with the service you have provided me. As a loyal customer I do not expect mistakes like these from one of the top online shopping stores.