🚀 go-pugleaf

I sympathize with those who have had problems with delivery from 
Gateway.  I ordered a system last November and still don't have 
it.  As of yesterday, Gateway hasn't sent it out their door.  
Here's my story.

I decided on Gateway because of the "almost-too-good-to-be-true"
price on the 486DX2-66-MHz system, and I wanted something that
wouldn't be obselete by the time it arrived.  I had also read 
good reviews about their systems' reliability, and customer 
satisfaction.  My order differed from the standard configuration
in that I opted for the tower case, a standard (i.e. not Anykey)
keyboard, 16M RAM (on *one* SIMM!), and the CD-ROM drive.  I was
told it should be shipped in 3 weeks.  That was Nov. 6.

After four weeks it hadn't arrived, so I called my sales rep, 
Angie, who said the CD-ROM drives were not available yet.  A 
week later (Dec. 15) I called again and, being told that the 
drives were still not available, I had her change the order to 
ship the PC without the drive, which would be sent later for me 
to install myself, at no extra charge.  Under this simplified 
configuration, the computer was supposed to have been shipped in 
1 to 1.5 weeks.  On Dec. 18, I was told that the order had been 
"released", meaning that it would be assembled in 1 or 2 days.  
I actually began to think it might arrive before the new year.

However, I've now waited 9 weeks and still don't have the system.
Some of my conclusions are:

    1.  As always, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  
Gateway's prices may be very competitive, and the reports of 
their reliability both speak well for Gateway.  The catch is that
you may have to wait longer than you think to get your system.

    2.  Their manufacturing seems based on something like "just-
in-time" manufacturing that keeps costs of stocking parts 
inventory low.  Unfortunately, this works best only if the parts
influx is steady, and that seems not to be the case.

    3.  The customer doesn't have much clout simply because the 
Gateways are such good deals.  I was told by Angie that Gateway
ships out "almost 3000 systems a day"!  What's it to them, then,
if one or two dozen disgruntled customers cancel their orders, 
especially when Gateway *does* seem to be able to send many 
systems out (probably the vanilla ones) within the promised 3 
weeks?

Be forewarned.

(What will really burn me up is if, as soon as I receive my 
system, I see the price on the 486DX2-66 dropped in the very 
next issue of PC Magazine.  They should be about due for a price
decrease.)   



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Andy Tenne-Sens                 E-mail: tennesen@mars.dgrc.doc.ca
Communications Research Centre / DRL
P.O. Box 11490, Station H       Office: (613) 998-2645
3701 Carling Ave.
Ottawa, Ontario                 Fax:    (613) 990-7987
CANADA   K2H 8S2

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