Review: shopping in the Microsoft online store | The Coffeehouse

ZippyV
Fired Up

I decided to order something from Microsoft's new store website that was launched awhile ago. On Monday afternoon I purchased a new keyboard and Expression Web 3. Browsing through the website is awful: the website is slow even when there isn't much content displayed, when I want to switch the country to Belgium (dutch) it will still display The Netherlands, the checkout process asks for my address even when I'm logged in using Passport and tracing the package returns a 403 error. One positive point: the payment using my Visa card needed to be validated using my bank's device (it validates the transaction, my card and my PIN), most international webstores don't do this (like Amazon UK).

Yesterday (Wednesday) I received my first package: Expression Web 3 (small LOL: the DVD only contains 180 MB data), nice package but it smells bad. Today (Thursday) the keyboard arrived, I saw a QUERTY keyboard picture but the sticker on the box assured me that "Picture of US keyboard for illustration purposes only and may differ from actual keyboard layout sold in your country". Sadly, the picture did not differ.

But why did I buy a new keyboard? I'm happy with the Microsoft Office keyboard, it has dedicated buttons to launch Word, Excel, Outlook, a browser, mute, logoff, sleep, cut, copy and paste buttons. Unfortunately Microsoft doesn't provide a driver in Vista.

Maddus Mattus
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

You get directed to the Netherlands because Belgium is a future province of the Netherlands, didnt you know?

Too bad you got sent the wrong keyboard though.

Seriously, how hard can it be to write a decent webshop?

CKurt
while( ( !succeed=try() ) ) { }

In reply to Maddus Mattus

#Sep 10th @ 5:37 AM

A decent webshop? Pretty hard, I have tried it myself (http://www.ksjwest.be/winkel) and still some scenario's aren't ideal. Of cource I'm not a company, it's just volenteers work.

Maddus Mattus
Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda

In reply to CKurt

#Sep 10th @ 6:18 AM

I did one for a clothing company, it was pretty easy,..

And there are a lot of out of the box webshops you can use,..

ZippyV
Fired Up

Well, after a week I still haven't got a reply from them. I just plugged it in and let's see how it goes.

Funny: azertyuiop, I'm typing in azerty on a querty board.

Bass
www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/

They probably outsource the delivery to 3rd party distributor/warehouse. Your products probably were shipped from a warehouse that also stores fish guts.