bennison@clt.DEC (Victor Bennison - DTN 381-2156) (11/01/85)
--- Photographic Equipment Mail Order Company Survey Here are the results of the survey. Some people equivocated, saying things like, "no problems, minor hassles only once." For those companies I put a vote in both the no problems column and in the minor hassles column. Otherwise, the numbers in the boxes represent the number of people who answered in that column for that company. I would like to see more input to this survey, and will keep it active. You may send me your experiences anytime you want and I will keep the survey up to date. Whenever there is enough new data to warrant it I will repost the survey results. If you haven't been able to get through to me directly, then go ahead and post to net.rec.photo. Name of Mail | Experience was: Order Company | No problems | Minor hassles | Major hassles | Avoid | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ 47th Street | 2 | 3 | 2 | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Focus | 1 | 1 | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Sunshine | 1 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Olden | 1 | 1 | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Wall Street | 1 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Camera World | 1 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Executive | | | 1 | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ B&H | 3 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Garden | 1 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Adorama | 1 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Freestyle | 1 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Porter's (??) | 1 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ Special Effects (??) | 1 | | | | ------------------------+-------------+---------------+---------------+-------+ One person complained that the results would not be too meaningful without explanatory notes. I disagree. Opinion polls are considered valuable even though the same argument could be applied to them. The problem with this survey, as it now stands, is that it does not represent a large enough sample. That's why I would like to see more responses. Sample size notwithstanding, I find the results interesting. I'll let you do your own analysis though. Here are the rough meanings of the categories again: No problems: Got what you ordered, in reasonable time, at expected price, no unpleasant surprises. Minor hassles: Minor delays, unpleasant saleperson, hard to get through to toll free line; probably not enough to keep you from ordering from them again. Major hassles: Major problems occurred, but you were satisfied enough with with the way they were resolved that you might consider ordering from them again when you cool off. Avoid: Major problems occurred that either were not satisfactorily corrected or that you feel were significant enough to begin with that you wouldn't consider ordering from them again under any circumstances. Respond directly to: Vick Bennison ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!tools!bennison