I placed an order from ECS Tuning on a Monday morning. I found the items I wanted on their website and called and ordered on the phone, confirmed that the pieces I needed were in stock and would ship out same day as I needed them by that weekend.
One of the items I wanted to order showed "Ships in 1-3 days", so ordering on Monday, needing it by Thursday shouldn't be a problem I thought. Come to find out, ships in 1-3 days means that it takes ~3 days for ECS to get the part and then another 2-3 days before it actually gets to me. Feeling a bit mislead and a little frustrated, the sales person was helpful and changed the order to a different brand that they had in stock (though double the cost) so I could get them by the weekend. The other items were "in stock" and I was told that everything would ship out that day (Monday)
Being a first order, they would not ship them to the shop doing the work since it was not the same address as was on my credit card. The person I spoke to could not/would not explain this policy, just that it was their policy. Frustrating again, but those are their rules. Since ordering on Monday, there was time for me to receive it by Thursday and take it to the shop myself on Friday so not a deal breaker, but still frustrating.
Both the sales person and the accounting person I spoke to knew of my need to have the items delivered by Thursday and why I called my order in (vs using the website) to make sure all went smoothly.
I check my e-mail on Tuesday night (not an account I check regularly) and an e-mail from ECS mid-day Tuesday says that one of the items that I ordered is on back order from the supplier with no ETA, but there is another one available that is not on their site and that brand is not listed on their site either, but they could ship the order out today (Tuesday) if I was ok with the other part. What happened to being in stock and shipping out on Monday?
Talk to them on Wednesday and am told that "the computer lied about our inventory". Is it on backorder from the supplier or not in stock like you said it was? Do you actually stock these items? More frustration, but regardless, they don't have the item I ordered weather they said they did or not.
I explain that I ordered these items and confirmed that they were in stock on Monday so I would have them by Thursday (since they wouldn't ship to the shop). It's now Wednesday and I still need them by Thursday. I was told that they could ship them next day air for an extra ~$60 my cost. My frustration is starting to build at this point....I tell them to cancel the back ordered items, ship what you claim to have in stock today and I'll have to figure out what to do about the parts you don't have. The sales person stepped up and decided to ship the order directly to the shop since the $ amount was less now that I cancelled one of the parts and I would still get them where I needed (the shop) when I needed (Friday). In hindsight I probably should have taken the alternate item instead of cancelling it, but then they probably wouldn't have shipped it since the total $ amount of the order would have been too high.
Overall it was a frustrating experience - in the end ECS did step up and ship the parts to the shop against their policy so I would have some of the parts I needed on time which I appreciate. The sales person was always nice to deal with and was as helpful as they could be (they can't make parts appear out of thin air). The majority of the frustration in dealing with them could have been easily avoided though with accurate inventory and timely communication.
I might give ECS another shot if I need parts from them in the future as I understand that an inventory mistake can happen, however they won't be the first place I'll look.
On contrast - I called IDParts and placed an order with them on the same Monday morning as well. The parts I ordered (twice as many) showed up on Thursday as scheduled, no hassles, no silly policies, no gimics - parts were in stock, shipped same day, received on time. About as un-frustrating as it gets. The only frustrating thing (in hindsight) is that IDParts didn't sell the parts that ECS did.