The abysses of Amazon

As I wrote in the teaser email, I am about to tell a tale of how a beard (mine) and a certain rainforest (Amazon) are kind of weirdly interlinked.

Some of you know that I am sporting a new look, a beard. Not so many of you know that it is mostly by accident and thanks to Amazon (thanks by the way for the positive comments about the beard, I am not going to destroy it completely now).

But let me get into the roots of the ...beard.

Amazon here stands for Amazon.co.uk. I braved my way there (from my comfy room, admittedly) after the electricity cord to my Philishave mysteriously disappeared over a month ago (not even our house cat managed to find it).

As my shaver was rather old, I thought why not buy a new one anyway as the blades to the old one needed changing soon anyway. And having order from Amazon with success before, after a bit of googling I decided to go for it.

Panasonic ES7016 would be it. Why? Ideally I would say that as suitable for adventurous Amazon goer, I was boldly going for something that, well, at least I not gone for before. (Braun and Phillips had been conquered and mastered before, anyway)

But I have to admit as an educated consumer (I encounter a certain consumer agony aunt in my job nearly weekly) I had acquainted myself with Which? online. Panasonic was by far the cheapest of the electric shavers that achieved any success in their test (they are properly tough, these Which? people!).

So, to Amazon I went. The holy grail did I spot. And I ordered it (October 4). Only a little later, at the deliver tracker it struck me. Delivery estimate: 18 Oct 2005 - 27 Oct 2005. Panicking, I decided to wait and see. Luckily before my nervousness reached unbearable I level, got some compliments for the beard (the epilogue at the end should explain a bit why i should panic)

Great. I would wait (Admittedly, those home-barber kits make bearable emergency beard trimmers)

But after hearing comments of my looks starting to resemble a Russian or an Orthodox Jew, I became aware some trimming might be ... convenient.

Then I got a shocking email. Your delivery has been delayed by one to two weeks. This sounded more like stone-age than online-age.

It was time to investigate. Telling my flatmate of the experience seemed a good start. "I know Amazon has been selling books that don't even exist," was not excactly the answer I wanted to hear. Somehow they have ended up there even though the book-projects had been scrapped before publishing, even the "authors" unaware of their existence, he told me.

Could this be true? A quick check to the manufacturers's website only tells about Panasonic ES7026. More inter net searches tell me that no one else is selling this model in the web. Even more alarmingly, Amazon was selling ES7026 as well and promised prompt delivery.

Hastily I cancelled my earlier order and changed it to dor this fantastic new model. But felt a bit annoyed. All my correspondence with Amazon was obviously automated and there was no guarantee how many more "delivery delay" emails I could have received unless realsiing myself what was going on.

This adventure has a happy ending though. Sorting my way out of the jungle, I found shavers.co.uk. Order in Otober 24, delivery October 26. Saving of 5 quid compared to Amazon, and free nose hair trimmer on top (sorry for any lady readers, I did not request it, it was just added as a freebie so i guess should mention it). Being as ecstatic as I am, I say: "This Nottingham-based company turned out to be my Robin Hood!"

I cannot tell anything of the quality of the shave yet, as the shaver is charging now. But I will be back..

The learning of the story: sometimes the solution is nearer home (terminologically at least) than you might expect, this time at Nottingham. But in this online era we sometimes know faraway places better than - more modest UK online stores?

Epilogue: as it would have kind od spoilt the adventurous element og my shaver-shopping, I left it late to explain why didn't I go for the "best a man can get" (I am not saying the brand: if it comes to your mind instantly, you are a co-victim of commercialisation). Simply because no matter if I use the top-of-the-range superturbomachoexcel model, I cut wounds to my face, even if my head could not be seen under the cloud of shaving foam.