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Perromart, an online pet store specialising in dog and cat products, owed several pet owners weeks of deliveries.

The shipping delays and poor customer service have caused many customers to be frustrated, prompting them to ask for a refund and/or switch to another supplier.

The president of Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE), Melvin Yong, told Mothership that they have received 44 consumer complaints against Perromart from Jan. 1 to Feb. 13, 2023.

No delivery, no response

Alexandria, a frequent customer of Perromart since August 2021, shared with Mothership that she faced no issues with Perromart until her latest purchase.

Alexandria ordered her dog's food on Dec. 30, 2022. She was informed that her delivery would be delayed as there was no stock of the products she purchased, which she was initially fine with.

But she ended up waiting for three weeks with no response from the customer service team.

"Perromart completely stonewalled me," she said. "It was just inconvenient to have paid for a service and a product [only to] get stonewalled."

According to Alexandria, she did not receive any reply to her queries despite Perromart viewing her social media posts where she shared her experience.

Eventually, Alexandria received one of the owners of Perromart's phone number from a netizen. She contacted him immediately.

While the owner of Perromart was "pleasant enough" during their correspondence and shared that the company was facing "supply chain issues", the lack of updates from the company was still not acceptable to Alexandria.

"As someone who has shopped online for the last three years, reliable and transparent companies will provide swift updates if they face issues with supply [or] delivery," she said, frustrated at the lack of transparency.

Fortunately, Alexandria got a refund and she turned to other suppliers to get pet products.

Google review full of similar complaints

Alexandria's case is not isolated. Recent Google reviews of Perromart are filled with complaints from dissatisfied customers.

While there had been occasional reviews flagging failure in delivering the goods on time, the number of negative reviews seemed to increase three to four months ago.

Three months ago, the owner of Perromart, Tim, said that there were "technical issues in [their] logistic system" in his replies to negative reviews.

Back then, at least there were happy customers like this one:

In recent month, Tim has been apologising and replying to negative reviews, citing shipping delays and manpower shortage as the reason for the delay in deliveries.

Perromart's Google Review were flooded with negative ones with customers lamenting about the lack of response and delay in deliveries. Some customers even amended their reviews to express their disappointment in the company.

 

Other grievances

While the Perromart owner acknowledged and replied to negative Google reviews and released a statement on their Facebook page apologising for the delays on Jan. 30, many customers remained upset.

One customer pointed out this issue in delivery is not a recent problem.

Other customers also pointed out that despite being overwhelmed with orders, Perromart is still running sales and promotions.

Another commenter said the least Perromart can do is stop accepting orders since it is already having trouble with deliveries.

Similarly, customers also pointed out that the website could have reflected an accurate status of the availability of the goods if Perromart is indeed facing a supply chain disruption.

Customers who received refunds from Perromart said that they were refunded with store credit instead of cash. However, they also claimed they were unable to see the store credit in their account.

Another customer was angry that it was not a cash refund.

Some took matters into their own hands

Some customers decided to stop waiting for deliveries and headed down to Perromart's warehouse to retrieve their orders instead.

A customer who went down to the warehouse became more empathetic towards Perromart after seeing their staff hard at work.

However, on Feb. 14, Perromart informed customers via Facebook to not head down to their warehouse as the "stocks are in transit".

While the Facebook post said that new orders will face delays due to the move, their website front page still promises four to six working days delivery.

CASE has reached out to Perromart

CASE has reached out to Perromart on this matter and some affected consumers have now received their orders, CASE shared in a response to Mothership.

Affected consumers may approach CASE for assistance at 9795 8397 or refer to their website here.

Mothership has reached out to Perromart but did not receive a reply at the time of publishing.

Top image via Perromart.SG/Facebook