I love Nic river, so far I have only ever had one issue and they went above and beyond to make things right. I was honestly surprised how well it was handled. It was a mixup and I kept what was sent and got a full replacement on my order. They definitely took a loss to make things right. Top notch customer service.
I will 100% agree, the site needs work though. It is very difficult to navigate and some items don’t show up unless you specifically search for them. I can’t think of an example off the top of my head but I know it’s happened to me multiple times. It’s like there categories are bugged or something. I would much prefer a sidebar or something. This in addition to their 3-5 day order fulfillment times, it still isn’t enough for me to bash the company. They have the best prices around and customer service has been top notch. Except for when I emailed them Thanksgiving afternoon if they were having a BF sale. Never received a response, not a big deal though. I realized they had sent me an email earlier in the day that got routed to my spam folder, not their fault. I will still continue to support them!
Just want to say thanks again for all you guys do over at NR. You rock!
Still waiting on mine, ordered and paid less than 4 minutes from the sale going live. Hopeful that nothing is being back ordered, i’ll give it a few more days
Thanks for the reply, mjag. Well, it IS including all the frustrations with the old site, and is in regards to the multiple holiday sales (the only time prices are low enough where it’s worth the headache; shipping time isn’t that big of a deal for me and is kinda expected this time of year, but know it’s an issue for some) for more than the last couple of years. Consider it a cumulative rant, if you will.
I wasn’t subscribed to this thread as this is my first time using the forums here, altho I’ve been using ELR for awhile. To expect users to check or already be subscribed to a thread for a specific company within the industry, in the vendor subcategory on the forums for one of a handful of DIY sites (albeit the biggest, altho personally is the one I visit the least), posted a few hours before the sale starts @ midnight, which oh btw happens to last for only 24 hours? I mean, seriously? I don’t even know a single person IRL who even DIY’s in the first place, let alone one who frequents the forums on a daily basis for one of the many websites dedicated to recipes for this particular hobby (I guess? for me it’s just a means to get my nicotine fix, but whatever floats your boat), and it’s not like elr is slickdeals. You seem to have enough emotional intelligence/awareness to understand what I’m trying to say, so this paragraph wasn’t directed at you, just fyi.
I did not know that about BCF, good to know. Yup, I’ve only ordered from them once but it was a pretty yuge order and unfortunately contained a handful of leaking bottles which got practically everything else inside all wet & sticky. Also, when I opened the bags it was leaking juice everywhere and got on my floors and bed, which caused a mess that took like half an hour to clean up so that was fun. You’re right about the sample sizes altho the relatively recent price increase for FlavourArt, my fav juice company, kinda sucked and isn’t exactly necessary for Flavorah (Real Cinnamon?), especially after placing an order from ECX. However, they are DEF the best place to buy TFA and Flavor West from, which is what I was trying to order on Monday.
I placed my first oder w/ Wizard Labs a few months ago and it went smoothly. They don’t offer that big of a discount code (usually 15%, sometimes 20%) but are great if looking for small sizes. For Capella (CAP) and certain Inawera (INW) flavors specifically, they’re prolly the best place to order from (River Supply might be cheaper per/ml during a sale but are paying more for a higher min amount of 15ml vs 10ml). They have this really innovative feature where if you make an account on their website, it can actually remember the items in your cart (first VR and now this? what a time to be alive) so it’s nice to just stock up on everything beforehand then when a sale comes up, you can simply place your order after adding the coupon code. That way you can spend time w/ your family & friends during the holidays instead of sitting at a computer trying to squeeze in another deal on BF or New Year’s Eve (true story) because the company decides to run sales that don’t even last more than a single day, in addition to having to navigate shitty ass website.
I made a small order at Gremlin awhile back w/o issue, but their prices aren’t nearly competitive enough to regularly shop there unless its necessary. Dunno much about diyvaporsupply other than being the only place to stock DIYFS, which I heard recently reformulated their Holy Holy flavors.
Anyway, I just about agree with practically everything you said. You’re cleary a thoughtful and intelligent person as demonstrated by your courteous and informative response, and I appreciate you taking the time to do so.
thought this was already included in my initial post(s), but guess not: I provided feedback which included detailed recommendations but have yet to see a single one implemented, and that was almost a year ago. Nothing too complex; just like basic ass shit, fundamental web development that anyone w/ a minimal amount of common sense would understand, let alone a UI/UX designer. One of my immediate family members is a web developer (I work in tech myself, but not web development) and a lot of the problems mentioned above (that have plagued the site for years now) in regards to the customer experience during the checkout process, is literally what he works on for a big universally known company w/ a user base that covers the spectrum from children all the way to seniors (meaning it has to be compatible for loads of different connected devices while also being simple enough to understand for anyone in the world no matter age, ethnicity, gender, etc.), and a lot of these issues are straight-forward to fix and rather elementary, tbh.
their site shouldn’t even have gone live (and most likely wouldn’t have by any dev worth his salt who takes pride in their work), cause quite frankly it’s an abomination. their in-house talent sucks, or they outsourced it to people (prolly overseas) who are incompetent at their job to save a few bucks, but is costing them money every second it’s live but I’m not the one who is losing money tho, so imagine how mad the people who are, should be. just my two cents.
good to hear you had a positive experience when something went wrong. I’ve had a minor one that involved customer service and it wasn’t awful, but didn’t really get solved so wasn’t handled as well as I’d ideally like or thought it should be. However, it did happen during a holiday and was a single anecdotal incident, so I’m not putting too much stock into it.
I haven’t bought from NR in quite a while because their shipping costs were out of line with their competitors. My flavor orders, mostly to replenish my inventory, don’t always amount to $50 to qualify for the free shipping so I’ve gone elsewhere.
It looks like you and I share similar research methods in terms of comparison shopping so maybe I’ll give NR another look the next time I have an order.
If River Supply just didn’t care then I would be right there with you in frustration but that has not been the case. There one of the few that actually have a presence on ELR and in the past when I had problems they were quick to respond, can’t say that a year or 2 ago. Mistakes happen, it is how a company deals with those mistakes that makes a difference for me and RS has really stepped up. Like I already mentioned it is good to provide feedback, I am sure they are looking into your concerns.
As a business owner I do feel for these vape companies in the current climate. They are changing names, in some cases dropping nic and other supplies due to local laws like ECX is going through. Definitely a tough business to be in right now so I will cut them a little bit of slack but overall most flavor companies I have dealt with have been great.
I do have a problem with eightvape at the moment, the system went crazy and my $30 discount went poof. I contacted them right away to either give me the discount or cancel my order. They ignored my 2 CS replies and shipped the products but not the complete order, I received something like 60 fewer bottles than I paid for. Still, no response and soon I will open up a complaint with my CC company. If RS had done ths to me your damn right I would post a rant as well or any of these flavor companies if they did not make it right.
I think MOST of MY points are going to dovetail with @tony_g’s. I’ve been a long time customer of @nicotine_river / @Nicotine_River, and have had great success, AND, not so great successes with them. EVERY time I’ve had an issue however, they HAVE been QUICK to respond here, and that was EVERY time, without exception. That SHOULD carry a lot of weight. Now, as time wears on, people (customers) expect things to kind of get sorted out, so they don’t keep happening, and the NEED to rapid respones, goes away. I have not purchased from RSC (River Supply Co) up until just recently, after a hiatus. I personally was slightly put off, by the removal of our ELR discount code (due to abuse ?). Not a big deal, but a deal none the less.
I MORE than undertand/respect/allow for some bumpity bump, bumps, due to the absolutely INSANE place we find ourselves (and them) today, with the anti-vape (whatever you want to call it) agenda, legislation, etc, etc. So for that, I allow a LOT of leeway in terms of minor issues, snags, slowdowns, etc.
I had to go ouf of town for 4 days, and decided to place a 39 item order from them before leaving, with the hopes that i would at least have been shipped, and nicely along the way by the time I returned (today). Seemed to be a few days delay before shipping, so not the fastest, but not the worst.
NOW, having NOT used their NEW website until that order, I found it to be MORE than quite a bit frustrating. I used to do web design, including everything from front end scripts, to SQL backends, graphics, and everything in between. I know what works, what doesn’t, what sucks, what doesn’t, and I KNOW what the ECE (End Client Experiece) / EUE (End User Experience) is, because I used to design for it, constantly.
In it’s current form, wow. It was NOT a good experience for me, and DEF. not when trying to create a 39 separate item cart. Not in any way, shape, or form. It was PAINFUL. We used to design with the 3 click rule, meaning 3 clicks to get anywhere in the website. I used to do that every time, all the time when designing. Not everyone believes in that, some do, some don’t, but it is NOT alive and well on the current website. The navigation is twitchy, and frustrating at best, and at worst, requires multiple attempts due to drop downs disappearing too soon, or clicking the wrong choice, requiring even MORE click, click, clicking. The CART system has some issues as well, because after adding items, clicking the purse or cart or whatever it is, revels a recently added screen, but it NOT your actual cart. There is a pencil icon (which I had to use many times due to items being added more than once, and it did NOT function here.
Why, because you’re in your recently added, NOT your cart, that requires MORE clicks in, correct your items, then click, click, clicking BACK to shopping.
VERY frustrating, and I KNOW what I’m doing. I can only imagine for non-designers what their experience is. I like the modern look of it, but I hate to see ease of use, and speed sacrificed for the sake of style, which I believe to be the case. As mentioned above, listing all of the flavors in a cat does lead to lengthy scrolling, which can become even more cumbersome when loading a large order, or correcting, and attempting to reload.
Why did I suffer through all of the above ?? I was trying to try out some new items and take advantage of the BF sale. Even AS a long time, previous customer, would I have continued through this process if it had NOT been for the BF sale ?? I’m not sure.
The load speeds were bad, to very bad for me at the time of my purchase, and checking today, there are indeed some issues outstanding.
I like these guys Nicotine River / River Supply Co, but I SURE wish they had let me audit their new site before they released it, I really do. I want the best for THEM, but I also want the best for ME. When dealing with all of the above mentioned issues, and more, I was indeed growing frustrated. Soo much so, that I took the shopping survey afterwards (I never do that), and I gave the same feedback as above, granted in less detail.
What would I do ??
I’d start to acquire some MUCH better web site tester/auditers and start fixing the webiste ASAP. Flashy/modern is great, IF it works. If it doesn’t, go BACK and either start over, hire another company to handle it, or both. Hell, I’d implement the 3 click rule for starters. Trash, re-do the nav system, trash the “recently added” screen, allow DIRECT cart editing, limit the endless scrolling of flavors in lists, and reqularly audit the site for speed, errors, advisements. THAT is where I would START.
If I didn’t like these guys, I wouldn’t have given my honest feedback, I wouldn’t have taken the time, but I do, and I just did.
I’m not going to link to all my audits, but from the screenshots above…
Hey Session, we appreciate your feedback regarding the website as you do bring up many valid points. We have a long list of improvements and changes to the site that still have yet to be implemented, but many will appear that will help resolve commonly faced issues such as the ones you posted above!
We have received feedback from all over regarding minor and major changes that should be done and we have taken all of the feasible fixes into account with open arms! I’ll be going over your feedback above with the developers as well to get their insight!
One thing though off the bat is that a lot of customers have encountered issues with the scrolling infinitely. On mobile and desktop there is a feature to ultimately shorten the scrolling amounts drastically (see attached). On the right hand side there is an option to display multiple products at once, looking like 6 little boxes. Although it takes away from the product descriptions we will most likely be changing the scrolling to this display permanently for ease of use purposes.
Lastly regarding speed that has always been an issue for us due to the heavy amount of apps and products our website entails. But this has been a huge goal of ours to fix and we still will continue to do so. Compared to our old website this one is definitely quicker for a vast majority of our customers, but we’d still like to see improvements as well!
All in all though, the website has been an improvement for many customers but still needs a large amount of bug fixes and upgrades (like the constant popups and check boxes, which will eventually be simplified) and more which we hope to see in the future. It will definitely take a lot of time to iron all of these things out, but we can assure everyone that the website will continuously get better as quick as we can possibly make it! Thank you for your feedback though, we appreciate constructive criticism as its an opportunity to see things from our customers perspective and that has inexplicably intrinsic value!
OMG, YES! Exactly what you said, especially about the shopping cart and then not even being able to remove it w/ the pencil icon, which is what caused me to miss the cutoff (which seemed like it might’ve been one minute early, but my OS clock could be off). Yes, ideally I wouldn’t be waiting until midnight to place an order, but wouldn’t have been in this position in the first place if this sale wasn’t announced until a couple of hours or so before it started, hence my frustration, and the reason for my post.
Before reading your post, it kinda felt like I was taking crazy pills and if I’m being totally honest, almost felt a lil gaslighted (like when talking to a Trump supporter…). As evidenced by your post, you do know what you’re talking about. That being said, I couldn’t believe I’m sitting here having to actually explain all this shit for people to believe me. How can you NOT notice this, when everyone who ordered obviously had to experience using the cart?! Part of it is me and the fact that I live in the tech capital of the world, which is a giant bubble filled w/ educated tech nerds (who despite their intelligence are completely oblivious and unaware, if not aspies), but FFS, it’s not rocket science. That stupid fucking menu which automagically disappears if you look at it wrong. One time it took me at least half a dozen tries in order to finally click on it before it would go away. Just so unnecessarily painful; function > form.
I didn’t have the patience (or experience and knowledge) to write out the issues so eloquently and detailed as u just did. Plus I’m always worried about sounding like one of those assholes who seem to make a point of talking in the vernacular of whatever subject they’re knowledgeable about (or think they are), whether it’s their job or hobby, knowing that you won’t know the nomenclature but still decide to use those words anyway (if not intentionally), and do so in a condescending manner, almost like mansplaining it in a way? You know what I’m talking about. Yeah, I didn’t wanna sound like THAT guy (which you def did not), cause I fucking hate that guy. So thank you for that, writing a lengthy reply like yours prolly took awhile and it’s much appreciated.
well yes the webiste could need some tuning like the search bar, but their customers service response is very good so as their prices cant be beaten most of the times
I don’t mind a wait… the sale was freaken good, ordered over 30 items all different size flavors from 15ml to 4oz. Two kinds of Nic +PG VG & bottles. So with everyone else ordering - Im expecting a longer than usual fulfilllment time this time round. Of course I want it yesterday, but i know it’s not gonna happen.
Just got 26 new flavors from river supply.
Ordered at 12:02 PST on Black Friday, received Wednesday.
Got some re-ups, but a couple new flavors that have my attention (from no more than a sniff) are red licorice tfa, sweet and tart tfa, blood orange from FA, blood orange natural from FW, and FA Joy.
I think I’m going to make a red licorice with whipped cream, perhaps a red licorice cream pie which may not be a thing, but I’ll bet it will be good. Imagine a cream pie,sort of vanilla, but with red licorice magically incorporated, then poured into a flaky crust to set. Just a little sweetener to bring it out but not give “sugar teeth”.
I also ordered all the ingredients to make Dan the Man’s torrone nougat too too. Which may become a stone of sorts for other flavors. It’s just a well balanced delicious thick caramel custard with nougat. Look it up.
And the sweet tarts (sweet and tart). I sniff it and I’m 8 again.
