My Sofa.com delivery hasn't turned up

Do you have an issue you need put right? Which? is here to help get your consumer problems sorted.

Dear Which?, 

A bed from Sofa.com was due to be delivered on a specific date given by the retailer a month ago, but I still haven’t received it.

I was told by Sofa.com that it would be rearranged for the following week and that I would be contacted about this but it never happened.

I’ve tried to phone and email them with no luck and I’ve also seen people online complaining about undelivered items and not being able to contact the company.

I also saw online that some people had managed to organise deliveries by contacting the delivery company. So, I tried this and after initially not hearing anything, the delivery company confirmed that they had the bed and could deliver it today so I now have my bed but only because I tracked it down myself.

I’d still like to know why the delivery took so long, can you help with this?

Emma (name changed)

Put to Rights

Tali Ramsey, consumer rights expert at Which?, says:

It’s so frustrating when online orders don’t arrive on time. We contacted Sofa.com about your order and the bed arrived shortly after. It told us that the recent disruption had been caused by a change in its warehouse and delivery partner as well as a technical problem. It said:

‘We are deeply sorry that Emma's order, along with others, has been impacted by our recent disruption to delivery flow. While Emma’s order has now been delivered, we will be in contact with Emma to profusely apologise for the inconvenience caused by the delay. Additionally, we will be in touch with the account holder of the order regarding her compensation in line with our company policy.’

Sofa.com customer service issues

We also asked about other complaints we saw online and why customers haven't been able to contact Sofa.com via phone or email. 

Sofa.com told us that:

‘Despite a significant surge in contact, our customer service team continue to focus on responding to each and every customer query via email. Here at sofa.com, our efforts are aimed at resolving current logistic issues, and using our resources to ensure orders are rectified and sent out as soon as possible.

‘Consequently, we made the difficult decision to temporarily close our phone lines; however, we are pleased that they have reopened as of 10am this morning.’ It added that it’ll be reaching out to all affected customers in due course to offer apologies.

Recently, we conducted in-depth interviews on customer services with a panel of 29 households from across the UK and found that customers experienced being passed around, dismissive or unhelpful advisors and an inability to easily access lines of support.

Your delivery rights

Under the Consumer Rights Act, your online order should be delivered within 30 days of making the purchase unless agreed otherwise. Typically large furniture orders can take longer than 30 days, but you should be made aware of this when you purchase the item. 

If your online order is late, you should initially contact the retailer. 

If you made an order for a specific date and made this clear to the retailer and they failed to deliver on this date, you can cancel the order and claim a refund. If there wasn’t a specific important delivery date, you need to give the retailer another chance to make the delivery, if they fail this, you can cancel the order and ask for a refund.

You are also entitled to be reimbursed for any extra delivery costs - such as next-day deliveries - if your order doesn’t arrive on time.

You can also use your right to cancel an online order. The cancellation period starts from your order date and ends 14 days after you receive the item.

Get in touch. If you've got a consumer rights problem you need put right email us at yourstory@which.co.uk.

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