EXTREMELY disappointed and dissatisfied.

[EricD]

I have been trying for over 1 week to spend a good chunk of money with SweetMarias. The people answering emails are sadly precluded from doing anything but EXACTLY matching an existing price on the web. They cannot even match comparable offers - the match must be EXACT. The worst part is that I am now being blocked from contact with the owners which means that I cannot even help them to learn that their policy may be costing them money and certainly is costing them future sales. After working patiently with the front line folks on email (and I'm sure they did the best they could) they offered me a WORSE deal than I could get on the web. I asked to escalate to the owners and was told no. That is inexcusable. I have done business with SweetMarias before and been very happy with the service. This last effort however, was very disappointing. I will continue to try to contact the owners so that they can understand what I believe to be a flaw in their process, and try to understand why they would work so hard to turn away revenue and profit.

[Erica]

Hello Eric,
I am sorry you are unhappy with the price match that we offered you. It is difficult to get exact matches with espresso machines because of all the extras, but we offered you as close to a mach as we could. I hope that you consider us when making your green bean purchases in the future. Best- Erica

[EricD]

Interesting that AGAIN, I am not put in touch with the owners. Therefore I am still dissatisfied. Also interesting that my offers were within $10 of matching the competition EVEN WHEN TAKING THE "extras" INTO ACCOUNT. SweetMaria's offer was nearly $30 OVER the competition's offer when taking the "extras" into account. It is really NOT difficult to match the extras since both SweetMaria's and their competition post the prices for the extras.

Eric

[bigbells]

Sweet Maria's is not a large company. No matter who you communicate with, it's someone close to the top. I was pleasantly surprised to be offered a price match from Sweet Maria's when I stated in this forum that I had placed an order for a roaster elsewhere due to the overall price difference. The other supplier had offered free shipping and 8 pounds of green beans with the roaster. When a Sweet Maria's employee responded to that post and said that Sweet Maria's DOES do price matching, I cancelled the original order and then placed the order with Sweet Maria's. The reason I'm especially happy to do that is because I have no reason to consider buying beans anywhere else. The details available, including arrival time of the lot, roast level suggestions and cupping scores give me total confidence in my bean purchases. Perhaps Sweet Maria's would like to make it clearer on the website that they will match prices on merchandise, or perhaps they're more interested in being a green bean supplier and only offer merchandise as a convenience. I do know that it will cost them more to ship me the roaster than it would for the company from whom I'd originally ordered it, for geographical reasons. Hopefully SM will still make enough on the transaction for it to be worthwhile. For me, getting Sweet Maria's green beans instead of someone else's along with the roaster makes it worth more to me, all other things being equal.

[Hill Girl]

I don't mind paying a bit extra to order equipment from Sweet Maria's. For one thing I can go pick it up, so I don't have to pay shipping . But even if I couldn't avoid shipping fees, I've developed loyalty to them because of the great coffee beans they source and sell and, especially, all that they do to facilitate home roasting. I bought an Air Crazy from them that I could have gotten elsewhere cheaper. The fact that they give you beans at a discounted price when you purchase from them is a nice incentive too. Call me an idiot, but I like to reward companies that provide good products and service .

[Hill Girl]

If I were the owner I wouldn't want to talk to you either . Vote with your feet .

[javafool]

EricD,

There is no reason for you to get yourself upset being disappointed or dissatisfied. You have the right to purchase from whomever you feel confortable with. From 13+ experience years dealing with Sweetmarias, I can assure you if you shop elsewhere you will not find better service. In addition, SM green coffee offerings are probably consistantly the best you can find anywhere.

I wish you the best in your coffee purchases and enjoyment.
Best,
Terry

Edit: Corrected my reply to name. Hate it when I do that!!!

[bigbells]

bigbells,

There is no reason for you to get yourself upset being disappointed or dissatisfied. You have the right to purchase from whomever you feel confortable with. From 13+ experience years dealing with Sweetmarias, I can assure you if you shop elsewhere you will not find better service. In addition, SM green coffee offerings are probably consistantly the best you can find anywhere.

I wish you the best in your coffee purchases and enjoyment.
Best,
Terry

I am disappointed and dissatisfied (but not quite disgruntled) to be misidentified as the person who is disappointed and dissatisfied.

[javafool]

Sorry bigbells,

I corrected my original post (I hope) as I know there are probably very few people dissatisfied with Sweetmarias. If they are they don't hang around this forum very long.

Regards,
Terry

I am disappointed and dissatisfied (but not quite disgruntled) to be misidentified as the person who is disappointed and dissatisfied.

[EricD]

Sadly, I will have to vote with my feet. The only reason I have invested nearly two weeks in this effort is that I truly wanted to support this business. I was indeed willing to pay the same if a price match had been offered. It was not. Even after that - even after I decided to buy this equipment elsewhere - I was willing to invest additional time by having a dialog with the owners so that I could help them to understand what I believe to be a flaw in their policy. That doesn't mean I expected them to agree with me, nor did it mean that without their agreement I would stop doing business with SweetMarias. It simply meant that I would like to do business with someone willing to dialog when there is a disagreement. That, to me is the hallmark of doing business with a small business. It simply meant that I wanted SweetMarias to be even more successful than they are - I like seeing small businesses succeed. From the beginning and over several emails I stated quite explicitly a willingness to work with and dialog with SweetMarias. As soon as it became obvious that the only response I was getting was that they would match an exact offer while simultaneously saying that there are no exact offers so they cannot match, I simply asked to speak to an owner to point out the flaw in the logic. (This post to the forum was my last ditch effort to get the attention of the owners after having spent over 1 week trying to do the deal over email.) While I hoped that the result would be that I could purchase the equipment for the same price I could buy it elsewhere, I fully understood that the result might be that SweetMarias might not match. I fully understood that after a dialog with the owners I may have discovered that my assumptions and conclusions about the mark-up on high-dollar, low-inventory equipment were wrong. However, if SweetMarias had shown a willingness to dialog, I at least would have been willing to do future business with SweetMarias. Since SweetMarias has decided not to dialog, I will indeed vote with my feet and do business elsewhere now and in the future.

I wish SweetMarias continued success. Even though I will not be buying from SweetMarias again, I STILL hope that the owners eventually read the entire thread of emails that started nearly two weeks ago, and perhaps find ways they can improve their policy and be even more successful in their business.

Best of luck to all.

Eric