we purchased a sofa with chaise in late January this year and were told that the order is made in China and then shipped to Australia. as it was around CNY period, we were supposed to wait for 12 weeks (with due date as 1st of May). after long wait, we received a call saying that the order will be delayed by another 2 weeks which we were ok with (obviously bit unhappy about it but there was not much choice anyway as they mentioned it was still within store policy).
finally we got the delivery today and there was a BIG surprise. the sofa came in 2 boxes. one of the piece (i believe sofa with backrest) was unexpectedly large in size (likely because they didn't make it detachable for the backrest and the seating cushions) and couldn't get through our main door or even another alternate door (our unit is on the ground level and i believe our door should be adhering to Australian standards). unfortunately, we had to return the delivery. while ordering, we were told that it will be delivered in disassembled state and should be very easy to assemble. however, we were not told the dimensions of the boxes.
now that we can not proceed with that lounge, i asked for a refund. the merchant is now saying that we may potentially loose 50% as the sofa was made-to-order and special orders can not be cancelled or will potentially attract heavy cancellation charges. the invoice says it as a "special order" which we did not pay much attention to as the invoice doesn't say anything about 50% cancellation fees but only points to their policy on website. when i told the merchant that we didn't request any customizations, he said that we chose a different color for the fabric which classifies our order as "custom made order". although, the color we selected was different than the display piece but it wasn't some special color of the fabric we requested just the lighter shade (one of the options available for that fabric). in my opinion, special order should be more like material customizations such as swapping the armrest or adding extra seat to the sofa itself or requesting any special type of fabric. simply choosing 1 of the available colors should not classify it as special order. interestingly, the same color we chose is displayed on their website now
what are the odds that the merchant can get away with 50% of our money just because we signed an invoice which says "special order" and according to their refund policy on website, special orders can not be cancelled or may attract upto 50% fees. i spoke to fair trading and they think that the size of the boxes was not disclosed and "silence" on this material fact should be sufficient enough for us to pursue this matter further with the merchant but the merchant is clearly refusing full refund as it is a special / custom order from his point of view or as per invoice signed by me.
based on the feedback so far:
we did ensure that the dimensions displayed on the display unit were something that can easily fit in our living room. its easy to say in the hindsight that we should have checked the box size too but given that our unit is on the ground level, we have managed to get deliveries of other large items like our existing 3 seater sofa, mattress etc through the same door, it was not something that we thought would be the blocking factor. lesson learned for future transactions for sure but here we are now.
let me ask some specific questions:
1) is simply choosing 1 of the available colors of the fabric, make it a "special order"?
2) the invoice does say if you sign this invoice, you agree to our terms and conditions on our website but the real question is can the store simply put fineprint on the website and get customer to sign the invoice at the time of purchase invoice itself does not indicate anything about 50% cancellation fees on special/ custom orders on the invoice.
3) should they not indicate box sizes alongwith actual dimensions of the assembled unit?
4) are they misguiding customer by saying that it comes in disassembled state and assembly should be easy but one of the piece is not detachable and turns out to be a blocking factor.
5) while going through the website policy, they also indicate that delay of 2 weeks or more should be compensated with 5% of invoice amount but when we received the call, they said 2 week delay is within policy. can we claim this 5% to reduce our damage to 45% in worst case?
would appreciate expert's opinion in this regard and explore various options accordingly.
Forget all the run around, get someone to remove a window/sliding door off so you can get the couch in.
Simpler