• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

thegreenmachineonline

peter.k

Member
Joined
17 Oct 2015
Messages
32
Hi.
Does anybody have experience with ordering from TGM website?
Particularly extremely slow delivery and unable to login on their website since today.
 
I have ordered plants from them a couple of times, once towards the end of last year and delivery was very slow. They said they had it in stock, but were too busy and short staffed to send it out! I waited 3 days for them to just post it out and that was paying £13.95 for express delivery! I would not have gone back to them after that, but I complained and they offered a discount on postage. I placed another order last week, that arrived on time, but they knew to ensure that it arrived on a specific date.

My order last week included one plant in bad condition and another in really poor condition. I'm getting a refund from them on one of them, but in future I will heed the advice given on these forums and stick to companies like Aquarium Gardens and Aqua Essentials. To be fair, the rest of my order was great condition Tropica plants, but that's twice now that things have not been spot on and I won't be giving them a third chance.

They have recently changed their shop opening hours and said to me that this was to improve their online order delivery process, so they do at least know they have had some issues and need to improve.

As for the website, it's been slow in general ever since their redesign, either bad code or their hosting is not up to the volume maybe.

EDIT: I can't log in to TGM at the moment, its taking forever. Suspect it will time out at some point...
 
I wanted a few Java ferns.
After postage it worked out at almost £30 .
:bored:
 
I have ordered plants from them once and never again! They were in very bad condition.
 
awful service a 1 week order took 10 weeks and I always had to contact them they would never advise me! and to make it worse the order turned up one day with no warring and left on the path outside my house luckily my neighbour see it this order was not a cheap order either when I contacted them about this issue they blanked me and still not had a response back to this day
 
Yeah they are expensive, now I have found more local fish stores I don't use them.
 
awful service a 1 week order took 10 weeks and I always had to contact them they would never advise me! and to make it worse the order turned up one day with no warring and left on the path outside my house luckily my neighbour see it this order was not a cheap order either when I contacted them about this issue they blanked me and still not had a response back to this day
10weeks? Hmm so I still have 8 weeks to go :). Is there anybody else in UK, who is selling ADA aqua soil?
 
Never had a problem with them, plants always in perfect condition and if what I ordered was in stock then next day delivery and if not then either a phone call or an email to let me know.

They have started shutting on Saturdays recently which is a bit rubbish, I hope that isn't a sign of something more ominous
 
I used to order from them years ago and each time received excellent plants and excellent service. However, I ordered from them last year and I won't be using them again! Service and customer care seems to have gone awol at Green Machine unfortunately.

I ordered a full size plant and was sent a 1-2 grow version instead which was a few pounds cheaper than what I had paid for. I contacted them and they said they would refund the difference but I would have preferred to have been sent the plant actually ordered, as I pointed out to them. The 1-2 grow plants didn't last long and were soon in the bin! Delivery is also painfully slow. Now I use Aqua Essentials - very fast delivery and great plants.
 
Never had a problem with them, plants always in perfect condition and if what I ordered was in stock then next day delivery and if not then either a phone call or an email to let me know.

They have started shutting on Saturdays recently which is a bit rubbish, I hope that isn't a sign of something more ominous

When I complained to them about the service I received back in November, they told me the store hours changing were so they could better deal with online orders. Back in November, I placed my order pretty early in the morning, between 9 and 10, but apparently that was too late in the day to make the cut off! Look at AE who use the same courier, cut off is end of the day. They told me that everything was in stock and it would be dispatched the following day, that they had put all my plants aside and it was ready to go. The following day I received no dispatch e-mail, so I gave them a call to find out why it had not been sent. Do you know what I was told? They said that they only have 2 people picking and 1 person packing, so it was not their fault that they had not had time to pick and pack and send my order that day. Really? Is that an acceptable excuse, that they have so much business and some of the highest prices out there, but don't pay enough staff or have effective processes to handle their orders? They finally dispatched it on day 3, but this meant that it didn't make it to Aberdeen until Saturday. I then had to go get it from the DPD depot on the Saturday otherwise it would have sat there all weekend. What did I pay for the pleasure of this speedy express service, £13.95!

I suspect that they do indeed have issues with their business, highest prices around, then they must spend a FORTUNE on these fancy display tanks. How much business do you really think they do through the shop compare to online? Considering they now only open Monday to Friday during standard working hours when most people are not able to visit and they are closed at weekends to give them more time to handle online orders suggests that their real money is made online and they now need to pick up their game to compete with companies like AE that sell plants which are just as good if not better for a lower price combined with service where they don't act like they are always right and the customer is wrong. They can't just trade on their old reputation for ever, they need to compete on price and service and at the moment they are lacking in both.
 
When I complained to them about the service I received back in November, they told me the store hours changing were so they could better deal with online orders. Back in November, I placed my order pretty early in the morning, between 9 and 10, but apparently that was too late in the day to make the cut off! Look at AE who use the same courier, cut off is end of the day. They told me that everything was in stock and it would be dispatched the following day, that they had put all my plants aside and it was ready to go. The following day I received no dispatch e-mail, so I gave them a call to find out why it had not been sent. Do you know what I was told? They said that they only have 2 people picking and 1 person packing, so it was not their fault that they had not had time to pick and pack and send my order that day. Really? Is that an acceptable excuse, that they have so much business and some of the highest prices out there, but don't pay enough staff or have effective processes to handle their orders? They finally dispatched it on day 3, but this meant that it didn't make it to Aberdeen until Saturday. I then had to go get it from the DPD depot on the Saturday otherwise it would have sat there all weekend. What did I pay for the pleasure of this speedy express service, £13.95!

I suspect that they do indeed have issues with their business, highest prices around, then they must spend a FORTUNE on these fancy display tanks. How much business do you really think they do through the shop compare to online? Considering they now only open Monday to Friday during standard working hours when most people are not able to visit and they are closed at weekends to give them more time to handle online orders suggests that their real money is made online and they now need to pick up their game to compete with companies like AE that sell plants which are just as good if not better for a lower price combined with service where they don't act like they are always right and the customer is wrong. They can't just trade on their old reputation for ever, they need to compete on price and service and at the moment they are lacking in both.

Completely different experience to mine, not that I'm a big buyer from them. It seems everybody here has had a bad experience with them so I must be the odd one out (or blessed with good fortune as I like to see it....) .

The closing at weekends is a bit strange, surely they would be better closing say Tuesday/Wednesday to cater for the online side of the business and let the rest of us working types visit at the weekend when we're off. Being from north Wales it's a convenient place to visit at the weekends if I need stuff and if I buy from them it's generally ADA stuff (which mostly can be had cheaper from Green Aqua or Aquasabi if I want mail order) like tanks. It was always nice to pop in and have a look at those tanks or have a mess around with bit's of stone and wood in their dirt box; which looks as if I won't be able to do again if they're not open when I'm off work

Maybe someone ought to point out this thread to James the famous aquascaper so he can see he needs to climb down off his perch and smell the roses as it were
 
I also think the weekend idea is strange, but they said it was to help with online orders. Does not make much sense though as this is what they said:

"We have changed the times for exactly the reason you mentioned. We want to improve the online shopping experience and make it as efficient as possible.

We place our weekly plant orders on a Friday for delivery the following Tuesday (soon to become Mondays we hope)."


If this is indeed the case and their order now arrives with them on Monday, your suggestion of closing earlier in the week, say Monday\Tuesday to get all the orders picked, packed and dispatched makes more sense. If they do not have the stock on Saturday and Sunday, what are they doing that makes the online order experience better? It could just be that they are using that time to ensure their paperwork is in order ready for the Monday?

My biggest gripe is the fact that when they make a mistake, rather than just hold their hands up and say sorry, which would make me far more chilled out, there is always an excuse, its not their fault, even when the excuse is they don't have enough staff to process the number of orders they receive which is clearly bad management on their part.

I only placed the second recent order with them as they seemed to be the only place I could get everything in one order and they offered to discount the shipping as compensation for the experience in November. I figured I would give them a second change, but I'll not be shopping with them again after I get my refund.

I can understand you going there if its local, I would love access to a decent source of hardscape where I could pick and chose what I wanted myself, I'm sure I would use them for hardscape if I lived in that area if nothing else.
 
an experience I had with greenmachine 4-5 months ago, was that I ordered a mother plant anubias barteri; I got calls though to let me know there was no barteri, and would I be happy with a coffifolia instead. I didn't mind, received my order in the next day or so; it was a decent sized plant, healthy.

Haven't ordered since just because of price and availability though, I got my recent plants from aquarium gardens; who were top notch on delivery and quality :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: tim
Sadly, their pricing is too high for me, I've had things in cart a lot, but local stores, and (gulp) ebay have provided well enough and saved me cash. Does look like they know what they're talking about though.
 
Hi all

I don't live in the UK and I have never visited TGM, but I know quite a few "ADA look" and ADA distributors shops. IMO this is a very difficult business, as they clearly rely on luxury items, at least to the eyes of most of the hobbyists. The shops I know in Spain like this have a quick turnover of fantastic and huge tanks, big shops with an aesthetic very far from classic LFS, less fish, etc... All this unavoidably entails higher costs and higher prices. In my town, most hobbyist use these shops for buying some exclusive items (for example ADA AquaSoil, only sold in one shop with ADA exclusive distribution) but of course most people rely on standard LFS to buy most of the supplies needed, which are much less expensive. Additionally the ADA look goods have been copied during the last years and now sold at very affordable prices. I myself can buy now glass lily pipes from Spanish brands which are exactly the same as ADA, Borneo Wild, etc. for a fraction of its original price. Co2 diffuser, enriched substrates, etc. are now produced by other brands, with very good results and also cheaper.

Jordi
 
What would be good is for another UK dealer to stock ADA to the same level as TGM. I appreciate there are other makes than ADA but they seem to be the driving force behind the shop
 
Hi.
I didn't tried bad-mouth TGM. I'm still new to this hobby. Have great experience with Aquariumplantfood/Co2art/Aquariumgardens but TGM is something new for me. I just got very surprised when i received other item ordered same day from australia and china (E-bay). And my order is still processing and nobody is responding on email. I thought TGM is like top notch place.
 
Back
Top