Brewuk....online shop

[RichardM]

I placed an order on the BrewUK website on the 23rd of May and it arrived today. A couple of items that were in stock when I ordered were out of stock by the time they processed the order, but they were substituted with suitable alternatives.

 

[rolando]

I ordered and items arrived about 3 weeks after, they're good but have serious lockdown lag!

 

[Buffers brewery]

Ordered on 21st May. Received part shipment 3rd June. One item out of stock (in stock when I placed my order). Substitute supplied FOC. Outstanding item will be sent when new stock available.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Just as a datapoint, I placed orders last Monday night with Malt Miller and BrewUK. The TMM order arrived Thursday (albeit several hours after DPD forecast), the BrewUK order arrived today having been put in the tender hands of Parcelfarce yesterday. So 6.5 days from order to arrival.

It's interesting, there's obviously still some random problems in the supply chains - most places seem to rely on Young's for gypsum and almost nowhere had it (or any other water adjustments) in stock when I ordered, other than BrewUK. Still, an excuse to play with some of the Warminster speciality malts whilst I'm about it.

 

[jMac]

I haven’t been brewing during lockdown - 3 year old twins around 24/7 has made it kind of, um, difficult. But I put a BrewUK order in late Friday evening before I was aware of all the difficulties customers had been having with them over the past few months. It was only after I’d ordered that I thought to check how the present situation might affect delivery, and was rather worried seeing everyone’s comments here and elsewhere about poor communication from BrewUK during lockdown, and the lack of any clear or recent information on the BrewUK website or social media channels.

I’m not condoning this - it seems their customer service skills and the lack of transparency with supply issues have been atrocious - but I’m pleased to report that my order of assorted grain, hops and yeasts was dispatched first thing Monday morning and is out for delivery today. Fingers crossed they’ve sorted out their issues, so hopefully it’s now safe to order from them again. I have a feeling they’ll have to work very hard to win back those disaffected by their misguided actions over the past few months, however.

jx

 

[Sadfield]

I haven’t been brewing during lockdown - 3 year old twins around 24/7 has made it kind of, um, difficult. But I put a BrewUK order in late Friday evening before I was aware of all the difficulties customers had been having with them over the past few months. It was only after I’d ordered that I thought to check how the present situation might affect delivery, and was rather worried seeing everyone’s comments here and elsewhere about poor communication from BrewUK during lockdown, and the lack of any clear or recent information on the BrewUK website or social media channels.

I’m not condoning this - it seems their customer service skills and the lack of transparency with supply issues have been atrocious - but I’m pleased to report that my order of assorted grain, hops and yeasts was dispatched first thing Monday morning and is out for delivery today. Fingers crossed they’ve sorted out their issues, so hopefully it’s now safe to order from them again. I have a feeling they’ll have to work very hard to win back those disaffected by their misguided actions over the past few months, however.

jx

Most of brewuk's problems were caused by first time users firing in orders when the usual suppliers shut. Then expecting rapid dispatch and customer service from a company operating through strict social distancing measures, most likely with reduced staffing. I made an order at the end of May, it took around working 10 days to arrive as they had advised. I would suspect most of their regular customers saw it as a one off under exceptional circumstances.

 

[AndyEW]

I have been using Brew UK since 2015 for things my local Home Brew shop doesn't stock. Apart from a delay due to Covid in April, they have always been prompt delivering my orders. Helpful when I've had a question too. Admittedly, I don't think April and May were their best months for customer relations but I got the impression they had a reduced workforce, supply chain issues and more orders than they could process.

I have been talking to the owner of my local brew shop and he says the supply chain issues have been exacerbated by home brewers stockpiling. Sort of a rerun of the panic buying of loo roll and pasta but this time it was brewing ingredients.

 

[chris-s]

Re brewuk.

I placed an order and it was about 10 days to dispatch. The website was saying 5 days behind at the time.

I was begining to get nervous but held on without querying and it all worked out fine.

To be fair, they shut down ordering at least twice to my knowledge as the orders overwhelmed.

I think they behaved responsibly in that respect.

If I was to be uber critical, perhaps daily updates on the website. And a little more accurate delay info might have worked better.

I'll use brewuk again for sure.

 

[Dave.]

I’ll not be ordering from the again. I received a partial order in good time but, never received the rest. Poor communication, with constant lies when I did get a hold of them. Took 13 weeks for them to return my money. Even then they didn’t send as much as an email to say.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

At worst, it was taking them a month to turn around orders, and those orders, in my and others' experince, were sent out with substitutions. I don't think anyone has an issue with things taking longer and most reasonable people appreciate the situation. What I and many others had issue with was a lack of communication, and by that, I don't mean the lack of response to emails or answering the phone, rather the lack of tweet/website update. I can write a tweet in a matter of seconds. I can update a website in a couple of minutes. The time taken to do either or both of these things would have kept customers much happier, even if it were to say "sorry, your order will be with you in 20 working days" or something similar. Instead, there was nothing, and that's what was so frustrating.
It is from that experience that I found MM, who puts out a video every Friday and I feel that MM will have done themelves a massive favour in doing so. Ok, so it doesn't have to be a video, but whatever it is, keep your customers updated on the situation and they'll likely remain loyal.

 

[RichardM]

I'm still having problems with BrewUK. They have let me down for three orders in a row now.
The first one they missed off half the grain that I had ordered.
The second one the yeast was out of date
The third one the missed off the lactic acid and sent pellet hops when I asked for leaf.

My next order won't be with BrewUK

 

[DavidHatton]

I use either Geterbrewed or Malt Miller, always a good service.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

I'm still having problems with BrewUK. They have let me down for three orders in a row now.
The first one they missed off half the grain that I had ordered.
The second one the yeast was out of date
The third one the missed off the lactic acid and sent pellet hops when I asked for leaf.

My next order won't be with BrewUK

I'll only be using BrewUK if they are the only stockist of what I am after given my experience with them.
Malt Miller, Brew Keg Tap and Brew 2 Bottle have all been faultless recently.
I'd like to try GEB as they get reasonable reviews it seems.

 

[Buffers brewery]

They certainly don't like giving your money back. I have had 2 experiences of struggling to get a refund. The first because, although when I ordered an item that was showing as "In Stock", they didn't send it with my order. I waited for a week then asked for a refund. I had to email them twice before getting the refund. Same problem when I returned an item for refund.

 

[RichardM]

They certainly don't like giving your money back. I have had 2 experiences of struggling to get a refund. The first because, although when I ordered an item that was showing as "In Stock", they didn't send it with my order. I waited for a week then asked for a refund. I had to email them twice before getting the refund. Same problem when I returned an item for refund.

I haven't had that problem. I've twice had refunds promptly, once when I returned an item that turned out not to be what I expected and once when they only supplied half the grain that I ordered.

 

[HSD]

Bits and bobs, always been good

 

[HoppingMad]

Brewuk are pretty much the only online company I've used and, after many, many years of superb customer service, I've only ever had a couple of issues. One of those wasn't really their fault but they still sorted it out very quickly (Parcelforce 24 (or not, as the case may be) delayed delivery with liquid yeast in it; I spoke to Dan and he agreed he didn't want to take the risk the yeast may have died, given the extra time in transit, and they sent out replacements immediately, which I received the next day (and that was during lock down 1.0).

I agree that the communication could have / should have been better, and Twitter / website updates would have left people feeling a bit easier about things rather than the radio silence that occurred, but it's very hard to judge given the situation. I have no idea how people were personally affected and I don't think it's a massive operation, in terms of employee numbers, so it wouldn't take much to make a busy situation extremely difficult. Add in having to set up socially distancing regulations front and back of house, the issues with supply chains, and the massive increase in new / returning brewers with time on their hands (me included), I'm not really surprised they struggled and it went downhill fast.

I've recently put in a fairly large order in with them and will continue to use them until I believe there's a genuine issue with the service.

 

[Mungobiscuit]

I placed an order on the BrewUK website on the 23rd of May and it arrived today. A couple of items that were in stock when I ordered were out of stock by the time they processed the order, but they were substituted with suitable alternatives.

The homebrew shop at Farnborough, royal mail delivery and his range is awesome....websites a bit fiddly but you get used to it....hasn't let me down yet....

 

[Spratt]

I placed an order with BrewUk at 1100 on 10th September and it was with me by 0930 the following morning, so it's not all bad news.

Judging from the posts on this forum, they certainly made a mess of things at the start of the pandemic, so my order was a bit of a trial to see if they were back to normal and with the rapid service I got 3 weeks ago, I had thought their troubles were behind them. I'm sorry to hear that members are still getting bad service.

 

[pms67]

I placed an order with BrewUk at 1100 on 10th September and it was with me by 0930 the following morning, so it's not all bad news.

Judging from the posts on this forum, they certainly made a mess of things at the start of the pandemic, so my order was a bit of a trial to see if they were back to normal and with the rapid service I got 3 weeks ago, I had thought their troubles were behind them. I'm sorry to hear that members are still getting bad service.

That’s what happens when you live next door