“Be careful! Be SURE they have your item IN STOCK as I placed a drumhead order not knowing they did not have most of them! Gladly took my money tho. Cautious....”
“I ordered my first new les paul from sweetwater.com and overall the experience was OK. The free shipping was nightmare with fedex. It started out with email saying it had shipped when in fact it had not. It appears sweetwater generates shipping email simply when a lable is created not when the item is actually in the shippers hands. That is on sweetwater. Fedex did take the pony express route getting the guitar to me which was 1 week from placing the order and the outer shipping box appearance made my heart sink when I saw the damage. The guitar was undamaged.
After purchasing the guitar I was assigned a sales engineer. This is where sweetwater gets the 3 stars. I am creeped out by this guys picture appearing in each email and every time my search brings up sweetwater on the internet. I feel like I am being cyber stalked every time I go to sweetwater.com and I am forced to deal with this guy?? Now I don't shop there because of this.”
“My sales agent is ok but in general it seems like once the sale is made they don’t want to be bothered. I called tech support one day and spoke to a guy named Vinny. He sounded like I had just woke him up and couldn’t gimme clear answers except to refer me back to my sales agent if there were any problems with the guitars I purchased. I spent several thousands dollars on guitars over the past few months. My sales agent is not in the tech department. The technicians are in the technical department. In any event with the amount of money I spent there are several departments that need more customer service training. Sales and tech support being the main 2 in my opinion. Thank you”
“I'm a customer, not frequent, but a customer. I reached out twice to get information about service, once to my sales advisor and once to the general contact, and never got a response. I guess they only care when I put the credit card info into my cart and hit the "buy" button. Dissappointing.”
“Quoted price for product in writing, then ordered products….received sales receipt and price was $100 more…..cancelled order…..customer for over 20 years”
“I was a drummer in my earlier day with 2 kits total.. life got a hold of me and I sold my last kit in my 20’s. Then 44 years later got tired of drumming on my steering wheel and my desk and decided I was going to by a new kit. I bought a 5 piece birch kit with white birch wrap and the set is beautiful. I’m back to drumming again and 3 months into returning to something I love brown glue starts leaching out of the wrap seam on my 10 inch Tom. I called Sweetwater who told me not to worry, that they would call D Drum and forward pics of the discrepancy. I was told Sweetwaters offers 1 yr warranty and so does DDrum.
Few days later I get an email from Sweetwater stating D Drum does not warranty the glue job and neither does Sweetwater. Sweetwater said they would send the Tom to a repair shop
At my cost for labor and shipping.
I was so happy with the engineers at Sweetwater and their Sales Davy but as far as helping with a true problem in a matter of the first few months they are very disappointing. So bottom line… everyone I bragged to about Sweetwater will now be told not to deal with them at all.”
“In my experience, their inspection process is almost worse than worthless. I say this because I recently received a poorly setup instrument from them that I had to pay a local luthier to sort out. Sweetwater's response was that a few duds are 'bound to slip through' and that they'd 'make it right next time' (i.e., on my next purchase.)
I have received poorly setup instruments before, but not that were obviously defective that I couldn't simply have replaced by the seller (either Musician's Friend or the manufacturer directly). In fact, Fender's Customer Support is so good, that I only by Fender items directly from them now.”
“Used to be the best place to buy gear. Excellent customer service, dedicated sales staff for you personally, etc. However, service had gone downhill a lot in the past couple of years. They love to talk about their hand inspections of instruments before they are shipped, as well as their extra year of warranty. Well it sounds good, until you have a problem. Then it is a hassle to get something fixed. Their inspections really don’t do anything. They make it sound like they set the instrument up properly, but they really do not. Other options out there with much better customer service.”
“I strongly recommend that if your going to buy any instruments or accessories, do not buy them online. Buy them locally. When or if you do have any issues you can resolve them face to face. Odds are when you leave the store you have already kicked the tires and had any issues resolved and taken care of before you buy your product and depart. Another reason to buy locally, you are supporting your community.
As much as I liked Sweetwater, I have to say out of all of the stores I have purchased online they have failed on shipping several times. No replies back when you require attention. I have had no issues all my life with any other music store except Sweetwater. Believe me I have spent thousands in-store and online from all stores. I've been at this for 47 years. Consider my advice strongly.
When you buy online your now giving them the option to deal with your issues or not. When in person they have no choice! Believe me they'll want to resolve any problems and get you along your way. They need to make money!
My experience with Sweetwater shipping has been a failure 3 times out of 6 purchases online. No response back. I texted, I emailed, about the shipping. They never responded. They actually fixed my link in my app to track my shipping. How you ask? I could no longer check the status, so I had to go directly to Fed Ex to check on my status here out. That's how they resolved my issues. Instead of dealing with their carrier, it was easier to shut me out.
I am still waiting on my guitar after it has traveled 2192 miles. Sad part is we are only 188 3 miles apart, a 3 hour drive. A week later still waiting while Fed Ex continues their failure to deliver my package. But this is who Sweetwater uses as their carrier. Never had any issues with UPS or others.
Buy locally. Sweetwater has only 1 location? So you think they would have better shipping since majority of their business is online? Yet it's very evident that their business is so successful they really don't need yours. They aim for the career musicians, more money.
My local music supplier has been constantly calling me to buy, little annoying, but I now wished I would have drove 45 miles instead. The guitar I wanted and bought was also at my local dealer.
It's local for me now on.
3 strikes and your out. Sorry Sweetwater, I also don't need your business so its all good!
I gave this a 2 star because they did ship successfully 3 times out of 6 orders. It's 50/50 shipping with it comes to purchading from Sweetwater.
Also the question asked how long it took for a response. I picked over a week but actually they never have responded back. I guess once the product leaves their location, they are done with you?”
“EZ pay is a joke. Not easy at all, and doesnt approve for even a 130 ukulele. I have had 1000's of dollars worth of purchases with zzounds and american musical with their EZ pay, and they have longer terms!!! Sales guy could have cared less, even said to use zzounds then.”
