Ordering From FNAC

[UnionJackMix]

Originally Posted by romuald121

Beware, they don't charge you import fees, so if you buy a pre-order item and get it delivered to you on release day, expect customs to milk you with import fees. I know I paid 24 CAD on a 29.99 euros Star Wars SB.

Indeed, be aware of your country's threshhold so you can potentially play around with the order content and often cheaper to order items singularly and not combine within the same order.

[Douglas R]

Originally Posted by cfx

Do FNAC still do sales on blu-rays? There was one when I ordered back in May. I don't remember exactly how it worked now; I do remember before that for quite a while there was one I missed; a 3-for-2 offer for many in-stock titles that I think were all 15 EUR normal price, but that may have been some kind of inventory reduction thing.

Since that time, all I have seen are the ones that just give some kind of credit if you have their membership card; I believe one of those is running currently.

There are things I want from them, and I'm trying to decide if there's any point in waiting. If they don't really do sales, then there is no reason to wait. I'm thinking if they don't have anything between now and the end of the year that they don't do it anymore.

FNAC were doing 3 for the price of 2 when I was in Madrid in September. I didn’t realise that until I went to the desk to pay for my 3 discs!

[ptb2010]

Originally Posted by cfx

Do FNAC still do sales on blu-rays? There was one when I ordered back in May. I don't remember exactly how it worked now; I do remember before that for quite a while there was one I missed; a 3-for-2 offer for many in-stock titles that I think were all 15 EUR normal price, but that may have been some kind of inventory reduction thing.

Since that time, all I have seen are the ones that just give some kind of credit if you have their membership card; I believe one of those is running currently.

There are things I want from them, and I'm trying to decide if there's any point in waiting. If they don't really do sales, then there is no reason to wait. I'm thinking if they don't have anything between now and the end of the year that they don't do it anymore.

I went into their store in Toulouse last week and was once again surprised at how few Blu Rays they actually have for sale and how few were discounted. Full price is around 23 euros and the few discounted, none of which I found of interest, around 15 euros. Like so many other stores they have shelves heaving with DVDs but stick Blu Rays off to one side. No wonder the majority of the public hasn't warmed to them, in spite of there being nothing but HD tvs and mainly Blu Ray players to buy now.

[witchmania]

Is it just a problem at my end, or are Fnac no longer accepting orders from the UK..?

Bit of a disaster if that's the case.

[RossyG]

Problem your end, I think.

[witchmania]

Originally Posted by RossyG

Problem your end, I think.

Oh, really? I very much hope you're right! When I get to the checkout stage and I enter my address, it highlights the field where you select Royaume Uni as your country, and says something along the lines of: 'This address is not eligible for the contents of your basket'.

I'm just trying to order some Potemkine and Gaumont releases - the sort of stuff I've ordered from them countless times before...

[RossyG]

Originally Posted by witchmania

Oh, really? I very much hope you're right! When I get to the checkout stage and I enter my address, it highlights the field where you select Royaume Uni as your country, and says something along the lines of: 'This address is not eligible for the contents of your basket'.

I'm just trying to order some Potemkine and Gaumont releases - the sort of stuff I've ordered from them countless times before...

Damn, seems you’re right. I tried a dummy order and got the same.

It was fine a couple of weeks ago…

[witchmania]

I buy (or rather, bought ) quite a lot from Fnac, and I still have an unfulfilled order with them... and a Fnac membership card, so I'll be asking for a refund on that, I suppose.

I'd placed a few orders with them in the last year that made it to customs and then got turned around, sent back to Fnac and ultimately, cancelled, so they're clearly having a nightmare with Brexit admin. It's so frustrating.

[UnionJackMix]

I have to say that I've been let down by fnac in the last months so that I'm not too sure I'll use them as much as until now, simply because many pre-orders have gone unfulfilled without explanation (awaiting stock from supplier) when the same items are in stock online and in their stores once you check. So annoying and stupid. However no real issue with ordering items in stock.
My membership expires soon and I'll let it expire as you get better deals if you make a brand new one, if you wait a while

[RossyG]

I haven’t tried to order anything, but I’ve noticed that the “not eligible” line no longer appears when you select Royaume Uni. Could be that the issue is sorted.

[McCrutchy]

One thing that irritates me about FNAC is that they seem to have a lot of problems with credit cards. For whatever reason, transactions with them going years back have always been flagged by my bank, which forces me to call my bank and ask them to remove the hold, Lately, I've also noticed that if I pre-order or titles are just simply not in stock for longer than a few days, the credit card authorization seems to expire and FNAC want me to revise payment, but on my last order, their system was stuck telling me that I had already revised the payment information for a second shipment in the order. FNAC eventually cancelled that portion of the order without helping me to solve the situation, so now I have to wait to order more titles to get the three that I should have had last month.

On the other hand, shipping to the States at Amazon.fr is still grossly expensive and they don't have a loyalty program, though that said, I have been waiting for weeks for a decent FNAC+ offer on the Blu-rays in my cart and there has been none, not even over Christmas/Boxing Day or the New Year celebrations. So, for two March titles I want, I've ended up going with Amazon, since I know they won't give me payment issues.

[UnionJackMix]

I had something similar happen to me: I made an order of three items, and it went through smoothly, I was asked to enter the SMS code for my credit card, and was confirmed the order was played and payment taken.
Then after a few days I get an email saying that they are "still waiting" for me to complete my payment and that I must go on the website and follow the steps. The steps are to , if I remember correctly, reprocess the payment. I did this, and item no.1 gets dispatched and arrives. the other two were pre-orders.
Come time of release date I get the same email, except that the page on their site has not been refreshed by them (clearly a big failure on their part in these "failed" payments) because the page says that I already tried and if it doesn't work to come back in a few hours. It had been weeks since I did that so clearly the page would never change. So I spend a bit of time to try and find a way to contact them and they tell me that I need to speak to the accounting department and that they are closed and I need to call back or email them.
First of all I'm really disappointed that they can't just pass on the issue to them, after all it's not my fault and why should a paying customer call another department? Second, why can't THEY call me? Maybe in this respect I've been spoiled by Amazon. By the way, you have to pay if you call this number.
I said forget it, I will order it elsewhere.
A couple of days later I receive an email saying there was a payment incident that caused my order to be cancelled. All of it, so I don't even have a history on my account that says the delivered item was purchased. Currently can't be bothered to go look in my many-pages long credit card statement what they did.
All I know is that this is extremely customer unfriendly and puts me way off using them.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by UnionJackMix

I had something similar happen to me: I made an order of three items, and it went through smoothly, I was asked to enter the SMS code for my credit card, and was confirmed the order was played and payment taken.
Then after a few days I get an email saying that they are "still waiting" for me to complete my payment and that I must go on the website and follow the steps. The steps are to , if I remember correctly, reprocess the payment. I did this, and item no.1 gets dispatched and arrives. the other two were pre-orders.
Come time of release date I get the same email, except that the page on their site has not been refreshed by them (clearly a big failure on their part in these "failed" payments) because the page says that I already tried and if it doesn't work to come back in a few hours. It had been weeks since I did that so clearly the page would never change. So I spend a bit of time to try and find a way to contact them and they tell me that I need to speak to the accounting department and that they are closed and I need to call back or email them.
First of all I'm really disappointed that they can't just pass on the issue to them, after all it's not my fault and why should a paying customer call another department? Second, why can't THEY call me? Maybe in this respect I've been spoiled by Amazon. By the way, you have to pay if you call this number.
I said forget it, I will order it elsewhere.
A couple of days later I receive an email saying there was a payment incident that caused my order to be cancelled. All of it, so I don't even have a history on my account that says the delivered item was purchased. Currently can't be bothered to go look in my many-pages long credit card statement what they did.
All I know is that this is extremely customer unfriendly and puts me way off using them.

This sounds like exactly what happened to me last month. I emailed their accounting department and did not hear back from them until after their system had already cancelled my order. The e-mail they did send confirmed that the order was cancelled by the system and invited me to re-order, which of course, I could not do without paying additional shipping fees, since they had already shipped and charged me for part of the order.

[McCrutchy]

Well, I just placed an order with FNAC which is probably going to come in 4 shipments over the next 2-3 weeks. Based on my previous experience, I chose PayPal this time over my credit card, even though I recently learned that PayPal takes a fee in the form of a less favorable conversion rate. We'll see if it works.

By the way, for the next several hours, FNAC has €10 off €100, I believe this is only for FNAC+ members, but it does stack, so if you buy €200, you get €20, €300, you get €30, and so on.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by cfx

Is FNAC+ worth it if you aren't in France? I looked at it a while back when it seemed that the only discounts on blu-rays were tied to that but it didn't seem like it would be worth it unless you ordered often and spent a lot. Maybe I misinterpreted some of the terms, but it appeared you didn't get the discounts applied to the current order, but rather deposited into an account to be used at a later time. Given their shipping charges to the US, and how it isn't bad for larger orders but is terrible for very small ones, I only order once or twice a year but with large orders, and even that is going to taper off once I get most of what I want in another two orders or so.

[I guess I should add I have a bias against "pay to save" plans in general i.e. I'd never use Amazon Prime though in that particular case I don't see any value in it since I am not impatient on shipping times so I get free shipping from them anyway.]

I haven't figured this out yet. My guess is yes, but as you say, only if you order frequently. You are correct that discounts don't apply to the current order but are either deposited in a "loyalty pot" or, if I recall correctly, deposited in your account as a gift voucher, depending on the terms of the promotion during the given sale.

I already had an issue with one of the Blu-rays I bought not having English subtitles, despite both FNAC and Amazon saying it did. I did end up returning it and and got store credit eventually, but it was a big pain compared to dealing with Amazon. I don't speak French and while FNAC will sometimes respond to English via chat, their e-mail communications are always in French, even when I e-mail them in English first.

I got the card in August 2021 (apparently the physical cards can only be picked up at a retail location, so mine is only online), because I had placed a large order during a sale and wanted the refund. I think I have netted about €20-€35 so far, and I believe €15 of that was in a gift voucher, not counting the store credit I received. FNAC makes it really hard to keep track of, though, because everything on their site is hidden away in sections and there is one page where you must scroll far down to see how your "loyalty pot" is doing.

In the order I just made, I should be getting €40 back when all is said and done, so hopefully that will come through all at once. I will try to update here about how that goes, along with receiving my shipments.

[UnionJackMix]

Yes I have to say their customer service and approach is not the best and amazon's is much better in that respect. Which is not good because I try to use fnac trying to avoid amazon like the plague.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

[Show spoiler]I haven't figured this out yet. My guess is yes, but as you say, only if you order frequently. You are correct that discounts don't apply to the current order but are either deposited in a "loyalty pot" or, if I recall correctly, deposited in your account as a gift voucher, depending on the terms of the promotion during the given sale.

I already had an issue with one of the Blu-rays I bought not having English subtitles, despite both FNAC and Amazon saying it did. I did end up returning it and and got store credit eventually, but it was a big pain compared to dealing with Amazon. I don't speak French and while FNAC will sometimes respond to English via chat, their e-mail communications are always in French, even when I e-mail them in English first.

I got the card in August 2021 (apparently the physical cards can only be picked up at a retail location, so mine is only online), because I had placed a large order during a sale and wanted the refund. I think I have netted about €20-€35 so far, and I believe €15 of that was in a gift voucher, not counting the store credit I received. FNAC makes it really hard to keep track of, though, because everything on their site is hidden away in sections and there is one page where you must scroll far down to see how your "loyalty pot" is doing.

In the order I just made, I should be getting €40 back when all is said and done, so hopefully that will come through all at once. I will try to update here about how that goes, along with receiving my shipments.

So, the bulk of my items (fourteen titles) have already arrived from DHL Express in less than two business days. One blue amaray case might be damaged from being crushed by the others, but I haven't been able to take it out of the shrinkwrap yet. Other than that, everything is perfect.

EDIT: Nothing was crushed, it was just an unusual design inside the case which makes the back seem flimsier.

The remaining three items will be shipped separately. Two are pre-orders out on the 19th, while one is a released title which FNAC said would take 4-8 days to ship when I placed the order.

FNAC says deposits into your loyalty pot take two days, however, there is nothing in my loyalty pot, yet. Perhaps all items need to be shipped, first.

[UnionJackMix]

I wouldn't rule it out.
Also, this is the second time in a row my package is held up at the customs because apparently, so they say, there are no shipping documents required for the customs deliberation. I simply don't believe it. Last time it happened, once they cleared the issue with my help, the package arrived and as usual, the shipping document was attached to the package, as it always is.
Curious to find out what excuse they can dream up this time, but it's a bit annoying that because of this my 1-2 day delivery gets delayed indefinitely.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

So, the bulk of my items (fourteen titles) have already arrived from DHL Express in less than two business days. One blue amaray case might be damaged from being crushed by the others, but I haven't been able to take it out of the shrinkwrap yet. Other than that, everything is perfect.

EDIT: Nothing was crushed, it was just an unusual design inside the case which makes the back seem flimsier.

The remaining three items will be shipped separately. Two are pre-orders out on the 19th, while one is a released title which FNAC said would take 4-8 days to ship when I placed the order.

FNAC says deposits into your loyalty pot take two days, however, there is nothing in my loyalty pot, yet. Perhaps all items need to be shipped, first.

The two pre-orders just shipped. I'm a little bit nervous about the last title, the one that said "4-8 days" when I ordered, since it seems to be out of stock at Amazon as well. However, it does seem to be still in print and is available at FNAC stores.

Nothing in the loyalty pot, yet.

[UnionJackMix]

Originally Posted by McCrutchy

The two pre-orders just shipped. I'm a little bit nervous about the last title, the one that said "4-8 days" when I ordered, since it seems to be out of stock at Amazon as well. However, it does seem to be still in print and is available at FNAC stores.

Nothing in the loyalty pot, yet.

That's where the trouble started with me. I pre-ordered many titles and they were just not shipping and the order page said they were pending from the label, but this was several weeks after release and other sites had them as avaiblable and even fnac themselves (!!).
I eventually cancelled those orders and got them from an amazon.