Too Much Coffee

Has anyone on here had any experiences with http://www.coffeecult.net?
I am interested in making a substatial purchase(machine) and would like to know if anybody had any info on this particular company?

Thanks in advance

I know nothing of them. A quick "whois" search yields the info that their domain has only been registered for just over five months. Beyond that I don't know what to say - except that (unless they're new to the web or have recently changed domain names, but have been trading as a mail order shop for much longer) their testimonials are rather extensive for what seems to be a new business.

All of that said, there is absolutely nothing out of order here - just a few questions raised, perhaps. If they've been using Google Adwords to drum up business (for example), it's not at all impossible for them to have reached the volume of business that their testimonials imply.

Has anyone else got anything more substantive?

Hello Guest,

Assuming that you are in the UK I would be a bit suspicious of this site for two reasons;

1. There appears to be no physical trading address, only a phone number. So it is a bit unclear where this company is.

2. They state that their products are covered by 'international gurantee'. So when your machine breaks you have to find your local rep for that model and ask them to fix it. Could be difficult to prove the age of the machine etc. Also it may not be a model that can be repaired in the UK

Is the svaing worth the hassle?. I would rather go to one of the many good dealers in the UK.

Adrian

sorry - can NOT be reapired in the UK

or even - repaired.

What happened to the message EDIT button - seem to have lost it.

Guest does not mention where he/she/it is so we have no idea where in Europe they may be. CoffeeCult appear to be Italy based (+39 prefix and ship by UPS and prices include Italian tax only). The site works fine and they are probably a drop ship reseller that never touches the kit which is fine if you want a cheap deal - but as Adrian mentions Warranty is pretty much non existant - back to the manufacturer at best. That said most pro-sumer machines of the type they are offering are pretty hard wearing and in most cases will hold out until a few days after the Warranty (just like any other damn thing you buy nowadays) before pegging out.

Phils comments on Adwords boosting their sales are spot on, but they don't seem to have a top 50 ranking on the link logo, and actually loll at 147 in the espresso top 50 which to put in perspective I have a couple of pages that get around 100 unique hits per week which get a 160 ranking (I have these as a level test) where my main site ranks between 25 and 30 per week with 6 to 7 thousand unique hits per week - so either they are masters at converting visitors to sales or making use of friends/family in a pro-marketing sort of way.

It would be nice to know how guest gets on if a purchase is made, it could be the best way to buy since e-bay or a total disaster! Who knows.

Just noticed that their Rancilio Silvia page is lifted word-for-word, picture-for-picture out of sweetmaria's page. Good taste in copyright theft, but it brings up a can of worms.

Sorry, I should have metioned that I'm in the Netherlands. The machine is an Elektra GL. Thanks for the input.

Their price seems good for that machine, but can anyone provide any comparisons between the Elecktra and the ECM Giotto I know is a favourite on TMC? The Giotto looks similar and is less notes then the Elektra.

Good point by Wang, although as long as they do sell the Rancilio Silva and all the specs and pics are OEM Rancilio and not SM's custom specs and pictures then it is not really and issue. It's a bit like five different Ford card dealers selling a focus estate but cutting and pasting the spec and promo pics straight from the Ford web site - they are all selling the same car so only price will be different. Ford will not mind - the dealers are after all helping to advertise their product and with luck sell it for them - a sale is a sale however it is done. If SM have sole distributorship rights throughout the world and they produced their own product pics and discriptions then they could moan - but why bother? At best it's a bit anal and at worst complaining someone else advertises the same kit as someone else suggests the the complainee has far too much time on their hands - which means they are not selling much - I can't see SM being bothered as they have quite a large chunk of the market stiched up.

The photos and descriptions were written and taken by SM though, and aren't stock Rancilio photos, which means coffeecult weren't arsed to make their own description or pics. More like an unknown dealer without a street reputation taking a bad photocopy of a well known dealers poster and marking it as their own.

MESSAGE FROM MODERATOR:

RE: www.coffeecult.net

I deleted two posts from "Guests", one asking for info about www.coffeecult.net, the other saying that the poster "bought a machine there" and that its price was "the lowest on the web".

Both posts originated from the same IP address, both of them from a .it domain. As the proprietor of www.coffeecult.net asked us to become a member today, I am almost certain that both messages were written by the owner of www.coffeecult.net. The TMC site management warned him that advertising for www.coffeecult.net was not permitted on toomuchcoffee, but apparently that didn't impress him too much.

If anyone asks me what I think of www.coffeecult.net, I would say: I wouldn't trust www.coffeecult.net one bit, if they need to resort to this sort of manoeuvres. (Huh? Googlebombing? What's that? )

This topic is now locked.