Has anyone ordered from DistriNode - are they legit?

airborne

airborne

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Over the last month or two when searching for things I've started getting hits from a website called DistriNode, sometimes at prices that look unusually low.
It seems to be some kind of price aggregation website, the website itself seems quite well put together but other than that I have no idea what it's about.

Has anyone used them before and if so how did it go?
What is their business model?

distrinode.co.za

About DistriNode | One Node. 72 Official Distributors. 600,000+ Products. | DistriNode SA

Learn about DistriNode, a South African online store connecting customers to 600,000+ products from 72 official distributors with nationwide delivery, alerts and rewards.
distrinode.co.za distrinode.co.za
 
Here is my golden rule for any site that does e-commerce (which will include services). Do they have a legal address contained within their legal pages, and if not, skip. Is the address identifiable even if it operates from a home, and if not, skip.

If you don't have that, then I won’t even look at your business model. Anyhow, from their big about hero,

About DistriNode​

DistriNode is a South African online store built to connect shoppers, businesses and procurement teams to a much wider technology and lifestyle catalogue through one account, one cart and one checkout.
Click to expand...

I had a similar idea once, years ago, for building out hubs for such a purpose; focused on technology, but the interest in it was quite low, so I scratched it. Marketplaces like Amazon, Takealot, Bob will all squash this.

Have a look at HelloPeter. Stay away.
 
Yes I was also wondering about the address because they have none and it's a legal requirement in South Africa for online shops to state their physical address.

Regarding HelloPeter, I had a look and the reviews are all largely positive but it does look like they have been rating stuffing, lots of very recent positive reviews
www.hellopeter.com

DistriNode (Pty) Ltd Reviews | 5.9 TrustIndex | Hellopeter

Read 39 real DistriNode (Pty) Ltd reviews from the last 12 months. TrustIndex 5.9/10 on Hellopeter, South Africa's largest consumer review platform. Share yours.
www.hellopeter.com www.hellopeter.com
 

DistriNode.co.za — official thread: questions, order status, complaints (owner answers) | Tech, Hardware Buying/Selling Support/Advice

Edvinas here, owner of DistriNode. This is the official DistriNode thread on Carbonite: questions, order status, complaints. I answer here myself. Who we are. DistriNode (Pty) Ltd is the South African store of the ITwork group from Lithuania, nine online stores trading in Europe since 2016. We...
carbonite.co.za carbonite.co.za
"Edvinas here, owner of DistriNode. This is the official DistriNode thread on Carbonite: questions, order status, complaints. I answer here myself.
Who we are. DistriNode (Pty) Ltd is the South African store of the ITwork group from Lithuania, nine online stores trading in Europe since 2016. We sell 600,000+ products sourced from 72 official distributors in Europe and South Africa, which is why prices are lower than local retail and why delivery takes longer. Our store: www.distrinode.co.za"

Also:
distrinode.co.za

Open Letter From the Owners | DistriNode SA

We answer every review in public, with evidence: who we are, how delivery and tracking work, Pay on Delivery… Buy online in South Africa from DistriNode.
distrinode.co.za distrinode.co.za
 
airborne said:

DistriNode.co.za — official thread: questions, order status, complaints (owner answers) | Tech, Hardware Buying/Selling Support/Advice

Edvinas here, owner of DistriNode. This is the official DistriNode thread on Carbonite: questions, order status, complaints. I answer here myself. Who we are. DistriNode (Pty) Ltd is the South African store of the ITwork group from Lithuania, nine online stores trading in Europe since 2016. We...
carbonite.co.za carbonite.co.za
"Edvinas here, owner of DistriNode. This is the official DistriNode thread on Carbonite: questions, order status, complaints. I answer here myself.
Who we are. DistriNode (Pty) Ltd is the South African store of the ITwork group from Lithuania, nine online stores trading in Europe since 2016. We sell 600,000+ products sourced from 72 official distributors in Europe and South Africa, which is why prices are lower than local retail and why delivery takes longer. Our store: www.distrinode.co.za"

Also:
distrinode.co.za

Open Letter From the Owners | DistriNode SA

We answer every review in public, with evidence: who we are, how delivery and tracking work, Pay on Delivery… Buy online in South Africa from DistriNode.
distrinode.co.za distrinode.co.za
Click to expand...

Heh???

Why our prices are lower, and why delivery takes longer​

This is the single most important thing to understand about us, and honestly it explains most of the frustration in our negative reviews.

Most products in our catalogue are not sitting on a shelf in Johannesburg waiting for you. When you order, the item is reserved with the distributor, moves to our main warehouse, then to our Johannesburg office, and only then goes out to you by courier or for collection. Working this way, without holding stock of every product ourselves, is how we can keep prices low across such a large catalogue, and it is also why delivery takes longer than from a shop with the item on its shelf.
Click to expand...

This is standard practice when you don't hold stock, and it doesn't mean lower prices. Weird.
 
The owner admits on Carbonite to review farming by offering customers website credit
 
Oh,

Warranty: 2 years as standard
Click to expand...

never make that claim.

I don't question their legitimacy. Many distros support such ops as long as you meet their terms.

On warranty, it is best to support the implied warranty (CPA compliance) and then the manufacturer's warranty; some manufacturers do offer extended warranties, but that is applicable to self-registration. I can say it now, that not all of their products have a default two-year warranty.
 
There's a long thread on Carbonite about Distrinode. Actually a couple.

They have been giving people R1000 store credit for a review. They even asked people to review Distrinode based on their previous purchases from "ITWorkup South Africa", which endured an internal "battle" and it seems the local partner kind of "took it over" and distrinode is now the "rebirth", being run directly from overseas.

They technically have a South African address, the owner is active on Carbonite.

The above is information, do with it what you will. For some things I would give parallel imports a swing, for others I wouldn't.
 
This was the remains of the bust up threads regarding ITWorkUp:
W

Thread 'ITWorkup: Warning about their legal practices'

I'd like to warn people about using ITWorkup.co.za and their new "company"

I bought a motherboard and CPU and received the items although it took around 6 WEEKS.
I barely got ANY communication, unless I chased them and then they barely answered.
So the board and CPU didn't work together, BIOS needed to be flashed, and this was communicated to them. All they did was hardware tests, not even LISTENING or FIXING the problem. And this "testing", took TWO weeks.

They then offered to send the board back.

I refused, and asked for a refund as they were returning an item that does not work for...
  • Haha
 
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