Huge problems at Raru
Reputable and well-established online store Raru has faced a barrage of complaints from customers saying they have struggled to get refunds from the company after unreasonable delivery delays.
The once-beloved company has seen its aggregate review score on Hello Peter plummet, with 486 reviews out of 610 (80%) giving it a 1-star rating. Another 23 reviewers gave it two stars.
Its profile still contains 85 5-star reviews, a handful of which were left in 2022 — one as recently as May.
However, the vast majority of these positive reviews are from before South Africa’s Covid–19 lockdown in March 2020.
Some of the most recent reviews go so far as to call Raru a scam and warn buyers to stay away.
In the past month, MyBroadband has received six emailed complaints from readers who had problems with their orders, followed by delayed refunds.
These exclude the pages of complaints on the MyBroadband forum, some of which date back to 2019.
HelloPeter review star ratings for Raru, Takealot, and Loot on 19 October 2022
Many customer stories have a common thread, usually culminating in requesting a refund and then fighting to get their money back.
Raru would fail to send out orders by their estimated shipping dates without proactively notifying customers.
After enquiring about the delay, shoppers are informed that some items are delayed, out of stock, or that there are problems with the supplier.
Sometimes complainants are offered an alternative product, and sometimes they accept, even paying extra to cover the price difference.
It is possible that many complaints are resolved this way and that those stories don’t make it to Hello Peter and social media.
However, there are also many complaints from customers who were eventually told Raru couldn’t procure their replacement item either.
When a customer gets to the end of their patience and requests a refund, Raru tells them it takes 30 days to process “as per the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act.”
Unfortunately, it appears that Raru regularly does not process refunds within the 30-day deadline.
MyBroadband’s inbox and Hello Peter are littered with complaints from customers who believe they have been done in.
In some cases, Raru’s support tells customers that fewer than 30 days had passed when it had been much longer.
Raru insists on counting working days rather than calendar days, and even then, it has failed to refund customers on time.
In one strange example, MyBroadband saw an order comprising five Ellies products and twelve different stationery items for R940 that Raru couldn’t fill after a month of delays.
The order was placed on 14 July. On 5 August, Raru told the customer it was experiencing delays.
By 21 August, the customer had bought alternatives from Takealot and asked Raru to cancel the order.
Raru then revealed that five items (four stationery, one Ellies) had arrived at its warehouse, and offered to dispatch them and refund the balance.
The customer declined. By 17 October, he had not received his promised refund.
Neil Smith, Raru Director
It is sad seeing such troubles at Raru. The company is one of South Africa’s most established ecommerce players, founded by veterans of the industry.
The people behind Raru — Neil Smith, Waine Smith, and Jose Pereira — also cofounded Take 2.
They sold Take 2 to Tiger Global and Kim Reid in 2011, who rebranded the online store to Takealot.
As part of the sale, the founders agreed to a three-year restraint of trade.
They also negotiated that their online gaming community, SAGamer (originally PS3ZA), be excluded from the sale.
During the restraint period, they focused on growing the SAGamer discussion forum, giving them a platform from which to launch Raru in 2014 when their gardening leave came to an end.
For over eight years, Raru has been a strong competitor in the gaming, entertainment, and electronics space.
According to Companies and Intellectual Property Commission records, Pereira resigned as director on 10 June 2021.
We contacted Neil and Waine Smith regarding the complaints, but they did not wish to comment on the record.
MyBroadband understands that global supply chain disruptions and international freight delays have significantly impacted Raru’s model, which relied on just-in-time inventory management.
Larger, more cash-flush retailers secure much of the limited available stock, even getting exclusivity on some ranges.
The company has had to rethink whether it offers certain products at all.
Declining sales due to economic pressure on consumers, driven by increases in the petrol price, interest rates, and basics like food, means it takes longer for Raru to reach minimum order quantities on certain items.
Raru could switch back to a model where it holds more stock in its warehouse to mitigate some of its lead-time woes, but this may require a short-term cash injection for the company to increase its stock-on-hand.
It is also worth noting that Raru is not alone in receiving poor reviews from South African ecommerce customers.
Takealot’s ratings on Hello Peter are also dominated by 1-star reviews, albeit in smaller proportions than Raru’s. Loot’s ratings are a similar story.
Raru, Takealot, and Loot’s HelloPeter TrustIndex ratings (out of ten) are 1.6, 2.1, and 2.5, respectively.
Loading ...