iGear (formerly iPodWorld) revolutionised the on-line sales of iPods and accessories in South Africa in late 2005.
Specialisation. We are only focused on iPods and accessories and nothing else. We don’t sell watches, cameras, chocolate fondue fountains and kitchen sinks like many other general purpose electronics on-line web sites popping up everywhere. There are many options and decisions to make when purchasing iPod accessories and because we specialise, we offer personal expertise via phone, email or support on-line. Have a look at our web site and it shows. We have advice papers, technical documents, help and self-assist tools and descriptive and uncomplicated product descriptions.
We keep stock. Lots of it. We don't hide behind statements like "we're not a shop - just importing agents", like many large "reputable" on-line resellers have in their fine print. We understand clients don’t want to place orders and pay money and then still have to wait 7-10 days for the people they purchased from to bulk-up their overseas orders with other customers. Clients want to deal with a shop, not importing agents. We ensure our inventory is tightly managed to our incoming order trends to enable minimal lead times for your order.
We perform a local warranty. If you read the fine print on other large sites that have cheaper imported iPods you will discover that if something goes wrong with your electronics item then it has to be sent back overseas to get repaired in the country of origin, which could take weeks or months. One reputable company even states that they send faulty items back once every two months only and costs for shipping are for the customers' account. Some large on-line retailers won't even co-ordinate this for you, stating "All warranties are held with the manufacturer as we only handle the shipping and not the sales of the items." We know you hate being without your music for even a day. With us we repair locally ourselves or replace your unit with an equivalent if it cannot be repaired. Please note that as we import our own iPods, the warranty needs to be carried with us and not the local Apple stores. Click here to read about our great iPod warranty.
We guarantee our delivery. Our delivery of iPods to you, be it via post-office or courier is fully insured against theft or loss. But unlike other sites that make you wait ages while the insurance claim gets filed and processed for a lost/stolen item, we re-ship your item immediately. And another thing - our clients order on average 3-5 items from us at a time, but we don't charge extra for shipping as our costs are per order. Also, if some items are not in stock we part-ship at our cost. We don't make you wait till the last item arrives before shipping to you. What we have we ship.
Passion & Service. We have a phone. But more importantly we use it to take client calls and if you don’t get through and have to leave a message we actually phone you back. Every time. Candy Robinson is somewhat of a personality in the iPod community and through her emails and on-line chat has assisted hundreds of SA clients with their queries and with technical advice. There are 5 of us full-time looking after you and passionate about this business. This is not a part-time income supplementing hobby, its our lively hood.
Reputation. We have over 10,000 customers, and growing by 500 per month. We are the 15th-20th most visited web site in South Africa with over 150,000 page views per month. Maybe that's small but remember we are young, growing and specialised, so we think its an achievement. Over 20% of our clients are repeat customers, testimony to our service and expertise. You can see customer testimonials about us here . Many well known blue-chip corporates use us for their corporate gifting/promotions and staff incentive programs. Email us for references.
Widest product range. We have over 450 iPod related accessories. We constantly evaluate new ones before placing them on our site for customers. Very often we are the first to introduce an accessory to this country and most times you cannot even buy items we carry in a physical store.
Pricing. We are very competitive. You can probably get cheaper iPods on-line elsewhere but without all the advantages we have discussed above. But if you buy iPods and accessories from us you will definitely be getting the best deal all-round. Because we are a VAT vendor you can claim you purchases off company tax if purchasing for a corporate. This is not the case with many of our competitors.
ABOUT THE WARRANTY. WARRANTY PERIOD IS 12 MONTHS. ITEMS HAVE TO BE RETURNED TO US FOR A WARRANTY CLAIM OR SUPPORT ISSUE. FAULTY UNITS ARE REPAIRED IF POSSIBLE OR REPLACED WITH EQUIVALENT FACTORY UNITS. REPLACEMENTS ARE NOT NECESSARILY NEW RETAIL SEALED UNITS BUT COULD BE FACTORY REPAIR UNITS. WARRANTY IS FROM DATE OF PURCHASE AND DOES NOT RESTART FROM DATE OF REPAIR. ALLOW 2-4 WEEKS FOR REPAIRS/REPLACEMENT OF IN-MANUFACTURE ITEMS AND 6-8 WEEKS FOR OUT-OF-MANUFACTURE (DISCONTINUED) ITEMS. COST OF SHIPPING TO US FOR WARRANTY IS FOR CLIENTS ACCOUNT. COST FOR RETURN TO CLIENT IS FOR OUR ACCOUNT..
We hope you enjoy your shopping experience with us!
The iGear Team
