Stock Up On Sports Supplies & Summer Necessities At “The Shape Up Shop”!
Written: Jun 30 '05
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Sport supply companies are a dime a dozen these days, do an internet search for any type of training equipment and you’ll get hundreds of results. That means that most people are looking at the cost of products, customer service and shipping fees when making a choice on who to go with. When I was looking for a certain type of resistance band in a specific size I had a hard time finding exactly what I needed and when I got a search result that led me to the Shape Up Shop I was a little confused when I hit the front page. If you aren’t paying attention to things you might assume that there is an error or it’s an outdated link - but if you read the sidebar and check out what they have to offer in different areas of the site you might just find some true hidden treasures. There are no pop up advertisements and nothing that could be considered “questionable” or adult so it’s a safe site for kids to look through. They do have some nice items made just for kids and I recently decided to order a few tumbling mats from them since they had the best price - even after shipping fees were added on.
Selection
The site carries an unusual assortment of sport related items such as inflatable jumpers, tennis balls and racquets, bocce sets, volleyball nets and equipment, golf sets, flag football clothing and even badminton birdies [heh, called shuttlecocks]. But that’s just the stuff that they sell for outdoor activities; they also have a lot of stuff for weight training, weight loss and yoga. I came to the site when I was looking for a certain size resistance band and this was one of the only places that carried it. They also have a really nice line of things for kids such as tumbling mats, inflatable gyms and ball pits, miniature golf sets and more. Getting around the different sections of the site isn’t that hard but it is pretty easy to get lost if you are just checking out what they have. They do carry a lot of different stuff and if you go there looking for one specific thing chances are if you start to look around you’ll find a lot of other things that you’ll want to check out, read about and possibly purchase.
Customer Service
The Shape Up Shop [A/K/A Ideal Fitness]
7851 Sugar Bend Drive
Orlando, FL 32819
sales@shapeupshop.com
shapeupshop.com
[561] 744-8218 - fax orders
The site is very straight forward about their policies and procedures and they do respond quickly to emails about products, questions you may have and delivery times. The easiest way to get in touch with them is to use the form at the site [www.shapeupshop.com/go/modules.php?name=Feedback]. This saves you a lot of time trying to hunt down the right email address to use; most of the time they have returned an email to me in less than a day and in most cases within six hours.
Payment Options
The site really wants you to use PayPal for orders, I’m not sure why they are so hot and heavy for people to use this method to pay but they really pimp it hard. Sadly this seems to be the only way that they will accept credit cards; when I asked them about it they said that it helped to protect them against fraudulent purchases. Since I hate PayPal after having some very bad experiences with them I opted to send them a money order and was really surprised when my order was delivered in about a week. If you are going to pay by check or money order you will need to send it to a different address and under a different name. The same goes for purchase orders, they need to be sent to the address below for processing.
Ideal Fitness Inc.
P.O. Box 244582
Boynton Beach, FL 33424
Shipping Fees
This is one aspect of the site where you really have to pay attention to the cost of the item and the cost of the shipping fees. Some items are classified as oversized and need to be shipped via a freight carrier - that’s why you have to really read the small print and know what the letters and codes mean. If you have any questions, email them before you order so you aren’t stuck paying shipping on something that you don’t want or don’t need. Shipping isn’t that expensive but if it is some common item you might be better off buying it locally and saving the shipping fees. The base shipping is $6.75 for orders up to $19.99 and the most you will pay is $28.45 for orders over two hundred dollars. This doesn’t include items that have to be shipped freight so again, make sure you read the fine print before you place an order. Most orders are shipped via UPS and FedEx Ground but if you need something quicker, be sure to email or fax them to see if they can have it shipped quicker.
Return Policy
You have a thirty day time frame to make a return on an item that is defective or one that you would like to exchange or receive a refund on but - like almost all other sites - unless they made an error shipping it to you, you will have to pay to return the item to them and you won’t be refunded the original shipping cost. Since the site doesn’t ship overseas but does ship to Hawaii and Alaska, these two states are charged higher shipping fees and subsequently have different rules when it comes to making a return. If you live in Alaska or Hawaii, make sure you read the fine print before you order or you might end up paying a lot of money to make an exchange or to get a refund.
The Bottom Line
This is a nice shop to check out if you are looking for outdoor equipment but they also have a lot of other stuff to offer. The most important thing to keep in mind is the shipping fees; if you see something for a few dollars less at the site than you would be paying at a retail store - chances are when you do the math you’ll see that you aren’t going to really be saving anything - especially if you have to pay freight charges. They ship things out quickly and pack them well but the whole “payment by Paypal” thing stinks. Even so, I can just as easily pick up a money order and send it in to them; that saves me the hassle of having to use PayPal and the headaches that I always get when I try to register a card with them.
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2005 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Gym equpiment, play mats etc
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