So you've gone to the store, purchased a new fishing reel, taken it home and then found that it is faulty. What do you do? The answer of course is to contact the store, explain, and I would bet my bottom dollar, that they will do something about it. Why is that? Simple, because of a couple of little things called a warranty, and the goodwill they display to their clients. All major brands have a warranty, and honour them because it is their name at stake. Now, take this situation. You've purchased a cheaper reel on an auction site, finally it arrives, and you find it to be faulty. Now what do you do? Chances are you are left with an email address to contact, possibly an originating address on the parcel, and that's about it. I know I've been caught with an online purchase gone wrong. I had done exactly that. Purchased a reel that I thought was a good deal, waited for it to arrive, found it faulty, tried to contact the seller, but surprise surprise, no reply at all. I tried several times and eventually I was told that I had to send the reel back for checking. I was then confronted with a situation whereby I had to weigh up the cost of sending the reel back to Singapore at my expense, and hopefully the seller would agree that it was faulty and offer me a replacement, or cut my losses and try and get replacement parts via the local tackle shop.



An Okuma Epix EB50 was the reel I had purchased. A good quality reel to be in my collection. The issue I was faced with was that although Okuma is widely available in Australia, the model I had purchased was not. The tackle store owner thought I was must be wrong when I talked over the phone, saying that it couldn't be the reel I said it was, because it simply was not in the catalogue and therefore must be a copy. I brought the reel to him, more cost to me of course as the store is 25 miles away, and he determined that it was genuine, however after contacting the spares department, he stated that he couldn't help me as the reel simply was not imported to Australia and therefore parts were not available. An understatement of my mood would be to say that I was a bit annoyed.

The next step in the saga was to contact Okuma directly. I must say that they were quite helpful and they offered to send me the parts I needed at a small cost. The cost was due to the fact that they did not know the merchant I had purchased from and therefore could not ascertain whether the reel was indeed within its warranty period or not. Add to this the fact that they did not offer a warranty on products they did not even supply to a particular country. I thought this was fair enough given the situation, and agreed to pay. The parts arrived, but do you think I could fit them? Even with needle nosed pliers, there was no way on earth that those dainty parts were going to go where they were supposed to go due the dexterity of my ciger shaped fingers. Back to the tackle shop I go, parts and semi assembled reel in a box.

The moral to this is that there are several things to keep in mind when purchasing online. I endorse online selling whole heartedly, but please keep the following points in mind when buying. Firstly, make sure the item you are buying is available within your home country. Failure to do this may make the issues of warranty, parts, and service a bit of an unexpected nightmare. Second, make sure and certain that the seller you are buying from is bona fide. You do not want to find yourself looking at a computer screen, swearing at someone that really doesn't give a damn, because they are only in the whole thing to make a dollar without having to go to the expense of being a quality merchant. Thirdly, only buy good quality, company endorsed goods. Cheap, poorly made fishing tackle items on the internet are far too many. The price you pay up front for these items is usually quite cheap, but if you are buying something that hopefully you will have for some time, isn't it worth it to have a product that is warranted properly, is of a quality you are proud to own, and most importantly, does the job you want done and lasts for as long as you expect? I leave that verdict up to you.