Blick Art Materials, LLCReviews of dickblick.com

The two stars are for the hope that I may still get my order .... eventually. I placed an order on February 21st, it was shipped on February 24th and the last tracking entry was on March 2nd, stating that " It is currently in transit to the next facility." On March 4th I emailed Blick because the package seemed disintegrate into thin air while in transit. The person who answered my first email was really helpful and immediately sent out a replacement order. I checked the tracking, which said I would receive the order on Tuesday March 10th by 8pm. March 11th arrived and still no order. Not only that but the note on the tracking page that the package would arrive on Tuesday March 10th was not there anymore. Once again I was left with an indefinite message that read "It is currently in transit to the next facility." as of Friday March 13th. I emailed again on March 10th because I was concerned the same thing that happened to the first package had also happened to the second package. The person who answered this email was not as helpful as the first, stating that it was possible for orders to take longer than I had waited and I should wait until at least March 17th to see if it arrives. Back in my day, when I worked in the book / stationery business, when deliveries were late, we actually made phone calls to find out exactly where the goods were. If any customer of mine had been waiting over three weeks for a domestic order to arrive I would have been lucky to still have a job. I can't believe that in this day of all things technological, a supplier cannot make inquiries into an order that had a specific delivery date and didn't arrive. When I originally placed my order on February 21st, I placed orders for items from a company in Germany as well as a company in Spain. I received those orders from across the world almost two weeks ago!! Well, as I said in the beginning, there is still hope that my order from Blick may arrive eventually but it will definitely be my last order from Blick.

My child had a teacher show them some colored pencils for art class. I placed ordered in Nov. 2019. Received notice of back order for Dec. 2019. Child wants pencils so willing to wait for back order. As of March 2020, no communication since December or delivery of item. Child wants to know where the pencils are. I reached out via online chat and was informed item not being continued by manufacturer and items are charged until mailed. Had I been notified I would have found a replacement for the child a long time ago.

Blick has a great selection but ordering online is not that intuitive and not expedited either. You select the items and they don't go to the cart unless you hit the qty and then the next button “add to the cart”. Online shopping does not work this way these days. Sorry. Also, there is no indication on how long it will take for your order to arrive when you select the Free shipping option. I live in California. The store is in California, so you would think it would take a couple of days to arrive. Not so true. I ordered a few items online on 2/23. I received a shipping confirmation the next day. No tracking number or ETA was included. I had to call the store. They indicated that the order will arrive on 3/4. So, it is taking 10 days! Had I known this would take that long I would have not place the order online.

I was really happy when I found this website, they had everything I wanted, but I live In Europe so I am often worried about the shipping. When I pressed the ''calculate shipping fees'' in their checkout it approximated it to be about 5dollars which is NO WHERE close to the 66 DOLLARS it turned out to be. Keep in mind my order was 72 dollars, the shipping was almost as much. I understand that international shipping is expensive, but it shouldn't be anywhere near THIS expensive, nor should they lie about it so I place the order before finding out the ACTUAL shipping fees. I really wanted to like this website I did, but it's just not for international shoppers. It would probably be fine if you live in the US.

Blick has a good paint selection, but can not be helpful with challenging questions regarding their products, and seem not to be willing to learn or research. Some of the employees in product research have even been rude. I was shocked how rude Patrick in product information was toward me, and how he seemed to know little about the product I was inquiring about.

dickblick.com keeps customers' credit card information and makes unauthorized charges. I recently placed an order for the first time on their site. I was given a gift card for $300 dollars and after I selected my items they came to $316.09. Tried to put $16.09 on another card but it did not take so went to start over in my “cart” as I could not clear the second credit card information on the website. When I went back to check out with another card, my gift card had been cleared of the $300 and it was not posted to my order! Called customer service and was told it would take 24 to 48 hours to “find” the $300 and they took my bank credit card info for the $16.09. I was assured they would email me when they could confirm the $300 gift card was placed to my order. Much to my surprise and amazement a day later my checking account had been charged $632.18!! Called customer service and was told the $300 gift card was in a “holding area” and needed to be confirmed that it was the full $300 and rest assured it would be placed to my order in “a few days”. Since it was the weekend I waited until Monday. Low and behold on Monday not only had $632.18 been withdrawn from my account but an additional $16.09 was being withdrawn. Called Blick customer service again and told them I needed the $632.18 charge removed from my account immediately, this is fraudulent and I had not authorized these charges. The Blick agent said she would call my bank while I was on the line and connect me when she reached someone to have the charges removed. After a long wait agent came back on the line and said she was faxing a letter to my bank to have the $632.18 charges removed and that I could call the bank later that day to confirm. The next day the charges were STILL there. Called my bank and they had not received any fax from Blick. Called Blick customer service again and was told they could not get the fax through the day before. Gave them a fax number that my bank had given me and stayed on the phone while the letter was faxed to my bank. Agent assured me the fax went through. This is 6 days that $632.18 of unauthorized charges have been against my bank account. The nightmare is not over yet. Received part of my order and an expensive set of drawing materials was received in disarray and with broken items. I also received a folding drawing table that can’t be securely opened. Called Blick customer service and was told 3 pencils would be shipped to me at no charge to replace broken items. Received shipping confirmation for the 3 “free” items and noticed that the amount charged to my bank account was an additional $4.20. Called Blick customer service and asked what the additional charge was for and was told it was for the 3 pencils but it would be credited back to me. To this day I have not seen that credit and that was over a week ago. Also, the first agent I spoke to this time treated me as if I was a child, repeating my name in a condescending way, as if I didn’t understand that it was a credit. Well, I still haven’t seen that credit. At no time, did Blick notify me about these charges or why they were being charged. The lack of communication from Blick during this transaction is unacceptable. So much frustration could have been avoided if I had been informed of why these charges took place and if I did not call about them who knows how long they would have stayed on my account. I find it very disturbing that Dickblick.com saves your credit card information and freely charges what they want to it without any communication. I think you can understand why I am “hesitant” (a mild word compared to how I feel about Dickb right now) to ever order from Dickblick.com again.

Long story involving my son spending a few days in New York and being tasked with visiting Dickblick and picking up some supplies not available in UK. Even with a list with website obtained product codes it was a wasted trip. Very little help from staff - one item asked for turned out to be completely wrong, two were said not to be stocked and price of main items - Nupastels - were almost twice that quoted on website. An initial email prior to visit asking for location was ignored as was a follow up email expressing my disappointment. It would seem poor customer service is a common complaint. A shame as I was about to put aside my reservations about high shipping charges and delivery times estimated in weeks not days.