Retailer Review: JensonUSA.com

Retailer Name: Jenson USA
Website: www.JensonUSA.com

Continue reading for my thoughts and opinions on Jenson USA…

Product Selection and Availability

JensonUSA has a great selection. The beauty of it is that they carry lots of stuff you can’t find at Performance Bike or Nashbar.

Obviously they don’t stock everything, but the reason I found them in the first place was due to them carrying certain products I just couldn’t find at other retailers. Take Rock ‘N Roll Cable Magic (or any of the Rock ‘N Roll chain lubes) for example. It’s good stuff, but it’s very hard to find at a trustworthy retailer. Well, JensonUSA has it!

They also carry a variety of Jagwire cables and cable end caps, the innovative ESI “Racer’s Edge” grips, and all sorts of other stuff that is very high quality yet not as common/popular as it should be. For that, I give them major props!

I had noticed that their inventory seemed geared more towards mountain biking, which is what drew me in the first place, but they have expanded into more road bike equipment in recent years. Want a SRAM Red build kit? No problem, Jenson USA has it! Zipp 404 full carbon wheels? Yep, they got those, too.

Some of their house brand stuff is nice, too.

Pricing

Typically, I see regular retail prices at Jenson USA. That’s not to say the prices are bad, just that they don’t carry a lot of stuff that ends up on clearance. And if you find something cheaper elsewhere, they do offer a Price Match function just by filling out a quick pop-up form on the item page.

And similarly to their expansion into more road bike gear, I’ve been seeing more items under their “On Sale” link.

To sum it up, I’d say Jenson USA offers a completely fair pricing policy.

Discounts & Coupon Codes

JensonUSA has promotions every so often, such as Black Friday holiday sales, and many discounted items.

I don’t expect to see free shipping offers or coupon codes very often, which isn’t a big deal, because they offer free shipping on orders over $50.

One cool thing they do is give you a 15% off coupon code postcard in your order. That’s great for when you order stuff and realize there’s still more you need to order. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to capitalize on these deals. For one thing, the code is valid for only 30 days. On top of that, it can only be used on full-price items, and many brands are not eligible. It’s just a guessing game of adding items to your cart and hoping one is eligible for the deal.

Ease of Use (Website and Shopping Cart)

The biggest complaint I had with Jenson was their website’s usability. There was just something about how they structured their page layouts and the search result sorting methods I didn’t like.

Now that I’ve been ordering from them, I have gotten used to their layout, but I still find it a little rough around the edges compared to Performance Bike.

Here’s just one example. I have two separate customer accounts because one account got messed up and even if I reset my password, I cannot log into it.

What really irked me were the product images. Just about every image had a giant “© QBP” watermark on it! It was so annoying trying to decipher the details of a product with that gray text obscuring the photo, not to mention it seemed really unprofessional.

(In case you didn’t know, QBP stands for Quality Bicycle Products. They are a very large distributor in the bicycle industry.)

Today, I see considerably fewer watermarked pictures on JensonUSA. You’ll still see the watermark sometimes, but I applaud Jenson USA for either sourcing better photos or doing in-house inventory photography.

As much as I don’t care for the site, I like the shopping cart. It is easy to manage and easy to check shipping rates whenever you feel like it. There’s no need to go through the checkout process just to see the shipping.

Shipping & Handling

Shipping and handling rates seem to be reasonable based on the industry standard (or at least what I’m used to). Free shipping on orders over $50.

The only thing I can complain about is that ground shipping to the East Coast takes a while. But for anyone in or near California, JensonUSA probably offers super fast shipping.

Customer Service

I’ve never had an issue that required assistance from customer service, but I’ve e-mailed a couple people there and they are friendly and helpful. You get the feeling that they are a smaller company looking to keep their customers happy, while other big name retailers have more of a “you’re just a number to us” attitude.

Actually, one time I had a couple items on backorder, and the backorder was estimated at two weeks… and then six months. So I used live chat to just ask them to cancel my order. And they did, without hassle.

If you read through their Help Desk page, all their policies seem fair, reasonable, and customer friendly. Your mileage may vary, but I rarely see complaints about Jenson.

My final verdict is…

Jenson USA is a great place to find stuff, especially for mountain bikers. They carry lots of stuff you can’t find at Performance Bike or Nashbar.

I’ve only ordered from them five or six times now, but my experience was great each time. I recommend giving them a shot, especially if you’re having trouble finding a certain item elsewhere, or if you’re from the West Coast.

Official website: www.JensonUSA.com