Dale zapatero, zapatero

I have written this review to:
Firstly, send a plea to Weilai.Concept to PLEASE PLEASE provide a set of correct and readable instructions with what are quite expensive and good quality units. It just smells of ‘penny pinching’ to include just about the worst [and in my case incorrect] set of instructions for a flat-pack unit that I have ever seen. The issue completely marred what could otherwise have been a good experience and a good review !

Secondly (and hopefully) to help others avoid the significant amount of extra time I ended up spending on building this unit, with these few simple steps:-
i. Check that you have the CORRECT written instructions and video for your actual unit BEFORE you take anything out of the flat-pack box
ii. Check that you have READABLE instructions for your actual unit BEFORE you take anything out of the flat-pack box
iii. Its quite a complex build with many small and similar looking assembly parts. Even with the correct instructions be prepared that its likely to take a couple of hours to build properly.

Here’s the whole saga for those who may want the details.

Got this unit delivered during in the week and I set aside Saturday morning to build it. I opened the box and took out the pieces out to see if any were damaged (mistake number one).

I had received an order acknowledgement email which mentioned that the instructions and a video were attached. Unfortunately I had not looked at these until starting the build (mistake number 2).

Turns out that the instructions were on a low resolution .jpg file which, even when printed on a laser printer, were tiny, blurred, in Chinese, and any detail was pretty much unreadable. However, the tiny pictures were readable enough to realise that they were for a different unit anyway ! -and thus useless for the one I had purchased.

Never mind I thought, I can use the instruction video, run it from my ipad and put it next to where I would build the unit. Sadly, after some faffing around the ipad for some time it just refused to play the Chinese video app. So I switched to the PC and after some more faffing I got the video to play. Now the video is in Chinese and I tried to get the translation function to work on the app or google but after yet more faffing decided it was beyond my IT skills. So I started to just watch the video and try and just use the images. Imagine my surprise (not!) when a few minutes in -I realised that it’s the video of a yet another different unit to the one I had purchased.
At this point I tried contacting Weilai email and their chatbot to ask for the correct instructions, but as it was the weekend I just got the robot replies which were of no help. Nor could I find the instructions on-line.

At this point I was pretty frustrated/angry having invested well over an hour just trying to get the instructions to what is a fairly complex flat-pack build -and having now all the (many!) flat-pack pieces out of the box they came in. The thought of trying to get all the pieces back in the box and then arranging a return, staying in for collection -was not appealing.

Luckily, I have an engineering training, I have built many of these kind of units in the past, have all the right tools and plenty of space to lay everything out for building … so I thought I’ll print out all the photos of the unit from the sales website and ‘wing it’.

It took several hours (probably twice as long as if I’d had the correct and readable instructions) and some superfluous bolts and plastic pieces in the kit to try and throw me off, the but managed to build the damn thing (see photo).

The shoe cabinet came fast and the handyman was very helpful.

Highly recommended for those looking to declutter their homes.

It fits perfectly in our space and holds so many shoes.

Very useful👍🏻

Lovely and I’m very happy with it. However the length you need for shoes is very shallow. Fine if you are a woman size 6 but not enough depth if you are a man’s size 9. We had to add a battery of wood at the back so the shoes go in at an angle.

Efficient storage and a chic design. Very satisfied.

It’s really short but it’s useful.