Worst Online Shopping Experience..Ever!

Unusually for me, this is a negative post about a disappointing shopping experience that I recently had. I normally don't like writing posts like these, preferring to keep things on the lighter side of life but I thought it was important to warn everyone about buying from this particular company.
I placed an order online with Space NK for the Nars 'And God Created the Woman' palette (sold out everywhere, hence why I was delighted when I found it there) on May the 13th. About a week later it arrived but to my dismay I found it was missing part of the set- the smudge-proof eye shadow base. I immediately emailed the customer services department who rang me the following day to explain that I would have to send the entire product back to them so they could replace the missing item and then send it back to me. Really?, I asked, surely that's inconvenient for everyone involved. No, this was company policy apparently. I explained it would be very difficult for me to get to the post office and that the palette was bought as a birthday present -by the time it was sent back to me said birthday would be long passed, but no. My pleas were basically ignored- ignored politely, I may add, but ignored nonetheless. Off I trudged to the post office. I then got an email to say that they had received my item and were sending it back to me with the missing brush...even though it was the primer that had originally been missing. They said they would then have to fix that too.

photo source

Annoyingly, to reimburse me for the cost of postage I then had to ring their customer services yet again,  as they can't automatically give refunds- anything to make this more inconvenient for me basically. Also the address they sent the item back to was my parcel motel address which meant I would have been charged again for that delivery charge. To avoid this, I put it in writing and emailed this issue to the customer services department three times and first, got a confused response where they just kept repeating themselves but not recognising the problem and after that, I got no response at all. I then rang them to be told that it is not their policy to reimburse people who use parcel minding services. That may be the policy normally but as this was originally their mistake, I refused to be inconvenienced any further. Eventually, as a measure of "goodwill" they reimbursed the parcel motel fee. Which to be honest, is the very least they could have done.
They sent me a confirmation email that my product had been sent back to me at the address it had originally been sent to (parcel motel address) and all was well. Except that almost two and a half weeks later I still hadn't received the replacement parcel. So again I had to ring Space NK to confirm that it was in fact sent, only to be told that there had been no one available to sign for it upon delivery so it was then sent to the local post office depot. Here's where I get confused because the whole purpose of Parcel motel is that there is always someone there to sign for parcels. Just to verify this I emailed the head of customer services in parcel motel who confirmed what I suspected- they must have sent it to the wrong place as there's ALWAYS someone there to sign for deliveries- that is part of the standard service they offer. I explained this to the customer services in Space NK who could offer no explanation for this or why I wasn't informed of it until I rang and asked myself. Then she told me that I would have to either a) drive to Armagh to collect the parcel by the end of that day or b) have it sent back to Space NK so they could resend it to me again. To quote the mighty Clueless, 'As If'.
Why would I possibly want to expose myself to any more of this shambles than I have already? Obviously I told them to just refund me for the item so I wouldn't have to deal with their incompetence and frustrating service any longer. The worst part about all of this is no matter how many times I explained how unsatisfied I was with their idea of what the solution to the problem was, they steadfastly talked over me with cheerful voices and completely ignored the fact that I, as a customer was just not happy.
I understand that mistakes happen but surely when there is an issue like this where clearly the company is at fault, everything possible should be done to further minimise the inconvenience caused to the customer. How a company deals with these sorts of situations says a lot about them- had they accepted their fault in this matter and tried to resolve it in a way that was satisfactory to me, the paying customer, then I honestly would not be writing this now. I've dealt with similar situations in the past but the main difference was how the company/brand/restaurant or whoever it was responded afterwards. I feel so let down by Space NK, not only did they ruin the present I bought for someone, leaving me to buy something in its place and therefore out of pocket but they failed to listen to me as a disappointed customer. I felt like no matter what I said there would be no compromise (except of course regarding the parcel motel fee) and to not even acknowledge that I was disgruntled and offer an apology that they couldn't help any further was just disgraceful. I only just this past month had to contact them yet again as another two weeks had passed since my last contact with them and I still hadn't received my refund or any communication from the company. They apologised that they had not contacted me and then issued the refund but it really was to little too late at that stage.
So basically the moral of this long winded story is that I will not be shopping with Space NK online ever again. They clearly cannot guarantee the sort of decent service you would expect from a reputable brand selling high end products and to be honest there are plenty of better alternatives out there with superior service that I would much rather give my custom to.
Has anyone else had any disappointing online shopping experiences similar to this? If you have, please let me know in the comments, so we all know who to avoid!