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Shopping Online
A reader writes:"I've been buying stuff on the Internet for a while, and wanted to get people's thoughts about the best places to go. I primarily am looking for media or computer parts. Of course, I've used Froogle, PriceWatch or PriceGrabber, but also use places like tigerdirect or NewEgg. Where else do people go, and any recommendations for getting decent deals? " Oh, and of course, shamless plug for ThinkGeek, who is also owned by OSTG.
From the original post: thoughts about the best places to go.
What criteria does the poster consider most important for best?
Okay, my main criterion is unequivocably (sp?) customer service. For me this includes only a few but important criteria:
I have long since abandoned picking the cheapest offering and almost ignore that ranking when looking for a place to buy online. I've almost (saved by an attentive and pro-active Credit Union (Watermark Credit Union -- great service!)) been burned big time and the brush with sleeze was enough to nudge me to find a provider with good service and be loyal. That said, I will plug as an example, amazon.com. They come nowhere near to the leaders in lowest prices but they have been amazing in their response to some difficult transactions -- I consider their approach exemplary as a model to emulate.
Amazon isn't the only great provider out their, but they're a good starting point.
Also, for ebay-type shopping, though I'm loathe to penalize newbies, I shop from only highly rated, large sample-space sellers with extremely high ratings.
Ok, I'm still trying to figure out why you didn't get modded (-1 Troll)
1. Name a single 24/7 B&M computer store. Also it isn't the fault of the on-line stores that delevery is mon-fri during daytime hours...take that up with FedEx and UPS.
2. Is it the store's fault that you are incapable of
googling the item you are thinking about purchasing before you buy it?
3. If that DVD burner actually wrote at 0.4x then it is defective and you should have returned it to
the store and gotten a refund. More likely you are either just trolling or you are a complete incompentent.
I just bought 2 dvds (different titles) on ebay, from two different sellers and was screwed by one, and disappointed by the other.
This was the first time I bought DVDs on ebay, every other purchase I've ever done went smoothly.
The 1st DVD was a bootleg. When I confronted the seller he just said that it wasn't a bootleg, but an import with a different cover. This was bull for many reasons. The first is that I ordered the DTS version, and the dvd was labeled as that, but the movie itself was Dolb Digital. Next, the dvd was only single layer (it says on the label DVD-9)! I had to return the movie to the seller at my expense, then he gave me negative feedback since I gave him negative feedback.
CAUTION: Be wary of sellers that say their DVDs are imported and may have different covers, this means they are very convincing bootlegs!
With my other purchase, the guy shipped me the DVD that I asked for, but without its' DVD case! He never mentioned this, after I told him about this, he said that throws out the cases that his DVDs come in. What an asshat! Plus, he didn't take paypal, so I had to send a money order (yuck), I should have noticed that before I bid though.