Amazon.com to the rescue

Amazon.com had a feature that allowed patrons to write checks.I placed my order online and snail-mailed my check. About a week or so later I received e-mail telling me that the money had been received and my order would ship in 1 or 2 days.
Speed

I was thrilled! By this time I had been waiting for quite a bit of time. Naturally, I was excited that my coveted order would arrive with little threat to my credit reports. I hadn't yet realized what Amazon.com meant by "ships in 1 or 2 days". (See my e-pinion on Overstock.com) They meant it would be mailed between 24 and 48 hours after my money was received by them. This didn't include the time it would take to arrive using whichever delivery option had been selected. So I had egg on my face for awhile because I didn't consider that issue.
Selection

I was impressed by the selection of books available. I had been searching for a particular book on foot for months. I checked Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks, Bookstar and just about all retail bookstores in the county with no luck.I was able to quickly and easily find it at Amazon.com.

Amazon not only has a wide variety of new and used books it also links users to resellers and auctions for books. Even if they don't have it they will pretty much find someone who does.

In addition to books there are CDs, home electronics, housewares and much more. Like their book selection their home electronics and housewares sections are vast. There are new and refurbished pieces of merchandise. The selection for each type of item you search for is not vast. My search for rotisserie yielded 3 brands. I found a refurbished RONCO Showtime rotisserie for ~$60 when these normally retail for approximately $180 and slapped it into my shopping basket. Then I started to wonder about the quality of this product either new or refurbished.

Feedback

Testimony is valuable to me. I like to know what other patrons think about a product and about the merchant. Amazon.com does offer patrons the opportunity to provide product feedback on the site. However, there isn't much feedback at all on the site not only for rotisseries but for DVD players or cordless phones. It makes me wonder whether people don't tend to provide feedback or whether the merchant filters it out. However, this phenomenon is not unique to Amazon.com. I also encountered it on Overstock.com. So I usually wind up here on epinions.com to read patron feedback.

Special Features

As noted in the introductory paragraph Amazon.com allows checks. Second, they allow you to keep things in your shopping cart w/out obligation to buy for 90 days. These features can alleviate considerable stress from the online purchase novice. There's no worry of credit card number theft. Plus, it allows the person time to seriously consider an item before purchase. This isn't a biggie for a book but it may be for home electronics.

Price
To be quite honest I don't really look at price when considering a book purchase either online or live. I think I will probably only use Amazon.com for books. (I can use SamGoody online & Overstock.com for Media and electronics.)When I was comparing Overstock.com and Amazon.com for electronics Overstock was less expensive for both the price of the item and shipping. However, Amazon.com does periodically have sale items and periodically offers free shipping.

Customer Service
I had to deal with customer service a few times regarding an order I placed last Christmas. The problem turned out to be something Amazon.com couldn't fix which is reasonable because it turned out to be my fault. Each person I talked to was courteous. I haven't had an experience with them in which Amazon.com was at fault. Over all, I would have to say that their Customer Service department is pleasant and effective.


Recommended:
Yes