Is Buy.com Merely An Amazon.com Clone Or An Entity of Its Own?
Written: Dec 04 '03
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It seems like every day there are new online websites springing up. While most people flock to the mega giants like Amazon.com and Wal-Mart.com, sites like Buy.com creep along – not making waves or stealing business but offering an easy to navigate website, average prices and a seamless ordering process. Buy.com is one of the last mega stores for me to get round to shopping through. I had checked out their site but never anything that could be considered substantial – a few minutes here, a few minutes there. After completing a lot of short surveys at Go Zing I got used to the cash out method of Amazon.com gift certificates. When they changed the reward options I was left with choosing Buy.com and Paypal and since Paypal scares the life out of me, I opted for Buy.com. I wasn’t sure what the site was like so I started to check it out and at first glance it looked like a knock off of Amazon.com – even down to the partner toy site [KB Toys instead of Toys R Us]. When I received two $10.00 certificates for Buy.com I decided it was time to create an account and place an order. The certificates arrived via Go Zing and instead of just having one code to enter, there are two but you need to create and account and place an item in your shopping cart in order to redeem the certificates, even if you don’t intend to purchase something – that’s just the way the site is set up.
Account Set Up
You’ll need to create an account to place an order, this takes about two minutes to do and offers you the option to add your credit card information when doing so. If you don’t want to do this, select the check or money order option, you can always change this later and can access the section to make changes easily. Once you have this and have selected a password you will receive an email at the address you selected as your primary address – there is no need to confirm this email, it’s just letting you know that your account was created and is now active. After that you can shop around the site, add things to your cart and see shipping fees before you actually process the order. If you do happen to forget your password you can elect to have it display the hint or assign you a completely new one. Please, what ever you do – if you request a new password only do it once. The system is sometimes slow to issue a new password so if you submit it three or four times thinking it didn’t go through the first time, you will have to wait until the last password is sent to you since all the others will be voided by the computer.
Selection
The site offers the usual items; DVD’s, CD’s, cellular phones, toys, computers, digital cameras, video games, books and more. In a lot of ways the site is structured just like Amazon.com and offers you the ability to add things to your cart, edit it or change quantities at any time. When I received the gift certificates I initially wanted to purchase the Clerks cartoon series but, in all honesty, could find it cheaper locally. I opted to go with some of the smaller construction sets for the boys and figured that that $20.00 in gift certificates would net me three $3.99 sets and still have plenty left over for shipping and sales tax. I thought wrong, I needed to put about $2.00 on my credit card since the shipping was a little higher than I expected. While I was there I checked out some prices on accessories for the N-Gage [$19.99] but decided to pass on it since it looked pretty weak and still left the screen exposed.
One section that’s definitely worth checking out is the “today’s deals” section, most of the time you’ll find electronics there but occasionally a video game or computer accessory. Rebates can be found at the site but I have never had much luck with purchasing something online and then receiving a rebate for it – but that’s not to say that Buy.com’s rebates aren’t worth checking out. If you are looking to save cash start at the rebate center and see what they are offering since some of the items – like cellular phones –don’t list that there is a rebate available until you enter your zip code to see if there is coverage or service in your area.
Customer Service
Buy.com
85 Enterprise
Suite 100
Aliso Viejo, California 92656
[949] 389-2000 - phone
[949] 389-2840 – fax
These were phone and fax numbers that I found after about an hour of digging around the site and typing in various search strings. The only toll free number I found for Buy.com was [800] 880-1030 and when I tried that number I was informed that it was no longer in service. This is one strike against the site and something that seems to be a growing trend amongst larger online stores. There are no direct email addresses visibly listed either so you will have to use the various forms at the site to get in touch with customer service or to make an inquiry. When customer service is something that you depend on from a company – you may or may not be impressed with what you find at Buy.com. I’d really rather have a customer service number that I can call in to with questions and have to wait a while to get to a human than to have to play the waiting game with emails and forms.
Ordering Process
Once you have selected your items and opened an account [or logged in] you will be given options on how to pay for your order, these range from credit cards to money orders and even wire transfers [with a $25.00 fee tacked on]. Once the order has been accepted it goes through several steps before it actually ships and you can check the progress of the order at the site by viewing your order summary. I had some trouble getting emails with shipping information but was able to check the status at the site. You can opt to cancel an order before it ships and so far items were only charged to my credit card when they were shipped. The first order was for the construction toys that the gift certificates paid for minus a small amount that was placed on the credit card. I had to place a quick order today and had no trouble logging into my account, placing an order or getting it confirmed but I did need to change my payment method from personal check [something that I needed to select to use the gift certificates] to a credit card. Once the toys shipped I received one email and the items arrived about five days later. I’m curious to see how long it takes for the order I placed today to be processed and shipped out as well as how long it will take to arrive since I opted for the cheapest method of delivery.
Return Policy
In most cases you are protected with a 30 day return policy but there are some items that are only available for return within 14 days. The one thing that puzzles me is that at the website it states “within [14 or 30] days of your product's shipping date”. Since I have never made a return I am a little puzzled by this – what happens if it takes two weeks for your order to arrive? What if it’s lost or is misplaced in transit? Maybe this is a slight oversight or improper wording but most of the sites that I have ordered from offer you 30 days from the date of delivery. This is one of the things that might prevent me from ordering larger thins in the future, if I need to make a return on something I don’t want to have to feel like I am playing “beat the clock” to get the RMA [return merchandise authorization] number and get it back to them. Any returns, be it a defective item or something you wish to exchange, must be accompanied by an RMA. If you send something back without one of these numbers you’ll more than likely have the shipment returned to you and have to pay the shipping return fees. While RMA’s might seem like a real pain, they do help to facilitate the processing of product returns, getting credits issued and having new products sent out as replacements.
Shipping
Shipping fees are average when compared to similar sites but in my opinion a little on the high side. The first order I placed for the construction toys [order total $11.87] cost me $5.07 [this doesn’t include other fees and taxes]. So the shipping fee was almost half the cost of the order – and the kicker was that I couldn’t opt for the ground delivery. The default area for standard shipping was already pre-selected and couldn’t be changed but I did have the option to upgrade it for a faster delivery but nothing that would save me a few extra dollars in the way of shipping. I read over the shipping fee schedule at the site and in complete honesty, it gave me a headache. There are so many different stipulations and things that can effect the total shipping fee that you are better off adding things to the cart and seeing what the costs are rather than trying to figure it out from their shipping schedule and fee assessment.
The Bottom Line
The site is easy to navigate, emails for customer service are answered within 24 – 48 hours and the prices are pretty much industry standards. I’m not sure if I will become a regular shopper at the site since there are so many others that offer free shipping, lower prices or the ability to actually call and speak to someone. One thing that really got under my skin was the limited amount of information that was available about things like the “Bill Me Later” option and some of the electronics. Sure I could type the product name into a search engine and read about them but should I really have to go off site to get the basics of a product? As long as I still earn the gift certificates from various online programs, chances are I’ll still visit the site to use them up when I bank enough to make it worth while. I’m still not completely convinced that Buy.com will ever have the power to overthrow the other mega sites – but if they are going to try to do so they will need to work on their customer service access, shipping fees and amount of information that is available at the site.
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2003 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Toys, gifts.
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