Cooking.com; Highly recommended!
Written: Apr 21, 2006
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I have recently developed an interest in finer cooking at home and as such have the need for quality cooking tools. I have used a few websites in the past year or so to find my needed items, and by far my favorite find is Cooking.com. Cooking.com has a great selection of products, reasonable shipping rates and frequent specials that will save you money. With all this and high quality merchandise, how can you go wrong?
Cooking.com sells a wide variety of products in many areas. Below is a brief and partial listing of the categories available on the site:
● Bakeware
● Barware
● Cook's Tools
● Cookware
● Gourmet Foods
● Vacuum Cleaners
● Small Appliances
If you don't know exactly what you are looking for but know what brand you wish to purchase, or if you know exactly what you want but can't find it by the search bar, you can also click on the Brands tab to drill down to what you like. There are many great brand name stores available for perusal, including some of my favorites:
● All-Clad
● Cuisinart
● KitchenAid
● Le Creuset
● John Boos
● T-Fal
● Wusthof
Cooking.com works with affiliate stores, similar to the Amazon model. For instance, if you wanted to purchase some Parmagiano Regianno during that next internet shopping expedition, Cooking.com has teamed up with iGourmet to sell their products. Need Starbucks? Again, Cooking.com can process your order through one-stop shopping. I have used this to buy gourmet cheeses in the past, and it has been a good experience. Keep in mind that the shipping rates and method of shipping will differ, as you are using Cooking.com as a storefront to purchase from the original e-tailer. It is nice, however, to have the option of one stop shopping that this affords.
Cooking.com offers other services that some e-tail websites do not offer, and these differentiate it from the rest. For instance, Cooking.com has buying guides that will help the first-time purchaser determine what they want in a knife. Need to know what is important to the experts when buying a small appliance? That information is present and accounted for. The site has tools and advice that will help you determine if you are buying the right tool for the anticipated job, and even some interactive shopping guides have been developed. Add this to the vast recipe collection available and you have a very good source for all of your cooking needs.
Once you know what you are looking for, finding your product is relatively easy either through drilling down through the departments or brand stores or using the search tool. Chances are good that if you use it in your kitchen/dining room, it is available on Cooking.com. I have made two recent purchases on Cooking.com and have been very pleased with both experiences. The first order was for a Global 4" paring knife and the T-Fal Avante Stainless Steel 10 pc. Set. I knew exactly what I wanted in the knife and had a general idea for the stainless set. I quickly found the Global knife and did some comparison shopping on the site between all of the stainless sets. After some discussion with my wife we (she) determined that we really wanted to have the non-stick coating in the skillets, so we settled on the T-Fal. After that we moved on to the ordering phase.
Completing the order is a breeze as well. From the item's page you can see if your desired purchase is in stock and add it to the cart. From the cart you can add in coupons or gift certificates, and I recommend searching the net for cooking.com's coupon codes. In my case I found one for free shipping in one case and another for $30 off an order of $150 or more. Both coupons saved me significant amounts of money. Speaking of shipping charges, Cooking.com has reasonable rates, although not the lowest out there. One thing that I didn't particularly care for was the fact that shipping rates are set via the purchase price of the order, so a few small, expensive items will cost you significantly more to ship than the actual cost to Cooking.com. Oh well, you can't have your cake and eat it too; at least not every time… For a complete listing of shipping charges, see the following website.
http://www.cooking.com/guestassist/gashipping.asp#charges
During the checkout process you will be required to input your address, email address and contact numbers, all typical of online shopping. If you see yourself purchasing from the site in the future you can also set up an account on the site, which I recommend. Without this it is harder to search your past purchases without weeding through your email client to find the appropriate email. If the purchase is a gift for others you can choose to send to a separate address with a free message on the packing slip, or for an additional $4.95 gift wrapping and a card are options. Cooking.com used to have the option of splitting the order between two delivery addresses, but this is no longer available.
Payment options are nice, as the shopper can choose from the regular credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover) or alternately use Paypal. Since my wife and I sell items via EBay, we had a Paypal account set up with funds in it. Alternately if the Paypal account balance would not have covered the purchase we have a credit card connected to the account, so the required funds would be automatically withdrawn. The transition from the cooking.com site to Paypal and back was seamless, causing no concerns for this shopper. For my purchase I chose the super saver shipping (eh, it was free) and the order arrived in 6 business days. Pretty good overall. The order was correct and complete, and all items were packaged securely.
Cooking.com had the items that we wanted at good prices, and when the coupons were taken into account the prices were exceptional. The orders were complete and secure, making the overall experience very good. If you are looking for gadgets and appliances for the kitchen, I wholeheartedly recommend Cooking.com!
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? several
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