Audio-visual mecca in a sea of shysters
Written: Dec 05 '01 (Updated Dec 05 '01)
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The Bottom Line
These guys are reliable and relatively affordable. Good for people who like to ask questions too. Definitely recommended without qualms.
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I was recently in the market for a digital camcorder and camera since I got my father to agree to taking my older Canon Powershot S100 and buying me a new set of video devices for my birthday/Christmas gift. =) You would think that shopping for electronics on the web would be relatively easy proposition. Especially for such portable items as cameras and camcorders. Alas, that is not the case by any stretch of the imagination.
Hitting the proverbial pavement
After doing some price and store research through sites like mysimon.com, pricewatch.com, cnet.com, and pricegrabber.com, a few things were very apparent: none of the stores that offered dirt cheap prices on electronics were dependable to any satisfactory degree and a significant number of these "rip-off" places were located in the NYC boroughs. =p It seemed that some people had good experiences with few of these cheap places but I figured when dealing with items this expensive, I wanted to be 100% sure of the integrity of the company I was dealing with. In a last ditch effort, I went to Canon's website and took a look at their recommended online suppliers which is where I found B&H.
Narrowing the search
After looking through every single company and policy info page on their website, I was reasonably assured that these guys would be safe to deal with. Plus the fact that they were located just across the river from me was a plus as well. Their prices are just about the cheapest you can find from a reputable place and in my case, was a good $200 less than retail. Their return policy is a standard 14 days for photo equipment but only 7 days for everything else. Much less than what you'd get at say a Best Buy but the price difference was worth it and I figured since they were so close to me, it was sufficient time for me to check out the items after I received them.
Their website works well and is pretty easy to use but with one glaring flaw. Their search functionality doesn't seem to work very well. For instance, a search for "Elura 10" under All New Products or Consumer Video returned nothing even though if you actually clicked into the Consumer Video / Camcorders category, the Elura 10 was the first item to show up. For a store with such a huge inventory, it's a little discouraging when the search function doesn't work reliably.
Their site does sport a Live Assistance function though which looks to be pretty convenient. You type in your name, which department you want to contact, and then your question, and a salesperson gets back to you with an answer right in the window apparently. I didn't have to use it since I pretty much knew what I wanted but it seems like a pretty ideal way of getting any questions answered during the shopping process.
Target in sight
After placing the order, you are sent an email receipt. If your billing and shipping addresses are different, their customer service will also stop your order until they are able to contact the person at the shipping address to confirm which I found to be rather odd. You would think they'd be contacting the person being billed rather than the person receiving the item for security reasons but I guess not. During my confirmation I had them change the shipping to overnight as well which they did without fuss. Orders usually ship out by 4pm and you can check your order status on their website if you created a login or you can also use their automated email service where you send your order # to their tracking email address and it automatically emails you back with the current status of your order. But the email status update is rather weak. It only tells you if your order has been shipped or not. Better than nothing I guess. Plus they also send you an email when your order is actually sent out along with a tracking number if applicable.
Score!
Items were received on time and in perfect condition. Nothing broken or misplaced. I did get the sales receipt in the package even though I had specified during the ordering process that a receipt shouldn't be sent to me. =) Turns out that was better anyway since I needed to make copies of it for the rebates I had. So overall a great online purchasing experience.
Back for seconds
Yesterday, I decided to head to the store personally since I was missing a few minor items like camera/camcorder cases and a UV lens. The place is huge and there are a lot of salespeople in each department waiting to help. Since I wasn't buying anything that required much discussion, I observed some other customer/sales interactions and from what I could tell, their salespeople knew their stuff and were generally quite courteous and weren't just out to make a quick buck. This was confirmed by a friend of mine who's into amateur photography and often goes to B&H. He also said that even with so many salespeople, the place can get very crowded on busy days and hunting down someone to help can take awhile. I went on a Tuesday evening after work so it wasn't as crowded although there was still a good 10 minute wait at the digital photography section.
Shopping at the store is also an interesting experience. A salesperson will first print out a pickup slip for you which you then go pay for at a bank of cashiers located in the center of the store. After that, you then line up at the pickup counter where your item will have either been retrieved from the stock room or from the department that you purchased from by way of green baskets traveling along a metal chain track structure running along the ceiling. Never seen anything like it before and kinda interesting to watch.
In summation
Anyway, B&H is definitely one of the better places you can pick up electronics at either online or in person. They even print out these giant guides to digital photography and audiovisual products that you can pick up for free at their store. Inside, they contain detailed descriptions and specifications (we're talking 2 pages per product practically) of almost all the products that they carry along with available accessories. I'm not certain how often they update these things but they were certainly very impressive. Their website isn't as polished as say Amazon or buy.com but it's not a pain to use either. They just gotta fix that search function. Great product selection, plentiful and helpful staff, decent prices, this is just a great place to shop.
The original small digital point-and-shoot camera, the Canon PowerShot S100:
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-48E6-25EDD06C-3A1E7E31-prod5
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kenshin27
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Member: Ben C
Location: NJ
Reviews written: 34
Trusted by: 17 members
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B&H Photo-Video-Pro Audio
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