Quick to Send, but Odd Prices
Written: Aug 03 '02 (Updated Aug 05 '02)
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I ordered twice in the last year from eCost's web site, and found the process just an inch short of deceptive each time. When I had the item, and paid the bills, however, I almost always concluded I'd gotten a good deal, even if it wasn't always clear.
eCost is a general-interest electronics vendor, selling computers, consumer electronics, and camera goods, plus the occasional oddball item out of nowhere. eCost has a lot of products that are refurbished, returns, or discontinued. This can mean good prices, but it also carries some risk. Often, products come with minimal warrenties, and can't be easily compared against other sites. Even for new-in-box products, they're often discontinued items. This doesn't apply to everything, but the best deals are invariably always "special" this way.
Another peeve is shipping, and handling fees. Their shipping costs seem moderate - not really good, but not the rip-offs you sometimes see at cheap online stores. You get kicked over the handling fee, a seperate fee broken out from shipping, which escalates based on the cost of the item. Buy a 1 lb item, and you only pay $10 or so on shipping, but you pay a whopping 2.4% of price on items over $500. For a $1000 camera, that's $24 _above and beyond_ the shipping cost. This can eat into your savings fast. Make sure you compare price INCLUDING these charges.
Once past the minefield of price and quality, eCost wasn't a bad store to deal with. They don't seem to operate much of a warehouse themselves, it seems like everything gets drop-shipped from a warehouse run by someone else. This means you can end up paying less for the exact same item from the exact same warehouse. You get items quickly from drop-shippers, and they're almost always packed well.
I was lucky not to have to do returns to eCost, and they provided such a wealth of information (status, tracking information) on their site that I didn't need to call them.
All in all, if you know what you're getting and the price plus fees is right, they're worth a shot.
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Location: Northern Virginia
Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 8 members
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