A great idea, a good site
Written: Jun 28 '00
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The Mercata "powerbuy" concept is an interesting one: offer up a product and let the price drop as people sign up to buy it. This has worked well for me several times -- everything from a $20 savings on small electronics (the pre-"powerbuy" prices compare quite favourably with those at brick-and-mortar stores, and other on-line retailers) to the ridiculous: a 300-minute AT&T phone card for somewhere around eight bucks -- yikes.
Service is nothing special, but then I've never had reason to find out: everything I've bought from Mercata has arrived neatly and in a timely manner. The lack of never-ending "backorders" and the like is a great relief from an on-line retailer.
I had some problems with the diversity of their products: places that sell appliances are not generally known for jewellery, though I notice that at some point Mercata slipped in to the jewellery section here on Epinions. Amazingly, Mercata is a great place for mid-price jewellery: the prices and quality are excellent, and my one Mercata bauble has inspired more than one compliment swiftly followed by a back-and-forth about "you got it on-line? Seriously? How much?" (They usually get out a pen and write down the URL, making me feel like a bit of a walking ad, but I'm happy with the jewellery, so...)
Similarly happy experiences have come with other Mercata purchases. It's an excellent place to pick up gifts for weddings and the like: going to the "top 10 powerbuys" page brings up things you might not have thought of that are invariably more useful than ugly crystal items, and on sale to boot -- my favourite surprise in this category was a two-bike vertical bike stand: not something I would have thought of, but appropriate and appreciated.
My main complaint is that the web site itself is an irritation. It's slow, it's awkward, it's unresponsive at times, its abuse of Javascript is poor, and, well, most frustratingly, the first page looks lousy. This is hard, because I've suggested Mercata as a source for (insert product here) to a lot of people, and all but the most web-oriented come back to me to complain that it was hard to navigate, and they are usually a bit put off by the interface.
I'd also like to see Mercata offer a bit of a wider range of products: almost everything on the site is $100-$1,000, with most things in the $100-$500 range. Smaller impulse purchases would be ideal for the "powerbuy" concept, and I'd like a discount source for higher-end luxury merchandise, but Mercata is firmly stuck in the same price range for nearly all of its categories.
Those are very small bones to pick, though. Mercata is one of those pleasant, "what e-commerce should be" sites, and I highly recommend.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
kmennie
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Member: K.M. Mennie
Reviews written: 384
Trusted by: 405 members
About Me:
ZOMGZ! Ten years on this site...!
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