Newegg Vs. Amazon for buying PC parts

[211]

I've bought tons of stuff from Newegg in the past and it's been pretty straight forward. I like the idea of everything shipping from one location and arriving pretty much on the same day. But just this week I put together a shopping cart consisting of all the parts for an HTPC build. The shipping for everything came to a whopping $90!!! I mean, yeah, I realize it costs money to ship things but I'm all about saving a buck when I can too.

So I spec the same build through Amazon (minus one or two things they didn't have in stock). Everything on my list was several dollars less and all of it qualified for free Super Savings Shipping. So all-in-all I saved almost $100.

So I guess my question is, has anyone had experience with returns from either newegg or amazon? I'm just wondering if amazon is a PITA when it comes to RMAs. I know newegg is pretty good although I've never had to RMA anything.

 

[DocBrown]

NewEgg, TigerDirect , & Fry's have been great for me. Never bought any computer stuff from Amazon, I always thought they were higher priced. RMA's have been no problem.

 

[FliGi7]

Amazon is usually very good about returns. The problem comes if the item was fulfilled by another company. Then you have to go through them instead of amazon to do the return or replacement, thus negating the efficiency of ordering everything through one place.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

If you are in the US, you must have used one of the most expensive shipping methods at Newegg. I don't think I have ever paid over $20 for shipping all parts needed to build a PC.

I agree with Fligi--Amazon is great for some things, particularly the shipping, but you can get into trouble if you don't buy from Amazon direct.

 

[211]

Yeah I'm in the US; Pacific Northwest to be exact. All the parts (minus the mobo which is from TigerDirect) is directly from Amazon.
I was a little surprised to at the shipping prices from newegg. I'll check again but I'm sure I selected the cheapest UPS method.
For instance the case itself was almost $20 by itself to ship...

 

[211]

What a noob.
I double checked and shipping is 25$ for all the items. I don't know what I was looking at when I saw $80... you're probably right I must've selected next day air or something dumb...

Sorry for wasting everyones time...

 

[DocBrown]

I really watch all the vendors for their Free Shipping ! One week it will be Free & the next off, then on again. So it really pays to check for the Free Shipping often

 

[1Bowtie]

I look at the item itself and see if it has free shipping, if it doesn't then i look for something comparable that does have free shipping

 

[pparks1]

Look around at your cases. Sometimes NewEgg charges a ton for shipping on one case, but has Free Shipping on another case that might work out for you. So, be sure to have a few case choices in mind when shopping for parts. I find it's rare for me to hardly ever spend money on shipping from NewEgg...it's almost always free.

 

[sygnus21]

I agree with Amazon's customer service/returns. What little I've had to return they have been very good. I'll also add their customer service is top notch. Been using them for 8 years.

Quick story..... I bought a 6950 video card from them.

First issue.... the card was to arrive next day shipping. It didn't because of bad weather and Amazon credited my full shipping charges back to me. Other vendors would have said it wasn't their fault and thus no refund on shipping.

Second Issue.... the card I got was defective. Amazon sent me a replacement overnight without first charging my account for the card until they recieved the bad one from me, and didn't charge for shipping!

They may be a tad higher, but I'd pay just for peace of mind with their customer service.

As for issues with third party vendors through them, the two items I did get through a third party vendor came from Tiger Direct and thankfully there were no issues. However I wouldn't buy if it was coming from someone unknown.

And yeah, Amazon's shipping charges are a lot less then New Egg.

My two cents.

 

[211]

Thanks,
I agree with everyone. I like shopping with newegg and I like having all my eggs in one basket (haha, pun intended).
I've also been recently buying lots of items through Amazon (did most of my x-mas shopping with them this year. That's the way to go!) and I was very pleased with the whole experience.

As it turns out I have in my NE cart; DVD/CD burner, Seagate HDD, Thermaltake PSU, Corsair memory, Rosewill remote, AMD CPU (with fan and heatsink I hope), Silverstone micro-ATX case.
Shipping on all items= $26.76
I can get the case from Amazon for 10$ less and the HDD for 5$ less (both free shipping) for a total of $15 savings which also changes the NE shipping to $6.77
So I'd be saving around $35 by mixing and matching.

I have to buy the mobo from amazon (actually TigerDirect) because NE is out of stock.

 

[Wordsworth]

I think in terms of the RMAs, shipping, prices, and service they're pretty comparable. Sometimes Newegg has a better variety of products within a category, but I like Amazon's 1-Click ordering to speed up the process.

Peripherals that I can hold off on like a new BD drive I always get from Newegg or online because I have a particular brand and model in mind. But I try to buy the core components from the local Micro Center. If they have the motherboard, CPU, RAM, GPU, and PSU I want, I'll buy there and not have to deal with any fear of needing to RMA anything that could hold up the build. On the current build MC didn't have the RAM I wanted in stock so I bought from Newegg and crossed my fingers.

It's always nice when things just plain work.

 

[seekermeister]

I steer clear of Newegg for reasons of my own, and I only use Amazon on rare occasions, because they do not protect their customers from problems when an order goes to one of their sub-vendors. I use either Tiger Direct or eBay for almost all of my transactions. So far, neither one have let me down.