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Newegg Launches $50 Amazon Prime Competitor
- 15characterlimi 13y agoI wonder how well their marketplace is doing? The selection seems poor and almost random, like a flea market. I never think to check Newegg for things other than computer parts and I almost always end up ordering on amazon because I have Prime. I guess this may change that.
- vonmoltke 13y agoI agree on the marketplace. I usually order my parts from Newegg, though, because I have a preferred account and Amazon pricing for computer parts is sometimes very strange and volatile. I saw a set of memory sticks I was looking at go from $136 to $235 to $147 in the span of a week.
- 15characterlimi 13y agoIn some ways Newegg is like the Best Buy paradigm for me (try things out at Best Buy, purchase on Amazon). Newegg always has better technical details and specs than Amazon but Amazon usually has better prices + Prime. I hope this works out well for the Egg
- pekk 13y agoWhile Amazon is great overall, in many specific areas they also seem random like a flea market.
- Xdes 13y agoWell 3 day shipping for $50 or 2 day shipping across many sites for $79 with shoprunner. Also shoprunner is a free benefit with an Amex card and they occasionally have a deal of spend $x on y site and get a one year membership.
- caw 13y agoWow, I have an AMEX but didn't know about it. For anyone else curious: https://www.shoprunner.com/americanexpress/ https://www.shoprunner.com/americanexpress/ EDIT: Apparently it's not all American Express cards. My Fidelity AMEX doesn't qualify.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rwong48 13y agoYep, I didn't know either until the holiday season was almost over. I could've ShopRunner'd so many things!
- sliverstorm 13y agoBlue Cash Preferred qualifies. Man, I'm still discovering little perks to AMEX like this.
- Axsuul 13y agoAny other notable perks?
- sliverstorm 13y agoThe one that always jumps to mind is, on "Small business Saturday", if you register beforehand: - visit a small business on their qualifying list, which is quite long - Spend $10 or more on your AMEX - Get a $10 statement credit I don't know how "notable" that one is, but I always liked it and not everyone knows about it
- nogridbag 13y agoFrom the FAQ: "Can I still register my Card for the American Express $10 Card Member Offer for Small Business Saturday?" "Unfortunately, the enrollment period for the offer has ended." Looks like this the enrollment was only available Nov 24-30.
- bluedino 13y agoThe streaming is a huge benefit of Amazon and Prime is worth it for that alone. $6-7 * 12 months
- higherpurpose 13y agoIt may be, but I assume not everyone wants to pay for that, and may prefer just having Newegg's service + Netflix instead. This is smart business/pricing strategy from Newegg, and it couldn't have come at a better time.
- MichaelTieso 13y agoReally? I find their selection horrible.
- dangrossman 13y agoHorrible compared to what? For that price, you could buy one second-rate DVD per month. Or buy half a season of TV episodes for streaming. Or half a ticket to a movie theater. Or 3 weeks of Netflix/Hulu/etc -- Prime is cheaper even if you allocate $0 in value to the shipping perks. For that price Prime is giving you thousands of movies and TV series, including some awesome original programming (Betas, Alpha House). It's hard to argue there's not $6/mo of value there if you can find just one thing a month to watch.
- ck2 13y agoThey better not kill shoprunner or I'll go elsewhere.
- WiseWeasel 13y agoEven without paying for expedited shipping, I get stuff the next day from NewEgg with the free ground shipping option; one of the benefits of living in the Bay Area, near their distribution center. That turn-around is a large part of the reason I prefer to use NewEgg over Amazon, whose merchant partners typically take a week to get stuff to me.
- yoshokatana 13y agoSame for me in New York (they have a warehouse in New Jersey, apparently). Maybe this program will be one of those "less than 30 minutes or it's free" deals? Or possibly delivering them slightly before we finish checkout?
- kbar13 13y agoI live near Edison, their warehouse in NJ. I can pick up up same day with their "will-call" program, or I can get it delivered tomorrow or the day after for free :)
- blah32497 13y ago"whose merchant partners typically take a week to get stuff to me" Which is a week faster than Amazon's normal shipping rate. I think Amazon has purposefully made their shipping slower to get more people to sign up for Prime. But I can't make myself sign up to their anticompetitive BS.
- ericd 13y agoOr those prime packages simply get bumped up in the queue to be before other orders that were already placed because they need to be to get out as fast as they do. And how is Prime anticompetitive?
- blah32497 13y agoMembership plans are anticompetitive b/c they effectively lock you in to one retailer thereby decrease competition. You're effectively paying for the shipping ahead of time with the membership, so going to NewEgg or TigerDirect means you "throw money away". The other issue is that since there is no fixed cost associated with shipping you things throughout the year, do to the the economics of it, the plan must be to your disadvantage. Amazon isn't a charity - the deal is making them money - and therefore on average the consumers are losing out. Take the 80/yr and split it among all your purchases. Amazon is likely spending less than that on the extra shipping speed. PS: Hypothetically they could be spending slightly more and decreasing their profit margins in exchange for higher volumes (b/c now that you spent your 80 bucks you feel guilty about shopping elsewhere). However I'm almost certain S&H fees are a lot larger than profit margins. Since the market is already very competitive they don't have much of a profit margin in the first place.
- yalogin 13y agoIsn't newegg only for electronics? How is this competing with amazon?
- dec0dedab0de 13y agoThey've opened up to other sellers like amazon does. I kind of wish they were still just electronics.
- bluedino 13y agoNewEgg sells all kinds of random things now. On the front page I see perfume, jewlery, and paper plates. I was never a huge fan of NewEgg and after dealing with them for returns and having orders not process until the day after I place them, I order from elsewhere. Most of the time you can find things for the same price on Amazon anyway.
- bretkoppel 13y agoThis has been my experience as well. Their order chain seems nowhere near as streamlined as Amazon's, and their Customer Service / Return chain has been dismal for me. They aren't anywhere near a competitor to Amazon in my experience, marketplace or no.
- troymc 13y agoYou are correct. Amazon only sells books and Newegg only sells electronics, so they totally don't compete and never will.
- cm2012 13y agoNewegg and Amazon both connect to ChannelAdvisor and other inventory management systems, and I would guess 80%+ of the biggest seller sell on both.
- darklajid 13y agoHaven't found the answer so far. Like Amazon Prime? Or .. US only (and maybe like Amazon, for one single country).
- ocfx 13y agoWould be cool except whenever I order from newegg I get it the next day regardless of what shipping option I choose
- gdulli 13y agoAmazon throttled their free shipping at a certain point after launching prime. Newegg will do it, too. There was a point when I reliably got Amazon packages fast with free shipping, and now I reliably don't. The funny thing is, the shipping is all done through the same channels and I guess there's not really a way to slow it down selectively, so the way they do it is sit on free-shipping orders for a few days before shipping. They used to always ship same day or next day, now several days go by at the least before the shipping starts.
- Finster 13y agoHuh? I've ordered from Amazon several times over the past several months and they either ship same day or next day and it has always arrived 2nd day after that, as advertised. Are you sure you're ordering from Amazon, and not some two-bit vendor that isn't Prime eligible? You're either totally making this up, or it's due to differences in how your nearest Amazon warehouse is handling things. I just checked every single one of my orders in the past 6 months, and they all shipped same day, arrived exactly 2 business days after ordering. There was one order that took 3 days to arrive (shipped next day instead of same day), but it was two items sold by third parties. In fact, I ordered something (computer case) TODAY (2/5) and it has already shipped and is scheduled to arrive on Fri. (2/7)! Do you even order, bro?
- otterley 13y agoThere's no need for this kind of attitude. The respondent was referring to Super Saver Shipping, which is still free for many orders of $25 or more. Before Prime existed, Super Saver shipments usually shipped the next day, and if you were fortunate enough to have a warehouse nearby, you'd effectively get next-day or 2-day shipping without paying for it. But after the introduction of Prime, Amazon had to incent customers in such a position (of which there are many) to pay for it, so they artificially delayed Super Saver shipments by several days so that they could never arrive before or at the same time Prime shipments would.
- conorh 13y agoAwesome, love NewEgg and this is handy. I had already moved my electronics ordering over to them from Amazon.
- lutorm 13y agoI wonder if the free shipping includes HI...
- pekk 13y agoSomething many people aren't realizing is that while Amazon is now including state tax most places, Newegg isn't in many places. With the use of this kind of shipping discount, a lot of the things Newegg stocks are going to be noticeably cheaper even if the actual price of the item itself is the same.
- chm 13y agoThat's good news, but I'm still forming my opinion about Newegg. I've only ordered three times from them, but allow me this comparison: I never received a product from Amazon that didn't match its description. That doesn't mean these don't exist. I recently received an item from Newegg that didn't match the description. The page has since been removed and it was changed in Google Cache too. It was a 1000W PSU which was supposed to have 8x6+2 PCI-E connectors, but it really only has 6. Also, upon checkout Newegg informed me that I could spare the 17$ of express shipping since they could deliver the goods in the same time with standard shipping. The delivery took 9 days. This never happens on Amazon.
- x0x0 13y agoI received an item from amazon that didn't match the description. It was supposed to be a spray bottle of mineral oil to kill plant mites. When it came it was just the oil, but not in the spray bottle. I emailed amazon to let them know and said I didn't want to return the produce since I had a spare spray bottle; I just wanted them to correct their catalogue. The csr thanked me, said he or she would contact their catalogue team, and (unprompted) refunded 1/2 the purchase amount without my asking. This is part of the reason I made 35 purchases last year from amazon.
- chm 13y agoGood. I have wondered if I should call Newegg to complain. I really only need 6x6+2 connectors, but I still feel like I was cheated. Not only does the PSU only have 6 connectors, two of them share the same rail. One wire splits in two at the end, and 4 wires are independent. Nowhere was this mentioned. I'm not sure how, if ever, this will affect my graphics card.
- mildtrepidation 13y agoI'm not discounting your experience -- by all means, let it inform your future purchases -- but as someone who's been happily ordering from NewEgg for over a decade, suggesting your single bad NewEgg purchase could possibly be representative and/or forming a judgment based on that is... hard to swallow. You got a raw deal. Once. It's good to share, but it'd be far more useful to know what the product was or who fulfilled it. If it was NewEgg, that'd be good to know, too (I don't know if they sell things that other companies fulfill; it's become so common that I assume it's happening everywhere) but what little you've provided says not nearly enough to draw a conclusion.
- BryanB55 13y agoI ordered from Newegg once and won't ever again. I had to return something and it was a major hassle that took about 10 emails to their support. Amazon makes it so much easier and asks less questions.
- NatW 13y agoI see a service anecdotes, positive and negative about Newegg. I don't know if they're real or if they're from Amazon shills, Newegg shills, etc. I guess we're stuck with anecdotes, not data. For myself, I'd always been happy with Newegg (ok, another anecdote) and like their faceted search and their prices. I also bought less from them after I got an Amazon Prime subscription.. I'm guessing Newegg must have noticed their loss of customers, perhaps and is fighting back. Go Newegg! :)
- shmerl 13y agoI often use Newegg. Some in the comments there complained about their customer service. I can't compare, since I don't use Amazon much. But in my case for example when I was buying a motherboard with an Intel chipset recently from Newegg, customer service couldn't help me with verifying whether it's C1 of C2 stepping (C1 has a known USB 3 bug: http://apcmag.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-haswell-lynx-point-chipset.htm http://apcmag.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-haswell-lynx-p...). I.e. I couldn't figure it out before buying. That wasn't so pleasant, I had to call the manufacturer after I got the board to verify it. Luckily it happened to be C2. But I still prefer to support Newegg because they staunchly fight patent trolls (unlike Amazon).
- IbJacked 13y agoI've been a Prime subscriber for years now, and have recently been reconsidering my membership. The free 2-day shipping now frequently means 2-day free to the local post office. Once there, it's usually another couple of days before it gets to me (and my office is literally next door to local post office). Not cool, Amazon.
- hershel 13y agoyou should check if there are Amazon lockers in your area or lockers from other companies you can receive packages in, so you could pickup the stuff yourself.
- IbJacked 13y agoI don't think there are, or at least I've never heard/seen any around. I do, however, receive UPS shipments almost daily, and scheduled daily pickups. It seems weird that they let the US Post Office make the final leg of the delivery, when the destination is literally next door. I understand the reason behind it, it's just odd from a human perspective.
- jmccree 13y agoHave you mentioned this to amazon? I had a book a few days late and amazon overnighted me another one and told me to keep the other one when/if it arrived. Their customer service is rather decent in my experience.
- IbJacked 13y agoYou're right, I should mention this to Amazon, not the folks here :) I have otherwise received good service from them, which keeps me coming back. If I cancel my Prime membership, I will continue to use Amazon pretty much the same way.
- brianlweiner 13y agoIf we're piling on bad newegg experiences, I spent years ordering lots of server components and standard PC hardware from them. 1) Bought a Supermicro 2u server barebones kit that shipped with a defective mainboard (tested RAM and CPU in a similar 2u I had at work, all the other variables I could think of.) 2)I shipped the server back to Newegg who refused to process it since I forgot to include the rackmount rails 3) Newegg ships the server back to me in a box with no padding / packing material whatsoever. Literally a 2u server loose in a big cardboard box - many points of physical damage. 4) I RMA again, explicitly telling newegg they damaged it in shipment. 5) Newegg refuses the RMA, blaming me for the shipping damage. 6) I contest the charges with my Newegg Preferred Card (another mistake). They ruled in my favor, but then 30 days later was notified they reversed their decision. They refused to discuss it any further. 7) Newegg disabled my account. Quite an experience and I had previously loved Newegg as a retailer. These days I basically stick to Amazon, more esoteric stuff needs to go through TigerDirect or some other electronic retailer. I haven't bought anything from newegg since.
- Finster 13y agoWhat's to stop me from getting the 30-day trial, buying all the parts for my new desktop build and then canceling? Nothing, I guess, but unlike Amazon, I don't see myself using Newegg beyond the once every two years to buy system components for a new build.
- ef4 13y agoThat's how I used to think of Newegg too, but they've branched out way beyond computer parts. It's a very similar evolution to Amazon itself, which of course used to be a book store.
- hayksaakian 13y agoSome fraction of people won't cancel. They wager that those people can cover the costs of those who do cancel. At least that's the intuitive logic.
- driverdan 13y agoNewegg used to have great prices but in the past three months they've increased prices on many computer hardware items by 10-30%, I'm guessing due to demand. You can now find the same prices elsewhere, including Amazon.
- nej 13y agoWow didn't know Newegg was the second largest e-retailer.