Five star online shopping. (amazon.co.uk)

Member Name: Holidaying

Product:	amazon.co.uk
Date:	24/12/08 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great variety, wide slection, good price, speedy delivery, ebay like community.

Disadvantages: None that I can think of.

Amazon.co.uk is, not surprisingly, the UK branch of what started out as an American company, selling books.

Selection
Amazon started out as a bookseller, but seems to sell something new every week now. You can buy all sorts, from music to electronics to toys for children. The selection within these categories is excellent, I think. Being an online company, they don't need the shop space to store everything, like say Waterstones or HMV, and this means that you can find things on Amazon that you may not be able to find on the high street.

Ease of Use
This website must be one of the easiest to use that I have ever used! When you visit the website, you choose which category you want to go to (eg, books, music) or you search for something specific (eg, book title, album title). If you do the former, you can narrow down your search by selecting sub-categories, and the browse; if you do the latter, you will get the closest matches to your search first, followed by less good matches.

If it is your first order, you will have to sign up, which I seem to remember was quite straghtforward and took only a few minutes.

If this is a repeat order (and this is the thing that I really love about this website), you just type in your email address and password, confirm your delivery address and card details, and your order is processed. I would say that that takes less than one minute!

Delivery
When you purchase your item/s, you get to choose what type of delivery you want. I normally go for Super Saver, which you get when you order more than fifteen pounds worth of items, but which does take up to about five working days. You have to pay more if you want first class delivery, and you have to pay for delivery if you don't order more than fifteen pounds worth of items. I don't think it is too much though- just a couple of quid.

All of my orders have been correct and have reached me in a reasonable amount of time.

Price
I think that Amazon is very competitive, especially if you do take advantage of the Super Saver delivery that I mentioned above.

You can also buy second hand items from people (like on Ebay) and with this you can really get yourself a bargain, with items starting form 1p, although you do have to pay for delivery. (The other thing with this is that it comes from the seller, not from Amazon.)

Other features
As I have just mentioned, there is a community of sellers on Amazon like there is on Ebay. I don't have very much experience with these, having only used them a couple of times, but I have had no problems, and, again like Ebay, sellers get rated, which is good. I think that delivery does tend to be expensive when you buy from such sellers, however.

All in all I think that Amazon is one of the best online shopping websites!

Summary: Recommended!