Ebuyer, innit. (Ebuyer.com)

Member Name: theanarchistkid

Product:	Ebuyer.com
Date:	31/07/01 (964 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap prices, Quick delivery, Nicely designed site

Disadvantages: Poor customer service, Lack of communication, Delivery costs extra.

I think that Ebuyer.com sum themselves up pretty well on their own site. Here's what they have to say...

"Specifically we offer our customers:

Comprehensive product information and availability on over 15,000 products
*Customer self service
*Customer specific pricing agreements
*Branded computers and peripherals at competitive prices"

And to be honest, who am I to disagree. By customer self service they certainly succeed because there's no other way of buying products on the internet. Unlike in real life, on the internet there are no shop assistants to tell you where things are so the site has to be easy to understand and navigate. On this front, Ebuyer has done a very good job. The general design of the site is very attractive and everything that you need is instantly available to you. On the main page, there is a list of special offers and this is the best place to really find some bargains. Some of the products on the front page of the site really are very cheap. Below a picture of each product is the price and importantly, the amount of each product that they have in stock. This is becoming a fairly common feature on ecommerce websites and is one that is very useful when you're trying to decide which site to buy from.

On the left hand side of the page there is a list of product categories such as processors, memory etc and a quick click on any one of these will take you to a more specific area. If you still can't see what you want there is a very powerful search facility that narrows down on items very well. Sometimes the site does get a little sluggish but I haven't noticed this recently because they've changed servers. In the very top right of the page, there is a little shopping trolley which tells you how many items you've got in it and also the total cost of the items. This is a useful feature because on some sites you have to keep skipping back and forwards from the
shopping trolley to the product pages.

Ebuyer also aim to provide 'customer specific pricing agreements'. Now, I'm guessing that this doesn't apply to home users because I've never been offered a customer specific pricing agreement. Presumably this applies to businesses that are buying products in bulk quantities so they will probably get cheaper prices.

"Branded computers and peripherals at competitive prices" is their next aim and they've certainly achieved this. At the moment prices for RAM are remarkably low all over the internet, but Ebuyer.com is the cheapest place that I have seen as of yet. The low prices don't stop there though because 90% of the products on the site are cheaper than anywhere else I've seen. The upshot of this is that Ebuyer either have to cut corners or bump the price up in other areas. They offer free delivery on purchases over £100 but I am yet to buy anything off them that totalled to more than £100. Delivery on small items such as RAM costs around a fiver and is good value seeing as it arrives the next day. Dabs.com offer free delivery on all items though and this is something that I'd really like to see Ebuyer incorporate.

My only major criticism of Ebuyer would be their customer service. A lot of online companies like this are often criticised for their lack of communication with customers and Ebuyer.com is no exception. I have emailed them a couple of times with queries about products and have never received any replies. In my eyes this is not acceptable and it is just laziness on the part of Ebuyer. Several people that I know have had problems returning faulty goods to Ebuyer as well. One friend in particular received no replies to his emails when part of his machine failed and in the end he phoned them up, only to be fobbed off and told that is was a software error. He pointed out that it couldn't be a software error and eventually they agreed to replace
the faulty goods. This is in contrast to Dabs.com who are very good at communication and customer services. Email was supposed to speed up communication but it seems to me that companies like Ebuyer don't even bother reading them.

When ordering products, the site is totally secure so there is no risk of credit card fraud and nobody will be able to hack in and pinch your details. This should offer some piece of mind to paranoid individuals that are reluctant to give their credit card details away over the internet.

Ebuyer.com isn't a perfect company by a long shot, but it is pretty good. I would liken buying from them to be like buying from a computer fair. The prices are very cheap, but if things go wrong you may have trouble returning faulty goods. Fortunately I personally have never had any problems with them whatsoever although I do know several people that haven't been so impressed with them. If Ebuyer could improve their customer services, I'm sure that they could quickly gain a very good reputation for being so cheap but as it stands currently, a lot of people seem to prefer paying a little bit extra and sticking with more well known and established stores.

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