
Newegg Launches $50 Amazon Prime Competitor - prateekj
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/newegg-launches-premier-50-amazon-prime-competitor/?utm_campaign=fb&ncid=fb
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Xdes
Well 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.

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caw
Wow, 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.

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sliverstorm
Blue Cash Preferred qualifies. Man, I'm _still_ discovering little perks to
AMEX like this.

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Axsuul
Any other notable perks?

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sliverstorm
The 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

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nogridbag
From 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.

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sliverstorm
Yes, you do have to enroll every year, but it is easy.

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chm
That'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.

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mildtrepidation
I'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.

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goldenkey
From my limited experience, Amazon is behind the customer experience while
NewEgg is mainly behind low prices for computer parts, and that's about it.
I'd say that you feel the difference when the 'limited' experiences occur,
because good support only really matters when there are problems.

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ams6110
So you get what you pay for, in other words?

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goldenkey
Precisely, although occasionally Amazon has cheaper or equal prices as Newegg
on computer parts -- so it's preferential to choose Amazon for that better
support in those cases.

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WiseWeasel
Even 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.

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yoshokatana
Same 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?

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kbar13
I 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 :)

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brianlweiner
If 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.

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15characterlimi
I 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.

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vonmoltke
I 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
In 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

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pekk
Something 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.

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yalogin
Isn't newegg only for electronics? How is this competing with amazon?

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troymc
You are correct. Amazon only sells books and Newegg only sells electronics, so
they totally don't compete and never will.

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cm2012
Newegg and Amazon both connect to ChannelAdvisor and other inventory
management systems, and I would guess 80%+ of the biggest seller sell on both.

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NatW
I 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! :)

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bluedino
The streaming is a huge benefit of Amazon and Prime is worth it for that
alone. $6-7 * 12 months

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MichaelTieso
Really? I find their selection horrible.

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dangrossman
Horrible 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.

~~~
ngokevin
Compared to other streaming services, not buying physical media.

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shmerl
I 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-p...](http://apcmag.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-
haswell-lynx-point-chipset.htm)). 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).

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Finster
What'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.

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ef4
That'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.

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BryanB55
I 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.

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ck2
They better not kill shoprunner or I'll go elsewhere.

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IbJacked
I'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.

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jmccree
Have 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.

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IbJacked
You'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.

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darklajid
Haven't found the answer so far. Like Amazon Prime? Or .. US only (and maybe
like Amazon, for one single country).

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conorh
Awesome, love NewEgg and this is handy. I had already moved my electronics
ordering over to them from Amazon.

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driverdan
Newegg 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.

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nej
Wow didn't know Newegg was the second largest e-retailer.

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lutorm
I wonder if the free shipping includes HI...

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ocfx
Would be cool except whenever I order from newegg I get it the next day
regardless of what shipping option I choose

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gdulli
Amazon 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.

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Finster
Huh? 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?

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otterley
There'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.

