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Newegg Launches $50 Amazon Prime Competitor

84 points| prateekj | 12 years ago |techcrunch.com | reply

96 comments

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[+] Xdes|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] nivla|12 years ago|reply
Also if you have AMEX, watchout for their offers tab. During December they had $25 off $50 & $75 for Newegg, Amazon & Walmart. No codes, no referral, just use your Amex card at checkout and it automatically deducts from your statement. It also means you can use Ebates & other coupons on top of it.
[+] encoderer|12 years ago|reply
Has Shoprunner actually worked well for you?

I've been unimpressed. The last few times I've bought from NewEgg or TigerDirect I tried to use it but literally nothing on my shopping list was marked as shoprunner-eligible.

I signed-up because of the free-with-amex thing but I don't see myself using it all that much.

[+] awa|12 years ago|reply
And newegg was part of shoprunner, it would suck if they get rid of shoprunner coz of this
[+] byoung2|12 years ago|reply
Wow, I didn't know about this. I just signed up with my Amex card.
[+] aestra|12 years ago|reply
For those surprised by free shoprunner with amex, check slickdeals once in a while to find out things like this.
[+] chm|12 years ago|reply
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.

[+] x0x0|12 years ago|reply
I 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.

[+] goldenkey|12 years ago|reply
NewEgg sent me 1000 dollar Titan GPUs late, despite me paying extra for 1 day shipping. The box came with a huge hole in it and one Titan, out of the three that I ordered, was missing. I called up customer support and they dicked around and finally said they would send me new ones' overnight. Well I didn't get the GPUs for two weeks because they waited until they got the holed up package back. I would never order from NewEgg again, Amazon has amazing customer support and NewEgg just pales in comparison. Plus I would think that any box with NewEgg on the side of t, is more likely to be ransacked during shipment.
[+] mildtrepidation|12 years ago|reply
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.

[+] GFK_of_xmaspast|12 years ago|reply
"it was changed in Google Cache too"

Have you considered the possibility that you made a mistake.

[+] janesvilleseo|12 years ago|reply
Let me preface this and say I buy from both Amazon and Newegg. I have even purchased from newegg when they were just a brick and mortar store. I have never had an issue from either outside of 1 item being wrong from newegg. I ordered 10' male to male display-port cable. When it arrived it was male to female. I called their customer support and informed them of the issue. It was a quick no hassle response from the CSR who sent me a new one. Except when I got the new one (for free) it was again the wrong one. Here's the kicker, I informed the CSR that it was probably labeled wrong in the warehouse before they issued a replacement. And I guess I was right. I even checked my order and it indicated male to male.

If anybody from newegg is reading this, I would suggest you work on using your CSR's more effectively. Maybe even reward them for fixing issues in your supply chain.

[+] WiseWeasel|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] yoshokatana|12 years ago|reply
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?
[+] blah32497|12 years ago|reply
"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.

[+] brianlweiner|12 years ago|reply
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.

[+] 15characterlimi|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] vonmoltke|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] pekk|12 years ago|reply
While Amazon is great overall, in many specific areas they also seem random like a flea market.
[+] pekk|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] yalogin|12 years ago|reply
Isn't newegg only for electronics? How is this competing with amazon?
[+] dec0dedab0de|12 years ago|reply
They've opened up to other sellers like amazon does. I kind of wish they were still just electronics.
[+] troymc|12 years ago|reply
You are correct. Amazon only sells books and Newegg only sells electronics, so they totally don't compete and never will.
[+] bluedino|12 years ago|reply
NewEgg 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.

[+] NatW|12 years ago|reply
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! :)
[+] bluedino|12 years ago|reply
The streaming is a huge benefit of Amazon and Prime is worth it for that alone. $6-7 * 12 months
[+] MichaelTieso|12 years ago|reply
Really? I find their selection horrible.
[+] higherpurpose|12 years ago|reply
It 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.
[+] shmerl|12 years ago|reply
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...). 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).
[+] Finster|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] ef4|12 years ago|reply
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.

[+] hayksaakian|12 years ago|reply
Some 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.

[+] BryanB55|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] ck2|12 years ago|reply
They better not kill shoprunner or I'll go elsewhere.
[+] IbJacked|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] jmccree|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] hershel|12 years ago|reply
you 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.
[+] darklajid|12 years ago|reply
Haven't found the answer so far. Like Amazon Prime? Or .. US only (and maybe like Amazon, for one single country).
[+] conorh|12 years ago|reply
Awesome, love NewEgg and this is handy. I had already moved my electronics ordering over to them from Amazon.
[+] driverdan|12 years ago|reply
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.
[+] nej|12 years ago|reply
Wow didn't know Newegg was the second largest e-retailer.
[+] lutorm|12 years ago|reply
I wonder if the free shipping includes HI...
[+] ocfx|12 years ago|reply
Would be cool except whenever I order from newegg I get it the next day regardless of what shipping option I choose
[+] gdulli|12 years ago|reply
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.