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Publisher28.1 Purchasing Components
After you choose the components, the next
step is to order them. Rather than shopping for the absolute lowest
price for each component, we try to order everything from just one or
two vendors. Ordering piecemeal incurs additional shipping costs that
often nullify small price breaks on individual items. Although we try
to order everything from one place, we usually have to place two or
three orders because one or another vendor doesn't
carry a particular item or is out of stock.We're frequently asked to suggest which resellers
are the best or cheapest or most reliable. We can't
offer such advice because, although we buy a lot of stuff, we
don't buy enough to have a statistically valid
sample from one vendor, let alone from every vendor. All we can tell
you is what we do, without representing that our choices are
necessarily best for you. A reseller that treated us right may ship
you the wrong items, and a reseller with whom we had problems may in
fact be an excellent reseller overall.Our first step is always to check Reseller Ratings (http://www.resellerratings.com), which offers
detailed ratings of hundreds of resellers, including historical
information. Because Reseller Ratings uses feedback from users,
there's always the possibility that a reseller has
stuffed the ballot box, so we look not just for a high overall
rating, but a large number of votes. A reseller that has a perfect
rating based on 10 votes may be an excellent company, or it may just
have voted for itself. A reseller that has an excellent rating based
on 1,500 votes is probably an excellent choice (although we suppose a
particularly industrious dishonest reseller might have voted for
itself 1,500 times).Although the vendor ratings on Reseller Ratings may not be entirely
reliable, we can say that ratings for those resellers from whom we
have purchased generally correspond with our own experiences, good
and bad. It's always worth your time to check a
vendor's current rating, particularly if you
haven't bought from that vendor for some time. Bad
vendors almost never change their spots, but good vendors may take a
sudden turn for the worse.When evaluating vendors, pay particular attention to the following:
Make sure to factor the cost of shipping into your price comparisons.
Some vendors advertise very low prices, but have ridiculously high
shipping charges, particularly on monitors, cases, and other heavy or
bulky items. We were once quoted $28 to ship a single hard drive by
surface UPS, for example, and $63 to ship a 17-inch monitor. Many
online vendors automatically calculate and display shipping charges,
either per item or for your order as a whole. If a vendor
doesn't mention shipping charges, regard that as a
red flag.If a vendor offers "free shipping"
(as an increasing number do), find out what limitations and
conditions apply. Most vendors that offer free shipping require a
minimum order amount. Many use slow shipping methods such as standard
mail or UPS ground. Some even intentionally delay orders with free
shipping, waiting several days after receipt of the order to actually
ship it. In short, many vendors who offer free shipping do everything
possible to encourage you to upgrade to a faster (and more costly)
shipping method. If you need the items quickly, compare resellers
according to the true costs including upgraded shipping charges, if
any.
Read and understand the vendor's return policy.
Vendors differ greatly in what they regard as an acceptable reason
for a return and how they handle returns that turn out not to be
defective. Also look carefully for any mention of a restocking fee,
which may be 25% or more, and may be charged even if you are
returning an item because it is incompatible with your system. Better
vendors have a no-questions-asked return policy and do not charge
restocking fees. Unless the product is defective, all vendors refuse
returns of opened software (except in exchange for the same title)
and printers that have had ink or toner installed.
Better resellers endorse the manufacturer's
warranty. That is, if you buy a product from them and that product
fails, you return the product to them and they ship you a
replacement. Most such vendors limit their endorsement of the
manufacturer's warranty to 30 or 60 days. The very
best vendors pay for shipping both ways, and will often cross-ship a
replacement before they receive the failed product, although they
will require you provide a credit card number to ensure that you
actually return the defective product. Some vendors have no warranty
policy at all. If a product from them arrives DOA, they require you
to return that product to the manufacturer. Avoid those vendors.
To make it easy to compare total price and the price for each item,
we create a spreadsheet with one column for the items to be ordered
and other columns for two or three of our favorite vendors. After we
determine which vendor has the lowest total price, we then compare
individual item prices and ask that vendor to match any lower
per-item prices quoted by their competitors. "NewEgg
has this drive for $18 less than you guys are quoting. Will you match
that?" Most vendors will, or will at least reduce
the price somewhat.If you want to take that a step further, use the price comparison
services available on the Web to find really low prices. We use
http://www.pricegrabber.com,
supplemented by http://www.pricescan.com and http://www.pricewatch.com. Some of the prices
you'll find are so low that they should raise a red
flag. For example, when we checked tape drive prices, we found one
vendor on PriceWatch.com that was advertising a particular Seagate
tape drive model for $225. The least any other vendor was offering
that drive for was $540, so we knew something was wrong with what
that company was offering. It may have been selling a used, damaged,
or nonfunctional drive, but if so you couldn't tell
it from reading its web site. It claimed to be selling new,
in-the-box units for that ridiculous price. Someone foolish enough to
believe that company would doubtlessly have been badly burned when
the product finally arrived (or didn't arrive).
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from "bottom feeder" vendors. They
may ship late or not at all, charge your credit card more than the
price they quoted, add ridiculous shipping charges, sell OEM versions
as retail-boxed versions, ship repackaged or otherwise inferior
merchandise, and do other things to raise your blood pressure. Most
stop short of outright fraud, but many tread near that line.
It's just not worth the hassle to buy from them, but
you can use their prices to beat down your preferred vendor. But
recognize the TANSTAAFL principle: There Ain't No
Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Reputable vendors can't
match the prices offered by fly-by-night operations and still stay in
business, but reputable resellers can usually do better than the
prices they advertise.When the items arrive, open the
boxes immediately and verify their contents against both your
original order and the packing list. Don't stop
there, however. Open each individual component box and compare the
actual contents against the proper contents as listed in the manual
for that component. On one memorable occasion, we received a
factory-sealed box that contained manuals, CD, and cables, but not
the product itself! Check carefully.Some vendors
routinely ship used product but represent it as new. Regardless of
who you buy from, make it absolutely clear that you will accept only
new, factory-fresh product. Repackaged products are not acceptable.
Someone returned them, perhaps for good reason. Vendors should ship
returned products back to the manufacturer or distributor. Instead,
many vendors simply put returned products back in inventory and ship
them to the next buyer.Don't accept
the fact that a box is shrink-wrapped as evidence that it is
factory-fresh. Many vendors have shrink-wrap machines, and use them
to re-wrap returned products. Many manufacturers have taken to
sealing the product box with a sticker or other means to make it
obvious if that box has been opened.If, despite
insisting on new product, you receive a product that shows evidence
of having been opened (e.g., broken box seal, broken CD seal,
slightly bent header pins, expansion slot contacts that show
burnishing from having been installed, etc.), contact the vendor
immediately and demand to know why they shipped you a used product as
new. Demand that they replace it with a factory-fresh product at
their own expense, including issuing a pickup slip to have UPS come
and get the original product. If the vendor is obstinate, threaten to
request a charge-back from your credit card company and to make a
complaint for wire fraud. That gets their attention.
