Vendors on Pricewatch

[JoeCompUser]

Is it just me, or do most of the vendors that have listings on Pricewatch get low ratings here? I checked up on about 15 different vendors, and the average rating among them is around 5 out of 10. I thought Pricewatch was supposed to have good deals. I bought some parts from different vendors on there and had some issues here and there. Does anyone recommend a particular company that has great prices and service? (I already looked at the ratings of various companies, but i'm trying to get some more opinions before ordering again).

[krohnjw]

Pricewatch merely reports the lowest reported prices. It is the buyer's responsibility to check into the integrity of the company. Check out newegg at www.newegg.com for well priced items and reliable service.

[poopeyhed2]

www.resellerratings.com www.bizrate.com and a few others also tell you the integrity, but many like newegg.com the most. www.directron.com also have some good deals. www.mwave.com also have good deals

[jtc219]

Gotta agree Joe, most of the vendors listed in PriceWatch are not very highly rated. If you really want some fun, check ut some of the vendors listed in Yahoo (shopping), most don't even have a heading here in the ratings! I wonder who (at Yahoo) is responsible for checking on vendors at their site.

[JoeCompUser]

Thanks for the help everyone. I noticed NewEgg had the most reviews and was still above a 9 on the ratings scale. I bought from Directron before and was pretty happy with their service.

[John C. Dechon]

Most of the "lowballer" vendors (those listed first due to their lowest prices) ARE vendors to stay away from! But there are plenty of others there who are just fine, so keep looking.

What I did -- when I was new to online shopping and finding good reliable vendors -- was to write down the first 10 vendors that showed up in the listings at Pricewatch, go to Resellerratings to check them out, narrow them down to 2-3, then go to the #1 vendor on my list (the one with the best price AND rating) to order the item. If vendor # 1 was out-of-stock, I had a backup vendor in #s 2 and 3 to go with...no wasted time doing another search or waiting for prices or stock inventory to fluctuate as they can do DAILY!

Now, though, I can scan the vendors popping up and sort out the bad from the good pretty easily. The "newbie" vendors -- those with no listing or no rating -- are unknowns.

A couple of years ago, I went to look up vendors at Bizrate/Yahoo Shopping...they had the OPPOSITE problem: Just about EVERY vendor had a high rating! That's impossible.

I'd rather trust Resellerratings...it's more believable than elsewhere, but the site needs to be managed/maintained better than it is now.

John D.

[dunbar]

Good experiences never get reported, Bad experiences always get reported?

Generally speaking, I consider the ages of the ratings as well. If I see 20 bad experiences from say, 2 years ago, then only a few more reports from the last 3 months or so, I'd think that either the company has lost money for a while and thereby offered very little in the way of attractive prices to compensate for the lack of good ratings, or maybe the bad experiences are simply not happening, and the good experiences are not getting reported.
ase in point: I'm witholding praising TigerDirect for a recent good deal, because of the despicable sales techniques I suffered with 3 or 4 years ago. Same concept as above.

Demographics is both useful, and confusing.

Originally posted by dunbar
Good experiences never get reported, Bad experiences always get reported?

Exactly! I figure the more people that use a site, the more negative/ lower reviews they're going to have. Once people get what they want from a site, usually the last thing they do is go post a "woohoo" on ResellerRatings.

I know there's a Latin saying for this; "Let the buyer beware".

[John C. Dechon]

That's possible, but the counterpoint is all the VERY POSITIVE reviews that can be found for the better online vendors...many people DO post about good experiences (look at all the ratings/written evaluations of listed vendors above 8.0 for example). I know I post about ALL my online ordering experiences -- good or bad -- as a matter of routine and a "public service" if you will. I encourage my friends to do the same and INSIST on it if I am helping them online shop..

Resellerratings.com won't work if people don't post. The more posts the better.

Yes, the ages of the posts are important...I read them all, however, just to get an idea of the company.

John D.

[jerrygarcia]

Another site like Pricewatch is Pricegrabber.
They will give you the best price with shipping and they have rating for the vendors in their lists.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/home_com...c5eb4d5ae607d/