eCommerce Site Review: Newegg.com

I peruse multiple eCommerce sites daily to find good deals.  I'm actually in the market to purchase a new compact Canon digital camera to supplement my much larger three-year-old camera.  Like many online shoppers, I do a lot of comparison shopping, read user and professional reviews, and even use Wikipedia before making a major purchasing decision.  I rarely buy any device without first doing some modicum of research.

In this case, I'll take a look at newegg.com and see how it stacks up to my needs and expectations.

Let's get it rolling:

Here's the homepage from up top.  They heavily advertise their "Daily Deals" and place general links to products on the bottom.  They have deals ranging from hard drives, to software, to printers--but no digital cameras.  Not finding what I'm looking for, I'm going to click "view all" and see what other deals they have.

Newegg has a total of 48 special deals for today, with a good variety of items on sale.  Eying the page, a camera listing catches my eye.

Bingo!  Interestingly enough, this is the camera I've been looking to get.  Let's check this out.

Here's the Canon overview page. 

What I like:

• Multiple image views plus the ability to rotate images 360 degrees.
• User reviews visible on the right
• Special offers on the bottom (Bill Me Later and Credit option)
• Specifications tab next to the review tab for technical information
• Accessory recommendations on the bottom left.

What I would like to see:

• An overall feature list on the main page.  The specifications is a technical feature list, but for the average consumer, having a feature list and a paragraph or two about the product would get them more excited about it.  As it is, it doesn't really capture my attention.
• Sample shots taken by the camera by customers (like Amazon).
• Same product by bhphotovideo.com incorporates a small feature list with a cleaner design.
• More details about the technology it uses.  For instance, what does a DIGIC III processor mean?  Better image quality?  How much better is it than the previous generation? 

I eyeball the page, read the reviews and I like what I see.  OK, I want to buy it.  So I add it to my cart.

Ahh, the Newegg cart page--not much of a looker, but it gets the job done.  Since it's a special I do get $15 instant savings.

I entered my shipping zip code for UPS.  With tax added, my total turned out to be $339.70.  Satisfied with the cost, I decide to checkout.

Newegg requires me to enter my existing ID or if you're a new customer, create a new account.  I much prefer a store to let me buy something without having to register.  The fewer the steps and the less information I give out the better.  But since I already have a Newegg ID, I'll move along.

Then we enter the payment page. I love the Paypal option, personally.  Newegg offers Bill Me Later and even money order/check options.  Remember: the more payment options, the better.

I've selected my mail payment option (too lazy to enter my credit card information) and I've reached the place order page.  I can make any last minute changes to my shipping/billing addresses and my shopping cart.  And if I had the money, I'd click on "Place Order" to get my shiny new toy as soon as possible.

What was the point of this post?

I like Newegg.  I lot.  Even with their somewhat average looking product pages, they have a wide range of products and excellent customer service.  They are an exemplary eCommerce store that doesn't look like much, but satisfies the needs of most of its customers.  Quality service will trump style and pizzazz, online or not.

Next time, I'll take a look a bad site.