buying from online? little worried

[thisjustanother]

well, ive never bought anything from online before. so of course i have a little nervousness about it all. for me, i just like going to the store over anything. walking around stores with other people wandering around aimlessly. then finding what you want and then buying and recieving reciepts when you are done with it all.

since i dont know what exactly happens when you buy something online, i just worry about stuff that could happen.

do i get a reciept, and if i do, how and when do i get it. what happens if its broken inside and i want to return it. all this stuff just turns me off from buying online.

yet i see a ton of online sales that are much much better then b&m stores. wish i wasnt so damn cautious about buying online.

[magiic]

most stores give you a receipt you can print off after you pay for something. As for returns I've never had to do an online return but I believe most places like amazon and stuff take returns, you just mail them the stuff back.

[Nikadimas]

I've both bought and sold items online and it's definately a great way to find deals. If I think about each individual purchase I've made, I come in at around 500 (I shop online a lot) and I usually place 20-30 orders around Christmas time.

In all of those transactions I've had issues with only about 4 that I can remember, 3 of them happened last month, and 1 was pretty much my fault. I ordered an XBox360 from CircuitCity.com which arrived sans console, a Nightmare Before Christmas DVD I ordered off of eBay was actually a high quality bootleg, and my Best Buy order went to the wrong address.

ALL of those issues were remedied in one way or another, and suprisingly all in time for Christmas. CircuitCity, although the most annoying of all over-the-phone customer services, ended up getting me a new XBox and letting me keep the extra controller and wires that were in the tampered box. The seller on eBay knew all too well that his DVDs were bootlegs and gave me a refund AND let me keep the DVD for the trouble. And when UPS dropped my order off at the wrong house the USPS recovered it for me (I deal with those guys a lot so they know me).

The places I have the least trouble with are places that specialize in online business. Amazon is one place that I've made over 50 purchases on and all of them worked out perfectly. When ordering online it's a good rule to do a bit of research on the place your ordering from, even if it's just a Google search, if you have doubts of their reliability.

Most of the time you're sent an e-mail with your order information that you can use as a receipt as well as an actual receipt with your order. If something is broken you simply call customer service or the seller themself if you're dealing with eBay. In the case of eBay you can also you Paypal for some extra security.

[thisjustanother]

thanks for the talking. guess i will just have to buy something low priced to get the started. guess i could buy a cd or something and see how thigns turn out.

[MrDubbs]

Just be cautious of who you decide to purchase with, if your not sure ask here..

Amazon is really reliable, and so are many other sites.

[scsg75]

thanks for the talking. guess i will just have to buy something low priced to get the started. guess i could buy a cd or something and see how thigns turn out.

that's how it starts. Now I buy 95% of everything I buy (not just games) online, mainly at Amazon. With the exception of food, I do all my shopping online for the most part. The prices are just plain better, and shipping is generally cheap or free. Bad thing is, I spend a lot more than I should because it's so convienent.

[IAmTheCheapestGamer]

So far, I've ordered maybe a dozen or so items from online from MANY sites. My most recent purchase was some clearance games from KBToys.com, which arrived in 3 days from when my order shipped. What's funniest is, they originally sent the package through DHL/Airborne Express, which then handed off my package to the US Postal Service. And shipping only set me back about $4.30 for 4 items, which came sealed in a huge cardboard box.

I also recently bid on and won some PS2 and PC games from ShopGoodwill.com, which included God Of War II(2 disc version) and one of the newer Spyro The Dragon games for PS2(A New Beginning, I believe).

The item shipped the other day and I should get it either Monday or Wednesday of this coming week.

I've also ordered stuff from Buy.com, as well as bid on and won items from Ebay. Everything arrived quickly and as described. But you DO have to be careful, since there are some unscrupulous people out there.

Best way to pay is via credit card, so that you can contest the charges if something is not as described.

Best of luck and here's a short list of sites to check out for deals...

Buy.com
Amazon.com
Ebay.com
ShopGoodwill.com

[Josef]

Make sure you only input your credit card info on a secure website. The first 5 letters of the web address should always begin "https."

Try to stick with established legitimate online retailers such as Amazon.com and Buy.com. As well as online branches of B&M retailers such as bestbuy.com, gamestop.com, etc.

As always, if you have a question about the legitimacy of an online retailer, just ask here.