Shopping Online: Service vs. Price

I have to admit that local retailers dislike me. I've been writing about the Internet for regional publication since 1994 and have trumpeted each new discovery as it arrived on the scene, such as Amazon. My line is typically an unabashed enthusiasm for convenience, rock-bottom price, and selection.

Then Arnie pulled me aside. He's a clerk at the local bookstore. "Let's have lunch together tomorrow," he said. We had lunch, and Arnie shared his lament: How can you write these columns with all their Internet boosterism and ignore us local retailers? What's going to happen to us? Don't we provide a valuable service?

Arnie got me thinking. He was right ­ there are disadvantages as well as advantages. Here's a disadvantage: while I've enjoyed the convenience and discounted prices of buying books at Amazon, the sad fact is that many of them sit on my shelves unread. Once I got them and saw what they were, I wasn't interested. A few minutes in a bookstore would have clued me in. I do still love Amazon, but I've probably wasted more money ­ and time ­ than I've saved.

I've also had the same experience with software. Online it looks like just what I need, but then I buy it and try it and find that it won't serve my purposes.

So let me suggest that the key to shopping online is to consider service as well as price. Yes there are sites that will help you find absolutely the lowest price, and we'll get to those in a moment. But also take advantage of those sites that are eager to form a relationship with you. Often they can help you make wise buying decisions, either via personal contact or feedback forums or helpful information such as in-depth reviews.

BuyPocketPC.Com - selling and supporting Pocket PCs

One example of a site that is striving to not just sell you software but also help you by providing extensive support is Buy-PocketPC.Com (www.buypocketpc.com). According to Ken Vadas, their goal at BuyPocketPC.Com is to offer users a "full-featured electronic software distribution store, providing customers with unmatched support and information regarding their opportunities in expanding the use of their Pocket PC."

To this end they include two- to five-minute Flash tutorials for all of their products. These demonstrate several features, including which Pocket PC is compatible with which software. In addition to the usual customer reviews and discussion, the site also offers well researched information on each product, including a description, key features, unique features, a system-requirements chart, and other details. And instead of a single screen shot, they try to provide a virtual tour of the program via the use of a variety of screen shots.

They are striving to provide content-related information to "back up the software store so that the variety of CPUs and hardware devices becomes a non-issue with our valued customers, who are looking to expand the features of their Pocket PCs," Ken says.

PricingCentral.Com ­- Finding the lowest price

There are times, though, when you know exactly what you want, such as a PC or CF flash card, and you simply want the lowest price. What you need is a price-comparison search engine. These are Web sites that search hundreds, even thousands of vendors for the lowest price.  An excellent source of information about price-comparison search engines is PricingCentral.Com (www.pricingcentral.com), which indexes all of the best price search engines in a comprehensive directory.

After a quick survey, I quickly developed favorites. My test search was for a Jornada 540, and many found the same vendor with the lowest price.

Shopper.Cnet.Com and PriceGrabber.Com ­- Finding product and rating vendors