A Great Electronics Retailer
NowOnSale
Here's the premise:
NowOnSale sells electronics and small appliances. While a trip through their website shows they've got a wide selection, they don't carry every item on the planet. If NowOnSale doesn't carry a product that you're looking for, they'll search the web for a good price, and send you links to other stores where you can buy what you need. Essentially, they are offering a personal shopper service, hoping for nothing more than a warm thanks (and your business, should you need something they sell, of course).
Well, I'm a hardcore online shopper and pretty darn skeptical of anything anybody is offering for free that involves a human being and not a bot. I figured the most that NowOnSale did was run a request through Shopping.com (or the like) and shoot off links that Shopping coughed up. If anybody could give this service a real test drive, I was just the chick...and I had just the project, too. I'd been beating the net to find the best deal I could on a knife sharpener that wasn't carried in many stores. I was relatively sure I knew every spot the elusive sharpener could be found, and most were obscure.
I clicked the "Request a Product" button, filled out the form, and assumed I'd hear from them in a few days, if at all. I was sure the link would be to Cooking.com, the only well known spot that carries the sharpener I wanted to buy.
Wow, I Was Really Wrong
Just a few hours after I filled out my request form, I received this email:
Hi Andrea;
It was hard to find, but I finally did!
Here is the link — remember! this link is not to NowOnSale (we don't carry this item), just as a service we found you the best price we could.
(link omitted)
Thanks
Chaya
And a couple of minutes after that:
Hi Again...
You can also try this link;
(link omitted)
Thanks
Both links were to stores that I didn't know carried the product, and both were excellent prices. (Yes, I ended up beating the net a bit more myself to squeeze out a deal with free shipping at another spot, but I'm obsessive. Anyone who is normal would have gotten an excellent deal through the links provided and wouldn't have had to invest hours and hours in looking.)
Okay, did you catch the part where a real human being put personal effort into helping me out? I sure did. I sent my return thanks and determined to give such friendly people my business as soon as possible.
Ordering from NowOnSale
Not a day later, I placed my first order with NowOnSale. I bought a personal CD player with car kit for my mother-in-law for Christmas. I'd priced CD players in that range enough to know that I was getting a good deal at $69.95, but I didn't spend the effort to comb the internet, looking to see if I could purchase from another place that was $5.00 less. I paid $9.95 in shipping, without blinking, even though I ordinarily hate to pay for shipping at all.
Why? Reading buckets of online reviews about electronics retailers has taught me that there are a lot of unreliable folks who have put up shingles on the net. Placing a time sensitive order with a retailer with whom I felt I already had a relationship made me confident that I'd have what I wanted when I needed it. My logic was, if NowOnSale responds so promptly and warmly to a product request they can't profit from, I'm in good hands with a real order. I wasn't going to get ripped off.
Shortly after placing my order, I realized I'd made a small mistake during checkout. I shot an email off to my now Close Personal Friend Chaya, and got a fast response. This and that, we resolved my issue, and I got to know the folks there better. Congratulations to the gentleman at NowOnSale whose wife just had twins!
My Order Arrives
Just three working days after placing my order, I received exactly what I ordered, packaged beautifully
I didn't receive an email confirmation that it had shipped, but I did receive a follow up email, a day after I received my box, making sure that I had indeed gotten it and checking to see if I was happy.
I'm happy.
Quibbles
When I went back to NowOnSale to do my final research before writing a review, I discovered that I don't have an account set up with them in the normal sense of an account. Their website does hold onto my shipping and billing information, but it isn't set up to hold onto my order history. The only way to track an order or to see an order history is to know the actual order number. If I had three orders, I'd have to know my three different order numbers and look each one up separately.
Well, sheesh, I shop online so much I'm lucky if I can find a fraction of the email confirmations for my orders. I certainly don't retain any email confirmations past a day or two of order receipt. I like looking up past orders when I'm going to place a new order. I like an account history with any retailer.
The Bottom Line, Clicks and All
Account history quibble aside, I have to give NowOnSale a five star rating. The website is easy to navigate; the prices are good. Add real people, with a sense of humor, who genuinely care about taking care of their customer or potential customer, and you've got a mighty fine place to shop. In the cutthroat online field of electronics, I've found a place that can be trusted.
I highly recommend giving NowOnSale's product request feature and their online ordering a shot. I'd like to see them add order history to the website, but in the meantime, I'll still trust them with my business.
