Shopping Eagle

Great offers on a huge selection of Books, Stationery, Magazines, dvds, Music, Gaming, Gifts and Cards delivered FREE to stores.

The emphasis is firmly on bestsellers at W H Smith’s straightforward and accessible site. Ebook readers are particularly well catered for with a separate homepage, complete with featured titles, and a wide selection of titles throughout the subject range plus information for those new to ebooks. Click Features to find a small selection of interviews, extracts and magazine style articles or to search the archive for past features. There are links to Smith’s Education Zone, a website aimed at both parents and teachers, and to The Internet Bookshop (www.thebookshop. co.uk), a slimmed-down version of this site which includes bargain books on its subject pages. Navigation at this site is both quick and simple.

Find 60 million new & used books, used textbooks, out-of-print books, rare books & college textbooks from 8000 rated bookstores with cheap shipping.

A great place to buy books, DVD, electronics and much more! Austria only.

A great place to buy books, DVD, electronics and much more! Germany only.

Waterstone’s UK’s leading bookseller, with millions of titles covering every subject. Free delivery on orders over £15.

Dabs.com specialises in PC Hardware and Software including peripherals such as printers and scanners as well as accessories like MP3 players. If there’s something you need for your computer, dabs.com will have it without a doubt.
Dabs.com wasn’t the first place I looked when trying to find what I wanted (in this case a Pentium D 950 CPU - I’ll be reviewing that shortly!). I usually tend to check the obvious Ciao, Kelkoo, Pricerunner and similar sites when looking for a place to purchase a product, I also had an account from a family member to go by before choosing to purchase from here. Strangely enough, the verdict I actually got from my father wasn’t particularly positive. He had tried to buy a wireless keyboard and mouse set from here a couple of years ago and to his surprise it didn’t arrive! Apparently the customer support was atrotious and he swore never to purchase from there again. I thought i’d give them another chance, hopefully they’d had a little rethink with their policies since then.

The site itself is very easy to navigate. All the products are split up into categories:
+ Components & Storage
+ Computers
+ Electronics
+ Networking & Communication
+ Peripherals
+ Software & Books
+ Clearance Corner
+ Gaming
+ Mobile Phone

Within these categories there are subcategories to which you can add filters to narrow down the results. The search facility available at the top of the page allows you to not only search through the site but also through the filtered results which is really quite handy!
The site is very quick to load and is very easy on the eyes. The layout is such that it complements the navigation and helps you find some real bargains! The advertising on the page is appropiate and does not add to the loading time much with the whole page loading on my 1mbps connection in just under 1.2 seconds.

The prices particularly interested me as I found that they are incredibly competitive. The product I was looking for in particular was £30 cheaper on dabs.com than anywhere else I could find! There is no trickery involved as the delivery prices and VAT automatically updates in your basket before you get to the checkout so you are aware of exactly how much you will end up paying. You can choose for the items to display with or without VAT.

There is just about anything and everything on this site. The items I have found are usually in stock, if not “due in 1-2 days”. I have found this status to be somewhat unreliable however as when I purchased my Pentium D 950 the status was “due in 1-2 days” for a total of 6 working days! I was quite disappointed about this but when I enquired about it, customer support was able to give me an exact date when stock would be due.

Next day delivery seems to come as standard for any items ordered from dabs.com. dabs.com uses either Parcel Force (www.parcelforce.com) or Amtrak (www.amtrak.co.uk) who both appear to be very reliable couriers and a common choice amongst online shopping sites. My particular order was delivered from Amtrak at around 1pm on a Friday. Both couriers provide tracking and from previous experience, Parcel Force’s seems to be slightly more detailed which is a shame, particularly as Amtrak do not allow you to phone up to get an estimated time of delivery.
Delivery charges aren’t too high with prices ranging from £3.25 (£30 or less at 0.5kg or less) to £9.50 (over £125 at more than 10kg). Outlying areas have a further small charge.

I was very pleased with Customer Services when I had to use it.I chose the option of using their online help-desk which is basically a very small web application that is embedded on their web page. It puts your directly through to a member of their Customer Services avoiding phonelines and unmonitored email addresses. The most time I had to wait for the service was 4 or 5 minutes which I was particularly pleased with as I’m sure this time period would have been much longer had I chosen to use the phoneline as the preferred method of contact. The two representatives I was put through to were Jonathan and Debbie whom were both very helpful and managed to solve my very small problems regarding invoices (turned out that I was just being impatient with my email server!). Debbie did take a while to respond, but this wasn’t a problem for me as I just hid the helpdesk window in the background and continued with work, something that perhaps would have been slightly more difficult had I chosen to use the phone lines. Both representatives spoke perfect English, If only all companies’ customer services were like that!

Dabs.com have got a very good returns and refund policy. I would feel confident in returning a product.
+ If the product is faulty, the customer has the right to return it within 28 days of receipt, 14 days for business customers. The return carriage costs are paid for by dabs.com so there’s no reason to worry about having to pay extra charges
+ Goods damaged in transit should be reported within 7 days of delivery so that they can be returned and a full refund given. The charges will be paid for by dabs.com
+ After the 28 days of receipt, if the goods are damaged and the product is within the warrenty period, the customer is entitled to a warrenty repair however charges for the unit to be sent to dabs.com will have to be paid for by the customer. A refund for these charges will be given under certain circumstances, for example if the manufacturer has another plan for such items.
+ If you change your mind, dabs.com will allow you to return the goods if they are in the same condition as delivered. The shrink-wrapped or blister packed products must not be opened, software must not have been installed and the goods must be in a condition for dabs.com to be able to resell them as new. This can be utilised within 10 days of receipt and the return carriage costs are paid in full by the customer

Dabs.com allow for payment via many different methods. They accept major credit/debit cards excluding American Express, Visa Electron, Diners Club, JCB, and Discover. I can say however that I have managed to pay for an order with a Visa Electron card however I wouldn’t recommend it - just incase! A finance package is available to certain private customers between the ages of 18 and 75 who are current in employment. Credit terms can be offered to businesses provided they furfil a criteria on the dabs.com website. Personal Cheques however are not accepted for a number of reasons.

The quality of products from dabs.com is of a very high standard. The items I have ordered have never arrived damaged and have worked perfectly. Even the packaging has been in very good condition! There seems to be no expenses spared as it was packaged well to avoid damage in transit.

Going back to a point I made right at the beginning of this review (and I appreciate you reading this far), I mentioned about my father who had bad experiences with dabs.com in the past. I can gladly rule off any of those points as the customer services was perfect and my order went through with few problems! I’d happily purchase from here again especially with such competitive prices and a broad range of stock!

This website can be useful even if they don’t have the item in stock that you want, because you could check if they sell it and then go to the shop itself if one is nearby. Good prices. Pretty easy to find item that you want. Lots of sales. Quick and Cheap delivery.

How I Stumbled Across The Jungle
I have been using Amazon for years. As a forever student, I am always buying my books for school from this website. it saves me having to go into town, search shelves for books that half the country are also searching for, only to find that the last ones of the copies i want was sold 5 minutes previously and the next delivery is not due til next Monday, but they won’t have the books i want because they are currently out of print. Trust me, this is no exaggeration and after suffering the same plight two years in a row, I knew I had to find a new solution, cause I weren’t about to think of book buying earlier than what i was doing already…It would mean I start studying far earlier than planned and lack a social life for 10 instead of 9 months of the year.
The Sign-up Process
The signup process is really easy. As with most sights these days, you give them a whole bunch of info such as name, DOB, address, etc and you register at least one card with them so you can make your purchases as and when you want.

I get a bit suspicious using my card online but feel Amazon is safe because even if you’ve logged on, you will need to re-enter your password at the checkout before your purchase can be finalised.

What’s On Offer
The site sells a range of products. For me I am more interested in the books than anything else but have and would continue to use the site to purchase other goods.

There are 11 main sections as follows:
WELCOME - This is the homepage, regardless of whether you have logged on or not. The advantage of signing up is that everytim,e you rate an item or purchase an item, similar examples are recommended and shown on the welcome page (up to 3 examples from each of the main categories)

X’s STORE - This is a little similar to the welcome page but contains more info. It is basically a page of items which Amazon feel may interest you, based on recent searches, purchases, and ratings. It’s really useful because it gives you a reason as to why it has been recommended inthe first place and allows you to state whether you are interested or own it, in which case you can tick the relevant boxes, refresh your recommedations and instantly, new items are added based yet again on your responses. Admitedly, I do try to avoid this area when i haven’t got money to burnm because the recommendations are so spot on that you end up being tempted to buy, buy, buy…

The remaining categories are self explanatory:
BOOKS
ELECTRONICS AND PHOTOS
MUSIC
DVD
VIDEO
SOFTWARE
PC AND VIDEO GAMES
HOME AND GARDEN
TOYS AND GAMES.

Purchasing
The site is extremely up to date and has the latest products in stock most of the time. If the item isn’t available then Amazon usually state why and give an expected availability date.

On purchasing items, there are a range of options available. Most cards are accepted eg Visa, Amex, Mastercard, Solo, literally everything…

You can choose where to have items delivered to and whether to have them gift wrapped and a personalised message sent - I can’t remember how much extra this cost but it was basically a typed message with no care paid to the formatting and so it looked quite tacky. The gift wrapping is decent enough though.

Each time you select an item to purchase you are offered the choice of buying a brand new, unused product or you can be directed to the market place where there are 2nd hand copies available.

I have experienced buying both new and used products. As you would expect with new products they are usually in mint condition. Although on one occasion one of my ‘new’ books had already had the first two chapters worth of exercises completed in pencil, I wouldn’t have minded but when I went to mark them, they were mainly wrong… I would normally have sent this back but had waited so long for it to come in stock in the first place (remember my luck had run out at the shops) that i kept it, made a complaint and received a slight discount, although hardly worthwhile, on my next order.

I would say that it isn’t really worth going for the express delivery as even when it states that items will be delivered in 3-4 days you normally get them sooner than expected. The only time you really need to concern yourself with delivery options is when you have ordered a whole range of products. Amazon will ask if you want to save on postage by waiting for all your items to be available and dispatched together. I tried this once and because one of my books was out of print and not expected for another month, you can imagine how long I was waiting.

Advantages of the Site
The best features of this site are numerous.

The layout is easy to navigate even though there is a lot going on, on each page. The site is extremely fast for the information it is required to generate and there are tabs for everything, everywhere and so you can navigate around with ease.

I love the security feature which means you have to enter your passwords if you want to make any changes, or to complete your transactions, or even to look up the tracking of your items.

There is a superb range of goods, products and services, with many up-to-date items in stocjk and available at RRP prices. Also the community that uses Amazon are very quick to discard of items and so you can often find up to date items in the market place at cut prices (just be sure to look at P&P costs as the seller sets there own prices and can sometimes work out to be more expensive).

The search facility is excellent. I don’t think it has let me down once and there has been many an occasion when i don’t have the full product title or have entered an incorrect spelling and yet the correct suggestions are still proposed. (In fact this would be a perfect phone a friend on millionnaire it’s so fast and so clever).

Lastly I have to clarify a few points about the market place…If you are making one off purchases, then the market place could give you a generoud discount. You can choose how used the product is from the list provided. The ‘Used scale’ uses a great classification scale that includes: new, like new, very good, acceptable and so you can weigh up the state your product is likely to be in. I have only ever bought used books and have gathered that if it says acceptable it has jottings in the margin or creases down the spine, but any other condition is almost as good as new, so you can’t really go wrong.

All in all, this is a site for those of you that don’t have time or are just too lazy to go to the shops. It’s great for buying in bulk cause at least you don’t have to obtain a car or pay out on taxis to get the goods back home and you can track your products every step of the way. You can list a number of different cards on the sight and so you have a range of payment option available to you.

So happy shopping all, I hope you find the site as brilliant as I did!