I preferred them to Amazon back in Buy.com's early days when they were losing money on every sale, but planning to make it up in volume. Now that they're trying to maintain profitability, they're less fun.

I haven't any dealings with their customer service department in years, but they were good back then. My wife used to order a lot of DVDs from them, and UPS frequently crushed the boxes. Typically the disks were fine, but the Amaray cases were smashed. Buy.com never wanted anything returned, they'd just ship out replacements. I think we wound up with five copies of one title, though with only one good case.

At work, Buy.com once packed an extra external Zip drive with an order. They did want that back, but it was painless.

These days I use Amazon more often, but that's due mostly to wider selection and generally cheaper prices. When Buy.com is cheaper and offers free shipping, I choose them.


Note: In the interest of full disclosure, Buy.com once gave me a free T-shirt. Oh, and some note pads. That was some time ago though. Stupid tech bubble went and burst.