Destination USA

I have to admit I’m probably one of the greatest fans of online shopping. I’ve purchased anything starting from bike locks to designer shoes, and I even order groceries online.
And no, I’m not obsessed, but believe it or not, when you arrive in a foreign country, and you’ve got no car, and the place where you live is not surrounded by shops, you get used to this method.
Of course, for security reasons, I wouldn’t recommend shopping from any online site… the “big names” are to be preferred. You’ve got a much higher guarantee of receiving your purchase on time and in good condition. But even the big company sites do not always provide a satisfying customer service. And because I wouldn’t want to bias you against anyone by mentioning names, such as, hmm, BestBuy who managed to deliver me a printer about a week late (while I had paid extra to get it into just 2-4 days), I will tell you who I mainly recommend.

For anything:
Amazon.com! I love this site. I am even a Prime subscriber, and with all the orders I put there, they are probably at loss from this rather than at gain Shipments arrive on time, there is a large range of products, and you sometimes even receive then a day early.
Beware that there are also independent sellers on the Amazon.com website… I’ve also shopped from a couple of them, and with the exception of one which delivered a very bad quality leather wallet, I must say that they’ve all been very ethical, and some were even extra-nice by delivering a designer bag earlier than it was supposed to.

For office supplies or furniture:
OfficeDepot. Although they’ve got some expensive products, you can find cheap ones of good quality as well. They delivered for me chairs and a bookself on the next business day for free because my order was just above $50! (I hope that by the time you check them out, the offer will still be available!)

For great food and groceries:
Safeway… If you have that shop next door, you are a very lucky person! If not, but you have one in your area (check that up using the store locator on their website), try out the home delivey! It might cost you an extra few dollars, but if you get their membership card (which is FREE), you get such huge discounts so it will definitely be worth it.

Stuff for your home (furniture or bedsheets), office or school supplies, or everyday needs (just check out the website):
I recommend visiting the site of Target (after first checking Amazon of course). The good thing about this shop is that it has a large range of cheap products (as well as more expensive ones) of adequate quality, and the delivery is on time. Yet, my enthusiasm toward their online service is restricted because it’s often hard to qualify for their free shipping (while the shipment charge is often kind of high compared to other stores), and it might take two weeks for them to ship the product even when it’s listed as available… Also, I’m pretty sure you won’t ever get your order earlier than their “expected date of arrival”.

For both useful and useless (but fun) geek stuff:
ThinkGeek. Fast delivery and adequate charging for it. Plenty of cool gadgets to choose from, many of which might have been unavailable in your country of origin.

For electronics, tech and computer stuff… :
B&H Photo Video. I used it to buy a great HP desktop computer as well as an HP monitor. I had fast and free delivery. The hardware was in perfect condition.

For computers and such:
HP… I am a huge Hewlett-Packard fan, and although I believe the quality of most of their recent printers decreased significantly, their online service is good, and the feature which enables you to customize your computer is just great. The shipping on many orders is free and fast, and you even got special deals.

Those are the main websites from which I have bought, and which I recommend, with the bads and goods of which listed. Hopefully, this will save you some time, money, and trouble finding what you need when you arrive in the States… because believe it, when you arrive here, the last thing you’ll want to do is run around desperately trying to find shops which have what you need, especially in smaller towns with great distances between living areas.
And one last thing: whatever postal service is used, unless specified or above a certain value of the package, no signature will be required and the order will be left in front of your door if you are not at home. I’ve never had the misfortune of being stolen a packet, but you might wanna have this in mind when you order online. Also, if the package requires signature upon delivery, make sure you are at home during the time it’s delivered, or else you might have to search for it at the postal office.. or, if you are lucky, they might try to find you on the next day.

Tags: shopping, useful links

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Vie à l'américaine/ American lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.