Great news! I have always had good luck with Amazon. Even returns are pretty painless.

I found the backsplash I wanted on Amazon.com, of all places. Ordered the sample, took it around to compare with other tiles under consideration, and ended up surprisingly that the online marble random strips were the perfect color and the right price.
The big shipment is on it's way - free shipping, too!

I bought both my sinks on Amazon. I've bought all my drawer organizers there. And about a dozen other things. Between Amazon and Overstock, I've hardly darkened the door or a retail store since starting reno. I went in Home Depot last night for some Miracle 511 to enhance my backsplash and they looked at me like I was from Mars. He had to get another guy. We don't keep that kind of thing in stock, says the second guy. So I said, disappointedly, "Well, I will have to order it from Amazon, I guess." I heard them muttering as I walked off. "Jeez, I guess we better order some of that stuff." ??? I like my local stores. I don't really want to buy everything from Amazon. Not sure it's healthy. But they are hard to beat.

I love Amazon! Even returns are easy.

Recently I ordered a gas grill online from Home Depot. It ended up arriving okay, but it took so long to get an email confirmation that the order went through that I had to initiate one of those online chats to have it confirmed. I've come to expect an almost immediate email confirmation of online purchases.

You know, this isn't anything Amazon can help with, but I've had to buy 2 appliances for my rental. Bought them both from Lowe's.
No where in the confirmations do they
1) acknowledge the delivery address or phone number is different than the purchaser's address.
2) tell the delivery people, either
3) mention if it involves gas or plumbing, they don't install it. And
4) of course, the plumber is another $125.

If I could order from Amazon....

Exactly why I got an Amazon points reward cc and Prime membership. I've had nothing but good experiences with them. I checked on an order the other day, and it said I had something like 36 orders in the past 6 months. Some due to reno, some are autoship, but still, that's a lot!

And I LOVE that I can use my reward points right at checkout! Such a help right now. I put most kitchen purchases on that card, so the points really add up.

I got my Kohler Tork faucet for more than 50% off. Open merchandise.

Also got a nice Elkay SS 40-60 sink with a low divider for a good price.

I love Amazon too! A few Sundays before Christmas DH and I were driving home from lunch. I ordered a toy for DGS from my iPad and it was delivered to my shop the next day. They offered free next day air on that item. Amazing to order something from my car and have it delivered next day!

I admit I am a proud member of the Amazon Prime membership lovefest! I love the ease of ordering, tracking my order, returns, free 2 day shipping, using rewards point quickly and easily on checkout. Not to mention the video downloads books etc.

Even good customer service when I complained about a shipping charge on a Christmas return.

I have had mostly good experience with Amazon and I love the TV I bought from them along with many other items. I get puppy pads delivered monthly from them at a good priced automatically so I don't run out. I also got to try out watches at great prices and kept three out of about 8. They had free shipping both ways. I love reading reviews also.

I was going to order my Silgranit sinks through another website, but checked Amazon beforehand just to check their prices. I had planned on anthracite, but they had a warehouse deal on the cafe brown Precis Super Single for about $80 less than the cheapest I could find anywhere else. Made my day!

I. Love. Amazon! I think I've been getting a package every few days lately.

** time out

MrsMM has a sink! How exciting! Couldn't let slip by without celebrating :-)

**you may now return to the regularly scheduled thread

** time out

MrsMM has a sink! How exciting! Couldn't let slip by without celebrating :-)

**you may now return to the regularly scheduled thread

I almost bought two lights while we were out tonight too, but that cheap little voice in my head told me to come home and check for better prices online. Should have just bought the darn lights! Way less at the store.

You know, I'm a bit torn about Amazon (and other online shops)...I really want to support local businesses when possible.

That said, when it comes time to order our Silgranit sink, it will be online - I've found the price to be about $200 difference between local and online. I gave the local business an opportunity to try to come close to the price (I'll sometimes even pay a bit more to shop local) and they declined. So, yeah, our sink will be bought online...likely from Amazon.

And slightly off-topic, but...one of my Amazon orders that is on it's way is some Jamaican jerk seasoning that we purchased while we were on vacation in Jamaica and is almost gone...searched, and low and behold, my dear friend, Amazon has it. :) I'd LOVE to buy it locally...but I don't think we're headed back to Jamaica any time really soon.

Another contented Amazon Prime member here!

I almost always search Amazon before ebay now because their returns are so easy, and their customer support has--so far-- been second-to-none. I have a beautiful Kohler bathroom sink, waiting to be installed, that I purchased from Amazon that was $50-$100 less than anywhere else I looked.

I ordered a TV on the Friday evening before Christmas (last minute panic buy), and it arrived Monday, which was Christmas Eve. Amazing.

Amazon Prime is awesome.

And you can borrow books for free on Kindle.

Love Amazon.

Another Amazon Prime lover. I found Amazon so helpful. I bought some of my switch plates locally, but some of the unusual ones (with one light switch and one duplex outlet, for example) could only be found online. Prime gets things here so quickly. Returns are easy too. It was a lifesaver for my renovation!

I will never order from Home Depot online again if I can avoid it. They say 4-7 days from confirmation. Ha! As you found out, there's absolutely no way for anyone to track the shipping. I even went into the store when my items was past 7 days. They could not even see where it was in the shipping process. It arrived about 4 days late, but that made it after GC was gone, and I'm still waiting for installation.

On the other hand, I ordered a light fixture from Amazon Prime and it arrived in 2 days and is installed and was a great price and looks wonderful!

I get my money's worth from my prime account!

Amazon all the way. I hate going to stores. Takes forever compared to shopping on-line.

I use them for a lot of my smaller drugstore items too. I was getting so frustrated that I could check out $300 worth of groceries from my supermarket faster than I could buy $12 of cosmetics and aspirin from the CVS next door.

Now if they could just upgrade their terrible book title/author search logrithms, life on-line would be perfect, LOL.

Where is the like button when you need one! I have to look into this prime. I signed up for the free trial for the free shipping, saved $50.00, not shabby. I try to buy local as well. For appliances, tile, faucet we did all in our town local. We tried to with the flooring but saved 2000 going out of town. And AndreaK100, I think you have a great excuse to go back to Jamaica!

Andreak100, Walkerswood, by chance? We love that stuff! Currently on a kick "marinating" chicken thighs and drumsticks, then grilling or braising them. Better jerk to meat ratio than a breast :-). Busha Brownes is pretty good too. We have a local hot foods store that also carries them.

Ok, so I kept reading through this thread waiting for the other point of view.

Don't you all get just a tad irked from the shopping results you google or search on Amazon? You know there are others out there who offer the product, but both sites will float their vendors up to the top (for page after page after page). That part scares me and I don't like it.

Of course, I am usually one of the first to order on Amazon Prime to get those gifts there right before Christmas....

dermnp - we'll probably wind up back in Turkey again before Jamaica. The Spice Market in Istanbul is such an amazing place. From going there before, we knew that we would stock up on a few spices and left about 1/2 of a suitcase empty so that we could bring back spices and a drink called salep.

williamsem - it is Walkerswood. :) Love it so very much. Earlier this week, I marinated a pork tenderloin in it overnight...I think it's one of my husband's favorite things for me to make. I'll have to look for Busha Brownes too - thanks for the suggestion.

oldbat2be raises an excellent point. During my many years as an AP customer, I have also learned to be very wary of those third-party vendors. Twice I've been screwed on inferior products. There are third party vendors selling knock-offs, particularly in the beauty products. I think Amazon vets their stuff carefully but if a price seems too good to be true, and it is coming from someone other than Amazon, my advice is caveat emptor.

Yum, pork tenderloin with jerk! Can't believe we haven't thought of that yet! We just made a pork tenderloin chili in the crock pot that was fantastic. And easy prep, so reno friendly :-)

Oldbat2be, even stores push preferred vendors/products by placement and shelf space. When searching, if I know exactly what I want and it comes up on the first page, great! If I'm browsing for the right item, I tend to cast a wider search net and page through everything.

And I do often pay a few dollars extra to buy through Amazon, depending on the product and who the other vendors are. With the rewards card it's a little easier to justify as I get triple points on anything sold by Amazon (not fulfilled by though).

Well that's true, too, MizLizzie, but my point was actually how Google and Amazon steer us AWAY from other vendors, and make it hard to even find these other sources.

Sorry, ob2b! I was trying to make yet another point, but before my second cup of coffee.

Amazon pays dearly for the privilege, I expect, of ranking high with Google. All the web is fast becoming a pay-to-play environment, seems to me. I also miss the good old days of actually being able to Google information -- as opposed to merely finding someone trying to sell me something.