Buy.com is a webshop that offers a wide range of products, many sold with good discounts.  We took a tour of their site to see if they offered a good service as well as good deals.

Products all had a good level of information although you needed to scroll down to find some of it and the layout could be improved.  There was also the facility for customer ratings and reviews although, disappointingly, this service was not as well used as on other sites, such as Amazon.

As with Amazon, Buy.com link in to other sellers and offer new, used and collectible items via this means.

The Buy.com online shopping site is good but seems to copy the formats of other successful sites.  Somehow though it fails to meet their standards and comes out clearly chasing their tails.

The site has 4 categories of deals all easily accessible from the main menu – daily, weekly and weekend specials as well as ‘what’s shakin’ which shows the fastest moving products on the site.

These features are all helpful but we would have liked the flexibility to search for deals by the level of discount.

In addition the list price seemed inflated and Buy.com actually offer a statement to say the list price reflects the supplier’s recommendation and not the general market price.  Because a high starting price is listed the savings do appear to be overstated in many cases.

Many orders over $25 attract free shipping ($75 from the sports store). Most orders are shipped 1-2 days.

Buy.com link in to news and blog feeds to provide their customers with relevant news and information.

There are no other social options other than the ability for customers to rate and review products.

There is an extensive help section plus an email contact form.  These are of a good quality but a site of Buy.com’s stature should be thinking about live chat or at least phone support to keep up with their rivals.