Cold! Newegg now charging shipping for most refurbs.

[darkmagex]

just got a refurb motherboard i ordered and it doesn't work, so if anyone is wondering, yes it does happen

 

[dahunan]

Originally posted by: Lanyap
Hey, did anyone notice that NE now limits their "refurb" items to 2 per customer? I personally think that's a good thing because it allows more people to order instead of a few people buying up all of a particular popular heavily discounted product. However, I know this change will also be controversial. :Q

Here's my .02 on the shipping. NE has always manipulated their shipping and prices to be competitive with lower cost etailers. Free shipping looks attractive and when you are selling computer hardware and software lower than retail you can do this. NE has been a master at this technique. So when they add $4-5 shipping to almost everything, new and refurb, they are essentially raising all of their prices by $4-5, not just adding shipping. Up until about a year ago they sold by word of mouth in the tech community. Then they started putting very expensive ads in computer magazines. We're talking 2-4 page hard paper ads with color pictures. That has to cost big bucks. I think NE maybe having some financial trouble from the major advertising they have been doing and is having to make it up with this overall price increase. They should at least explain why they they made the changes they did. {I know you're watching NE}.

Bottom line: Most people here who have been ordering from NE will continue to at least look at their prices and compare them with other etailers but will buy from the others if NE's cost is somewhat higher than their competitors.

:Q

Their shipping policy is and always has been the worst part of their business. They do not have the ability to combine shipping costs. So, if you buy one floppy cable and one IDE cable they charge you $5 shipping on each item - BUT they come in the same box - seems like a bunch of BS to me.

 

[BigBadBiologist]

I guess they are just losing too much money. I can't say I blame them. But I agree with a lot of you guys in that they need to standardize their shipping costs and start doing it by weight. If that means that they don't have free shipping on as many items, so be it.

But as far as the refurb section goes, I probably won't be buying as much from it if I have to pay shipping. In the last 6 months, I have bought 3 motherboards and 2 were DOA. The extra cost in shipping the item back definitely reduces the draw of the refurb section. I think I'll be sticking to the messageboards for more mobos.

 

[hans007]

even though they are in CA and charge tax, another company i buy from outside of

newegg, mwave, zipzoomfly,

is ewiz.com


ewiz you can even get USPS shipping so some things arrive on saturdays. their prices are good too.


for Californians, cnetpc seems good. ny to la in 2 days for my mobo. cheap too.

 

[colonel]

I got a bad floppy drive , broken from refurb.

 

[Wag]

Down to $4 on alot of items.

Can we say $3?

Hold out people and it will be back to free soon enough.

 

[Braxus]

Is it me or are a lot of the refurb items going up in price as well? Been looking at the boards and some of them seem to have gone up as high as 20 bucks from previous prices.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Lanyap
what i do really complain is i find there site slower then ever before i don't know just ISP beeing a B*** to me

Yeah, slow for me as well, with some downtime. This is both at home on Adelphia cable modem and at work on PacBell T1.

Originally posted by: Dantzig
I'll never buy from MWave again after the last experience I had with them.

My problem with Mwave is that they have their 30 day DOA warranty, then they play the "manufacturer's warranty" game. If you buy an OEM part, you're out of luck. Also, some "retail boxed" parts don't have end-user warranties. Many manufacturers tell you that the warranty has to go through the reseller. With Mwave I had once bought an Abit BF6 motherboard that went South after about 5 months. Abit (at the time) said to RMA to the reseller. Mwave said to RMA to the manufacturer.

Originally posted by: darkmagex
just got a refurb motherboard i ordered and it doesn't work, so if anyone is wondering, yes it does happen

Yes it does. Quite often. Boards that are flakey, have non-operational components or just plain DOA. Have also had really bad luck with refurb RAM. I've had six - SIX bad sticks of 512MB DDR (4 PC3200, 2 PC3500) from NE refurb. Five bad motherboards. Two bad barebone systems. Three bad video cards. I keep buying refurb because overall I'm still ahead since the stuff I return only cost me shipping one way... until now.

I think they were losing money because too many refurbs were coming back. Well, if too many are coming back, they should really be taking the time to test them. That way they can perhaps call them "Newegg Assured" refurbs. Kinda like how many car dealers are having "certified" used cars. Heck, if I know I'm not at risk for a DOA or flakey part, I'd be willing to pay halfway between what they have been charging for refurbs and what they charge for the new stuff.

Besides this stuff, I've noticed something else that's different. When I RMA a part I always do an RMA Repair because I don't order a part that I don't need. I'd rather they actually do ship me back a working (new/used/refurb) replacement because that's the part I need, however they sometimes refund the purchase price if they can't get the replacement promptly. I don't have a problem with that because then I can just purchase the replacement. Recently I've RMA'd two motherboards (that were purchased new) for repair. Both were refunded PART of the money, roughly 2/3. I had to spring for the additional amount to get the replacement boards I needed. Heck, I would have preferred waiting another week for them to get my board repaired/replaced with the manufacturer, rather than getting 2/3 of my money back.

Another nail in the coffin is getting the wrong item. Three times. One time, a refurb 128MB FX5600 video card instead of the refurb 256MB one I ordered and was charged for. They offered me a $20 refund. I took it because it would have cost me a fwe bucks to ship back, and that was about the price difference. Another time got a motherboard that was a cheaper version without onboard LAN. This was a new board. I ordered, paid for and was invoiced for the model with LAN. I received the one without LAN. NE CSR said they'll do a full refund minus shipping and I can order the right part. Well, I DID order the right part the first time. No guaranteeing I get the right part the second time, plus I would be out shipping both ways. I ended up popping in a $10 NIC. Cost the same either way, but this way was done much faster.

Most recent wrong item was received two days ago. I ordered a refurb Thermaltake Spark 5 HSF for $9. I received an Intel "retail boxed" HSF that I've seen on refurb for $5 (plus the Tt was all copper). This time I emailed them instead of calling. I'll see how their email support turns out.

 

[Jolt2]

Looking at the refurb optical drives, you can buy alot of the drives new for about $5.00 more. Why mess around with refurb stuff were parts could be missing, dents, etc. when you can buy new for a little more. At least the free shipping on refurb items bought the price down so it was worth the risk of buying.

Newegg has been raising their prices on everything since the first of the year. When I build systems, I aways just ordered the stuff from Newegg so I have seen the prices going up since then. Cases have really gone up in price at Newegg and most other things have gone up $2.00 or more dollars in price. How they price their shipping has always been bad. If you buy one item then the shipping is at a fair price but say you buy three items, now the shipping gets multiplied by 3 and the total cost is out of line. I will have to start looking around more then just ordering everything from Newegg. No body said you have to buy at Newegg.

 

[ectx]

I bought quite a few refurb products and they all turned out to be ok (some do have tricky problems but are not really doa). So I watch the refurb section closely to find good deals. Here is a list of reasons that drive my interest way down:

1. Increased price + added shipping
abit nf7-s ultra 400 was 62 + free shipping now 75.75 + 4/5 shipping
abit ic7-g was 79 + fs now 89 = 4/5 shipping
abit ic7-max3 was 120 + fs now 140+ shipping
2. They no longer reduce price aggressively to facilitate quick sell.
They used to reduce prices every few days till the stock is out.
So When I saw they have many of the same items, I'd wait a few days and pick one up at a lower price.
(This was why I did not get the nf7-s and i70-g / icy-max3)
3. They play games w/ the inventory now.
They had, like, 50 nf7-s 400 one day, showing "sold-out" the next day. Then back to 50 in stock a week later.
Now, I think, they always show 2 in stock for nf7, ic7, items I think they have a lot more in stock. (I think this practice is designed to discourage people from waiting - if you want something and it is almost out of stock, then you will order it right away).

Frankly, they are still a good shop and I still plan to buy most of my stuff there (I do a lot of purchases). And they are out to make money, so I don't fault them too much for hiking prices.

However, I do not appreciate it if they play games on the inventory (It is still my conjecture, but I am pretty sure that is what they do.) Case in point:

a. They had 50 nf7-s ultra in stock at $62 for 3-4 days and did not get many people to buy it (down to 46, I believe).
b. then they increased the price by ~ 17 and sold 44 of them in 3-4 days ¡V only 2 left.
c. then they always have 2 in stock for the next 3-4 days.

In fact now they have 2 of each in stock: nf7-s nf7-s ultra400, ic7-g ic7, ic7-max 3. Too much of a coincidence?

 

[fleshconsumed]

Well... bought two refurb mobos from newegg and both of them turned out alright. However right now I have a situation with brand new Enermax PSU so I can relate. The first PSU I got emitted high-pitched noise that the cheapest of the cheapest PSUs make, the kind of that tigerdirect sells for $10-15... RMAed it back - $13. The replacement PSU that they've sent me was DOA Took another $13 dollars to sent it back... so right now I'm out $26 just to ship the defective products back and two weeks without my PC, yay, way to go Enermax/Newegg... I don't buy much refurb but this Enermax ordeal will make me think thrice before I order something refurb cuz shipping product back IS costly...

And let me just ramt on newegg in general... Three-four years ago they were absolutely the best company on the web: the cheapest prices and the best customer service, I never looked back at another site (well, googlegear was also good - nowadays known as zipzoomfly, damn you google), did all my shopping in newegg, because even if I could save a few bucks at other site, it was not worth the risk of dealing with other companies. Two years ago they started to change, they did not have the lowest prices anymore, but I still dealth with them cuz of their reputation... In the last year they jacked up the prices even more - combined with their idiotic shipping charges certain products are $10-30 than what I can find on ewiz, zipzoomfly or directron. So, right now I buy from newegg only if they have the best price, otherwise it's just another company...

Pity so see newegg like this... I suppose it's hard for a company to rise all the way up and still retain the quality and the pricing they had in the beginning...

 

[Lanyap]

In fact now they have 2 of each in stock: nf7-s nf7-s ultra400, ic7-g ic7, ic7-max 3. Too much of a coincidence?

The reason they only show 2 in stock is because they placed a limit of 2 on most if not all items in the refurb section. Anytime they place a limit on an item in the new or refurb section you can only see up to that limit your cart. For items without a limit you can still add it to your cart and then update quantity to 99 to see their stock numbers.

 

[ectx]

Originally posted by: Lanyap
In fact now they have 2 of each in stock: nf7-s nf7-s ultra400, ic7-g ic7, ic7-max 3. Too much of a coincidence?

The reason they only show 2 in stock is because they placed a limit of 2 on most if not all items in the refurb section. Anytime they place a limit on an item in the new or refurb section you can only see up to that limit your cart. For items without a limit you can still add it to your cart and then update quantity to 99 to see their stock numbers.

Thanks for pointing that out. Pretty obvious, my bad. But I still suspect they did it (put a limit) to fend off someone like me - I used to wait if they are many in stock. Hack, when you have 40+ in stock, why would you want to limit the sales to 2 for each customer - especillay it is NOT selling like hot cakes.

 

[hansmuff]

I bought a refurbed case for $20 shipped 2 days ago, and almost all refurb cases were free shipping then. Now, they charge shipping which makes the refurb cases a very COLD deal. Those $20 refurb jobs were great for putting in an old mobo you want to keep alive.

 

[corinthos]

the days of newegg's lead over the competition are slowly coming to an end...

 

[jmunjr]

So tell me now why this thread isn't locked? what hypocrites..!

 

[metalmania]

Today I saw the Newegg ads on city bus in NYC.

 

[Tsunami982]

doesnt this remind you of when AMD started locking the cpu multipliers on their CPU's. i feel so betrayed.

 

[Gmetech]

Newegg must either have some elves working late, or some crazy script that does whatever it wants. Or maybe it's timed and the longer refurb items are up, the cheaper the shipping? 3 hours ago I saved the Newegg product pages for a Lian-Li case and a Silverstone, that were both showing $15 shipping. Now it's about 11pm and I just looked and the shipping is $4 on both of them.

 

[porkbun]

Like others have said--not only did they start charging shipping, they also increased the prices of most refurbs. I am now seeing a refurbed IS7-E priced at $76. It used to be $42 shipped before.

The days of taking risks are gone. Now it is a no brainer whether or not to take risks buying refurbs from them.

 

[RobCur]

I've bought 6 refurbs mobo within a year and only 1 is still working but usb 2.0 has never functioned at all, install driver for it = reboot everytime so it has to be disabled in safe mode! sent 2 back which cost me 13 and 15 percent restocking fee, ugh! 3 died slowly overtime.. refurbs are not meant for end users but rather for the daring tech geeks with skills to fix the impossible.

 

[PC911mickster]

I have a well earned rep as a NewEgg fanboy and that's still the case.

Here's how you get your DOA's/wrong product pulls return shipping credited back...
a) Call the NE 800 number and tell the CSR it was DOA(dead on arrival for the brain dead)
b) Tell 'em you want a refund. If they have a replacement, just go order it as a new transaction.
c) Ask them for a credit on the return shipping of the DOA or if you received the wrong product. They have predetermined amounts on ALL products so don't tell 'em you're overnighting it back and expect a credit for the overnight charges. I always ship back by USPS Parcel. It's cheapest even when I add insurance on mobos or vid cards. Takes 5 days from here in Florida but I've never had a problem.

For the record...
Read Digi Times to see what's happening with the cost of components. They're increasing and NE's passing on those increases. The WSJ had an article in yesterday's edition on the subject.

NewEgg's grown in a major way over the last year and increased the CS staff X4 to improve wait times...that's down to about 30 seconds per call most days. Brain dead or ones with bad attitude are cut loose quickly. If you have a problem with a CSR, email complaints@newegg.com with the CSR's name. They're also placing warehouses to improve shipping times and hopefully costs.

As for the refurb shipping costs...did anybody ever notice NE was the ONLY one NOT charging for shipping for a good long while? Even with the $3 or $4 charges now, they're still a worthwhile gamble for certain products. All refurbs I order get checked the day I receive them and NE's CS gets a call immediately if there's a problem. That practice has worked perfectly for me.

I've placed over 50 orders worth more than $7500 for myself and clients with NewEgg and see no reason to go elsewhere. Some of the NE info came from one of their managers who's helped me with many things over the last 3 years.

 

[RobsTV]

Sorry folks, but I sent an email to Newegg, and their response was:

We truly appreciate the information we will look into this matter immediately.

And a short time later, they "Dramatically RAISED" all their refurb prices even further!

Here was my email to them Thursday 5am, which they replied to at 10am:

Please check out this thread at Anandtech.com
(link)

Newegg has been the cornerstone of Hot Deals all over the web, with places like Anandtech and Fatwallet forums
constantly pointing out deals at Newegg. Based on these sites, I have shopped at Newegg several times a month.
However, it seems that a new policy is happening at Newegg, and posts at the above forums are warning buyers
to avoid Newegg, and shop elsewhere. While the thread above started out about refurbs, it has changed into a
discussion about all of Newegg's policies.

Just thought you should know, because these forums made Newegg what it is today, and they can affect tomorrow.

Perhaps a rep should pay a visit to these forums and explain the new price increase policies and reasons?

Also, contrary to the post above this, many other companies have been offering free or $3 type shipping for years.

 

[operaman1]

Newegg is doing what they need to do to make a profit. IT is a pity, but they still have great customer service IMHO and they do offer very competitive pricing. Refurbs are hit and miss. I got an A64 3200+ for 211 and got a retail box, got an Aus K8V Deluxe for 101 and a ATI 9800 Pro for 156. I also got a Kingwin KT436 for 89 shipped. All good deals. I also received a dead raptor drive :-(, a matching pair of OCZ memory that was DOA (2-2-2-5, 2X256) So it's all relative. With the shipping it makes me rethink refurbs bu not newegg. Love their company and service.

One more example: I got a sparkle PSU that had the wrong connections(it was supposed to come with ATX adaptors to use with it). I talked to the rep, I ordered a Sparkle 530 she found online, I ordered it and she upgraded it to overnight for free and sent me a T-Shirt for nada as well Newegg still rocks for me...

 

[ectx]

Yep they increased the price of ic7-g from 79 to 89 to 139!!! nf7-s from 52-75.75 to 85. Infocus LP650 from 2079 (or 2178) to 2489.

My days visiting newegg refurb section are over. I start to wonder if I need to find a different place for all my 'regular" puirchases.

Truthfully, places like Newegg saved me a lot of money in the last few years (compared buying retail in B&M retail stores) Are these places making money?

If this is caused by component price increases, it should affect non-refurb products more and it should affect other strores too. Anybody noticed it?