In the past few months both FedEx and UPS have increased their rates. Therefore, you'll find that alot of ecommerce sites are either no longer offering FREE SHIPPING; or they are padding the prices of their items in order to offer FREE SHIPPING. All in all, prices are still cheap compared to walking in2 a retail store (i.e. COMPUSA, PC CLUB, etc...) This is a cutthroat biz and most of these companies are barely making anything on each item. I used to work for a wholesaler in Santa Fe, CA ...and i recalled them making like $1.60 on CPUs!!!! Which is unthinkable...but these guys based everything on volume, so in the end they still do make a profit but not that much.
I only do my shopping only at 3 places...and they have all been good. They each have their pros/cons, but overall it's been a relatively smooth transactions. I work with a consulting company in OC and any given month we placed an order between 6-10K in computer components with these companies... IMHO, these are the best companies to deal w/online for computer components:
MWAVE.COM - these guys are out in Walnut, CA, good prices, good selection, return is sometimes a B*ATCH...but overall 9/10 (WILLCALL AVAIL)
NEWEGG.COM - they're somewhere in City of Industry, good prices, good selection, good return policy on most items 8.5/10 (NO WILLCALL)
CELLEXPRESSION.COM - new kid on the block (i think), they're somewhere in North OC (that's socal for u non-natives), good selections, good prices, flat rate shipping on cell fone accessories, good return policy ...sent us all free tees way back in 2003 thanking us for our business. 9/10 (NO WILLCALL)