If I have a choice, I'd always use eBuyer. Fast delivery, a wide range of products and good prices. I've never had to RMA anything from them though, so no idea what customer service is like. I've also used Scan, Aria and Dabs. They all do the job tbh, although Dabs' prices tend to be on the high side. Not as much as OCUK though
You forgot dabs.com I cannot use the FF plugin "add to search bar" for both scan.co.uk and dabs.com. I can do it for ebuyer. That saves a lot of time. Especially if I want to find the same thing on different sites. I spend 1 hour+ trying to recreate your "what hardware should I buy February 09" -affordable section. I got mixed results. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2009/02/03/what-hardware-should-i-buy-feb-2009/2 + I got cheaper by 40 pounds (without including the hd, and coolermaster elite 330). I wanted to get a Lian Li PC-A05. That looks a lot better Cost more too - ebay and amazon were not included in the buy list. I am not sure why this is. I found great discounts on both sites. Also shopping on google also helped a lot. - The Lite-On DVD burner SATA was 16 pounds in the scan.co.uk but the moment you click the weblink in the guide, the price is 24.11. I struggled to even find any <20 pounds lite on. Do you think scan.co.uk purposely increase their prices after knowing you linked to their site - I also found out that scan.co.uk and aria.co.uk were too sluggish to load. Sometimes dabs.com too did not load. Need to refresh. Annoying. I am also struggling to actually choose between a LCD with build-in Digital TV tuner or a LCD and a PCI tuner. I looked at the Samsung T220HD and that cost around 199 with shipping. Comes with a tuner and speakers. Take a LCD in the "what should I buy section" midrange. The 22" LCD is around 160 pounds then you add a hauppauge tuner will cost more than the build in LCD. And the Samsung comes with speakers. Since there are few sites, I could not make extensive comparison. Will Newegg come to UK?
Shops I use are aria.co.uk, microdirect.co.uk, tekheads.co.uk and if I'm desperate ebuyer.co.uk They all have their up's and downs but I would say the best one for balance between stock availability, service & price would probably be microdirect.
If they did there's absolutely no reason to think they'd be anything special, on price, range or service. After all, what effect has Wal-Mart's coming to the UK had? They'd be competing with our existing companies on their home turf. The only hope of success is for them to buy a major player, but they cannot afford a massive stock range in a market where prices tend to fall- just not enough turnover in the UK. Dream over.
ah wah?!? (professor Farnsworth) many thanks, alastor. Tekheads's browsing system is quite hard to get use to..... OCuk is the easiest to browse.
Asda has products which are relatively cheaper compared to Tesco. Also, I don't think it makes any difference. The products are from Taiwan/China anayway. Bit tech should make an article review about this. Evaluate online shops
If places like Scan and Ebuyer didn't make a tidy profit, they wouldn't be running, there is always success if you get everything right. Personally, from what I can see in the online hardware marketplace, if Newegg did come to the UK, and they got the stock and prices right, they would become an overnight success quite easily. And Ebuyer, Scan + Newegg would become the top three players. Wal-Mart is totally different, I haven't seen one in years, but I'm sure if they opened a place down here it would be full. The only problem with Wal-Mart is that it's too "American", and I don't think the general public would like that. IKEA has wanted to come to Exeter for many years now, but they are always refused PP because they would cause so much traffic, and at the moment, Exeter is full up with traffic already.
Dreamcast did not work cause it was too expansive, and game lineup was poor. Shenmue was good but then it took 4 CD's for 1 game. That suck. Amazon.com came to UK and that work. If I want to buy a Rosewill case, its hard to find it since its based in US. Also for some weird reason some stuff which are released in Taiwan/Jap comes to US and Asia region first. Seems to come later in UK and EU.
There are good deals to be had at ebuyer.co.uk, however these normally revolve around the ebuyer brand products, other high end products remain quite expensive. I would recommend cclonline.co.uk
as above, ebuyer.co.uk, overclockers.co.uk, scan.c.uk, aria.co.uk, dabs.com, awd-it.com, cclonline.com i have used all of the above for various things, some cheaper for some things, others cheaper for others. Google Product search normally your best friend as long as you're clever with your search terms (keep it simple like "Gainward" "8800" "GT" etc etc)
I use dabs.com primarily, chilledpc.co.uk, scan.co.uk, and tekheads.co.uk Dabs easily has the best way to find the product you're after. ChilledPC has a small selection, but quite reasonably priced and delivery is excellent. Scan is generally cheap. Tekheads I only used once for an item not instock at Dabs (or cheap enough anywhere else) and service was excellent.
thanx to this thread I found good UK on-line retailers & I think scan.co.uk prices are cheap (however their site is slow)
