Amazon

Full review
In the past, the only money I had spent on Amazon.com was to pre-order the latest Harry Potter books. However, when I found the car seat I wanted to buy at Amazon for $30 less than elsewhere, I ventured into buying new things from Amazon.com. When I got to the shipping section, I was offered a free 30 day trial membership in Amazon's Prime program (a full year costs $79). Normally I would not sign up for something I would have to remember to cancel in 30 days, but Prime came with free two-day shipping on purchases. So, I went with it.

Christmas Shopping on Amazon.com
After buying the car seat, I got frequent emails from Amazon, touting their deals on toys. I was amazed at the great deals I found on toys that my kids wanted. I got a Barbie doll for $14 below retail, the Little Mommy Gotta Go doll for $30 below retail, a huge My Little Pony amusement park for $18 below retail, and a bunch of Transformers for my nephews at $6.99 each. Factoring in the free shipping made these purchases even better.

Delivery--Under-promised and over-delivered
Every single package I ordered came either the day it was expected or the day before, via UPS. After ordering a package at 3:00 p.m., I received an email later in the evening that the product had shipped out at 6:00. The email also gave me a direct link to the shipping details, so I was able to see where my package was in the process as it got scanned in.

Customer Service--Much better than I could have hoped for
Any time I buy something online, I suffer a tinge of paranoia that the product I receive will somehow be inferior to what I expected. With Amazon.com, my only problem was that the Barbie and the Diamond Castle singing Princess Liana Doll did not sing when I pushed her 'try me' button. A defective Barbie doll was not going to bode well for me on Christmas morning, so with knots in my stomach I contacted Amazon to see what I could do.

There is no actual phone number for customer service at Amazon.com. What you have to do is leave a phone number for them to call you at and you literally get a call within five seconds. The customer service representative was very friendly and instantly shipped out a new Barbie doll with overnight shipping and told me how to print off a shipping label to send the bad Barbie back. I got a confirmation email two hours later that the Barbie had been shipped, with tracking info. Once I made sure the new Barbie sang like she was supposed to, I put the bad one in her box, taped the new shipping label on the box, and dropped the package off at UPS. A few days later, I received an email that Amazon had received my package. This had to be the smoothest product return I have ever had to do.

Neat packaging options
After I got my Little Mommy Gotta Go Doll, I realized that it was not in the same clear packaging as in the store. This is because Amazon has a deal with some manufacturers to offer "Frustration Free" packaging on certain items. The beauty of this is that toys in "Frustration Free" packaging don't have all of those obnoxious twisty ties and wires to undo that they would have if they were purchased in a regular store. I really appreciated this on Christmas morning, as my anxious two year old wanted to get her hands on that baby doll.

Overall
Thanks to Amazon's Prime program and their very efficient service, I was able to save a lot of time and money this Christmas season. Between having to shuffle around three small children while I shop and having an aversion to crowded, sweaty shopping aisles, the value I got with Amazon.com was priceless. I highly recommend it to people looking to save time and money, especially if they can get the free 30 day Prime trial membership.