Calendars.com

Full review
Preamble
Back when I was a youngster, I wasn't much into calendars. They were sort of plain and dull and they served as a constant reminder of how quickly my weekends passed by me.

About ten years ago, calendars became one of my favorite room accessories. Wall calendars that featured photographs by Ansel Adams looked nice in any room. I loved taking the boxed/desk calendars to the office, removing each day and having a great laugh at whatever joke or tongue-in-cheek phrase was printed.

Every year, I do my massive search for calendars, hitting bookstores and visiting the specialty kiosk stores located in the mall. This year, I wondered if anyone sold a boatload online because I hate having to drive to the mall. I always spend too much and therefore, too many bags to drag around :).

If you can believe this, I did a search on yahoo for "calendars" and it brought me up nothing useful. I decided to type in calendars.com and whattya know - it brought up a site that specializes in *ta-duh* calendars!

About Calendars.com
Calendars.com says that it's the largest online retailer of calendars. I believe it! Located in Austin, Texas, Calendars.com is affiliated with both Calendar Club and in turn, Barnes and Nobles.

Products
Calendars.com has more calendars and more types of calendars than any other store I have visited. They separate their calendars out in two different ways. First, by categories:

African-American
Animals
Architecture
Art & Photography
Business & Office
Cars & Motorcycles
Cats
Celebrities
Children & Family
Christmas
Cooking
Dogs & Breeds
Ethnic Heritage
Firefighting
Flowers & Gardens
Games & Trivia
Gay & Lesbian
Gift Ideas
History
Home & Hobbies
Humor
Inspirational
Lighthouses
Models
Movie Stars
Music Stars
Nature & Science
New Age
Non-Profit Groups
Religion & Spirituality
September 11
Sports
Teen
Transportation
Travel & Regional
TV Shows
Women's Interests

And then by higher level topics:

Gift Ideas
Pets
Kids
Models
Humor Office
Celebs

I was able to find many calendars I was looking for (NSYNC, naturally) and then calendars that I didn't even know existed (check out Rear View).

Calendar Formats
Wow! You probably haven't thought a lot about the types of calendars there are. You're familiar with the wall calendar and the desk calendar but how about the advent, cubed, desk pad, easel, engagement, kitchen towel, locker, magnet, mini-wall, mousepad, perpetual, planner, poster, slimline, and vertical wall. Whew! That's a lot. The kitchen towel brought back lots of memories. That's the kind that my grandmother would always have in her kitchen.

Payment Options
The standard three - MasterCard, Visa and American Express are accepted online. If you wish to pay by cashier check, personal check, or money order, your order has to be over $100.

Shipping
I'm really pleased with their attitude about shipping. Standard shipping is $3.98 for the first item, 99 cents for each additional item with a max charged of $7.95. It takes them no longer to process/ship your order than 1 business day and you can expect your shipment within 4 to 7 business days. I received mine on the fourth business day.

Sales Tax
Sales tax is charged only on orders shipped to Texas.

Returns
Calendars.com offers a 30-day money-back guarantee (this includes the price of the calendar sales tax but not shipping. All you need to do is to return it. They will even accept it if the shrink wrap has been removed, provided that the calendar hasn't been written on.

If you received a damaged calendar, they will replace it at their expense.

Gift Wrapping
I usually don't do gift wrapping because retailers charge so much for it. Calendars.com charges $2.49 per item BUT if you purchase more than two calendars, they will gift wrap all of them for free! That's a bargain people!

Mass Purchasing
Calendars.com offers you a discount when you purchase calendars in bulk. Now, you don't need to buy the same calendar, you just need to buy a number of calendars.

4 to 9 calendars you will receive a 10% discount
10 to 24 calendars you will receive a 15% discount
25 or more you will receive a 20% discount

Getting Around The Web Site
Calendars.com has a really nice, bright & cheery home page. Their main colors are yellow and orange with lots of well placed white space. It won't take you long to find what you are looking for. The left side of the home pages has all of the categories of calendars while the top has a tool bar of more general topics to select from. You can even type in free form text to find the exact calendar you're looking for.

Calendars.com definitely knows what they are doing. Their web site is one of the easiest, most intuitive web sites that I have seen in a long time. Most of the time, you are only 1-2 clicks away from adding to your cart or purchasing.

Their Help! feature is one of the most extensive help pages I have ever come across on the web. Almost every sort of question you would want to know, they have it listed, along with the answer. You can find out ahead of time what every single one of their policies are - before you place your order. There are many web sites that don't do that and it's frustrating to find out something important just right before you hit the "order" button.

The End
I loved my entire experience with Calendars.com. It was easy to find what I wanted, it was easy to place my order and in less than a week, I had a box of calendars in impeccable condition. And all gift wrapped too!

It's not often I come across an e-tailer who impresses me enough to award them five stars however, Calendars.com has all of the essential ingredients on a great place to shop. It's convenient, has a large number of calendars, reasonable prices, reasonable shipping, excellent web user interface, and on-time delivery. If you're in the market for a new calendar, I highly recommend Calendars.com.