TigerDirect.com

Full review



I'm not a techie. I break computers often then call people that can fix them and beg them to "just make it work". I learned the hard way to back up my hard drive and the painful lesson of not grabbing a paper towel to clean off the monitor. I had no idea that there was sand on it and it did a number on the screen. TigerDirect to the rescue. With competitive prices, a huge selection of products and an easy to navigate site it was pretty strange that I'd never bought from them in the past. Desperate times call for desperate measures. NewEgg crapped all over me during check out so I went to TigerDirect to see if they had better service.

What made me leave the NewEgg site when I'd spend so much time picking out my goodies? When I went to pay for the order with PayPal I got a weird mesage saying that my account wasn't verified and that I needed to contact PayPal to clear things up. Have you ever tried to call PayPal? Unless you are sitting under a four leaf clover while holding on to a rabbits foot and balancing a horse shoe on your keen, you won't have much luck getting through to someone. I went to TigerDirect, picked out same items and paid with PayPal with no problems. go figure.

I got the email from both PayPal and TigerDirect; PayPal was letting me know that there was a deduction and Tiger was giving me the details of the order and when it should arrive. It got here a day before expected but for the price of shipping, about eight dollars, well, it should have been second day. The items were brand new and in excellent shape but there was no packing material in the box so the USB Hub and new mouse were rattling around. If you don't have a PayPal account don't worry, you can use your MasterCard, Visa, American Express or Discover to pay for your order.

TigerDirect sells pretty much anything and everything that you can think of that's associated with computers. Things are relatively easy to find but if you enter something generic in the search box you can end up spending a lot of time trying to find what you want. I entered "mouse" and almost fell off my chair when I saw the pages and pages of results. I narrowed it down to the type and brand I wanted and got a much better set of results. The prices are competitive with other similiar online vendors so that was a relief. I was there to spend my PayPal cash and they helped me do it with no problems.

I was worried about the USB Hub and whether it would work or not. My laptop only has two USB ports and that just isn't enough. To make things worse my broadband card is a weird shape so it blocks one of the hubs on the new USB adapter. Instead of having four open hubs I can only use three of them. To make things ever weirder the webcam wouldn't work when plugged into the USB Hub so I thought it (the hub) was defective. Now the cam goes into the side USB port and the USB Hub Adapter goes in the back. That runs the mouse, broadband card and wireless keyboard. I called TigerDirect about it and they said they'd never heard of a cam not working with a USB adapter / hub but they said anything is possible.

I know that I will be buying more from TigerDirect in the future. For me it is easier to go to the site and read up on things instead of going to Staples and having to wait for someone to help and answer questions. Customer service seems pretty good but I've only called once. The 30 day return policy is an industry norm so I felt pretty safe when ordering. If the USB Hub didn't work (defective) I knew I could return it but if it turned out that I needed something with more ports I could order another one and use the four port hub on another computer.

What can they do to improve the site? Make it easier to search by price. When I was looking for a printer I wanted to see them from the cheapest to the most expensive. If they have that feature at the site I couldn't find it (it was available on two pages but I had to get to the specific listing to see it). They could also benefit from having a checklist for people who are computer morons. I'd like to be able to go to the site and have a checklist of things; I want a printer that is basic but doesn't cost a lot when it comes to buying ink refills. If they had a list of things that you wanted from a product then could suggest items for you to look at, it would make it a lot easier to get the right thing.

On a side note, be sure to check the Overstock section, you never know what they will have there and thankfully things are broken into categories so searching for goodies is easy. They do have an Open Box section but I'm not computer literate enough to know if it is a good deal or not.

What sucks about the site? Not much. I am getting sick of the emails asking me for feedback. Not only am I getting them from TigerDirect but also from BizRate. It's just not worth my time to fill out all that crap for the chance to win a $25.00 gift certificate. I'm not saying that they need to pay people for reviews or comments but making it a ten minute chore to complete it isn't my thing.


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^V^ © 2009 Freak369 ^V^
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Maxtor 160 GB ATA-133 Hard Drive
Micro Innovations Keyboard And Mouse
Belkin Wireless F5D 7050 G USB Network Adapter
Lexar JumpDrive Pro 80X 256 MB USB 2.0 Flash Drive
Logitech Deluxe Keyboard - Belkin Classic Keyboard