drugstore.com

Full review
I've shopped at Drugstore.com about a half-dozen times in the past two years, and never had a complaint until now.  My experience with them has been mostly good--until yesterday.  And my review will get the "bad" over with first, and move on to the good.

The Bad

My hubby's stepmother, God bless her, is in a nursing home 1400 miles away.  She's relatively young to be in a nursing home, way livelier than most of the other residents, but she has lost both her legs to diabetes.  One way I try to cheer her up is by buying her a case of Depends every two months, so that she can go out on the handicapped bus or on day trips without worry. 

I've always ordered them from Amazon, but this time Amazon was out of stock, so I turned to Drugstore.com.

Their price was as good.  They had free shipping.  I got drugstore bucks and a rebate from MrRebates.  I just had a lot of trouble getting them shipped to her.

I input her name and address under "ship to" about three times.  When I got to the final page, it kept indicating they would be shipped to me (1400 miles away.)  I clicked under "is this a gift?"  "Yes, yes, yes!"  When I got to the final page, it still indicated they would be shipped to me.  I tried deleting every address and making her address the "default address" to no avail.  Finally, after about 15 tries, they got it right.

I hope they read this epinion :)

Not only that, when she gets my package the box will say "drugstore.com" and someone in the nursing home office will call her in and say, "Why are you ordering drugs online?"  LOL!  It happened once before when I sent her a package through them.

The Good

- Drugstore.com offers a wide variety of items, prescription and non-prescription, health and beauty items, gourmet foods, personal care--everything you would find in your typical Walgreen's or CVS.  Their prices are good, and there are ample specials, online coupons, free gifts with the purchase of certain products, and other premiums. 

As far as I can tell, they don't offer generics, and that can be a big drawback if you usually buy generic over-the-counter non-prescription medications, as I usually do.

- You can order online or over your cell phone.

- You can order from 34 countries, mostly European and North American.  One of my sons is teaching in Asia, and occasionally asks me to send him different skin products, so I will keep looking to see when South Korea gets onboard.

- Delivery is fast and items arrive in good condition.  Although the cover page advertises "free shipping over $25" when I got to the checkout page they said I had to spend $50 to get free shipping (maybe because I wasn't a first time customer.)

- Payment can be made via credit card, PayPal, or Google Checkout.  I could have done all three, but chose PayPal so that I wouldn't have to go get my credit card.

- My most recent purchase entitled me to $2.67 of "Drugstore bucks" which can be used on a future purchase during the month of July.  I know they will send me an e-mail reminder so that I can take advantage of the drugstore bucks.  Drugstore bucks are given for 5% of the purchase price.

- There are online coupons available and listed in a special section.  If you are a couponer, of course, you can't bring in the ones you clip yourself...

- They are affiliated with Beauty.com and VisionDirect.com, but I've used both those sites and never gotten drugstore bucks :)  Darn.

- If you look at evreward.com, you will see that Drugstore.com accepts 7 cash back reward programs (including my three favorites, mrrebates, ebates, and fat wallet), 19 airline and travel award point programs, and Upromise.  From this vast array, I chose mrrebates for a 7% rebate.

A First--Use Your Flexible Spending Account Debit Card for Eligible Items

Our flexible spending account now comes with a debit card so that we can pay for eligible items directly from the account rather than waiting for reimbursement.  If you look under "FSA Store" you will see what qualifies and be able to purchase those items with a flexible spending account debit card.  This would be wonderful in December if you still had a few hundred dollars left and needed to stock up on eligible items.

There is an HSA (Health Savings Account) store as well.

Auto Delivery

You can also set up regular deliveries of items that need to be reordered on a regular basis.  (Amazon offers a discount if you do this with my MIL's Depends...I'm not sure whether Drugstore does the same.)

Final Recommendation

Because they don't seem to sell generics, I wouldn't use them for most of my non-prescription shopping.  For name-brand items, they offer good prices, reliable free delivery, sales and coupons, and a huge selection of 40,000 items.

If you will be shipping your order to a different address, be prepared for aggravation.