CoastandCactus wrote:
2. Amazon: After years of happily paying no sales tax and getting speedy free shipping at Amazon, my ordering of costly items sold by Amazon has come to a screeching halt. Texas residents now must pay sales tax on items sold by Amazon
I would think Texas has the same arrangement as California regarding sales tax and online purchases.
In California, you are supposed to pay tax on all online purchases. If the tax is not collected at the point of sale, you are required to declare it and pay the tax when you file your income tax. This is why Amazon came to an agreement with many states to start collecting sales tax at the point of sale. They started this in Cali too.
Publicly stating that you don't pay your taxes is generally not a good idea.
I have been a customer of all three, along with Hunt's and have been happily served by all three. I do most of my shopping at B&H, and realize that "free" shipping means there will be a small delay. If I order on a Monday a.m. I can count on receiving my product by Friday at the latest with free shipping. Since I work all week and rarely shoot mid-week, this suits me fine. Returns are handled as best as I could expect. I ordered an item just before Passover this year and needed to return it. I waited until they re-opened and, despite the overwhelming return pile they must have faced, received a credit within two days.
I hate returning items to any of these stores because I know its costly to them to re-stock. However, lacking a local store, I have no other way to examine the differences between Domke bags than to guess as to which one I want and wait to see if its right when it arrives. That being said, I will always support a local store (30 mi. away) if possible first, and their prices are within reason. I will NEVER go there and use them as a showroom.
B&H and Adorama have wonderful showrooms when you're in NYC, and I rather support a photographic specialty store than a general, non-bricks and mortar store like Amazon. It costs money to maintain a store and employees in NYC and I appreciate that. While competitive prices are important to me like everyone else, so is support for real photo retailers - not just a general merchandiser. At least when I call with a question (or visit NYC now and then), I know someone knowledgable about photography will be there to help me.
I order almost exclusively through Amazon. With Primie it's so nice to have it in two days with free shipping, or $4 to have it the next day. They also have the best customer service I've ever dealt with. Once they sent me the wrong ball head by mistake, without even returning it they just refunded me my money so I could repurchase the ball head. The biggest incident was when I bought a 5DMII last October, well I it had a few buggy issues and at by January I decided I'd rather have the 6D anyway. I explained my situation to Amazon, they took the camera back with a full refund and I was able to buy the 6D. That was almost 4 months after I bought the 5D.
BH I had the exact opposite experience. My dad bought a Variable ND filter from BH, then it sat in the box unopened for a month before he gave it to me because he realized he has no idea what a Variable ND filter does (this is pretty much my life haha). Well I opened up the box to find the filter had a massive crack in it. My dad hadn't touched the box since it came in the mail so I know it wasn't him. I emailed BH about it and they pretty much told me tough luck because it was after the return dates. They gave me the email of the manufacturer, who didn't even reply to my email for 2 months and also told me tough luck.
Just want to give a big thumbs up to Adorama and especially Helen. She helped me retrieve an old trade-in credit from nearly eight years ago that several other reps were unable to do, and she helped to get me a great deal on a new Canon 1DX! She managed to get all of that done in a day! Thank you, Helen!
mitesh wrote:
Just want to give a big thumbs up to Adorama and especially Helen. She helped me retrieve an old trade-in credit from nearly eight years ago that several other reps were unable to do, and she helped to get me a great deal on a new Canon 1DX! She managed to get all of that done in a day! Thank you, Helen!
