Endless.com

Ok, here’s a quick one. Alison just found this site out today (I vaguely remember hearing of it). Zappos.com is, of course, a great site for shoes, but Endless.com takes the shipping thing to a whole new level – FREE Next Day Shipping AND FREE Returns. Talk about a no brainer. I don’t see any issues possible, but lets just say she ordered 2 pair to see how she likes ’em – I’ll let you know if we run into any trouble. Happy shopping, everyone.

How will they survive?

OK, I tried, I really did. I’m in the market for a new hard drive for my laptop. I did my research and came upon the Seagate Momentus Drive. It has stellar reviews, so I skipped on over to Buy.com and grabbed one for $85 . . . not bad at all (320 GB, 7200 RPM with 16 MB buffer for you gear heads). Well, I’m on a trip with my wife and have some time to kill (time to kill by myself in different city = Best Buy). While in Best Buy, I thought I’d check the prices on the hard drive I just ordered. I spent an extra $5 to have 2nd day shipping online, so I thought if they can even get close to that, I’ll purchase in store and cancel online.

Forty Bucks . . . they had it on sale for $40 more than the online purchase. I was ready to shell out even $10 more, but this was rediculous.

So, that begs the question – how will brick and mortar stores make it? With the recent closing of Circuit City, it looks bleak. Now, alot of folks say to ask the store to match the price or get close to the price with shipping and I’m all for that – something tells me they won’t come more than $30 off though. It’ll be interesting to see how the competition pans out over the next few years . . .