Where To Buy Electronics

Whether you want to replace that old television, buy a VCR, or catch the newest craze by purchasing a digital versatile disc (DVD) player, check out the deals available on the Web. While it may not be as fun as going down to your local electronics store and seeing, hearing, and touching your new equipment before buying, if you know what you want and don't want the hassle of driving across town, the Web certainly is the answer.

Here is a rundown of some of the electronics stores you'd expect to see online, along with several lesser-known companies that offer excellent sites and selections.

Best Buy

Best Buy provides electronics and photography products, as well as computers, appliances, car stereo products, computer software, movies, and music at its retail stores. But Best Buy's online store offers only DVD movies and music that you can purchase online.

You can redeem Best Buy gift certificates online, and the online store accepts the Best Buy credit card, as well as MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Discover.

To its credit, the Best Buy online store does use the popular MP3 format to provide samples of current music. Otherwise, Best Buy's Web site provides a store locator and a look at the current week's advertisement, along with information about returns and other company policies.

http://www.bestbuy.com

CIRCUITCITY.com

Circuit City, an arch-rival to Best Buy in many markets, offers a true E-commerce solution for online buying, and it gives you a choice of either mail delivery or in-store delivery on most of the items the Web site offers. The site offers interactive buying guides (pick the features and brands you're interested in and see what you can get) that take you straight to purchase. If you're not sure what features you need, the site also features a useful Learn About . . . section that provides well-illustrated tutorials about major product lines.

Electronics offerings at the Circuit City online store include video and camcorders, DVD players, VCRs, televisions, home audio, cellular phones, fax machines, and pagers. While bulky items, such as projection televisions, can't be purchased online, all of Circuit City's product lines can be researched, making a trip to the store faster and easier.

Web-only specials provide the company a centralized way to move limited-quantity clearance products, and they give you the perfect reason to stop by the site often. Circuit City's site offers printable versions of its rebates for all offers the that store is currently promoting. The site also offers store location and policy information.

Overall, the Circuit City site shows how an online shopping site can benefit both direct sales customers and retail store business.

http://www.circuitcity.com

Crutchfield

While this Lycos-featured electronics retailer has two Virginia stores, its primary focus is online sales. Crutchfield specializes in car audio and home theater audio and video products, with a product range spanning from DVD players to turntables, televisions to minidisc players.

The clean, fast-loading design makes shopping a pleasure. Clear symbols indicate which featured products you can purchase online, which require a phone order and are back-ordered. You can buy from the departmental list of products or get details before you put the item into your virtual shopping cart.

Many products feature an Accessories link that details any cables, batteries, or other items you may need to enjoy the product. The site also features extensive technical information, troubleshooting tips, and directions to Crutchfield retail stores.

http://www.crutchfield.com

damark.com

The Damark circular is a frequent visitor to many mailboxes around the country. Damark sells a range of consumer electronics, including televisions, stereos, digital satellite systems, DVD players, VCRs, and portable audio. Frequent shoppers can benefit from signing up for E-mail notification of sales and special offers.

All products listed online can be purchased online. Product descriptions are clear and detailed and most include photographs, but the site has no provision for product comparisons. Damark carries both new and refurbished products, and the site does a good job of indicating which products are factory serviced (refurbished).

Damark offers a separate outlet E-store with electronics and other departments, which requires that you finish shopping at the normal online store before entering.

http://www.damark.com

hifi.com

The hifi.com Web site lets you buy the full Cambridge SoundWorks product line, including speakers, clock radios, surround-sound systems, and popular DVD, TV, and VCR products from other vendors (all of which reportedly sound better with Cambridge SoundWorks speakers, of course).

The site is easy to navigate and also offers B-stock (products that have either been returned or have minor blemishes) and Web-only specials for bargain hunters. You can check your order status at any time, and you can also check reviews of products with the Reviews links on the site's home page. Yahoo's Cambridge SoundWorks store offers only a few of the company's products, so be sure to check out this main site.

http://www.hifi.com

J&R Music World/
J&R Computer World

J&R offers a large assortment of audio, video, telephone, fax, and photographic items at its online store. Site navigation is easy, letting you jump to a featured item or work through departments to find what you need. Color coding alerts you to out-of-stock or low-stock items, and a cross-reference feature offers to show you similar items.

Highlighted text in product descriptions brings up a Javascript window with definitions to help you learn more about the product feature; selected accessories are on the same page as the product. You need to register before viewing your online shopping basket. A search tool and optional E-mail notification of specials are other useful features of the Web site.

http://www.jandr.com

JCPenney

Click the Home & Leisure link at JCPenney's home page to get to the store's online electronics department, where you'll find everything from air cleaners to VCRs, including audio, video, cameras, fax machines, office electronics, phones, and televisions. You can purchase all items featured on the site.

The site offers a large number of items in each category, along with extensive descriptions and full online-buying features, but no comparison-shopping tables or features. The search feature lets you find items by name rather than by category, and you can use catalog item numbers for online ordering.

http://www.jcpenney.com

K-Mart

K-Mart's Web site provides limited E-commerce but a large amount of information about its brick-and-mortar stores and departments. Electronic items available for purchase on the site are limited to music, some recent videos, and a single Canon 35mm single-lens reflex camera.

The store locator and a look at the current circular are major benefits for online shoppers. The site is disorganized at this time, with many features only accessible via the What's New page. The store locator offers zoomable maps.

http://www.kmart.com

netmarket

netmarket is an online-only retailer that features a broad range of home audio, video, film and digital cameras, car stereo, and home-office electronics. Featured items dominate the opening page, but pull-down menus on the left side of the screen take you to the department you want. All of netmarket's product selections are extensive, but photography fans in particular will appreciate the choices here. Photography products range from digital and 35mm point-and-shoot cameras to professional-grade, medium format cameras, along with accessories ranging from slide projectors to tripods, filters, and more.

You can create comparison-shopping tables from any or all of the products in any category, and the site also offers interactive buying guides that let you select desired brand(s) and features to narrow the choices.

Browse to your heart's content, and if you decide to buy something, consider the benefits of membership. A three-month trial membership costs you $1, and you can save significant amounts off "guest prices" with your first purchase.

http://www.netmarket.com

Office Depot

If you're looking for telephones, fax machines, micro-recorders, or accessories, Office Depot is worth a stop. Find the office-oriented electronics offerings under the Office Machines, Supplies link.

Each category features one or more products, with many categories offering a half-dozen or more choices. The telephone and fax machine categories offer all-product or selected-product-only comparison charts to help you choose the best model from a crowded list of contenders. You can also generate printable versions of the charts.

The site offers a customized shopping list feature, but it doesn't track current purchases on-screen. A store locator feature is available.

http://www.officedepot.com

OfficeMax.com

At the OfficeMax E-commerce-enabled Web site, you'll find a wide range of office-oriented electronics, including telephones, calculators, pagers, televisions, VCRs, and more. The site offers a fast-loading, easy-to-navigate design without the distracting banners or graphics of other sites.

OfficeMax cleverly offers accessories that complement most products on the same screen that features the main product. Product descriptions are more terse than at other sites, but the site automatically tracks purchase subtotals at the top of every screen. For people who prefer to skip the Web for orders, there's a toll-free number to call. There is no store locator feature, but with the breadth of products on the site, this may not matter.

http://www.officemax.com

Radio Shack

Radio Shack's Web site offers Adobe Acrobat versions of its current tabloids, interactive buying guides for products such as Optimus stereo systems and radio-controlled vehicles, and a store locator.

Although you'd expect a big-name company such as Radio Shack to offer online shopping, it doesn't. The site provides excellent product information, but you still order the old-fashioned way: put down your mouse, pick up your car keys, and drive to your local Radio Shack or call a toll-free number.

http://www.radioshack.com

Service Merchandise.com

This familiar fixture in numerous shopping centers offers online shopping for televisions, VCRs, camcorders, home audio products, cameras, telephones, and other electronics products.

Color-coding makes it easy to see which items are available at extra-special prices, and the categories are well-defined, putting similar items together for easier comparison shopping. However, there is no interactive buying guide or feature comparison table option available.

If you're buying for a special someone in the military, the site indicates which items can be shipped to APO boxes. You can also zoom in on special promotions by clicking the Sale Items Only filter. A store locator, search feature, and gift registry round out the site's features.

http://www.servicemerchandise.com

sharperimage.com

The stylish Sharper Image catalog and retail stores have an equally stylish online companion. From the home page you can jump to featured products or click the See Hot Products or See New Products links. Shockwave-enabled Web browsers can even view three-dimensional movies of some featured products, making the online experience even more like taking a trip to the mall.

Product categories include Cameras & Optics; Music, TV & Video; and Work & Communications. You can purchase all products featured on the site online, but for those who prefer to pick them up in person, the site also features a store locator with zoomable Mapquest maps to make your trip easier. Product descriptions and photos are clear and easy to read and make online shopping easy.

http://www.sharperimage.com

ShopKo

ShopKo is entering many markets where other discounters, such as Venture, once ruled. ShopKo's Web site offers a look at the current circular, an excellent store locator that works with either the ZIP code or a clickable U.S. map with store locations highlighted, and information about rebates for electronics and other departments.

The only electronics items you can buy online are Green Bay Packers-logo items. Packers fans can choose from electronic items such as tape players, helmet radios, alarm clocks, and boomboxes, as well as logo merchandise from other departments.

http://www.shopko.com

SpiegelTronics

The famous Spiegel catalog has an online sibling that boasts "electronic shopping as it should be." The site offers online shopping for camcorders, cameras, phones, pagers, portable audio devices, televisions, VCRs, radios, and home audio and home office products.

Each department offers a thumbnail view and description of featured products, all of which you can purchase online. Descriptions and photos are clear, and you can buy from the product detail page. Extended warranties, when offered, are listed for purchase on the same page as the item covered.

You can jump to any department at any time, which is useful because your screen switches to the Shopping Cart view every time you select an item. While some online shoppers might prefer this method, others might prefer the unobtrusive running-total method used by other vendors. Nevertheless, the Speigel-Tronics site is well-designed and fast-loading. It offers a text-only option for those with slower connections.

http://www.spiegel.com

Staples.com

The Staples.com Web site wants to know your ZIP Code before showing you any products from its office-centric electronics offerings, which include home-office, multiline, and business telephones; fax machines; answering machines; two-way radios; cell phone accessories; and pagers.

Its default display (Show Me Text) makes the site faster to navigate for low-speed online shoppers, and it's easy to switch to graphics (Show Me Images) as you desire. Many categories offer comparison shopping tables for all or selected items, making it easy to view the competitive features of different products.

You can purchase all featured products online, and the site makes repeat shopping easier by letting you create lists of frequently purchased items and check your account history online. You can also request E-mail reminders and sale notifications. The total at the top of every screen helps you stay within your budget, and when you select an item, you're taken to a page of featured accessories.

The store locator provides maps, telephone numbers, addresses, and even shopping-center names to help you find your nearest Staples store.

http://www.staples.com

Wal-Mart Online

Wal-Mart offers a well-organized electronics section with E-commerce features at its Web site. Product lines include Cameras & More, Audio/Video Storage, CB Radios & Accessories, Fax Machines, Home Audio, Video Game Systems, Clocks, Telephones & Answering Machines, and Video Security.

Each section features one or more items, manufacturer specifications, a photo with an optional enlarged view, and an Add To Cart button. The Hot Buys section of the site also offers electronics deals. Brands and model numbers are clearly listed for those who want to investigate a product further.

http://www.wal-mart.com