Not exactly. I'm complaining that to ship a thing at Amazon, it could have shipped in two days for "free." To ship that same thing at Monoprice cost me $12 and took a freaking week. To match the shipping speed at Amazon I'd have had to spend $24 dollars, and even then the store tends to take a day to ship stuff out. I realize I can't call my Amazon shipping free, but as others have pointed out, I share that subscription with another family member who splits the cost with me. So now it takes two shipments at Monoprice to already exceed the cost of shipping stuff at Amazon, and I usually don't even get things shipped out the same day.


The reason I purchase things at Monoprice is only partly for their prices. The primary reason is that their selection is so much better. I can get a 1.5' ethernet cable in a dozen colors. I can get (as I did earlier this week) a full selection of keystone jacks to customize a wall plate to my liking. Some of the more specialized things just don't show up at Amazon. But the thing is, I'd pay half again what Monoprice charges for their products if I could get them delivered in the same manner I get things at Amazon, because in the end I'm not sure how much I'm saving if I'm spending a large chunk on shipping.


Bruno, I agree with you on one point: they need to shape up on their fulfillment center practices. Those sound pretty damn bad. Not Foxconn-bad, but they only just got air conditioning in some of these places that are in warm climates. I hope they change their act there.


Lastly, I couldn't disagree more on Amazon having bad customer service. Sure, I've never called them up for something, but that's only because I've never had to. Their automated systems take care of me just fine. The one time they didn't, I was able to chat with a representative. I had purchased a behind-the-head headset that simply broke after a couple months of use (the plastic just snapped). Amazon sent me a replacement set well after I thought any grace period would apply, and when I said I didn't have anything but the headset and the receiver (no packaging, manuals, or install discs), they said it was okay and that I could just drop what I had back in the box. Then I simply throw it at someone in a UPS store and they take care of it for me.

I've never had a bad customer service experience at Amazon.

I'll slightly agree that their site has issues. It can be a bit of a mess to do some things, but for 99% of my usage I have zero trouble.