Best and Worst Budget PC Parts Vendors?

During my recent PC build I noticed a bunch of online sellers competing for lowest price on various parts on staticice.com.au and pcpartpicker AU.

To help anyone building soon, here's how long each of my parts took to arrive:

part vendor paid arrived days waited
GPU Umart 2020-05-20 2020-05-27 7
SSD Centrecom. 2020-05-23 2020-06-01 9
RAM Shopping Express . 2020-05-23 2020-05-28 5
Case Umart 2020-05-26 2020-05-29 3
PSU Centrecom 2020-05-26 2020-05-29 3
CPU PC Case Gear 2020-05-26 2020-05-30 4
Motherboard . Umart 2020-05-26 . 2020-05-29 . 3

Nothing DOA or any problems.

My favourite vendors:

  • Amazon AU have free Prime delivery, which is fast, and easy returns. So I prefer them even if other sellers are a few dollars cheaper. (I didn't buy anything from them this time, all their best deals were out of stock). Just watch out; a few of the best deals are for "Amazon US via Amazon AU" and when you actually look at the delivery times it's 2 or 3 weeks, not days.

  • Centrecom have free delivery on many items. They were a bit slow on my SSD, but that's probably on the delivery side, and I love not having to calculate shipping and add it to the price.

  • Shopping Express first thing I ever bought from them (years ago) arrived within 24 hours, so I've always liked them, though I've heard mixed things about them on OzBargain.

  • Umart are the ones who honoured the recent "$480 RTX 2060 Super" price error deal (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/538830). They aren't always the cheapest, and delivery starts at about $12, but if their price is similar to others, I like to buy from them. I got one of those GPUs, it's fantastic for that price. I figure I owe them a bit of loyalty for that.

I used to use ebay a lot, but I find prices aren't great for new PC parts. Even in auctions, people will often bid items up well above retail price. And warranty can be a problem. Plus the dodgy sellers who post the wrong info, like this clown: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/538734

Any favourite vendors?

Ones that you don't like?

Comments

  • +10

    The best way to judge a retailer or person is how they react when things go wrong.

  • +1

    I’m waiting for a Sydney based retailer to let me know that an item listed as “In Stock - Sydney” will be ready for pickup. I placed the order on Friday, they are open for collection on saturdays… is it unreasonable to expect that it would be ready to go within 24 hours?

    It’s not like the item was on a boat on the way over to AU… or is it?

  • +1

    If I buy online, I only buy from Amazon or eBay because I have Prime and eBay Plus respectively (and I buy enough from both to offset the cost many times over).

    The shipping cost for basically any PC retailer is far too high IMO. I regularly buy from PLE, PCCG, Centrecom, MSY, but only in-store.

    Overall, I've been pretty happy with all of the retailers that I've ever purchased from. I find that PLE is a bit hit-or-miss. They can have good deals, but are on average quite expensive and seem to run low on stock all the time. Centrecom is good with stock and their online inventory system is quite accurate. MSY used to be cheap, but these days not anymore. They're my go-to for run-of-the-mill items. PCCG is not too bad overall.

    Not that I've had anything go wrong though. If I were to have something go wrong, I would definitely want it to be with Amazon as their return policy seems to be the most generous. I know of friends and family who have had a product arrive DOA and managed to ship it back to Amazon no questions asked. On the other hand, other retailers will take it back, but only begrudgingly and after going through useless "troubleshooting" which is a waste of time (and assumes that the customer is a knob, which is insulting to customers who know how to troubleshoot their own stuff).

  • +1

    Actually I beg to differ on PLE. I bought a razer lian li case from them last week through their eBay store and afterpay discount. Other retailers were charging 329, PLE was 259 after discount . The problem with Amazon now is almost nothing is in stock.

    PCCG is really good for enthusiast parts that nobody else wants to stock like obscure liquid coolers or rgb parts.

  • +1

    I don't know why I even pay for Prime when every decent component on Amazon AU is out of stock. I know Covid has messed things up, but that doesn't get me my yearly fee back.

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