Since the pandemic began, online shopping has become an integral part of our lives.
It’s great that people have become more comfortable shopping online, benefitting from the efficiency and convenience it has.
However, a wrong decision when choosing the seller can turn this whole process into a nightmare really fast.
Therefore, it would be best if you did your research about a retailer before purchasing something.
When you search online about Newegg, you see lots of reviews that give you mixed feelings about this e-retailer.
Read on to find out all the details you need to know before completing a purchase from Newegg.
What Is Newegg?
Newegg was founded in 2001, beginning with popularizing the computer building movement by selling PC components.
The company soon became the biggest e-retailer in North America, focusing on tech-based products, including the latest computer components, electronics, gaming products, and so on.
Some of the neatly organized categories in their website include:
- Components
- Computer Systems
- Electronics
- Gaming
- Networking
- Office Solutions
- Software and Services
All of these categories have multiple subcategories, leading you to your suitable product quickly.
The company is headquartered in California and has extended its global reach to more than 50 countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.
Newegg’s Pros
First, let’s talk about the benefits that Newegg brings to the table and how it can beat many other e-retailer websites in the technology-based products area.
1. Wide Variety Of Available Products
One of the main reasons Newegg has its dedicated group of fans is its large selection of products.
Many reviews indicate that you wouldn’t be disappointed in finding any electronic product you have in mind looking through Newegg’s extensive collection.
The website’s user-friendly interface and well-organized categories make shopping a delight.
As mentioned, all the categories are narrowed down into subcategories.
For instance, the “Computer System” category has the following subcategories:
- Desktops
- Laptops/Networks
- Gaming Laptops
- Peripherals
- Accessories
- Refurbished
Each of the groups is divided into more detailed titles.
They even offer shopping tools related to the category of your choice.
For example, when shopping for PC components, you can use Newegg’s Power Supply Calculator, Memory Finder, Battery and Adapter Finder, and so on.
2. Best Deals
When you start searching at Newegg’s website, you’ll run into products offered at way better deals than you’d find on other retail websites.
Newegg also offers random discounts and gifts, so you’ll end up saving money in the long run.
3. Multiple Creative Services
Newegg offers multiple deals to email subscribers, including a 30-day guarantee, safe and secure checkout, easy orders with a card or PayPal, available monthly deals, and so on.
Their website also provides valuable tools like the “Compare Functionality.”
However, you can find most of these options on competitor websites, as well.
It’s good to know Newegg offers them too, but there are more creative options that you haven’t seen in other places before.
4. Newegg Shuffle
When a new popular product launches, there are usually only a few in stock at first.
Some people called “scalpers” tend to buy a load of these items using bots, and when the manufacturer and other big retailers run out of the product, they start selling what they bought at a much higher price to those in need.
Newegg has developed a new way of removing the first-come-first-serve approach and choosing real consumers with a lottery-shaped system named Newegg Shuffle.
Here’s how it works.
There’s a small window of time where consumers can enter the lottery event for an in-demand or rare product.
After the window is closed, Newegg will choose the consumers randomly, giving everyone who signed up an equal chance at winning.
They’ll notify the winners via email and give them a short window of time to complete the purchase.
They’ve done the lottery with Nvidia’s RTX 3080 graphics cards, AMD’s Ryzen 5000 CPUs, and the PlayStation 5.
5. Newegg PC Builder
Many PC enthusiasts would rather build their own PCs, but multiple people don’t see it in themselves to complete the task.
However, anyone would want to take advantage of the benefits of building your own PC, like choosing all the parts yourself and saving money.
Newegg has developed a new service for those people.
They let you choose and purchase all the components you want from Newegg’s website in a package, and they’ll assemble your PC at the cost of $99.
They’ll then ship out your completed and working PC build.
There’s an FAQ from Newegg’s website that mentions the Custom PC Builder website offers a number of Hot Item products every day.
This statement started a rumor saying that Newegg includes rare and in-demand PC components in its hot items.
Although this isn’t beneficial for those who want to go through the normal checkout process and build their own PCs, it gives those who use the PC Builder Assembly Service an advantage.
6. Officially Accepting Dogecoin
Newegg has made it possible for customers to buy their products with the popular cryptocurrency, Dogecoin.
They’ll let you complete your payment through Bit Pay, a mobile app that enables you to manage your cryptocurrency holdings.
The only catch is that if you decide to return the product later for any reason, you won’t get paid back in Dogecoin.
Newegg will give you gift cards in the same amount.
7. Customer Service Options
Newegg has its own team of customer service representatives that you can contact via email, chat, or phone.
They aim to answer your possible questions about your orders and help solve any problems that may have occurred.
The website also offers options for you to monitor your own orders.
You can view order details, locate an invoice, track your packages, get an estimated delivery date, cancel your order if it hasn’t shipped yet, and get product help by reaching out to the product manufacturers and contacting the sellers.
Newegg’s Cons
Now let’s cover some of Newegg’s cons, most of which come from customer reviews on other websites because Newegg itself seems to filter the reviews on its own website.
1. Third-Party Seller Problems
Newegg used to be a website that sold products itself directly from its company.
However, recently they’ve been doing less business themselves, focusing on making money off other shops selling on their website.
Basically, Newegg has become more of a place for third-party sellers.
There’s nothing wrong with this function itself, and we see all the big retailers like Amazon doing the same.
However, the problem begins when websites like Newegg don’t pay much attention to the shops they list.
A retailer website should perform complete research about the sellers and eliminate those who aren’t reliable.
It should make the sellers use the main warehouse and take charge of the shipping to make it more organized.
When they don’t, many issues will come up, including return and refund issues, shipping problems, and customer service issues that we’ll discuss in the following sections.
2. Return And Refund Issues
When you go through the online reviews from a couple of years ago, people seemed happy with the easy refund and return services that Newegg offered.
However, as mentioned, Newegg started to let third-party sellers offer their products on its website in recent years.
When you’re shopping, you need to pay close attention to the options the website gives you, including:
- Sold by Newegg
- Shipped by Newegg
- Direct from the Manufacturer
- Free shipping
People don’t seem to be having many problems with the products they’ve gotten from Newegg itself.
However, although Newegg promises a 30-day return guarantee, many recent reviewers stated that they had issues returning the items they bought from other retailers through Newegg and getting a refund for them.
Moreover, if Newegg accepts a return, you’ll be charged with a high restocking fee that doesn’t appeal to the customers.
You could look at this issue as a glass half full and consider that you get so many good deals on Newegg that can make up for the possibility of returns.
However, looking at the many negative reviews online, the possibility seems rather noticeable, and the glass may start looking empty to some people.
It’s highly recommended that you read their strict Return and Refund Policy before making a purchase.
3. Customer Service And Shipping Problems
You can find many positive reviews about Newegg’s customer service and how they’ve helped several people.
However, the more recent the date of the review, the more negative it gets.
Many people faced different shipping issues, including canceled orders bought with gifts and discounts, telling the buyer that the product they’ve purchased isn’t in stock after weeks of waiting, lost packages, and delivering products to wrong addresses.
These problems can be expected in online shopping, right?
The important thing is that the retailer takes responsibility for their mistake and fixes it as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, Newegg hasn’t built an excellent reputation for itself in that area.
Many people have complained about how they were treated by Newegg’s customer service, waiting for days to receive an answer in their chat service, waiting for hours on the phone to speak with a representative, and ending up with unhelpful or even rude calls.
Some users even claimed that Newegg suspended their accounts after they wrote online reviews about their bad experience with the retailer.
4. Expensive Prices
Although Newegg offers discounts and gifts and you can save money on some parts, there are products on the pricier side.
As mentioned, Newegg started the Newegg Shuffle lottery to prevent scalpers from buying certain in-demand products.
However, ironically, Newegg doesn’t ban them from its website and lets the scalpers sell items asking double the retail price or even more.
Don’t be shocked to see such offers on the website.
5. Low-Quality App
Newegg has launched a mobile app so users can handle their purchases through their phones with more convenience.
However, the app is reportedly full of bugs.
Here are some of the issues that customers had with the app:
- Constant freezing
- An endless loop of automatic page refreshing
- An endless cycle of “are you human” prompts
- Wrong and misleading information about shipment tracking
- Wrong search results
- Disappearing carts and wish lists
- Logging the users out forcibly
So, Is Newegg Legit And Safe?
Newegg is by no means not legit or unsafe.
It’s an online retailer that’s been around for many years, providing a wide variety of tech-related products for customers.
Many users declared that they’ve purchased thousands of dollars’ worth of products from Newegg’s website with no issues.
However, as mentioned, many others ran into severe problems regarding shipping, returns, and refunds, especially when dealing with third-party sellers using Newegg’s platform.
Just because a website is legit doesn’t mean it’s perfect.
It’s a good idea not to expect the best or the worst when you purchase products from this website and steer clear of dealing with third-party sellers.
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