I've been using it to buy car parts and it is SO MUCH better than dealing with junkyards (LKQ/Car-Parts websites suck!) and everything that I've got so far including parts from Latvia and Germany have been genuine.
eBay too is full of knock-off trash from China but you can easily tell those apart from a real listing most of the time with reviews being unique per listing/seller. And eBay allows for local pickups too!
The one exception to car parts sites being shit is rockauto. Just start typing in the search bar and it figures out what year make model and part you're looking for. Their search experience is light-years ahead of any other auto parts website and might actually be the best product search interface I've found anywhere, hiding out on a car parts site. I highly encourage anyone interested in product search ux to go check it out.
Just bought a new radiator from Rock Auto. I think it was like 3 clicks to drill down to the part. I just tried your method and was blown away. After I entered the year and make, and was halfway into typing the model, it autocompleted all the way to my trim level and I resumed typing "radia" where it suggested all the relevant things. Hitting enter, I watched it navigate the tree on the left.
Small delights like that are worth serious money.
I love sites that have such a structured categorization of their items. McMaster-Carr is the gold standard IMO, and RockAuto is pretty close.
McMaster-Carr is awesome, but I believe they are very business/professional oriented.
I needed some brass thread-ins with bolts and they got the job done but now I'm sitting on a minimum sized order of ~50 pieces that I won't be using anytime soon. Maybe I can resell them eBay. Hah.
I just bought some grade 8 hardware from them. It was cheaper than Fastenal, even with shipping, and they delivered overnight. I had to buy in higher quantities than I needed but the extras will get used at some point.
McMaster is also typically not cheap. Their claim to fame is that they deliver really quickly. We can get stuff from them same or next day about 95% of the time. For slightly slower delivery but better pricing, Zoro Tools has much of the same stuff.
For some M16-1.5 bolts I ordered last week (and received the next day), McMaster-Carr was considerably cheaper than any other source. [EDIT:] Although Zoro doesn't seem to carry that size bolt in lots smaller than 25, I'll certainly be checking them for other items in future... thanks for the reference! I just wish they sorted their filter parameters by size rather than by SKU quantity.
Interesting that people have these experiences. I use eBay a lot, mostly buying 2nd hand computer hardware and retro gaming stuff(consoles/games/accessories) and I'd say I have problems with as many as 50% of all my purchases. Some bigger problems where I want to return the item, some smaller ones where I paid extra for postage but it was ignored, that sort of thing. The complaints procedure exist but it's weak(seller sells a "mint condition" genuine PS2 controller, got the controller it's all dirty and with frayed cable, complain to seller, they say "oh it's mint for the age, nothing wrong with it", complain to ebay, seller has a week to respond, nothing, ebay sends me a label to ship it back, have to go to the post office to send it back, wait another week, nothing, ebay finally refunds me my money. You know how it would work with Amazon? I would complain in chat, they would send a courier to pick it up from me the next working day, I would have the money back 5 minutes after the courier picked up the parcel). And then I had someone send me actual expletives-filled email calling me all kinds of worst things in the world because I left a neutral(!!!) feedback on their account, after I paid extra for 1st class postage but they shipped 2nd class. And sellers in general just have no idea about consumer laws(yes, if you sold this item as brand new then you have to accept a 14 day return by law) which leads to arguments and just in general everything being so stressful.
I've had over 200 amazon orders last year, didn't have a problem with a single one of them. Few times I wanted to return something they either sent a courier to collect it from me directly, or just refunded me anyway. And few times I ordered from somewhere else(urrghhh.....Currys) the customer service was absolutely abysmal. I'm just not brave enough to order from anyone but Amazon nowadays*.
*here in the UK, understand the American Amazon is far worse for <reasons>
I've been using it to buy car parts and it is SO MUCH better than dealing with junkyards (LKQ/Car-Parts websites suck!) and everything that I've got so far including parts from Latvia and Germany have been genuine.
eBay too is full of knock-off trash from China but you can easily tell those apart from a real listing most of the time with reviews being unique per listing/seller. And eBay allows for local pickups too!