Buying a chandelier online?

[Modern Light]

I want to replace the light over my dining room table. I've identified a
chandelier that I like and now want to purchase it. Nobody in town stocks
the item and they all want a lot more for the thing than what I would pay
online.

What I'm most afraid of is breakage in transit via UPS. I was thinking of
buying from LightingUniverse. Unfortunately some of their reviews at
ResellerRatings and epinions were scary. Other vendors are father away,
have higher prices, play games like advertising a MSRP that's higher than
the manufacturer's price, and several seem to be run by the same company,
just different website names. So now I'm wondering if maybe I should bag
the buying online. Has anybody ever purchased a lighting fixture online?

[tmc...@searchmachine.com]

I've never bought a lighting fixture online, but I by all sorts of
things online all the time, both for my home and my business. The
largest fragile thing I bought online was a toilet, and it arrived
safe and sound. I've had a few things arrive damaged and all the
companies made good, except for one. In that case, I contacted my
credit card company and they reversed the charge once I proved I had
returned the defective item. Just use a credit card and you should be
fine.

[Logan Shaw]

Modern Light wrote:
> I want to replace the light over my dining room table. I've identified a
> chandelier that I like and now want to purchase it. Nobody in town stocks
> the item and they all want a lot more for the thing than what I would pay
> online.
>
> What I'm most afraid of is breakage in transit via UPS. I was thinking of
> buying from LightingUniverse.

I have never bought a light fixture online, but I have bought light
bulbs online. I ordered 3 CFLs (of a particular shape that fit in a
light fixture I have -- they're PAR30 bulbs) from bulbs.com, and
two of them arrived broken. But they had advertised that they had
a no-hassle policy regarding broken bulbs, and I called them up, and
they apologized and sent out two replacements at no charge. So it
worked out fine.

So the point is that selling breakable things over the web appears
to be a viable idea. You just have to be prepared to ship out a lot
of replacements. However, the issue of not being all that comfortable
with the vendors available is a difficult one.

- Logan

[Lou]

"Modern Light" <nob...@mixmin.net> wrote in message
news:bb6c082ab0fcd8dc...@anon.mixmaster.mixmin.net...

I don't see any reason why shipping an item bought online should be any
different from shipping an item bought from a mail order catalog. What I
would be somewhat wary of is a large price disparity between buying it
locally and buying it remotely. When comparing prices, don't forget to
include shipping and insurance charges.

All that aside, I have a decided preference for buying locally. If the item
is more than a few bucks, almost any store is open to haggling. Once I find
whatever it is I'm looking for, I make the rounds of local merchants and
tell them up front what I'm after and that I'm shopping for price. At
times, someone will beat the best price I've found, at other times no one
will.

I always pay with a credit card - if something goes wrong, you may have the
credit card issuer on your side provided you've followed their rules.

[h]

<tmc...@searchmachine.com> wrote in message
news:43a4e8a4-a128-41b4...@e25g2000prg.googlegroups.com...

On Jan 19, 11:13 am, Modern Light <nob...@mixmin.net> wrote:
> I want to replace the light over my dining room table. I've identified a
> chandelier that I like and now want to purchase it. Nobody in town stocks
> the item and they all want a lot more for the thing than what I would pay
> online.
>
> What I'm most afraid of is breakage in transit via UPS. I was thinking of
> buying from LightingUniverse. Unfortunately some of their reviews at
> ResellerRatings and epinions were scary. Other vendors are father away,
> have higher prices, play games like advertising a MSRP that's higher than
> the manufacturer's price, and several seem to be run by the same company,
> just different website names. So now I'm wondering if maybe I should bag
> the buying online. Has anybody ever purchased a lighting fixture online?

I went online and checked out the reviews for the lightinguniverse website.
The vast majority of recent (1 year) reviews were dismal. The customer
service appears to be non-existent. So...I wouldn't be at all concerned
about buying a lighting fixture online, although I'm not sure I would buy
from lightinguniverse.com. Of course, YMMV.