Where I discuss: a gripe

i have a gripe today. it’s not really a self-centered, complaining gripe, though. it’s more like a public service gripe. the basic summary of the gripe is this: “buy from half.com, not amazon.com”.

yesterday i ordered two books from amazon.com. “the shape of sola scriptura” for 17 dollars and “the grand demonstration: a biblical study of the so-called problem of evil” for $7.95. and i got free shipping because of amazon.com’s new dealy thing where if you buy two items from books, cds, videos or dvds, you get free shipping. that brought my total to $24.95. “hotdog!”, i thought, “i’m getting a good deal!” sure.

today i got an email from freedrive, with a few ads in it. one of them was for half.com, and it included a coupon for $5 off a purchase of ten dollars or more. that sounded like a good deal, so i went to see what they had. i saw that they had books, so i searched for the two i ordered yesterday, and indeed they had them instock. the first for $15.25 and the second for $3.49! now, the way half.com is set up you have to pay shipping on each item. that’s $2.25 each. so the total came to $23.24. cheaper than amazon.com, but let’s not forget that $5 off…. $18.24 now. that’s almost six bucks difference.

i went to cancel my amazon.com order, but – to their credit – the order had already “entered the shipping process”, so i couldn’t cancel it. and to return it would require me to pay the shipping, which would make it all UNworthwhile. so i’m stuck paying more than i should have, and i feel like that girl in the big lot commercial.

but you don’t have to. check out half.com, and enter “SUNSHINE” as your coupon code to get $5 off a $10 (or more) order. i guess it’ll work for you. you can also use “MUSIC44″ to get $10 off a $50 purchase.

p.s. – i just found bebo’s “big blue sky” album for ten bucks. that’s only five dollars!