Written by Chris Rah Osiris 
How Amazon has Impacted My Retail Experience.
Amazon is easily my favorite online retailer. Actually, Amazon is my favorite retailer PERIOD. It all started one day after I walked into a Gamestop. I saw the Blu-Ray offerings that were available and proceeded to purchase them at full retail price. (This was during the HD Format Wars mind you). I was a little disappointed by the price, but…I had nothing better to do with my Gamestop gift card. I took home Underworld: Evolution and The Fifth Element. I watched these movies on a SDTV, but I didn’t care. I was purchasing the future of HD entertainment and I would have an HDTV soon enough to watch the movies on.
My Blu-Ray collection did not grow over night. I simply could not afford to pay the prices that Best Buy, Circuit City, and the like were charging prices that I did not want to play. One day I came across Blu-Ray.com and my gaming experience changed for all time. Not only was there a thread about the buy one get one free sale that was going on for Blu-Ray titles, but there was something called Amazon Prime being discussed. I rarely purchased items off of the Internet at the time because I hated paying the shipping fees or waiting an eternity for the free shipping. Amazon Prime changed all of that.
I purchased Blu-Rays every week and received them in 2 days without a hitch. That was originally the extent of my purchases. One day, I got the urge to check the prices on video games. The prices on titles that I had wanted on the time were definitely less than what I was paying at Best Buy and they were tax free. (I hate paying taxes on my purchases). I proceeded to buy another PSP, Killzone Liberation, and Metal Slug. I was back in the world of portable gaming. (My previous PSP had been exchanged to purchase PS3 games and accessories).
Of course this does not seem like an life changing experience, but as always there is more. Time passed and my need for accessories grew. I purchased a memory stick for my PSP at a price approximately $20 less than what the brick and mortar stores were charging. This was all taking place as I continued to increase my Blu-Collection mind you. During this period of time, I was moving around frequently and wanted to take advantage of pre-ordering titles. This was not offered via a Gamestop. You cannot pre-order a title in California and pick it up from a Gamestop in DC. You can pre-order a title from Amazon and have it shipped to whatever address you like though. You take a swamped law student and offer him the ability to have his games shipped to him for a low price, virtually free after I had factored in all of my Blu-Ray purchases, and you have a renewed gamer.
This is not an advertisement for Amazon by any means. It is simply a story about how Amazon helped me remain in gaming while I went through a transition period in my life. I am sure that there are positive and negative stories that can be associated with Amazon, but I for one love the company. I just renewed my Prime account a few weeks ago.
PS I pre-ordered Killzone 2 from Amazon as well.
