+ bought a baking steel direct from the seller (shipping time ~5 days vs. 1 month+, so I canceled the amazon order)
+ monitor out of stock for over a week on amazon (in stock at bnh, shipping time ~4 days)
+ monitor arm I didn’t even bother looking at on amazon (shipping time direct from seller ~2 days)
- For large purchases at least, they are very scrupulous about sending tax documents to your home state to make sure the sales tax gets paid. This is probably a social good overall, but unusual for internet retailers and may take some folks by surprise.
- They follow a Jewish holiday schedule, including the Sabbath, and do not take orders on the Sabbath (in New York's time zone, at least). Again, not a negative, but unusual for modern businesses, especially online ones.
I like them overall and I tend to prefer using them to Amazon for AV type of purchases.
BHPhotoVideo is my go-to place for tech and music stuff. I got their affiliated payboo credit card that pays the sales tax for you, saves me that 10% on every order.
In 2018 in the case South Dakota v. Wayfair the Supreme Court overturned the 1992 case (Quill v. North Dakota) that had ruled that states could not force merchants with no physical presence in the state to collect sales tax on mail order sales to state residents. If a company is doing enough online business with customers in a state, that state can now force the merchant to collect tax.
If you get a B&H store credit card [1] and use it for your B&H orders (which is all you can use it for since it only works at B&H) they give you an instant reward at checkout equal to whatever your sales tax was. In effect then, if you get and use that card there B&H pays your sales tax transparently for you.
• With two exception for the most part online shoppers can ignore the Jewish holiday closings. The website still works so you can still shop. I think you can even still place items in your cart and maybe submit the order. Orders just are not processed until the holiday ends.
Most of the holidays are just a day, so if you hit one of those its not really a big delay.
The two exceptions are Passover and Sukkot. Those are each one week long. Passover is in March or April, and Sukkot is in September or October. That's long enough to be irritating.