Comment by Wistar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Wistar | Hacker News Reader

Although the focus is somewhat narrower than amazon, for my professional needs I have had nothing but an excellent online experience with bhphotovideo. I have ordered hundreds of items worth tens of thousands of dollars from them starting about 2007. Their site can be a little frustrating, mostly from not narrow-enough categorization, but their app for iOS is very good. Their prices are usually as good and often better than amazon. The users' product reviews are useful and well-written and the site/app shows which reviewers are verified purchasers of the product they are reviewing and offers comprehensive review filtering.

They also invest a lot of effort in producing their own product demo videos and articles done by obviously knowledgeable people which, given the breadth of their catalog, is particularly impressive and serves well more than just to shill their wares.

They have great packaging for shipping and I have not once had an order go missing or show up broken or damaged despite many of my orders being fragile items.

Well-oiled machine.

I'm also a fan of B&H (even more before they charged sales tax outside of NY), but prices "often better than amazon" isn't true. For any brand name purchase of the type you'd get at B&H like a camera or computer, it's gonna be the same price on Amazon or Best Buy or Adorama or any other major online retailer. The prices are dictated by the brand along with rules on what kind of sales are allowed and when, so retailers can't undercut each other.

Amazon can be kind of hit or miss in niche products like camera gear though, so B&H might have better selection. And the listings on a site like B&H are more uniform compared to the wild west of Amazon's 3rd party sellers, so I do like it better for browsing.

I can't write to your experience but I have on many occasions found the very specific thing I want on BH for less than it is available via amazon — if it is even available on amazon.

I avoid them because of their known racist and sexist employee segregation.

Wow. I had no idea.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/workers-fight-back...

Seems like only one side of the story from a very non-balanced source with an agenda. I would take this with a grain of salt.

It is a fact that they were sued by the Department of Labor over it.

Tried placing an order online Saturday afternoon, only to be informed that the website was not taking orders due to Shabbos.

I very nearly skipped over to Adorama.

The mind boggles trying to resolve why a server cannot accept an order while staff is respecting Shabbos.

B&H is run and staffed by Hasidic Jews. They have strict definitions of work that are forbidden on the Sabbath and they may not always be intuitive to outsiders, for example, for many religious Jews, pressing the elevator button is forbidden, but riding in an elevator that is programmed to just stop on every floor is fine.

Your mind is free to boggle, but Jews are entitled to close their businesses on the Sabbath just the same as Christians. In the county I grew up in, everything but supermarkets is closed on Sunday, for example.

Adorama is run by observent Jewish people as well.

Also just started using them, great so far!

fyi they are about to close for a week because of passover

True. And they also close their online orders and physical store for Shabbat every weekend.

Another B&H Photo Video happy customer here.

Pity they were forced to start charging state taxes. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but can't help to think that Amazon was somehow involved in that.

Right or wrong, you can get around the sales tax using B&H's Payboo credit card (for use on their site only): https://www.bhphotovideo.com/credit-cards

It’s a discount offer, I don’t think it actually elides tax payment. According to the URL you cited:

“B&H will collect and remit state sales tax in accordance with state sales tax laws and regulations. So, customers do pay required sales tax and do not need to keep track or file anything separately.“

Yes you just get credit card cash-back in the amount of your state sales tax. Which is not bad, living in CA for instance it gives you 7.25% cash back. Compare that to Amazon where you get 5% back with their card, or any general purpose credit card where you won't really find better than 2% rewards for online shopping.

B&H Photo Video started collecting sales tax due to the Supreme Court case South Dakota v. Wayfair (2018) which held that retailers can be compelled to collect sales tax even if they don't have a presence in the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._Wayfair,_Inc.

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