Retailer Review: PricePoint.com

Retailer Name: Price Point
Website: www.PricePoint.com

Continue reading for my thoughts and opinions on Price Point, a discount retailer for road and mountain bikers…

Product Selection and Availability

Price Point has a definite focus on clearance sales and heavy discounts, so the number of brands they carry is limited, but it’s actually a pretty good selection.

Certain brands are found there more than others. For example, you don’t see Assos or Giordana clothing. But you do see lots of AXO gloves, Sette tools, IRC tires, CamelBaks, full face helmets, and other goodies.

There is also some interesting stuff. For example, the Nutrition section is sparse, but they happen to sell Enervit and Hammer, two brands you don’t always see in the main stores. And there are some fairly new parts, too. I was just browsing through some nice SRAM Red components from 2008.

Overall it seems there is a focus on downhill and freeride mountain bike stuff, but there are products for all types of road and mountain bikers. So you might not find everything you want, but you’ll probably find some cool stuff you never knew you could get.

Pricing

Price Point’s motto is “where price is the point,” so it makes sense that Price Point is filled to the brim with great deals.

Price Point is home to some of the best prices I’ve seen. SRAM cassettes for $35. IRC tires for $15-20. AXO gloves for $12. (Those are a few of my personal favorites.)

If you want the best deals, just go to the site and click on Bargain Basement. Those are the 80% off deals!

Discounts & Coupon Codes

I don’t think I’ve ever had a coupon code for Price Point. But their prices are so low to begin with, they probably can’t afford to give out any more discounts!

Ease of Use (Website and Shopping Cart)

PricePoint.com has its own style, but it’s not bad. I really like the “fly-out” menus in the header. They make for a very fast start to your shopping experience.

The product listing pages are similar to Performance Bike, minus the photo enlargement when you scroll over them. (I actually prefer it like this.) The “Sort by price” function blends in, but it’s there.

There is one annoying problem though – I think they disabled the right-click function. So I can’t right-click product detail links and open multiple items in multiple tabs on Firefox. Too bad, since I like to compare stuff side-by-side that way.

Well, I can do that easily enough if I want. See, Price Point uses a piece of JavaScript code to block the right-click. All you have to do is disable JavaScript in your web browser options and then the right-click function works fine! (Disabling JavaScript doesn’t seem to have any negative affects on the performance of PricePoint.com.)

Moving on, the Shopping Cart is pretty bare bones, but it works fine.

Shipping & Handling

Shipping rates are about average. Rates range from $5.75 to $11.95 for UPS ground. Estimated delivery time is 1 day for Southern California, but 5-6 days for the east coast.

And then there is $1.25 insurance added to all orders.

Customer Service

I can’t speak from experience, but I do hear good things about Price Point. They seem to employ friendly and knowledgeable people, similar to Jenson USA.

The only time I remember contacting them was to apply for sponsorship for my XC mountain bike racing. Unfortunately I wasn’t accepted, and I boycotted Price Point for a while, but eventually I gave in because the deals are so irresistible!

My final verdict is…

Price Point is a good place to find stuff, whether it’s just for the low price or because it’s hard to find elsewhere. They have super deals on some of my favorite products – AXO gloves, IRC tires, SRAM chains and cassettes, Stan’s NoTubes sealant – so I shop there all the time.

Do I recommend PricePoint? Heck yeah! It’s awesome.

Official website: www.PricePoint.com