amazon.com gift registry

[newmomga]

Does anyone have any experience with amazon.com gift registry? Would like to hear pros and cons.

Thanks!

[jam224]

Yes, we registered at Amazon.com for our baby shower held in February of 2011.

Pros:
-- Generally can get the best price.
-- No tax.
-- Free super saver shipping on $25+.
-- 365-day return policy.
-- You can rate your items on a scale of "Must Have"/"Like to Have"/"Nice to Have."
-- Excellent variety of products (you're not limited to just the mainstream stuff from Babies R Us).
-- You get a 10% completion coupon closer to your due date.

Cons:
-- If your family isn't Internet-savvy, you might not get many people to shop online. Some people are old school and would rather go to a brick-and-mortar store.

I was happy to register/shop at Amazon because I wanted very specific things, particularly those I couldn't find at Babies R Us/in stores. However, the one thing that I was afraid of -- the one "con" I listed -- rang true for my family, so hardly anyone shopped online. Unfortunately, I ended up with quite a few gifts that weren't on my registry... but that was a risk I was willing to take. (In case you're curious, I also registered at Buy Buy Baby [LOVE them!!] and I made a point to AVOID Babies R Us because I had horrible customer service with them on several occasions.)

Hope that helps!

[newmomga]

Thanks! Good to know info. I do almost all of my shopping online and love amazon, but not sure other people do too. We have a buy buy baby here in the metro area, but it is not close to anyone that might attend my shower. I was thinking of registering at amazon and babiesrus. Maybe I will consider either adding buy buy baby or skipping babiesrus and hoping that they will drive to buy buy baby. I am avoiding Target like the plague. They were horrible with my baby registry with my DD 6 years ago. I have heard that they have only gotten worse. Thanks again for the response.

[teo]

We also had an Amazon registry and also have a Baby Wish List for birthdays. I really like Amazon except for some politics on their sales tax stance (they're in an ongoing battle with our state). But their customer service is amazing, so we try to split purchases between them and local independent stores. As such, we registered at a local indie baby store and on Amazon, and linked to the local registry in the Amazon registry through the universal registry feature, which I think is great. (Similarly, on DS' birthday wish list, we link to our local bookstore for books, etc.) We don't have a BuyBuyBaby here, and our BRU is super crappy, so Amazon was a good option for people who didn't live nearby. jam224 covered the pros for Amazon, and a last one is that I've found that their customer service is outstanding when they can see you have a registry/have bought a lot from them (good even without that, but they turn somersaults for you if you have wish lists/registries, in my experience--even for unrelated purchases).

The main cons are that it's not a local store (we try to do local stores whenever possible) and it's not a bricks-and-mortar store, so some older relatives may not be into online shopping. No one in our family cared, though.