Hammacher Schlemmer

Pros:  Unique, well made items, user friendly site, great sales!

Cons:  The "Not in this lifetime" items are so wonderful..........makes me very materialistic!

The Bottom Line:  The ULTIMATE gift is just a few clicks away. So is a huge array of other wonderful items for everyone! Easy to use site makes for a great shopping experience!

Full review
Hammacher Schlemmer(hereinafter referred to as HS) has long been one of my favorite stores. Until a couple of weeks before Christmas, last year, I had no idea that they had an on-line store, as well. With only a few shopping days to go, little money, and even less time, I headed for the internet!

HS was offering a guarantee of delivery by Christmas Eve if ordered by the very day I was on-line! I was in luck.
As has always been the case with HS, you can find all sorts of things that cost a gazillion more dollars than most people will have in this lifetime. What most people don't realize is that HS also has tons of very, very affordable other things. And, they have fantastic sales! They don't offer free shipping, however, the cost of gas and tolls for me to get to the closest HS is more than the shipping costs of anything I can afford to buy from them. My time has value and I saved tons of that by going to their on-line store.

I bought the "world's best bottle opener", a golf hat with a built in fan, a baby gadget that plays lullabyes and projects moving images on the ceiling, beautiful driving gloves, a book, and a giant redwood tree for planting. All of these things and shipping costs were under 200.00

Every gift I chose was unique, or at least "different", and would have been difficult, if not impossible to find in my area. The children's section has incredible stuff. Lots and lots of things that are educational, well made, and often unique. You can spend, again, gazillions or a few dollars. You won't find Barbi dolls or G.I. Joes but you will find things that Toys Are Us doesn't have!!!!

HS offers gift wrapping for about an additional 5.00 which is way too much for me at Christmas time, however, I have used this service for B'day presents since then and the packages have been beautifully wrapped.
I have begun this year's Christmas shopping from them already. I have purchased a kit to make a fully functional watch and a kit to make a robotic, remote controlled dinosaur. The watch was a little pricey, 100.00, however, it's for my grandson who is 9 and I know it will be very different from anything else he gets and he will thoroughly enjoy making and wearing it. It is, once finished, a tough watch, water resistant, and has a tough band. Knowing the quality of HS products, I'm sure it will stand up to the uses, and abuses, of a nine year old. The dinosaur kit is also for Sky. He'll learn some basic elements of design and robotics and have a cool toy when he's finished.

The HS web site is very easy to navigate. The on-line selection is broad. They don't have as complete a line of their kitchen wonders as you can find in their stores. I haven't had to access customer service as the service has been excellent and exactly what the on-line information said it would be, so I can't comment on any extraordinary service. My guess is that it is excellent.

Within their site they have each category broken down into natural groups which makes browsing easier. They also have a category specifically called "the unexpected", which culls together many of the bizarre or odd items they have. Again, this category is broken down by gender and a children's section to make browsing a bit easier.
Another interesting category is "tested" or "best of", I can't remember exactly what it's called (and I'm too lazy to go tot heir site and look while I'm writing). This category has only those items which have been tested for their quality. Each item listed in this category has a full explanation of the testing that was done, by whom, and the outcome. This was very valuable to me when I was buying sheets for our new, king size, bed. I learned what to look for in sheets. I didn't buy them from HS because they were too expensive but I was armed with the info I needed about sheets when I went shopping!

They don't have any fancy java applets or such to slow down the site for those of us still in the "modem age".
All in all I've found this a great store for on-line shopping. They seem to have carried over their tradition of quality merchandise to their on-line experience.