Jasper R.

Guitar parts, but nothing special - As you would expect from having very similar names, guitarparts.com, guitar-parts.com, bestguitarparts.com, and guitarpartsresource.com all have very similar products... guitar parts. These are your typical home or shop based websites and will have a decent selection of products. The prices will be fairly competitive but you won't find any special features or particularly good shipping rates and return policies. Some of these websites provide factory direct products from some big name guitar producers, but you can get quicker delivery and usually better prices if you just call the factory yourself and order the part needed.

More guitar parts, but still nothing special - As you would expect from having very similar names, guitarparts.com, guitar-parts.com, bestguitarparts.com, and guitarpartsresource.com all have very similar products... guitar parts. These are your typical home or shop based websites and will have a decent selection of products. The prices will be fairly competitive but you won't find any special features or particularly good shipping rates and return policies. Some of these websites provide factory direct products from some big name guitar producers, but you can get quicker delivery and usually better prices if you just call the factory yourself and order the part needed.

Warmoth.com one of the best for custom guitars - Warmoth.com is by far one of the coolest website any guitar player would want to see. Its not your typical guitar parts supplier or online guitar store, instead you can browse for hours creating guitars of your liking. You can start by designing a custom guitar or bass neck by choosing from one of 46 classic guitar head shapes or sizes. There is an easy to understand pricing chart that gives you various exotic wood options for the neck itself and the fretboard. You can then proceed to customize your neck completely from nut widths, to back contours, fret sizes, to custom inlays, finishing options to full scalloping. A similar variety of options are available to custom design one of 29 classic and popular guitar bodies; including double neck bodies and 7 string bodies. But probably the best feature of the site is the fact that they upload actual hi-resolution images of the book-matched pieces of wood you can buy. In other words if you click on a certain piece of wood you find to have nice grain and buy it, you will get that actual piece. With 30 species of wood and 118 "buy it now" pieces ranging from Black Korina, Figured Walnut, Burl Maple, Zebrawood, Mango wood, Goncalo Alves, Paduka and Pau Ferro, you are guaranteed to find a beautiful piece of wood for your guitar body. The same option is available for your guitar neck, where there is a small gallery of 16 different wood types with 68 precut actual fretboards for your picky choosing. Warmoth.com also has a very decent showcase gallery where you can see different bodies with different woods and finishes with or without different necks with different options and finishes. Naturally the site also has a limited selection of hardware such as pickups, bridges, and electronics to finish your project. However, Warmoth.com is predominantly for your body and neck wood needs, as there are better hardware supply stores online.

Auto Trader - Auto trader is self-proclaimed to be the largest online car selling and trading website. From what I have seen I don't doubt them. Being specific for cars only it allows the web site to have allot more material and information only related to cars. Although you can't find the variety of cars and vehicles that you can find on E-bay motors or Craigslist.com, it does have much more comprehensive search parameters. You can search and compare multiple make/models at a time in conjunction with a zip code finder to maximize local results. You can also choose the distance in miles to search from your area code and you can also set a minimum and maximum price range you wish to search for. As advertised on their recent television commercials, for many listings they provide a 360° picture view of the car along with a short test drive video. Again there are user submitted reviews to help the decision process. Unlike E-bay motors, Autotrader.com does not have any form of comprehensive insurance against fraud or other potential losses, however the website does seem to be linked and integrated with a GEICO insurance link which will give you free quotes and 24/7 online service. Autotrader.com also has a large section devoted to new cars as well. These however are mostly posted by local car dealerships and unless there are blowout sales, you can't expect the great price breaks and savings usually associated with on-line car shopping.
An interesting addition that Autotrader.com has recently made is the inclusion of an auto show window. If you scroll down the home page you will find a dialogue box with links to information about all sorts of concept cars and upcoming cars, along with a full list of all the auto shows in your area.
For those looking to buy a classic car or anything built earlier than 1981, Autotrader.com has a sister site called collectorcartrader.com with a very comprehensive selection of classic cars, hot rods, and muscle cars.

Craigslist motors - When searching for used cars, Craigslist usually would not be the most obvious choice. However being more of a community site rather than a privatized database, craigslist can be have way more cars than most people would expect. Once you first open the site you have to choose your location first, you can choose of the 50 states, or any of the 328 major cities and areas in America, which have their own craigslist listings. Or you can choose one of the 53 world countries, which also have a translated craigslist, or one of the 26 International Cities including London, Paris, Hong Kong, Moscow, Sydney and more. Once a city, state or country is chosen, under the “for sale” section one can actually find a very good listing of used cars. Granted the interface and website layout is extremely minimalistic and can sometimes be confusing. However is seems as though the people that advertise on this site seem to be the more internet savvy and quick sell type of people. It is not considered a “newer car site” and as such you can find many classic and older cars kept in good condition. Postings are up for a relatively short time, and prices are all relatively low as the sellers are trying to sell their cars quickly. Naturally as it is a community site and there are no real supervisors, it is possible to run into a scam, however it is never advised no matter what car site to buy a car blindly. You should always set up a meeting and a test drive, and never pay any money before the car is at least seen. But if you are smart enough to navigate around the potential scams this site can be a real winner despite having virtually no extra features. In fact I bought my 1967 Ford Mustang from craigslist and was very pleased with the whole process and I would definitely be willing to buy any other car on craigslist.com

Cars Direct - Cars direct is a relatively unknown used car website. That is because it was predominantly created as a new car website containing only dealer cars. Because of its many unusual features and its top quality service and information Cars Direct has been ranked #1 new car buying site by Forbes, Time, PC Magazine, Yahoo!, and Internet Life. For a few years now they have transferred and added a complete and just as competent used car section. On their home page they have a large number ticker counting the number of cars advertised on the website, everyday I look at it, it changes. Today there were 2,835,363 cars listed. Definitely a good range of choice. As I said earlier it is the unusual features and information that make this site so unique and useful. The most interesting of which is a relatively large section called CarsDirect's Advocacy Center. Included are two major informative tools, one is a buyers bill of rights, something that many people don't realize they are entitled too when buying on-line. This includes such things as freedom from gouging and haggling and full disclosure. Secondly the advocacy center has a comprehensive section on different potential scams such as; vehicle condition scams, financing scams, and con artist and Internet scams. This scam information includes possible scam attempts and how to avoid and protect yourself from them. Included is also a pricing information section called pricing411. Essentially dealing with how dealers set up their markups, what kind of profit margins are legal or not and the legal difference in prices from dealers or private sellers. Under the same Advocacy Center is a "before you buy" section which again gives much useful information regarding how to read a vehicle history report, how to visibly inspect a car, what mileage is considered OK for a used car, how old is too old, and a don't buy a car if... section.
Further more next to the "new cars" and "used cars" link is a link called "research" here you can read extensive reviews of thousands of cars, use the finance calculator to see what you can afford, compare cars using a pretty cool interface, search for incentives and rebates and you can even get a sneak peek of next years car.

Ebay Motors - I have been surfing Ebay Motors for a couple of years now, as it is not only useful for purchasing but also a great source of entertainment. After re-browsing E-bay Motors for this review I found myself getting lost in the endless amounts of "stuff" categorized under "Motors". For one, there is a whole section dedicated to non-road legal purpose built racecars. There are pages of old camaros, mustangs and circle track cars with the occasional million dollar Indy or F1 car. There is also a whole section dedicated to military vehicles filled with jeeps, trucks and all sorts of WWII and up creations. But I diverge, not everyone wants to buy helicopters or private jets on-line, so for those people E-bay has a more than cohesive used car and motorcycle section. The whole E-bay Motors interface was recently redone, enabling for a smoother browsing experience, however if you feel comfortable with the original layout there is the option of switching back. The new layout however is very comprehensive and easy to use. You either begin your searches by clicking on an image of the vehicle type you wish to browse, be it a Sedan, SUV, or truck (you can even click on an alternative fuel or collector car icon), or you can search the conventional make and model method. Both these methods work in conjunction with a zip code entry to see all local listings.

E-bay Motors also offers services to increase your security and confidence in buying a car on-line. They offer vehicle history, reviews and new price comparing features to help the buying process. They also encourage face-to-face meetings and test-drives for local listings. Finally E-bay also offers Vehicle Purchase Protection (VPP), which "provides protection of up to $50,000 against certain losses associated with some types of fraud". This may sound a little vague, but it is the only kind of insurance I have seen offered by a website itself.