[mrbonner]

I think th consumer/retail side of Garmin company is a shit show. I recently ordered a HRM on Garmin website instead of other retail site. My order just sat at "ordered" status for over a week. I ended up just cancel and use Amazon.

[Johnny555]

I've run into that with most manufacturer retail sales departments -- it's almost always a better buying experience to use Amazon or another established online merchant.

It's expensive to build out a first class order fulfillment system and it's hard to compete with Amazon's system since they have such huge economies of scale -- Amazon probably ships more product in a few hours than Garmin does all year from their retail site.

Even worse than buying products from a manufacturer is buying a spare/replacement parts, you need a $5 replacement charging cord? Well it'll cost you $15 in shipping and still take 2 weeks, and often those spares are only available from the manufacturer.