Online shopping rules! Why? Part of it is not having to go out and find whatever it is I’m buying. Part of it has to do with me being OCD about privacy. Unfortunately, I can also be an impatient bastard. I hate waiting for my shiny new toys to show up in my mailbox.

Recently, I’ve been ordering a lot of computer parts online through the always solid NewEgg.com and ZipZoomFly.com (formerly GoogleGear.com). First I just had the itch to buy some new parts, then my computer died on me and last night I had to order a part for a machine I’m doing some work on.

One reason I always go back to those sites is because of the service I get. Both companies are great about order processing and returns. It’s impressive when I place an order late one day and it gets shipped the next. However, I have noticed of late how their shipping has gone downhill.

It used to be almost everything on NewEgg had free 3-day shipping. Mostly it was the cheaper, smaller items that cost less than the shipping would. Anything over $30 definitely had free shipping. ZZF was even better. Most of their items had free 2-day shipping. The hard drive I ordered yesterday (from NewEgg) had an additional $6 tacked on for shipping. While I was comparing prices at ZZF, I found many of their items no longer had that 2-day shipping. It was still free at least, but that 2-day shipping was almost always a deal maker for me.

Despite my gripe, these are still two excellent companies even if you do have to pay a few bucks for shipping and wait a week to get your goods.

So what gives? Are rising gas prices to blame? Have NE and ZZF just gotten greedy? Plenty of ecommerce sites have free shipping on orders over $20. Couldn’t these sites do the same?

I’d almost go so far to say as you could build a whole business around the fact that you have fast and free shipping. I’d certainly be more apt to buy something from a site where I knew the product would be on my doorstep by the next day or two. I think others would too.