Originally Posted by steve0257

BD is probably OK, but I don't use them for the following reason.

#1 The LBS has what I want at a price I'm willing to pay
#2 If there is a problem there are people I can talk to directly instead of e-mail and phone calls.
#3 Their feedback on some of my questions has helped me avoid a couple of big mistakes
#4 they have given very good service when I've had a problem I couldn't fix myself.

What it seems to boil down to in my case is I like the face to face contact and am willing to pay a little extra for it. If the face to face doesn't matter to you BD is probably a good alternative.