I made a purchase of desktop yesterday. After comparing several online shops like dell, gateway, ecost, emachines and computer4sure, I finally find a great deal from overstock.com as follows:

Specifications:
Processor: 2.0GHz Athlon XP 2400+
System memory: 512MB
Hard drive: 80GB
Optical drive: 48x CD-RW
Optical drive: 16x DVD-ROM
Graphics: integrated S3 ProSavage8
Sound: AC '97 Audio
Network: 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
Modem: 56K ITU v.92 ready fax/modem
Ports: serial, parallel, audio-in/out, 2 PS/2, 3 PCI slots, 6 USB
Operating system: Windows XP Home

This system comes with a keyboard, mouse, and speakers. It does NOT include a monitor.

The price tag? $469.99. And I got a 10% coupon from dealsea.com, which brings the final price to $433. With another 1% kickback from my credit card, the real price to me is $429. What a deal of this moderately equipped box!

Admittedly this is a factory reconditioned product but it carries 90 day manufacturer warranty and I have no doubt about the quality. Also, this Fool.com article is another assurance of how overstock.com cares about customer satisfaction.

I used overstock.com quite a lot recently; 4 orders since August 7 including this one. Particularly, I love the price of the books from the site; it consistently beats Amazon.com by at least 10%, if not more.

Another interesting analysis on the growth of the site: I think the order # of the site is serial, and based on the serial # of my four orders, here is a glimpse of the business growth):

08/07/2003 Order # 4805189
08/29/2003 Order # 5006078 (22 days, 9,131 orders/day)
09/07/2003 Order # 5079219 (9 days, 8,127 orders/day)
10/21/2003 Order # 5519462 (44 days, 10,005 orders/day)

The order/day number of the 9-day period may be distorted by the weekly pattern of orders but it looks like overstock business is improving substantially recently. This site definitely has a great appeal to value-oriented customers like me.