E-commerce sites that won't make surfing for equipment feel like an endless winter

By now you know your way around the Internet, but that doesn't make it any easier to know which sites to trust with your hard-earned credit-card information. To save you the fingerwork, we narrowed the sprawling field of outdoor-equipment e-commerce sites to five of the most useful. Then we set about ordering a backpacking stove from each—either an MSR Dragonfly or a Primus MFS, both of which retail for about $100. As the stoves arrived, we peppered the customer-service folks with technical questions and took notes.

All the sites we've rated have hospitable homepages, selected bargains, handy site searches, hassle-free return policies, and telephone technical support—features that we consider essential to buying online. (Full disclosure: Outsidemag.com and REI.com share a marketing partnership.) Some sites even allow you to check an item's availability, sort equipment by price, or read other customers' reviews. Of course, it could all change next week. For now, at least, these are the best ways to make sure that your online time—and your money—is well spent.
—ROBIN BOYCE-TRUBITT AND BRENT HURTIG

Photo: Clay Ellis

altrec.com

NAVIGABILITY
4

PRODUCT SELECTION
3.5: Copious categories, not all of which have impressive depth; nine stoves.

TECHNICALSUPPORT
1.5: Friendly, but not too savvy. Phone jockey said it would be two years before we'd need to worry about our maintenance question, and by then we could find help at a camping store.

CUSTOMER-SERVICE HOURS
M-F, 6 a.m.–6 p.m. (PST)

WHY BROWSE?
Photography and travel tips, recipes, and customer bulletin board give this joint the feel of a lively neighborhood gear shop. Thanks to 99-cent shipping and a 15 percent discount for first-time buyers, we saved $10 over most other sites.

OVERALL RATING
3

campmor.com

NAVIGABILITY
5

PRODUCT SELECTION
5: Homepage sports 43 clearly defined categories; 24 stoves.

TECHNICALSUPPORT
4: Accommodating Phil nailed most every question, going so far as to grab the same stove we purchased and patiently explain its components.

CUSTOMER-SERVICE HOURS
M-S, 8:30 a.m.–9:00 p.m. (EST)

WHY BROWSE?
Search by manufacturer, product name, catalog number, or keyword. Find anything within a few clicks. And the stuff isn't all duck-motif flannel sleeping bags, as might be expected; times have changed, and so has Campmor.

OVERALL RATING
5

fogdog.com

NAVIGABILITY
4

PRODUCT SELECTION
3: Uneven product selection category to category—but plenty of stoves (13).

TECHNICALSUPPORT
1: Took two days to respond to e-mail. Condescending "Fogdog Outdoor Expert" who called back asked us to fax him the stove's manual because he didn't have the product on hand.

CUSTOMER-SERVICE HOURS
M-F, 5 a.m.–8 p.m. (PST); S-S, 7:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

WHY BROWSE?
Thorough, jazzy, transaction-friendly—just what you'd expect from a slick Internet startup. Emphasizes general sporting goods (read "softballs"), but also holds exclusive rights to sell Nike shoes and apparel online. Site's "Search Squad" sniffs out items it doesn't have.

OVERALL RATING
3

llbean.com

NAVIGABILITY
3

PRODUCT SELECTION
2: A little bit of everything. Heavily favors house-label gear; six stoves.

TECHNICALSUPPORT
5: Early one Saturday, Paul delivered cheery treatise-like answers to every query, and then volunteered to walk us through stove disassembly to make it abundantly clear how it should be cleaned.

CUSTOMER-SERVICE HOURS
24–7

WHY BROWSE?
New England alums can relive those late-night pilgrimages to the flagship store in Freeport, Maine—without enduring the boring drive. Site works best in conjunction with product numbers from catalog. You're buying a sensibility, not just gear: thrifty, woolen, Yankee.

OVERALL RATING
3

rei.com

NAVIGABILITY
4

PRODUCT SELECTION
5: Put it this way: Search for "stoves" turned up no less than 28 models.

TECHNICALSUPPORT
3: Professional and earnest, but Damon's ability to help seemed to be based on his reading of the manual, not personal experience with stoves.

CUSTOMER-SERVICE HOURS
M-F, 7 a.m.–6 p.m. (PST); S-S, 8 a.m.–12 p.m.

WHY BROWSE?
Sort daypacks, for instance, by price or size, and compare with other models in a chart. Helpful buying tips. Being one of the herd pays: Over 1.6 million members of the REI co-op (sign up online) get 10 percent of their receipts refunded at year's end.

OVERALL RATING
4

5=Very Good; 4=Good; 3=Good Enough; 2=Not Good Enough; 1=Not Good At All