Everyone knows the Amazon website. You are effectively looking at a sales powerhouse in a vast array of different areas, and that includes buying mitre saws if you should need one at any point.
Where can I find the website?
The website is found on www.amazon.co.uk. There are other Amazon websites which deal with other areas of the world, but make sure you go to this one for the UK sales.
A Selection of the Best Selling Mitre Saws from Amazon
How do I find the mitre saws section of the site?
You can go through the Home and Garden option on the left hand navigation index, which takes you to ‘DIY and Tools’. You can reach the saws through this, or you can simply use the search box. In fact it’s a fairly laborious process to get to mitre saws by navigating your way through, and the Amazon search engine is famously efficient.
If you want to go straight there the dedicated URL for this part of the website, via the search engine, is http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/.
What types and brands of mitre saw do they offer?
There is a fairly good range of types on the site, from Silverline hand tools to crosscut mitre saws plus compound and sliding compound saws with and without lasers.
The following brands are available – Silverline, Bosch, Draper, De Walt, Ryobi, JCB, Sealey, Stanley, Fox and Hitachi.
The range is low to high middle end, with a very good selection under £150 but less and less of the professional standard models. At the top of the search pages you will see pages and pages of saw blades, so don’t be fooled into thinking there are thousands of models!
Are there any buying guides or useful sections of information about mitre saws?
This site is pretty basic in terms of the information provided about individual products, and has no accessible buying guides or generic information about mitre saws.
Effectively you see a thumbnail picture, and then you can click on it and go to a screen which gives you a fuller technical specification, and a manufacturer’s description. It also promises customer reviews (although they are not always in evidence) and customer discussion sites – although again it is not common for these to show anything other than a ‘be the first to review’ message.
Anything else I should know about?
Amazon are very hot on interpreting the information you give them and analysing the products that you search for, so don’t be surprised when you are guided to other possible purchases through a ‘Customers viewing this page may also be interested in..’ area.
They also have a sponsored links area, which, ironically, guides you to many of the sites featured in elsewhere in this review. You should find most of the information you need on Amazon though, without going elsewhere for a mitre saw.
There is an ‘In stock’ update screen, which is fairly useful if you need your tool quickly but there have been complaints to the Amazon site that this is not updated enough to make it meaningful, and once you’ve paid for your order its too late!
Delivery is offered as ‘standard’, ‘express’ or ‘express evening’ if you are busy at work and can’t be there in the daytime. Almost all of the mitre saws on offer are coming from industry suppliers, so unless you go for a second hand model (and this review didn’t find a single one offered) you will have a reputable merchant to deal with in the event of a mistake.
In conclusion
As you would expect from one of the premiere e-commerce sites online today, Amazon makes it pretty easy to scroll through what they have to offer from a mitre saw perspective. In a way the only thing about the site which is less than appealing is the endless bombardment of other information. Although some of this is relevant much of it simply gets in the way. It is also true to say that the range of mitre saws on offer here is not as complete as you might expect from such a massive player.
You get the feeling, rightly or wrongly, that this area of the site has just been patched into a software template and hasn’t really taken into account what buyers are going to want to know or see. From a general DIY perspective of course, there’s an awful lot on offer, and if you would like a book while you’re at it Amazon certainly keeps asking the questions!