I have had good luck with online purchases. You should too if you stay with reputable vendors. I purchased my Eee PC from Amazon.com.
I've been lucky in that I've never had to deal with any returns so I don't know how hard or easy that would be. The vendors that I have purchased PC's from via the internet are:
Dell
HP
tigerdirect.com
newegg.com
Amazon.com
Over the years I've spent thousands of dollars on PCs and PC-related equipment from these places and have never had any problems with any of them.
Bob
