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Frequently Asked Questions
We are making every effort to address your specific concerns as you navigate our site.

Why Insight?

International Policy

Web Pricing

Volume Pricing

Insight Accounts

Searching

Order Status

Shipping Information

Security



Why Insight?


Purchasing Power
Insight has direct access to over $1 billion in inventory from 1,000+ manufacturers, like 3Com, APC, Belkin, IBM,Infocus, Kingston, Lexmark, Microsoft, Symantec, Targus, Viewsonic, Microsoft, Belkin, Kingston, to name a few. Purchasing power means better prices and availability for you.
Flexible Credit Options
Insight is making available tens of millions of dollars in open credit lines to qualified businesses. Ask your sales associate about our many credit options.
Quick Delivery of Leading Brands
Our distribution capabilities span the country, making the products you need available faster. Insight combines advanced information systems and a strong relationship with Purolator to provide you with quick access and delivery of more than 100,000 brand-name products. Need a configured system? Our high quality processes ensure a reliable configuration on everything from simple installation to total solutions.
Drop Ship
Insight has access to over 20 company-owned, manufacturer and distributor warehouses with more than 60,000 computing products. Our fast and customer-friendly electronic data interchange (EDI) gives you visibility to millions of pounds of inventory every day. When you place an order, our EDI system identifies the appropriate product and often will 'drop ship' it directly from one of our manufacturer or distributor warehouses. This ensures that you receive products quickly and helps to keep our cost of doing business very low.Our distribution capabilities span the country, making the products you need available faster. Insight combines advanced information systems and a strong relationship with Purolator to provide you with quick access and delivery of more than 100,000 brand-name products. Need a configured system? Our high quality processes ensure a reliable configuration on everything from simple installation to total solutions.
Personalized Account Service
Insight’s account executives all complete rigorous training at Insight University. You get a relationship oriented professional who helps you save time and money. What’s more, our award winning operational system provides updated product information, account history and real-time order and shipping status.
Award Winning On-Line Shopping
As you move around our site, you'll see why we've won awards for Best Place to Purchase On-line from Computer Shopper, PC/Computing and Internet Shopper. Check out the "Power Search", real time pricing and availability on over 100,001 products, unadvertised specials, online auction and more.
Insight (NSIT) is a publicly traded company
On the NASDAQ/NMS with over $90 million in equity. We have built a secure financial foundation to serve you today and far into the future. You can feel 100% confident when you shop at Insight, America’s discount source for computers, hardware and software.

International Policy

Insight Canada does not ship internationally; we ship to all Canadian provinces. For international shipping, please contact our locations in United States or the UK. For more information, contact your Account Executive or call the general enquiries line on 1-800-INSIGHT.

Web Pricing

What is the difference between Today's price and Quoted Price?

Quoted Price:
If you select "Convert quote at QUOTED price," this will simply turn your quote into an order and maintain the pricing at the time of creation.

Today's Price:
If you select "Convert quote at TODAY'S price," this will allow you to enter the quote into a shopping cart displaying today's price. Selecting this option will also allow you to fully edit the quote, purchase the products or resave as another quote.

Delete:
If you select DELETE quote, this will erase the quote from the system. Please visit myAccount to convert your quote to an order.

Volume Pricing

If your organization has budgeted over $100,000 for annual computer purchases and would like on-line access to pricing that rewards your buying behavior, please contact your Account Executive. For more information on VPA, click here.

Insight occasionally encounters manufacturer's specials that are subject to certain restrictions over which Insight has no control. Insight reserves the right to exclude certain special offers from your VPA. Insight may also offer aggressively priced specials to its entire customer base; due to the extremely low prices of such offers, VPA discounted pricing may not apply to these specials.

Insight Accounts

Do I need an Insight Account to use the Web Site?
No. You do not need an account to browse the products listed on Insight.com. However, you must have an account to purchase a product or use features such as myAccount tools (quotes, reporting, asset tracker, etc.)

How do I get an account with Insight?
If you purchase a product you will be prompted to set up an account with Insight. However, if you are just browsing, you may set-up an Insight Account in order to use our additional site features.

Can I get an Insight Account today?
Yes. You can enjoy the benefits of an Insight Account after completing the required information on the New Internet Customers section.

What if I want to change my account information?
After you log-in, click Account (located in the upper right on all of our Web pages) to change the necessary information.

Searching


When I search for products by keyword sometimes I get completely unrelated results.
Our new search is centered around a hierarchy of categories. In order to show results we must determine a category for any keyword/text search. This "interpreted" category is the one with the highest number of matches. So a search for "treo" will match more accessories than actual Treo Handhelds. All you need to do is look above the results for the "Other Matched Categories" and click the one that is most applicable to your search.

I clicked on an option to narrow my result and now I don't have any options left.
The options on the left will always lead to a result. You will only see an option if your results can be further narrowed. Products in a result set may share the same option (ex. All Desktops have Pentium 4 Processors thus there will not be any more options for the attribute 'Processor Type' in this example.

How can I change an option after I have selected it?
Changing an option is as easy as clicking on the red x-box next to the option in the "Bread Crumb Trail" (the hyperlinked trail in the upper portion of the search result) and selecting a different option int he left hand column.

Why does the search tell me that there are "255 In-Stock Results" but I see "Temporarily Out-of-Stock" on some of the products?
Due to popularity, within the last 12 hours, we have exhausted our current inventory of those products. The Temporarily Out-of-Stock products show in the results because the data we use to determine if a product is In-Stock updates every 12 hours. Products showing temporarily Out-of-Stock will most likely show Order upon Request when you view their product details page or add them to the cart.

For more information and to learn all about our new search tool view the search tutorial.

Order Status


How do I check the status on my order?
  • Log in and click on the Account Tools link located in the resource bar.
  • Click on the Order/Invoice History link
  • The next screen will prompt you to enter a specific order number, or you can request a complete list of your orders by clicking on one of the listed options.
  • Once the correct information has been entered, you will be presented with your order status information.

Shipping Information


Estimated shipping date
Once you have entered the appropriate information, the expected ship date will be listed under your order number. This date is calculated using the time we expect to receive the product (if not currently in stock) and the appropriate time it takes to pack your product and ship it.

We ship out the majority of our packages with Purolator or UPS. Depending on where your package is going, you will either receive your products next day or it could take up to 5 shipping days. Note: Purolator does not deliver on Sundays and holidays. If you require more information on Purolator’s shipping schedule or to trace a package you can call 1-888-SHIP-123.

Air Shipments
If you require your shipment to go Air you will be charged additional freight. The cost of shipping air is $34.99 for anything that weights 15 pounds and under. If you package exceeds 15 pounds then you must add approximately $1.95 per extra pound.

If you are planning to ship your package Purolator Air because you require the product the next day, always verify if there is stock of the product. Shipping Purolator air doesn’t assure next day delivery if the product ordered is backordered. It only assures next day delivery if purchased before 3PM and if the product is in stock at one of our various warehouses.

Categories Approximate Weights
Accessories: Less than 5 pounds
Boards: Less than 5 pounds
Computers: Average about 35-40 pounds
Multimedia: Average about 5-10 pounds
Memory: Less than 1 pound
Hard Drives: Average about 5-6 pounds
Servers: Varies from 40-120 pounds
Input: Varies from 5-40 pounds
Modems: Less than 5 pounds
Monitors: Varies from 30-65 pounds
CPU: Less than 1 pound
Printer: Varies from 20-100 pounds
Software: Less than 5 pounds
Notebooks: Varies 6-15 pounds
Books: Varies 1-5 pounds


Delivery Only!
All stock figures quoted on this web site are for delivery only and not for pick up from Insight warehouses.

Transit Times
Our warehouses are located in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Operating business hours are from 8am to 6pm from Monday to Friday.

SHIP FROM Toronto
Warehouse		 Vancouver
Warehouse
SHIP TO    Air    Ground    Air    Ground
Vancouver 1 4 n/a 1
Calgary 1 3 1 2
Edmonton 1 3 1 2
Regina 1 3 1 2
Saskatoon 1 3 1 2
Winnipeg 1 2 1 3
Toronto n/a 1 1 4
Ottawa n/a 1 1 4
Montreal n/a 1 1 4
Quebec City 1 1-2 1 5
Moncton 1 2 2 5
St. John NB 1 2 2 5
Fredricton 1 2 2 5
Halifax 1 3 2 6
St.John’s NF 1 5 2 8
Whitehorse YT 3 n/a 3 n/a
Yellowknife,NT 3 n/a 3 n/a


Security


Insight uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which provides data encryption, server authentication, message integrity, and optional client authentication for a TCP/IP connection. This security protocol was designed and specified by Netscape Communications for providing data security layered between application protocols (such as HTTP, Telnet, NNTP, or FTP) and TCP/IP.

In other words, it's pretty tough to break - but not impossible. If you are extremely risk adverse - Call us at Insight! However, if you ever give your card to someone at a restaurant and allow them to take it behind closed doors - you run a significantly higher chance of experiencing credit card fraud than with a secure Web connection.