1. reputation (esp. when someone on the board speaks highly of or recommends one of their notions)
2. ease of navigation through site and variety of items
3. cost including free shipping
4. if the site offers other things... I am likely to navigate to that site and stumble upon something I want (ex: Leah Day has great tutorials on FMQ; after I check out the info, I end up buying something.)
5. Samples of completed projects using the notion or tutorials on how to use it help.

Lots of choices and reasonable prices! I'm a gadget freak--can't help myself, if it looks handy, I buy it:o I'd also like a more visible newsletter sign up so I can opt out of them. If you have good products and reasonable prices I don't have to be inundated with a gadrillion emails and newsletters because I will most certainly come back. Also, shipping is a biggie. I've had a site charge me for priority shipping but didn't ship for 4 days!

I like the Connecting Threads site because it's so fun to look at. They make it colorful and zesty. I will confess though, the only thing I buy from there is thread. Good spot for that. Fabric? I like "Thousands of Bolts". Not as colorful, but I can buy end cuts from there for great prices (cuts that are like 13" x WOF). I love scrap quilts and string quilts so those cuts work great for me.

I like quality products, plenty of choice and reasonable shipping. It's great if you can set up a search engine that actually works, and will pull up, for example, all "green prints" when I want them. All too often I'll try to do something like that and all I get is "no products found". Really? A whole site without a single green -- or blue -- print? No, that's a lousy search engine, and it means I have to waste a lot of time going through the entire site, so I don't bother. I do buy a lot from the Connecting Threads site because it's fun to look at and well organized. I really like the fact that if you buy $50 worth of fabric, the shipping is free. I'll often make sure I buy that much in order to get the free shipping. They have low to reasonable prices and great fabrics. Why can't other sites do it?

If it's a new site, I'll buy a very small amount just to see what kind of quality and customer service I get. I once spent quite a bit at a site, based on excellent reputation, and the fabric was horrible. So horrible I now use it for practice only, and it wasn't cheap! But customer service was nasty, and there was no way they'd let me return it. You can be sure I'll never buy from them again. The kicker here is that if I mentioned the name, everyone on this thread would recognize it!

I keep going back to sites that supply quality fabrics for reasonable prices, and who treat me like a customer should be treated. I'm a nice person. I will bend over backwards to help make something right. I am 100% kind to the person in customer service, no matter how badly they treat me. I've never lost my temper on the phone. I just don't use the site again if customer service gets nasty with me. (Oh, you'd be surprised!) Customer service is your front line, the "face" of your site. If they can't be nice to customers, regardless of circumstances, then you will lose customers, full stop. That doesn't mean they have to "cave in" every time a customer makes a demand. I have no problem accepting the boundaries of a transaction, what they legally can and cannot do for a given transaction, as long as they are explained clearly and kindly to me. No problem, and I think that would be true for most anyone, unless they have a chip on their shoulder. But don't sell me $11/yard fabric that is so thin is practically transparent, and then refuse to take it back!

Oh, and I shop on line because I only have one decent Quilt Shop available to me, and while it's very nice, it doesn't carry everything. So my on line purchases supplement that.

One thing I would LOVE to see in an on line store is coordinated fabrics, so that when I'm putting a quilt together, I have all of the coordinating fabrics in one place, and I don't have to go from shop to shop, and just hope the colors will coordinate. So carrying a line of coordinating fabrics would score high on my list.

And finally, having a design board, where I can put fabrics and look at them next to each other, is high on my priority list. Even if the colors don't ring true on my screen, and I don't have a lot of problem with that because I have the latest Mac, and they are fabulous for colors, but you never know under what conditions the photos were taken -- the wrong light can throw colors off. But being able to put the fabrics next to each other helps to make up for those kinds of problems.

Hope this helps.

I am so grateful for these wonderful replies!!!! Keep em coming! It seems ease of navigation, shipping prices and customer service are the three top ones!

I'm about the prices first but I wont go back to a site where your looking at fabric and you click it and it's out of stock, fine if it happens once but I'm turned off when they are failing to do to updates and there are pages of fabric and notions I can't have!
I love the ones with good search engines too. I like to know what's in stock as well, that is a great feature!

I buy almost all of my fabric on line. I like to have the fabric searchable by many different methods. I usually select a fabric on equilter.com and then look to see if other sites have it and fabrics to go with it. If their sites aren't as easy to use as equilter's, I leave them in a blink of an eye! To me, that site is the benchmark all should aim for. I can find the exact type of pattern, the exact color I want. That's what I'm shopping for. Then their feature of the "design board" is excellent.

I shop on line and in store. If I am in a rush I will spend the extra bucks at LQS. If not in a hurry, I get fabric info and search online for good prices.. free shipping, etc

For me it is what they have to offer. If I can't find the product/fabric/tools/books in my home state, I shop on line.

I hate sites that price by the ¼ yard. Seems they are trying to fool the buyer, even if it is not so.
What I like:
Sites easy to navigate
Load quickly
Have variety of fabric easy to locate by manufacturer/color
Ease of checking out and returning to shop buttons
What I don't like: a site that only gives an alphabet selection with no indication of what is under the J or K or S.

SandyQuilter