Family Christian Stores

Family Christian Stores has been around a long time, with over 300 stores in 37 states in the US. They've been selling Christian music online for quite some time now as well. They've done a good job of transitioning from a "brick-and-mortar" only retailer to an online retailer.

Family Christian ranks #3 out of the Christian music sites we reviewed. [compare]

Our Review:

Product Selection - Family Christian Stores' online presence has a large selection of Christian music in many genres, including Adult Contemporary, Alternative, Children's, Christmas Music, Comedy, Country, Electronica/Dance, Gospel, Hard Rock, Inspirational, Instrumental, Music, Pop/Rock, Praise & Worship, Rap, Soundtracks, Southern Gospel, and Urban.

Prices - FC's prices are higher than some of the other online Christian music stores, but they're still well below retail. For a comparison of pricing among the different Christian music sites, click here. Because they have stores in 37 states, they have to charge sales tax on shipments to all 37 of those states. This can make your order quite a bit more expensive. We had to pay $1.01 in sales tax on one CD.

Website Functionality - FC s website is well-designed and laid out. We find it easy to use. We especially like the navigation on the left-side of the pages which makes it easy to "browse." The search function is okay, but sometimes it gives results that don't make sense. For instance, a search for "jars of clay" produces their albums mixed in with other artists' albums. It would be nice if you could "add to cart" right from the search results, but that's not a big issue.

Ordering - Ordering is easy using their shopping cart and checkout system. You can even add selections to a wishlist, so you can come back to purchase them later.

Shipping - Family Christian Stores offers shipping options ranging from 2 - 3 days to 1-3 weeks (Cont. US). Here are the shipping rates for a single CD to adresses in the Continental Us:

Customer Service - We have not had the opportunity to test their customer service yet.

Click here to visit Family Christian Stores online