When you’re ready to buy a drone, your best option is to purchase online. Most manufacturers sell direct to consumer so your best bet may be to go directly to a manufacturer’s website. The other obvious answer when buying online is to go to Amazon or other massive e-retailers to see what sort of drone options you have.
The technology is still quite new so there are only a handful of manufacturers that have grown large enough to be able to support a widespread distribution partnership with a retailer like Amazon. Therefore, the selection of drones on Amazon won’t represent the majority of your options.
The drone industry has been growing at a rapid pace and as a result, several new companies have been springing up overnight. Some drone companies are privately funded while others like Airdroids, Hexo+, and Airdox were funded using crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.
These smaller companies are building great products with truly unique features, but the demand is so great that it’s difficult to keep up and therefore major distribution deals are not only not needed yet, they are unmanageable. Your best bet is to go to their company websites and buy directly.
Another option for locating the drone that is perfect for you is from photography and video equipment retailers. Companies like B&H or Adorama are major online and physical retailers of drones and drone accessories.
Always use customer reviews. One of the major benefits to shopping for drones online with sites like Amazon, B&H, and Adorama is the collection of customer feedback on the products. To further qualify community feedback, Amazon recently started publicly indicating whether or not feedback was coming from someone that purchased the product being reviewed.
Amazon community feedback can now also contain pictures and images. This feedback can be wildly helpful for making a decision regardless of whether you decide to buy on Amazon.
If you don’t trust online feedback, your other option is to get plugged into a local drone hobby group. The benefit to participating in these groups before you own a drone is that you can learn from users, and you can probably try before you buy.