I'd recommend people interested in electronics to go directly to somewhere like Digi-Key online for ordering parts. It's a bit of a learning curve to work out what to filter out, but you get exactly what you want for even cheaper what the retail stores could do, and for most projects it doesn't take much (a few interesting ICs) to put you over the threshold for free shipping for people in the US. The threshold for international free shipping is higher (I think it was $200?) but I have hit it sometimes!

Element-14, RS Online, and Mouser are the other ones to look at, especially here in Australia or other places not in the US, because their shipping is often better internationally. But I find myself having to bear the shipping cost for Digi-Key a fair bit!