Your questions about Berkshire

Availability as shown in catalog Vs web site.

The new database search they show on their site is very unreliable in my
experience...  But it is definitely more reliable than the catalog.  If you
see something in the catalog that is not on their website, search again
using different possibilities...  conductor, label performer...  etc...  I
find that some items show up one way an not another.

Shipping Times:

This is the area in which Berkshire is most unreliable.  A year ago, I
could count on no order taking more than two or three weeks.  My last 10
orders have taken from three weeks to 6 weeks with the average being 37
days.  That is using parcel post...  but it took Berkshire a month to get
them in the mail.

In Stock... if on web site?

There are no guarantees here...  but they aren't too bad...  Out of the
last 100 CD's I have ordered, only 7 were cancelled as being out of stock.
The problem with their method is that you DO NOT know until your order
arrives a month later when they just pencil it out on the print-out copy
of your on-line order.

I think Berkshire has slipped a lot.  Their once famous packaging
is now terrible if you order less than 7 CD's and small orders arrive
broken.  Their prices are higher.  Their delivery times are much longer.
On their positive side: They have managed to preserve the same
disagreeable attitude, and they still sell CD's you can't find elsewhere
at a reasonably decent price.

Depending upon where you are of course...  I shop on-line, because the
nearest store that stocks ANY classical music CD's is 150 miles away...
Now when I want country-western that's a different story and I can shop
in a local store...  still the treatment is not what you would expect.

Ray Bayles