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Amazon Prime trumps Best Buy. Better prices, wider selection, better availability, and it's on my porch in two days.
Amazon and Newegg don't try to upsell you to $60 HDMI cables that don't work any better than a $5 HDMI cable. They don't try to sell you a "scratch protection warranty" on a game disc for $5.00 They just sell you what you want, and they let you see reviewer comments from others who have brought the item so you have a better idea whether you are making a good choice or not.
They scam novices on things like computer "optimization". They charge you an "optional" set up fee to install the OS on their computers, but if you want to install it yourself and save the money on the fee you'll discover that they do this to all of their machines so they can tack on the fee. They get the bulk of their profits by scamming their customers into dubious warranty programs, protection plans and needlessly expensive products.
They can't die soon enough as far as I'm concerned. I'll only miss having a physical showroom to look at the items that I'm going to buy on Amazon or Newegg anyway.
They are one of my favorite places to shop. They delivered my big screen and set it up for me and will pick it up whenever something goes wrong on it.
They always ask if I want to buy a service plan, sometimes I say yes, sometimes I say no. Why this would make someone mad enough to never shop there is strange to me.
Although I figured they must be in trouble if they have to resort to putting candy and other knick knacks up by the check out lines, this is usually sign of desperation when you have to resort to selling things outside of your focus.
Amazon and Newegg don't try to upsell you to $60 HDMI cables that don't work any better than a $5 HDMI cable
You ever seen reviews where people who are attempting to justify having spent $80 on an HDMI cable actually claim their colors look better on the screen with it. Epic hilarity.
Exactly. Big ticket items like TVs don't have much benefit to ordering online because the shipping overrides the cost savings plus Amazon doesnt offer installation. Plus there are always instances where something is needed immediately. Until online retailers offer same day delivery there will always be a need for brick and mortar stores.
I ordered a flatscreen tv from Amazon and saved over $600 from what Best Buy or any other store was offering. They delivered it for free and I didn't sign the form until I made sure the tv worked. This was a few years ago and I heard now they don't set the tv up though. Still, for the money you save ordering online you can pay someone to wall mount your tv and still save.
I always looked at Best Buy, Circuit City, and Ultimate as places to go look around and kill some time, but if you find something you really like go back home and read reviews and order it from Amazon. I had to return something to Amazon and when I went to print the return form online they already start shipping you a new one if you want that same product.
Unless you need something right away there really isn't any reason to throw away money at Best Buy.
Bascially the Best buyer here is doig wellfrom what I see. Circuit city :I really could never figure how they even existed. I know alot fo people whoactually shop best buy on the website.
I ordered a flatscreen tv from Amazon and saved over $600 from what Best Buy or any other store was offering. They delivered it for free and I didn't sign the form until I made sure the tv worked. This was a few years ago and I heard now they don't set the tv up though. Still, for the money you save ordering online you can pay someone to wall mount your tv and still save.
I always looked at Best Buy, Circuit City, and Ultimate as places to go look around and kill some time, but if you find something you really like go back home and read reviews and order it from Amazon. I had to return something to Amazon and when I went to print the return form online they already start shipping you a new one if you want that same product.
Unless you need something right away there really isn't any reason to throw away money at Best Buy.
Ironic that people who bash Wal-Mart for what they do to local economies praise Amazon. Amazon is the Wal-Mart of online retailers, only it brings no benefit to local economies period. Wal-Mart put out the mom and pop shops but at least they kept people employed.
As for Best Buy, in my opinion they were always the worst of the electronics stores. Circuit City and CompUSA were better in my experience, but Best Buy really had the best business strategy for its era. CompUSA was too focused on the tech enthusiast who never shopped at a brick-and-mortar again after the advent of broadband, and Circuit City's customer service killed them. Best Buy focused on the novice to average electronics customer and it has paid off. Best Buy has been rejected by the intellectual elite and tech enthusiasts but is still embraced by Joe Sixpack, and therefore still serves its purpose. However, if Best Buy is to move into the future, it needs to modify its business model. Focus on having employees who know about the products and stock products people want. Apple's brick and mortar is thriving even though most of those products are available online, so brick and mortar can still work if done right.
Radio Shack thrives primarily off rural markets and the fact they have many items people may need in an emergency i.e. they cannot wait the 5-7 days for shipping. In many rural markets they are the only electronics store.
Kudos on that.
I stopped in Richfield UT on a 10-hr break from driving the rig and wanted to put a high/low switch on my home-made bicycle light.
When into the one downtown and was fixed up nice and sweet.
Its possible. I don't remember the last time i bought something. All my purchases are done online, or other stores (Apple, At&T..). Even my bigger ticket items like Plasma/PC i bought at Costco.
However, i occasionally drop in from time to time, and the stores seemed to be pretty full. The circuit city and comp usa stores seemed like ghost towns before they closed down.
There is one word that describes both Circuit City and BestBuy best: incompetence. Several years ago, I went into a Circuit City to buy a DVD player on sale--I knew exactly what I wanted and had the printed advertised price with me. It took over an hour and no less than 4 of their likely otherwise unemployable morons to get me checked out--including a manager who obviously knew nothing about either personnel management or proper customer service. Some months later, I went to another Circuit City and had nearly an identical experience. I knew right then that Circuit City would go under sooner or later, and they did.
BestBuy isn't much better. The couple of times that I've been in their stores I've pretty much seen the same idiocy from their hired help. Compared to the online retailers like Amazon, their prices are not very competitive, either.
On the other side of the coin, I've done business with Amazon for years, and have had a problem with an order only twice--both times their customer service people were exemplary and had the problem corrected immediately.
Personally, I think most of the "big boxes" are going to be dead within a few years. First, they will be inconvenient as hell when fuel is $5 or more a gallon. Second, their "brick and mortar" overhead costs move in lockstep with energy costs. Finally, the online retailers incur really no more shipping costs to the customer than do the brick and mortar retailers and the online retailers avoid other huge overhead costs that the big box stores can not avoid. One does have to wonder, though, where all those bubbleheads "working" in those big boxes like BestBuy are going to get jobs when those stores are gone--our economy has transcended, probably permanently, its ability to suffer fools lightly.
Jazzlover is right. I knew a lot of mom and pop retailers that raised the white flag when these big box behemoths marauded across the country in the early 90's. At the time there was two for each consumer need; Best Buy and Circuit City, Barnes and Noble and Borders, Linens and Things and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, etc., etc. I felt at the time these outfits were opening that two was one too many. Borders however isn't shutting all their stores but a significant amount of them are.
I only dealt with the Circuit City in my area three times but fortunately I had good experiences with them. Two of them were purchases of car stereos. Their policy was free installation of car stereos bought at Circuit City. If you had a vehicle that was older, say late 80's, that they would have to do a little rework with the plastic bracket assembly, they generally had plenty of spare parts where they would only charge you no more than $10 if they had to spend more time on it. I felt that was more than fair. With the second stereo I bought for the Jeep I ran into a problem with the players themselves. The whole batch of Kenwoods were bad (of all brands). I had to make a few return trips, but hey, they made it right to me in more ways than one, mailing me a gift certificate for having to put up with the hassle of the bad radios. I was lucky.
Best Buy? $50 for installation, and if you had a vehicle they felt was too old they would tell you straight out you need a new assembly kit and you'll have to pay $21.95 for it. Cha-ching!
The reason I brought up the returns regarding the car stereos is buying electronic stuff online. I buy a fair amount online but the thought of returning defective stuff off in the mail and having to wait a few days as opposed to just going back to the store and getting it done in a matter of minutes doesn't really appeal to me.
I recently went into a Best Buy looking for some advice about a Nikon camera. I have a problem with blinking during a flash, and I wanted a camera that had a delayed flash that would minimize this problem. I had other questions as well, but the kid that came over had no clue. I went online, read the reviews, bought the camera for $130 less than what Best Buy was selling it for. How can BB compete with that? I see no reason to buy anything from the store if service, their #1 commodity, is not done right.
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