Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Come on, is Amazon really sustainable for EVERYTHING? How long can amazon sustain itself when gas prices continue to go through the roof? Rather than just delivering 1000 TV to one location for people to buy, the delivery is now 1000 TVs all delivered to 1000 places that are all different. And people wonder why their fuel prices go up? Just look at how they consume things. Everything is ordered online and must be delivered. Food you eat is grown in Chile and shipped 8000 miles using enormous amounts of energy just so you can have strawberries in the winter. At some point, this type of consumption is going to break the economy once people can barely afford to fill their cars to get to work.
Beyond that, my husband can repair most electronics and computers himself. We rarely buy any tech new, preferring to get it used from CL or eBay and repairing it if need be.
I occasionally pick up something for next to nothing and fix it. My parents Samsung TV died and they went out and purchased a new one. i took there 42 flat screen TV, spend $4 in parts, and it's good as new. Been searching Craigslist for other Samsung flat screens that have the same issue.
When amazon no longer has any real competition, guess what? They won't be so cheap anymore. And that's clearly their goal, especially in e-books, paper books, and electronics.
Come on, is Amazon really sustainable for EVERYTHING? How long can amazon sustain itself when gas prices continue to go through the roof? Rather than just delivering 1000 TV to one location for people to buy, the delivery is now 1000 TVs all delivered to 1000 places that are all different. And people wonder why their fuel prices go up? Just look at how they consume things. Everything is ordered online and must be delivered. Food you eat is grown in Chile and shipped 8000 miles using enormous amounts of energy just so you can have strawberries in the winter. At some point, this type of consumption is going to break the economy once people can barely afford to fill their cars to get to work.
Actually, online shopping is much better for the environment and consumes less fuel than traditional brick and mortar. That is particularly true in my case as I live in a rural area and I am looking at wasting between 1-3 gallons of gas per round trip (@ ca 33mpg) to buy most anything.
The last time I was in Best Buy it took the threat of a chargeback in order to get a refund. When your customer brings back a defective item hours after purchasing with the receipt, packing materials etc you need to man the **** up and refund the money.
HH Gregg moved into a number of Circuit City buildings. Sears still has electronics as does Target. Best Buy will suffer the fate of a number of overpriced brick and mortars. Rude, unknowledgeable, or non-existant sales people will keep many people away. For the last 2 television we've purchased I use them for research and bought them elsewhere. Best Buy's on sale price was still $200 more than the online price before the free delivery and a discount code that knocked off the tax. I could see Best Buy closing a number of their stores and only keeping the most profitable ones.
You're part of the problem. What you did is called "showrooming" and it's unethical. How would you like someone coming into your business, taking advantage of your displays and staff, knowing that you have no chance to make a sale because that person has already decided what you offer is useful but worth nothing, and that the lowest price is the only criteria for choosing where to buy? Would you like that? Would that be OK with you? I doubt you would, but you feel it's OK for you to it to other businesses. Think about what that says about you.
I saw it all the time when I was in the A/V business. People would bring their folded up Amazon or other printouts, ask me a million questions, then walk out. Sometimes I could work out something with them, but often it was only about the price. You can't keep a B&M open with online pricing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiGuy2.5
I actually disagree with this. The quality and price of electronics at Walmart is VERY good and VERY competitive. My only gripe with this scenario is that I hate being FORCED to support Walmart.
You can't be serious. Walmart sells mostly crap. Even the name brand TVs they offer are the lowest end models for the most part, and most of the TVs are unheard of brands. Their other video components are again, the lowest end of the brand names, and junk brands otherwise. Their audio is completely non-existent.
What can your reference possibly be if you think Walmart electronics is VERY good?
Try finding anyone at a Walmart that can help with a choice. The best I've seen anyone there do (with all due respect to Walmart employees) is read a box and tell me what the words were.
Quote:
Originally Posted by City Guy997S
Broken business model: See also Circuit City, Tweeter, Sound Advice etc.
Brick and Mortar stores (and employees) are expensive and honestly when was the last time you bought a electronic device that was bad out of the box?
First of all people need to stop referring to Best Buy employees as salespeople. They are clerks with a small amount of training in their respective departments. They exhibit none of the qualities of an actual sales professional.
That being said, true salespeople are on commission, which means they don't cost anything to the company. If they sell, they pay for themselves. If they don't, they're out of a job. I know some will say that all salespeople are liars and cheaters. I'll just ignore that as ignorance and lack of life experience. True salespeople don't need to lie or cheat to be successful, and know that repeat business and referrals is always the goal.
Sound Advice, and many of the other companies that Tweeter absorbed in it's quest to expand, were rocking along as specialty retailers. Then Tweeter bought them and tried to turn them into something very different. It's as if someone bought a bunch of Porsches because of their performance, then tried to make them into nice family sedans. Along with market issues, bad decisions, and the recession, it killed Tweeter and ended the long, successful run of numerous smaller local B&M chains. Yes, I have a lot of firsthand knowledge of how that transpired.
B&M is more expensive, no doubt. As I pointed out earlier, some people think it's OK to use a B&M store for research knowing before they went in that they're not going to buy there. And even more silly is the people who would call my store, and ask for help setting up their new toys, then volunteer that they not only bought elsewhere because of price, but that company couldn't help them after the sale at all. All too often they'd not bought the right gear for their needs or wants, but hey, they got a better price.
I competed against BB (on price alone; they had or did nothing that I and the company I worked for couldn't do better) for mainly TVs. I spent a lot of time dispelling the myths they promoted, such as plasmas needing to be refilled every few years, or that the wattage on speakers and a receiver needed to be perfectly matched for the system to work. What nonsense. So I'm no fan of theirs, and certainly not of Walmart. But it's only a matter of time when B&M is all but gone if people don't learn how to buy from a store. Does anyone consider a local B&M store to buy from, rather than BB or WM? People complain about service but are you trying to find somewhere that offers better service to buy from? I know the smaller shops aren't everywhere, but there are far more than people think. Does anyone ever ask for a deal, or work with a manager to make something happen at a store? NO, most people see the posted price and run for the door. I lived it for years, hear it from neighbors and friends, and see it on every forum. People don't know how to speak up and negotiate. I see people every day that can barely transact the purchase of a biscuit and coffee, on both sides of the counter.
I don't use Best Buy very often, but on the few occasions I have needed something and didn't want to wait for it to come in the mail, I appreciated the fact that I could drive over and get it immediately (of course, calling in advance to confirm its in stock).
At my last visit, I was approached by several staff asking if I needed help, and I didn't find them pushy about it.
In each case, I didn't encounter anyone who was rude or unhelpful, Target would not have carried these items, and Walmart is far away from me and I don't ever shop there and don't want to shop there.
You can't be serious. Walmart sells mostly crap. Even the name brand TVs they offer are the lowest end models for the most part, and most of the TVs are unheard of brands. Their other video components are again, the lowest end of the brand names, and junk brands otherwise. Their audio is completely non-existent.
What can your reference possibly be if you think Walmart electronics is VERY good?
Try finding anyone at a Walmart that can help with a choice. The best I've seen anyone there do (with all due respect to Walmart employees) is read a box and tell me what the words were.
First of all people need to stop referring to Best Buy employees as salespeople. They are clerks with a small amount of training in their respective departments. They exhibit none of the qualities of an actual sales professional.
I am an ex Radioshack employee who knows plenty about home theater. Walmart sells all sorts of brand name Television sets. You obviously haven't even paid attention to their selection as of late, have you? They offer Samsung, Sony, Vizio, LG, Panasonic, Phillips, etc. Unless your some home theater nut, they have pretty much anything that 90% of consumers want. The models numbers are adjusted so that consumers are led to believe they are different than their best buy counterparts. If you really think the motherboard or GPU are any different, than you have been brainwashed. My buddy builds, quotes and orders the microchips that are used to build televisions and appliances. They receive the specifications, engineer the chips to perform to those specs, and then quote the parts by the lowest bidder. The higher the bulk, the less cost. So they aren't going to produce different chips for every model.
I agree with you in regards to the salespeople. Best Buy employees can be very knowledgeable and Walmart's are, for the most part, useless. If your somebody who needs some help in deciding what to buy, I would recommend Best Buy any day. If you are just looking for a TV and know what you want, I would recommend Walmart. Best Buy has good sales every know and then, so you might score a good deal. But overall Walmart is a better value.
I am an ex Radioshack employee who knows plenty about home theater. Walmart sells all sorts of brand name Television sets. You obviously haven't even paid attention to their selection as of late, have you? They offer Samsung, Sony, Vizio, LG, Panasonic, Phillips, etc. Unless your some home theater nut, they have pretty much anything that 90% of consumers want.The models numbers are adjusted so that consumers are led to believe they are different than their best buy counterparts. If you really think the motherboard or GPU are any different, than you have been brainwashed. My buddy builds, quotes and orders the microchips that are used to build televisions and appliances. They receive the specifications, engineer the chips to perform to those specs, and then quote the parts by the lowest bidder. The higher the bulk, the less cost. So they aren't going to produce different chips for every model.
I agree with you in regards to the salespeople. Best Buy employees can be very knowledgeable and Walmart's are, for the most part, useless. If your somebody who needs some help in deciding what to buy, I would recommend Best Buy any day. If you are just looking for a TV and know what you want, I would recommend Walmart. Best Buy has good sales every know and then, so you might score a good deal. But overall Walmart is a better value.
They actually do not have many of the same quality TVs. Yes they sell a lot of the same brands, along with many off brands, but not the same level of quality. You are getting for the most part the base model of the TV when comparing to a HH Gregg, BB, BIC Camera, Etc...I have compared the TVs, I look at all specs and what they are capable of.
For the every day consumer who does not care for the extra hdmi ports, 1080p vs 740p, weight, refresh rate (mostly for pc monitors), power useage, etc... then WalMart is ok if they want to support WalMart.
Companies like Best Buy, OfficeMax, Staples, etc deserve to go under for one simple reason: too focused on selling bull$hit to the customer instead of focusing on helping the customer find and meet their needs.
I've worked in retail for OfficeMax and being forced to lie to customers in order to sell them a $149.99 computer repair package which essentially does nothing is NOT good business sense. Also, Best Buy, for example, has very poor customer service and the majority of the times I have been there, all I see are a bunch of employees milling around talking to each other rather than helping customers.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
