OB1og

I almost bought my new TV from them last week (the Framingham location). Whew – I’m glad I didn’t. Who would I return it to if it was a dog?

Funny, I always saw the hierarchy of tech retail stores as something like this:

Best Buy
Circuit City
CompUSA
Radio Shack

Going into CompUSA or Radio Shack often makes me feel kind of depressed. Don’t know why, though the generic toys in RS contribute a lot to it. I guess I’m taken in by all the bright, shiny yellow and blue everywhere in Best Buy.

I agree with JFCC. When I was shopping for my TV last week – half the reason I didn’t pull the trigger at CompUSA is the place felt ‘dead’. If I’m dropping that much coin, I want a celebration. Best Buy and Circuit City bring the fun.

It’s like the retail hierarchy. Walking into a Walmart literally makes my skin scrawl. Same with K-Mart. But in Target, I feel nice and comfortable with their wide aisles and clean aesthetic. It’s the Disney World of bargain retail stores.

…or I shouldn’t be worried unless they were going out of business.

Regarding Best Buy, they used to be my fave but have lost some luster over the past year for one big reason:

Those asinine service plans aside, why must they also push magazine subscriptions? My stock answer? “Let’s see – I already receive Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated and Ladies Home Journal… Got any Swank?”

I don’t mind Wal-Mart, but that could be because I worked at one for a while. Also, their prices and selection are usually pretty reasonable. That said, one of my favorite jokes I’ve ever told was when I was on one of those Carnival cruise ships and turned to my cousin Mike and said, “Y’know, this is the consistency of people you see at Wal-Mart.” He agreed, saying, “I knew it reminded me of something.”

I agree Target is the nicest of the current department store crop.

As a kid, nothing was more depressing than going into a Caldor or a Bradlees and seeing a bunch of sad five-year-old toys on the shelves. Of course, if I’d only know that stuff would be worth thousands on eBay in ten years…

As for Best Buy, I see it as a necessary evil…for now.

I can honestly say that I had nothing but a pleasant experience purchasing my TV at Circuit City. I think they have really restored their image, their stores have been redesigned, everything is laid out nicely in a large space and the sales people I spoke to were very friendly, answering every question my well-educated ass threw at them (I had done a lot of research on these TVs via the web so I would have been able to call their bluff if necessary – but twas not necessary).

Counter that with Best Buy who seemed annoyed that I wanted to drop $1600 on a TV then proceeded to sell me on a TV that they did not have in stock, promised me delivery by Wednesday and then called on Wednesday to say that the TV was out of stock and wouldn’t be in until late April. And then – instead of trying to make ammends and sell me on a different TV (with some discount applied or service plan tossed in for free), I’m told that if I don’t like it, I can just cancel my order. Great way to do business. Let’s encourage people to cancel their orders.

Well, cancel my order I did and promptly bought the exact same TV at CC where their price match and an online coupon brought the TV down $400 from the list price and $200 from Best Buy’s sale price.

Sorry – Best Buy sucks!!!

One other thing – I’ve noticed that CC applies deep discounts to newly released games typically a couple of weeks after they launch. It’s usually a one week thing so you have to keep your eyes on the circulars or cheapassgamer.com but they do it frequently enough to matter. I’ve seen Gears of War for $40 and they had Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for $37.00 the week after Christmas. Best Buy discounts their games as well but not with the same frequency.

I’m not a raging CC fanboy – I just go where I feel welcomed not pressured, comfortable and where I can walk out happy. CC has a better track record of late, for me.

The bottom line Sean – why begrudge giving one faceless corporate entity cash over another? They should begrudge you going elsewhere and step up efforts to land your sale.

What? Best Buy gotta’ eat???

On a side note – one of these days we’ll have to collect all of our Comment strings into a separate volume all their own. This is gonna’ be one helluva’ entertaining thing to pour through later in life.

SAVE COMPUSA!!!

Am I too late???