When I got the house I simply moved my old TV and its “stand” into the new place.
A six year old Samsung 27″ CRT sitting on an end-table from Meijer that I bought for $20.
Less than stellar.
Soo… the woman I went TV hunting. There’s a lesson on how to run your electronics store here.
We went to Best Buy because we had a 10% off coupon for them. That right there is a good way to get people into your shop. An intelligent and obviously knowledgeable salesman got to talking to us, figured out the budget, and got us SOLD on a 51″ DLP and shortly after that we picked out a stand that would suite our needs.
While a few hundred bucks more than I expected to spend I was comfortable with the sale and told him to go ahead and pull it.
Well, looks like they’re out of the stands… he can talk to the manager about getting the floor model. Oh, they’re out of the TV too — but they can get it from another store in a couple of days. Oh, the manager doesn’t want to sell the floor model stand (I didn’t want the floor model anyway) but the other store has one of those too.
OK, spiffy. I’ll just drive to the other store and pick them up then.
Well, pulling out of Best Buy I realized that Circuit City was right next door, so I might as well stop by there. The lady also wanted to hit up a shop near there so I got to do my tech shopping while she did some lady shopping.
I found a couple of 37″ LCD TVs there that I figured would suite my needs quite well. I snagged the woman from he store, talked her into buying the one I thought was best, and since they actually had the on-sale item in stock, unlike Best Buy, I bought it.
Seriously, why the hell would you put an item on sale and have your salesmen talk me into buying it when you can’t put it into my hands that very day?
Now, maybe I’m odd but when I’m buying something that I don’t need what-so-ever I want it now. I’m indulging myself. I could have easily been sold by the folks at Best Buy on another model that was $100 more, but better in some way, quite easily.
In the end I ended up at a different store, on a whim, and bought something different than what I had already been sold on, and without any interaction with a salesman.
There’s a lesson to be learned there somewhere.
Welcome to my experiences with Best Buy….I’ve got one even better (or worse as it were). My wife and I were shopping for a middle of the road digitial video camera to replace our aging 8mm video cam (blame the new daughter for the upgrade). Hop into Best Buy because of same 10% off coupon (after doing about 1 week of research on which model I wanted – actually narrowed down to 2-3 variations of the same model). I got to pick up the cam, twist it around in my hands, play with the menus, zoom in on the cute girl a few isles away – generally have a good time. Best Buy “worker” (and I use that term loosely) approaches with the standard can I help you. I reply with the standard “I’ll take one of those” pointing to the camera. He takes the tag to a computer, punches in some keystrokes…..
His next words: “We don’t carry those anymore.” Not, we’re out of stock. We don’t carry them anymore. He then proceeds to put the tag back on the shelf for the next shopper/sucker. Seriously. Best Buy was NEVER getting anymore of them in, won’t sell the floor model, yet it remained on their shelf.
Bought the same model at Circuit City.
The kicker: I went back TWO DAYS later just for shits and giggles, still on the shelf. I laughed out loud.
This one makes sence “One’s first step in wisdom is to kuesstion everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”