I think I'm done with brick and mortar stores for video game purchases

[Azuren]

Mummelmann said:

Azuren said:

 

 

1. If it was a big name brand (Sony, Samsung, LG), I would make sure you purchased from an authorized retailer. If you bought it from a place like Joe's AV or Abe's of Maine, they aren't authorized and the manufacturer won't be honoring any kind of support or warranty on it. 

 

2. Oh, so you used the store, then ran off and purchased it elsewhere? Honestly, that's some of the scummiest stuff I witness as an AV manager. When enough people think like you, guess what? You won't get to double check that TV in a store anymore. So thanks for using the store, and not giving it any credit.

 

1: I bought mine from Komplett, the Scandinavian Amazon in many ways (only miles better on customer service and warranties, been buying all my PC gear there for 12-13 years now). Not only are they auhorized dealers of all the biggest brands, they even have their own warranties that go beyond the manufacturer's in many cases. I bought a Sony TV.

2: Yes, I went to a store and checked out the TV. The people who work there are clueless, they know nothing about tech besides what their manager taught them, they talk shit about owning every item they show to customers, they try to sell useless insurances that are borderline fraud (big deal here in Scandinavia, its been debated for years now) and whose "coverage" is already included in the purchasing and consumer laws of the country. What's scummy to me is charging a huge premium on the same product and pairing it with staff who have little to no knowledge of what they're peddling, and then trying to scam the simpler minded consumers into buying worthless insurance that goes right in the pocket of the business in question.
"People like me" will always be around, if the store can't manage to make decent offers for potential customers, they'll lose them, that's the same in all business. If I couldn't go to a mass market store like Media Markt any more, I'd just go to an enthusiast store, they have the knowledge and give proper demo's of the products and they give actual advice, they also sometimes offer incentives for owners of certain brands when they trade in etc.

Bonus point 3: The elecronics stores here are bastards; when they get a new product or product line, they have already negotiated with the manufacturer and gotten permission to change the model names, each store chain will assign a unique model name to the same product. For instance, if you get a TV, a Sony KDS658505, one chain might call it a KDSB658505S, another perhaps KDBS6585055, this is completely legal and it makes price comparisons more or less impossible, to trick the consumer into paying more than it's worth or keep them from going to a cheaper competitor. Washing machines, hairdryers, fridges and freezers and a bunch of other products are the same thing, it's a disgusting practice and a really, really good argument, paired with the worthless insurances, to not give these stores credit.

Besides, the bottom lines these stores are showing aren't exactly looking grim, so "people like me" probably won't kill them any time soon (and, no, don't compare it to gaming piracy, which I don't do, in that case I would never actually buy the product, it'll be like saying piracy harms Gamestop instead of developers, for instance, and I do actually buy a product in this case). You have principles as an AV manager, that's fine, but I have principles as a consumer and I value them just as highly. Maybe your store is fantastic, has great staff with actual interest and knowledge on the products they sell and you don't sell fraud insurances and cheat with model names, if so; kudos and good luck.

Bonus question? Do you sometimes buy certain gorcieres in other stores because they're cheaper? I hope not, you're ruining the stores if that's the case.

Justify it how you want. customers that behave like you are just the worst.

 

 

sethnintendo said:

Azuren said:

I work at Fry's as a manager. We price match to Amazon, Best Buy, etc, and is literally our second biggest promotional endeavor (even my name tag says "we price match").

I didn't know Fry's price checked Amazon.  If I did then perhaps I would have bought it there.  I was going to get one for me and one for my friend though and they only had one wireless. 

We price match a tone of places, really. And Fry's is a great place to buy new games thanks to the promo codes. 9/10 new games release with a $10 discount if you have the promo code (you can sign up for it on our sad excuse for a website).

 

 

Ganoncrotch said:

Azuren said:

Because knowing what TV you want doesn't necessarily mean you know what it looks like, and not discussing it with someone who deals with their s sales on a daily basis can render you ignorant of problems.

 

An example of this is the 8 and 9 series of 2016 Samsungs: They get great reviews, but the Quantum Dot display has a tendency to suffer panel failure while trying to display 4K images. Considering the lack of 4K content, some people could go literally MONTHS without knowing they have a defective panel.

 

 

1. If it was a big name brand (Sony, Samsung, LG), I would make sure you purchased from an authorized retailer. If you bought it from a place like Joe's AV or Abe's of Maine, they aren't authorized and the manufacturer won't be honoring any kind of support or warranty on it. 

 

2. Oh, so you used the store, then ran off and purchased it elsewhere? Honestly, that's some of the scummiest stuff I witness as an AV manager. When enough people think like you, guess what? You won't get to double check that TV in a store anymore. So thanks for using the store, and not giving it any credit.

 

Never worked in the Components department, but I started in Computers and moved over to AV last year. I do remember getting pissed that the components guys would always come over and steal our UPS sales.

Just at this point here, sales staff in the TV stores near me would never ever mention any defects such as this with any of the models they sell, for them it's all about meeting their weekly sales quota they're not going to give a rats if you come back with it defective 6 months down the line because they'll still have used the product to meet their quota, that is all the majority of min wage sales staff care about.

At least in my exp here with TV sales, could be very different where you work yourself of course, heck, it can't be any worse than we have it here anyways :)

When someone gets a return on something they sold  it comes back out of their pay, so that doesn't really work like that. We have to be certain the customer will keep and be pleased with their product.