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Circuit City - hardware = expensive

Tengis

Tengis

Supreme [H]ardness
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Joined
Jun 11, 2003
Messages
6,517
I went into Circuit City today, I was bored, and I have tons of money. Was going to look at there LCDs and see if they had any that everyone here loves so I could see for myself. Everything in there is 20-60$ more than at Bestbuy or CompUSA. They had an MX900 wireless duo set for sale that was an open box item, it was sitting out for people to touch and look at and stuff (you know what I mean). It was very ratty, but only 10 bucks was off and the manager was an @ss when asked if they could lower the price for it. It was hilarious. I will never buy anything there ever again.

By the way, please move this post if you think its not on topic, I didnt know where to put it.
 
i think it's hardware related....

i noticed that about short-Circuit City too...I stopped shopping there long ago.
 
Yep, I went in there once. They are worst than BestBuy. Cost more and their sales people are idiots and rude !!!!!!!!s. They have no clue whatsoever about anything they sell. The salesmen in the computer section barely even knew how to turn on a computer, much less know anything about them.

BestBuy isn't much better.

I go to CompUSA now when I have to get something locally or need it right away. All their staff knows what they are talking about there, at least in my area. They tend to be a little cheaper.

However, 95% of my stuff is ordered from NewEgg, if I don't need it now. I can wait a few days generally for 50% cheaper price.

I know these brick and mortor stores have to pay for the brick and mortor but sheesh, some of their prices are like 3 times as much as Online. I mean even a place like NewEgg has to have the warehouse.

I went into Circuit City once and never went back. It was a very bad experience and they lost me forever.

I got my LCD from BestBuy as they had a BB rebate and a Manuf. rebate that cut like $100 total off the 19in LCD I got (Mag Innovision). The biggest thing to make sure you get is one with 25ms or less response time and the higher the contrast the better.
 
When I'm bored, I like to go into Best Buy and ask really easy questions to the computer dept employees. It's unfortunate that they still can't answer them.

Anyways, the only reason now a days to actually go into CompUSA or BB or CC is to buy cheap media or heavily rebated items (like weekly hard drive specials), or to look at stuff like monitors first hand and test out devices. Then you go to Newegg and buy it for cheaper.

Seriously, $260 for a Northwood B 2.4??? $200 for 512 MB RAM? Absoludicrous.
 
They pricematch so it doesnt matter. As a matter of fact is it CC who pricematches 5% less?
 
Originally posted by specter554
They pricematch so it doesnt matter. As a matter of fact is it CC who pricematches 5% less?
Click to expand...

IF you can get them to pricematch. They have never price matched against Office Max in my area. I can't vouch for BB, Frye's, or CompUSA, as I live in a very rural area and the closest electronics store (save CC) is over 100 miles away.
 
I don't have a CC near my place, but I do have a BB. The dude told me flat out that If I got the gold-plated USB cable, my pc would go "much faster". I made a suprised noise and staggered a bit and he persisted in assuring me that I would see a 10-20% performance increase, easy.

How can you argue with that?



Needless to say, I bought a couple, and hooked them up together. Now I'm ready for HL2.
 
Well, I must say that I work for CC and have for some time.

I don't know about where you guys live, but the BB and CompUSSR's around here are chock full of morons. I know dudes that work at both and they admit that CC is trained a hell of a lot better. At my store, all my tech dept. guys are REALLY fuckin good at what they do and know a crapload about all things computers. And as for the prices, I dont know what that first dude was looking at, but we are priced dead nuts with BB and we generally dont consider CompUSSR too much of a competitor because they are roughly priced 15% more for like items in this market. For example, there was a super Toshiba laptop that CC and Comp both carried. By the time it was done with its product run, we had it down to $1400 from its OG price of $1950. A few months after we stopped selling it, I saw it at Comp for $2000 even. No rebates. Same exact model, no lie.
In CT, all the local BB are full of stoner assclowns. I was there yesterday looking for a game and I couldnt find anyone to help me out.
I mean, cmon, if CC was so much more overpriced like the first post said, CC would have been out of business a LONG time ago. Consider that almost anyone who buys a computer, TV, stereo, whatever, shops around at all the big names and gets it where its cheapest. If CC wasnt the cheapest no one would buy from them. The CC I work at is right across the street from a BB and we shop there every week to make sure that the same stuff we sell is cheaper at our store. 9 times out of 10, its not a problem.

So what if BB stock is higher?
 
It's not just CC, BB, or CUSA with bad sales people, most large stores that sell to the regular consumer have sales staff that are not up to par.
The only time I talk to an employee is when I ask where something is.
 
You must work in a special CC Andrew, because where I live, every store is filled with nothing but morons. I'll give you that the CC employees are a little more knowledgable than the emps at BB and CUsa, but they're not exactly up to snuff anyways
 
In retail, you always get what you pay for (employees). If you're paying an 18 yr old at BB minimum wage, don't expect some certified tech with 20 yrs experience. (if you're 18, and knew what you were talking about and could make great money elsewhere, would you take minimum wage to work at BB? probably not. this is called life.)

I think CC sales reps make commision and thats why they're a bit pushy. Personally I shop at the egg and Frys. Almost all employees in the computer dept at my local frys know what they're talking about and often have great advice. The only thing that sucks with Frys is you have a 50% chance you'll be back the next day returning your broken item.

Ultimately, we all know to research it yourself before buying anything from a store. I would never walk in and ask an employee what you do think ? lol, chances are he's wrong.

2 cents.
 
Yea, I guess out of all the CC stores, there are bound to be a FEW that are good. All I know is the one in my area is total crap. They lack decent inventory, rude and pushy employees.

CompUSA has a lot more specialty items for computers and in larger quantities/selection. Cases, power supplies, fan grills, case fans and a LOT more you don't see at BB or CC. That's why I do 99% of my LOCAL shopping there. I'll never set foot in the local CC ever again. It never even crosses my mind to even check there anymore.

Commission = pushy salesmen
 
Yep, commission sucks. If you're looking for true advice at a best buy, talk to the black shirted techs, at least they'll know what they are talking about (most of them).

Best buy employees are non-commission by the way...

and BB will price match any other retailer such as OfficeMax, CompUSSR, CC...etc...
 
Originally posted by Captain Rehab
There's no shame in workin, n00b's gotta eat.
Click to expand...

Grrrr... I'm definatly not a n00b. The reason I didn't get kept on at Circuit Shitty was because I was over qualified, and was fixing things for people so they didn't buy new junk from the store. :rolleyes: And, yes, it's a JOB REQUIREMENT to be an asshole, if you want to be a manager for CC.
 
lol - I didn't mean to imply that you were. But even if the person helping you at CC or BB or whatever is a complete, noob, it's still cool that they have a job, right? That's what I meant, good sir.
 
lol - I didn't mean to imply that you were. But even if the person helping you at CC or BB or whatever is a complete noob, it's still cool that they have a job, right? That's what I meant, good sir.
 
for the record, CC employees are not on commission. also, I am a manager there, and I try to be as customer focused as possible and be diplomatic with both customers and employees. I try not to be an asshole. My coworkers sometimes say I am but NEVER my customers. CC has had a presence in CT a lot longer then BB so we have a lot more loyal customers. I am sorry that some of you have had moronic people attempting to help you. I know that there arent too many retail sales people in general with the knowledge of the [h]ard.
 
Originally posted by Andrew860
for the record, CC employees are not on commission. also, I am a manager there, and I try to be as customer focused as possible and be diplomatic with both customers and employees. I try not to be an asshole. My coworkers sometimes say I am but NEVER my customers. CC has had a presence in CT a lot longer then BB so we have a lot more loyal customers. I am sorry that some of you have had moronic people attempting to help you. I know that there arent too many retail sales people in general with the knowledge of the [h]ard.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Same at BBs. You have your morons and you have your [H]ardFolk. Fortunately, my BB has me there to keep most of the computer salesmen under control. I tell them, if you don't know the answer, ask me first. Don't lie to the customer dammit.

I'll be first to admit that there are some morons that work at Best Buy, just like there are some morons at CC and CompUSSR.
 
circuit city had ficked me over a number of times with faulty things and purchasing something based on a spec that upon box opening turned out to be false. they are retards.

however i find one nice use for them. to rent stuff. sound card might be dead? need to troubleshoot? i go buy one there and return it in under 30 days. if i wanna buy an lcd. ill shop there, take it home for a few days, try it out, take it back, and buy it online.

i realize i am jacking up the price for everyone else who shops there. but ive legitimately purchased over a thousand dollars of equipment from them so im content to rip them off to some extent.

but ive never returned something that i broke. i do have morals.
 
Originally posted by Captain Rehab
lol - I didn't mean to imply that you were. But even if the person helping you at CC or BB or whatever is a complete, noob, it's still cool that they have a job, right? That's what I meant, good sir.
Click to expand...

lol I didn't really take any offense to what you said. :p And, yeah, it's true. I got hired to sell computer parts and video games/accessories. I sold video cards, mice, MP3 players, consoles, games, computer software, everything. As it comes to computer hardware, I'm definatly no n00b. But, in the gaming department, I was a total n00b. It's also a massive pain in the ass trying to sell to bitchy customers.

Originally posted by Andrew860
for the record, CC employees are not on commission. also, I am a manager there, and I try to be as customer focused as possible and be diplomatic with both customers and employees. I try not to be an asshole. My coworkers sometimes say I am but NEVER my customers. CC has had a presence in CT a lot longer then BB so we have a lot more loyal customers. I am sorry that some of you have had moronic people attempting to help you. I know that there arent too many retail sales people in general with the knowledge of the [h]ard.
Click to expand...

As for managers, I suppose I was a little hard on them. There were 4 managers at my store (we have a Microstore that does $28 million a year, $9,000,000 on Black Friday), and our Store Director and two of the managers were really nice. The third guy was quite an asshole sometimes. He quite literelly yelled at me on my 4th day working there. He let personal problems effect him at work.

The guys I worked with were n00bs. They didn't know jack shit about computer hardware. They did know music players and video games though.

Oh, one thing... Working at a Micro Store is a BITCH. When the massive cold was going around in learly January, I had games, computer accessories, MP3 players, the CD and Video sections, AND the PC department ALL to MYSELF. There were like 7 people total working at the store. It really sucked. We had 3 people at the front desk, 2 people in warehouse, a manager in home audio/video, and the store director, who was busy phone confrencing with HQ. I didn't get many customers, but it really sucked still.
 
Originally posted by Ocean
circuit city had ficked me over a number of times with faulty things and purchasing something based on a spec that upon box opening turned out to be false. they are retards.

however i find one nice use for them. to rent stuff. sound card might be dead? need to troubleshoot? i go buy one there and return it in under 30 days. if i wanna buy an lcd. ill shop there, take it home for a few days, try it out, take it back, and buy it online.

i realize i am jacking up the price for everyone else who shops there. but ive legitimately purchased over a thousand dollars of equipment from them so im content to rip them off to some extent.

but ive never returned something that i broke. i do have morals.
Click to expand...

Wow. Man thats messed up. Renting? To make it easier on people returning stuff, CC has no restocking fee. We dont rape you for 20% of the stuff like BB. CC has a huge problem with people renting stuff and because of dopes like you we have to go back to having a restocking fee. thanks for ruining it for everyone. really.
 
I work at an Office Dept, and actually I kind of pride myself in the fact that most of our techs are complete morons. We only have 2 people who don't know what they're talking about, and most people in the store have a strong conviction to help the customer in the best way possible for them (ie, we never sell Gold USB cables or those stupid Product Protection Plans). We do miss out on some business because we often tell them not to bother with stuff we have in some cases; however, I think it's such a beneficial business plan that it works out in our favor (I mean, our sales in tech were up in 2003 over 2002 when the rest of the store was down. :)

The worst place I've found in my area has been the Fryes and the Circuit Cities. Generally speaking, the people at those places have no brains at all. One person at a Fryes actually told me that there's no difference between an 8MB cache and a 2MB cache Hard Drive...
 
Originally posted by Andrew860
Wow. Man thats messed up. Renting? To make it easier on people returning stuff, CC has no restocking fee. We dont rape you for 20% of the stuff like BB. CC has a huge problem with people renting stuff and because of dopes like you we have to go back to having a restocking fee. thanks for ruining it for everyone. really.
Click to expand...

I believe it is 15% restocking on LCDs for that reason. Computers are not restocking fee applied. Most things aren't actually.

Renting has always been a problem, hence why the restocking fee is there on expensive things that are returned for no reason.
 
We have two circuit citys where i live. Both of them have decently smart people (not all but some).

They have soem good reabate deals and are very nice on the pricematcing issue (so is BB just have to word it right).

I don't like B&M stores that much anyway they all charge more then usual. Of course they have some decent rebate deals every once in a while.
 
CC is on my go in and laugh list.


I was employed at a CC for 1 month.

I knew more about the PC hardware than the Techs selling the PCs did.

And that, ultimately, is why they tried to fire me.

I was overqualified for the selling PCs position, so they had me stock shelves. They knew I was a gamer, so they put me in consoles. Seems they don't understand the difference betwen PC Gamer and Console Gamer. But, they wouldn't let me trade the position with a guy who knew little about PC hardware, but knew about consoles.

In the end, the reason they tried to fire me was because I told a customer the truth.

She was looking at 2 laptops, and I'd helped her the day before on an unrelated item.


Laptop A:
Compaq Presario
Athlon 1500 (or whatever)
256mb RAM
Windows ME.
1700; clearance for 1550. (XP just came out

Laptop B:
Toshiba Satellite
Celeron 1.3ghz
384mb RAM
Windows XP
1400.

I told her to go with the Toshiba due to:
1. XP Home vs. Windows ME. her system would be more stable, and perform better.
2. Compaq and HP were going through their merger deal; and I genuinely wasn't sure that there would be a Compaq around. That's an unnecessary risk for warranty.
3. Toshiba laptops are(were) typically better systems than Compaqs as far as reliability went. I'd just purchased a P3-900 a few months earlier from Toshiba, and it was performing perfectly. I'd worked with Compaqs, and they just were hurt by the pre-loaded software.


Anyway...she had chosen Laptop A...and I recommended B.

She went up to the salesman to say she wanted to change to Laptop B based on my comments.

What I hadn't known was she was already in the process of working out a loan for laptop A, and that by going with B, I'd cost the company (and the employee she'd dealt with) commission money.

Thus, when my work hours went from the normal 36 to 49 and then 0, I quit before they could fire me.

That, and the manager was a complete ass.

He'd been fired from Radio Shack for not coming in to work. Every day I was at work, I was 15-30 minutes early.

he skipped 4 days of work within 3 weeks (called in sick and was found at a bar that night).

Yeah, no loss.

I just hate it when I go back into the store and the girl that was in charge of music asks me to help customers. NEvermind the fact that I'd be off the clock if I worked there, and never mind the fact that they tried to fire me.



The best experience I've had with CC is when they accidentally marked the Audigy2 I was buying down to Audigy 1 prices. that ended up (through fluke) being $15 cheaper than newegg's OEM prices for a retail kit.
 
maybe i should clarify decently smart.


Once i was at BB and a guy asked me if i need some help.

I said, "Where are the SD memory cards?"
He replied, "RAM is by the computer, Kingston is the best. Ask (some employee's name) about it."

Now this guy was an idiot.

I went into CC once to get a decently priced hd with some rebates. I asked where that was. The guy actually knew, so therefore he is smarter then the BB employee I asked (i think).

As for CompUSA, well they just scare me with their stupidity (now maybe they're just trying to sell the most expensive stuff but they can't answer a question worth anything).

I just walk in there once in a while to get a good laugh from the guys at the tech help desk when they get asked extremely stupid questions and charge people insanly high price; I also enjoy laughing at customers purchasing computers and what the sales guy says.

I guess idiots communicate better with other idiots who understand only slightly less then them.
 
Originally posted by NecessaryEvil
CC is on my go in and laugh list.


I was employed at a CC for 1 month.

I knew more about the PC hardware than the Techs selling the PCs did.

And that, ultimately, is why they tried to fire me.

I was overqualified for the selling PCs position, so they had me stock shelves. They knew I was a gamer, so they put me in consoles. Seems they don't understand the difference betwen PC Gamer and Console Gamer. But, they wouldn't let me trade the position with a guy who knew little about PC hardware, but knew about consoles.

In the end, the reason they tried to fire me was because I told a customer the truth.

She was looking at 2 laptops, and I'd helped her the day before on an unrelated item.


Laptop A:
Compaq Presario
Athlon 1500 (or whatever)
256mb RAM
Windows ME.
1700; clearance for 1550. (XP just came out

Laptop B:
Toshiba Satellite
Celeron 1.3ghz
384mb RAM
Windows XP
1400.

I told her to go with the Toshiba due to:
1. XP Home vs. Windows ME. her system would be more stable, and perform better.
2. Compaq and HP were going through their merger deal; and I genuinely wasn't sure that there would be a Compaq around. That's an unnecessary risk for warranty.
3. Toshiba laptops are(were) typically better systems than Compaqs as far as reliability went. I'd just purchased a P3-900 a few months earlier from Toshiba, and it was performing perfectly. I'd worked with Compaqs, and they just were hurt by the pre-loaded software.


Anyway...she had chosen Laptop A...and I recommended B.

She went up to the salesman to say she wanted to change to Laptop B based on my comments.

What I hadn't known was she was already in the process of working out a loan for laptop A, and that by going with B, I'd cost the company (and the employee she'd dealt with) commission money.

Thus, when my work hours went from the normal 36 to 49 and then 0, I quit before they could fire me.

That, and the manager was a complete ass.

He'd been fired from Radio Shack for not coming in to work. Every day I was at work, I was 15-30 minutes early.

he skipped 4 days of work within 3 weeks (called in sick and was found at a bar that night).

Yeah, no loss.

I just hate it when I go back into the store and the girl that was in charge of music asks me to help customers. NEvermind the fact that I'd be off the clock if I worked there, and never mind the fact that they tried to fire me.



The best experience I've had with CC is when they accidentally marked the Audigy2 I was buying down to Audigy 1 prices. that ended up (through fluke) being $15 cheaper than newegg's OEM prices for a retail kit.
Click to expand...

The CC i worked at had NOBODY on comission. As an Employee, we were required to let customers know about deals, and we were praised for sharing personal experience with customers. If I had done the same thing you had done with the laptops, maybe that one bad manager I had would yell at me, but the Director and other two managers would compliment me.

We had 0 stock in most areas of the store after Black Friday. When customers came in for these items, we woudl recommend other stores. That was our policy.
 
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