I had a talk with the manager at Costco one time and asked him about the large pallets of returned items. He said they have an arrangement with some discount retailers who sell both new and used goods. These will take the items, try to repair any broken ones and sell everything at a deep discount. It’s nice to know the items will find a second life and many immigrants are grateful to be able to shop there.
If a customer returns an item with the tags still attached just because they don’t like the color, Costco may put that item back on the rack, as would any store.
A local electronics shop will only take an item back “in the original container”, which means they have a poor return policy, since most buyers throw away the box after purchase. I had that experience and imply went to the display shelf which had empty boxes of the same item underneath and repackaged my coffee maker (which made bad tasting coffee) to get the refund…
This theory only works if you don’t drive that 30 year old away when he turns 60. Otherwise, the idea that you’ll capture the 30 year old until he dies and therefore should target the 30 year old fails because once the 30 year old isn’t in his 30’s anymore, you stop targeting him and he stops consuming what you’re producing.
Their strategy seems to be that people will keep consuming things out of habit even if they don’t really like those things anymore, but that’s really not true anymore, if it ever was – after all, how many of us still read Highlights magazine? The force-of-habit argument would say that even though it’s aimed at children, because we once read it we still do, and will until we die, and that’s obviously silly.
Personally I think demo targeting is off the mark. They market cars to 18-25 males - you know, the people who have no money and have to pay through the nose for insurance and therefore often can’t afford anything cool, and certainly not anything new.
Market the things to middle age and up people. We’ve built up money. We can spend that money for the things they’re marketing.
I actually like Best Buy, and we’ve bought a few appliances from them, the last few years
Not buying anything from Sears, as they probably won’t be around. Doesn’t seem to make sense
There is a shopping center relatively close by that has Best Buy and Lowes. We comparison shop online, then head to the shopping center. Lowes likes to play their stupid games, where they claim to not be able to find the item we’re looking for, and when they do, the price is much higher. When we show them the print out with the item number and the price, they ask “Where’d you get that?” . . . at which point I look them straight in the eye and say "From YOUR website."
They then “suddenly” are able to find the item, and at the price I want, but are always hazy about possible delivery dates.
Best Buy, on the other hand, doesn’t play games. They have the items we want, for the price we want. It happens to be the same price as at Lowes, but that’s besides the point. They are a lot more courteous, and they can nail down delivery dates, versus being hazy. They’ve gotten my business, because they clearly want it and deserve it.
Maybe next time I want/need an appliance, I won’t even bother stopping by Lowes in the first place. I’ll head straight to Best Buy
To keep this car-related . . . I also agree that NAPA has more knowledgeable people working there. They are indeed a bit older, much older in some cases, and they clearly know the products better. I prefer going there, versus the other places
It is very rare if I return anything. Normally if it isn’t any good I just throw it away. I don’t know why, but I just don’t return stuff.
This is not spam but if you have a Computer Central (or is it Micro Center) near you, they are absolutely the best (at least St. Louis Park) for buying computers, etc. We have bought two there now and they have a great selection, good prices, and the clerks will be right there to help throughout the whole ordeal. We go in not knowing anything and come out with a good computer.
I have shopped at Best Buy and bought a cable box which turned out to be defective.They just gave me another one since this type of thing is covered by warranty.
Immigrants? Heck, I would be grateful to shop there! I love stores like that. I used to enjoy Bldg 19, who supplied their stores with overstock and insurance buyouts, until they went under. According to their founder and CEO, modern inventory systems pretty much eliminated overstock and other improvements in inventory management pretty much eliminated insurance buyouts, so they couldn’t keep sufficient stock in the stores to keep the company going. I suspect there was more to it, but that’s what he said in an interview announcing their bankruptcy.
Good perspective about the benefits of on-line shopping @boilerengtn . I’ve enjoyed them at times too. But I prefer to shop locally when I can, even if it costs a little more, b/c I feel my spending at local establishments provides some add’l local jobs.
There is a Micro Center about a half hour away. They have a better selection of products than the other stores. Best Buy is second. Still, much of what I want is only available on line. We got our last laptop and photo printer on line because they weren’t available at a local store. I wanted a universal docking station for the laptop, printers, scanner, external HD, monitor, keyboard and mouse ( I really needed the dock). No one had them but Micro,Center, but they didn’t have one I liked. I found it on line, of course. I bought the photo printer on line at Best Buy because they didn’t have it in the store.
The only thing I have against buying on line is that often you check a store first to examine the product. Then once you’ve made a choice, you leave the store and order it on line. To the extreme that store will no longer exist which would be a bad thing in the long run. So I try to do the balancing act and buy local when it makes some sense but ordering when its more convenient or doesn’t.
Shopping online has the drawback of delivery time.
Some years back my alternator started making a whirring sound like an alien spaceship landing. I ordered a new one online, planning to install it on Saturday. Friday on my way to work my charge light came on and glowed… the alternator had died. I had an emergency new one installed at the nearest shop. When I got home Friday night the new one had arrived and was on my stoop. I never got around to returning it. It sits on my parts shelf.
Yes, however . . . if no local store has what you want anyways, and they’ll take longer to deliver it than amazon, I don’t see a particular problem ordering online
It depends just what kind of item we’re talking about, though
Several weeks ago, we needed a part for my mom’s espresso machine. The machine cost over $500, and the grinder part of it broke. The part is close to $90. Sure, not cheap, but much cheaper than a new machine. We all know darn well there’s not going to be any local shop, that just happens to have the part sitting on their shelf. So I ordered the part. It arrived a few days later, installed it, and the machine is good as new.
Shopping local is great, until they don’t have the part in stock
Also depends on how badly you need it. For the espresso machine, I can obviously wait a few days. Even if I’d tried to find a local shop that would order me the part, it would have taken several days, guaranteed. And it would have been no cheaper than $90, because the store has overhead and needs to make a fair profit on the part. Just imagine if I’d actually brought the entire machine to a shop to be repaired. Could have cost easily $150 - $200. Who knows?
@shadowfax - I totally appreciate your argument and you have some valid points. My response would simply be “That’s not how marketing works”. Now marketers are not infallible and you and I might have some bones to pick with them BUT they seem to be selling an awful lot of crap and making their clients happy.
Yup!
Recently I read an article that presented a new word (new…at least to me) for this phenomenon, namely “showrooming”. For many people, brick and mortar stores seem to exist only as a place to view and touch products, before leaving the store and ordering the product online.
One of the best examples of this is Barnes & Noble, which continues to sink lower each quarter. Contrary to popular belief, people really DO still read nowadays. The difference from years ago is that they now tend to buy their books from Amazon and other online sources, frequently after browsing through the book at Barnes & Noble.
In my case, I tend to order products online mostly when I can’t find them in local stores. Some products seem to have disappeared from store shelves, yet they can still be found online.
Anecdote…
I’m out of the rat-race and reside in a very rural area. I don’t like to mess with all the newer technology. I usually check my smart phone about once a day for messages and calls.
My kids are totally into the phone thing, though. My 29 year-old son’s cat ate the charging cord for his smart phone. He stopped at his local Wal-Mart store to shop for one. He double checked the value of the cords on his phone while he shopped.
Not liking the store choices all that much (he learned thrift from me), he stood right there in the retail store and ordered one online.
More power to him, but that phone stuff drives me crazy. CSA
I order online often. But now I’m more sensitive to whether it’s something necessary that’s end of life is imminent. Now when it’s something that’s necessary I’ll try to buy locally. I save online for stuff that I can live without while waiting.
“Shopping online has the drawback of delivery time.”
I ordered that printer as a gift for Mrs JT three weeks before Christmas. Best Buy said nothing about being out of stock. A day after the order was processed, they said delivery would be in early January. Two days later, it was at my daughter’s house. I don’t know what the out of stock notice was about. Maybe they wanted to see if I would spring for expedited service. Other than that, I haven’t had problems ordering on line. My children seem to buy just about everything on line.
I live in a relatively small city (population around 50,000); there are relatively few purely locally-owned stores since the chains have mostly put them out of business. There is one hardware store close to me that has great service, but very few choices. I can’t think of many local options for auto parts, electronics, or sporting goods. My health insurance has made most local pharmacies much, much more expensive.
Online isn’t really my preferred way of shopping, but if I’m not going to get service anyway, I’d rather shop online.
He stopped at his local Wal-Mart store to shop for one. He double checked the value of the cords on his phone while he shopped.