Store Ignorance

[VenomXR8]

Hi guys, check this out.I was at my local Big W store here in Melbourne Australia (Big W is like a Target or Kmart store for those who dont know) I was browsing their Blu Ray section as per usual when I noticed that some of the movies were priced at the DVD price by mistake. I was debating weather to pick up a few movies at these incredible prices or just let the sales person know about their mistake, I decided to suss the store person out to see if he knew about Blu Ray discs and how great they are and I decided that if he knew at least something about them I would point out the pricing mistake.So I go up to the guy and ask "so whats so good about these blu ray movies ive been hearing about?" He replies "they are a type of dvd disc that you can only play on playstation 3's" he goes on to say that they wont last long and he cant see how anything can look better than a dvd.I was so upset I spent a good 15minutes explaining to this moron all the advantages of blu ray.Then I picked up my new copy of fantastic 4 for $12.87 australian (about $9.66 us) where the normal price is about $37 australian. The only good thing about this is that Big W only sell blu ray from what ive seen. Ive never seen any hd dvd's in any of their stores. Any way heres a copy of my reciept just to show you the stupidity of some people.

[tabbyjt]

that is so funny and yet so sad

[SixAxiS]

Good deal. I need to find more cheap blu-ray movies.

[bootman]

This is the "real" war!
killing hd-dvd will be nothing compared to this.

[blackhawktraffic]

Ya gotta love when stuff is in the wrong place or mislabeled,and if that doesn't fail just price match

[Mericalis]

Originally Posted by bootman

This is the "real" war!
killing hd-dvd will be nothing compared to this.

Yup, I am seeing more and more people getting involved with high def video than I used to, but it is the ignorance of the salespeople that is killing us slowly. I've started listening in on conversations at several electronics stores here in town and I have to say that no one is completely in "the know". I've heard those who have actually discouraged people from buying HD-format discs/players because "high def discs are much higher and they look about the same as the standard DVDs." I stood there, shook my head and, after the salesperson left, tried to undo the damage. I probably should have just stepped in and set the person straight, but I didn't want a fight on my hands.

[jw]

I hate stupid people!!!!
but you gotta love reaping the benefits

[WhoDat]

Originally Posted by VenomXR8

Hi guys, check this out.I was at my local Big W store here in Melbourne Australia (Big W is like a Target or Kmart store for those who dont know) I was browsing their Blu Ray section as per usual when I noticed that some of the movies were priced at the DVD price by mistake. I was debating weather to pick up a few movies at these incredible prices or just let the sales person know about their mistake, I decided to suss the store person out to see if he knew about Blu Ray discs and how great they are and I decided that if he knew at least something about them I would point out the pricing mistake.So I go up to the guy and ask "so whats so good about these blu ray movies ive been hearing about?" He replies "they are a type of dvd disc that you can only play on playstation 3's" he goes on to say that they wont last long and he cant see how anything can look better than a dvd.I was so upset I spent a good 15minutes explaining to this moron all the advantages of blu ray.Then I picked up my new copy of fantastic 4 for $12.87 australian (about $9.66 us) where the normal price is about $37 australian. The only good thing about this is that Big W only sell blu ray from what ive seen. Ive never seen any hd dvd's in any of their stores. Any way heres a copy of my reciept just to show you the stupidity of some people.

I haven’t run across any price errors, but I do run across idiots in retail store daily. Most don't know anything about BD so they shoot from the hip hoping you don't know the difference or they are pro HD fans and will try to sway you to the "DARK SIDE"!

I had one idiot at Best Buy tell me that "PS3 is a gaming system and not meant for movie play, I don't know why they put a BD player in it that's no good and if you play BD on my PS3 to often it will burn out the optical drive thus possibly making the whole system crash and burn"..........Ahhhhh, ha, ha, ha ,ha, ha, ha, ha......whew....idiot!

A 360 fan boy at game stop really lit up when I told him that I wanted to purchase blu ray movies (the web site shows they sell them) and asked if he had any..... I swear he spoke for five minutes straight without taking a breath trying to make a 360 believer out of me....dude, I already own the PS3...save your breath and just answer the question! They didn't have any!

A Target salesperson (male) told me that PS3 was going out of business and that people buying the system now will only regret it in about a year because XBOX 360 is the future for gaming and that HD DVD blah blah blah.......idiot

Now I saved the best for last.... At our local Base Exchange, it was noticed that they have a display of a 42 inch HD TV playing a BD movie with a sign that says the TV is playing in HD 1080p with a BD player etc.. Now, to me the picture quality looked like crap and I asked the store manager why that was? She could not say, so she called one of the "experts" from the electronics department over and she asked him the same question, he says that people make a big fuss about BD and the quality is not as great as HD (which was not on display) blah, blah, blah....so I cut him off in his spell of BD bashing and told him that the picture quality would probably look better if you actually had it hooked up with an HDMI cable!! Yes, I could see the wires from the BD player to the TV; he was using regular AV cords!! Sabotage!!!...........IDIOTS!!! HATERS!!!

Off with their heads!!!!

True stories folks!

[tron3]

Told this story a few weeks ago. Was in Best Buy and wanted to find out if The Fifth Element was the remastered version or not. I asked an associate who referred me to the other associate "who knows". He tells me that on the older movies they just put the dvd version on blu-ray. It's so old they can't transfer it.

I explain how it was remastered and they DO come in HD. He repeated himself. Realizing this guy wasn't listening to me AND the fact I said I researched it and KNOW FOR A FACT it was remastered, he didn't hear it. Repeated himself again. (Idiot.)

So, I thanked him and left buying nothing because he was ignorant and choose to remain so. had serveral titles in my hand which I put back. Having worked at Radio Shack for 18 months I'm not wasting my time on these kinds of people. I have that choice now.

[stockstar1138]

lets see my store ignorance stories are: 1. Wal-Mart: Blu-ray discs in the 2 for 10 dollar spanish bin! 2. Wal-Mart - I go to buy a movie and the lady asks me if I have an "HD DVD player". 3. Gamestop - PS3 can't do any HD, 360 can, this is because PS3 only uses composite cables. For some reason the guys up at my Best Buy are incedibly knowledgable about BD and HD DVD and I have never had an issue with Best Buy like some people have had.

[reiella]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

lets see my store ignorance stories are: 1. Wal-Mart: Blu-ray discs in the 2 for 10 dollar spanish bin! 2. Wal-Mart - I go to buy a movie and the lady asks me if I have an "HD DVD player". 3. Gamestop - PS3 can't do any HD, 360 can, this is because PS3 only uses composite cables. For some reason the guys up at my Best Buy are incedibly knowledgable about BD and HD DVD and I have never had an issue with Best Buy like some people have had.

Hehe, nice.

Worst I got was a lie of convienance from a Best Buy associate when I asked if they had Happily N'ever After out on Blu [they said it'd prolly come out a couple monthes after DVD...]. Didn't have the will or desire to fight for the right to purchase something there, so dropped it heh.

Most of the time though, I get some honest responses. Even if the response is an "I don't know" [which is fine for me].

But this area has a very low cost of living which means the sucky wages can mean alot more.

[ add / edit ]
I take that back, one other incident. Store associate at gamestop was talking to a friend of his on the phone and bugging him for getting a PS3 after the price drop. Not a problem in general, he wasn't talking down a customer, or anything, just a friend, presumably on his time. The problem was, he was at the store front, with company identification on, doing so, where customers could hear him. *shrug* Oh well.

[gvortex7]

Look at it this way, their loss (ignorance) is your gain.

[WhoDat]

They took the BD display down!! So I asked on of the clerks why she told me that they sold the Blu Ray player to a guy that just had to have it and they had to get the ok from management to sell the display model.....

They arent going to place another up for display even when they receive thier new shipment!!

[tron3]

Originally Posted by WhoDat

...
Now I saved the best for last.... At our local Base Exchange, it was noticed that they have a display of a 42 inch HD TV playing a BD movie with a sign that says the TV is playing in HD 1080p with a BD player etc.. Now, to me the picture quality looked like crap and I asked the store manager why that was? She could not say, so she called one of the "experts" from the electronics department over and she asked him the same question, he says that people make a big fuss about BD and the quality is not as great as HD (which was not on display) blah, blah, blah....so I cut him off in his spell of BD bashing and told him that the picture quality would probably look better if you actually had it hooked up with an HDMI cable!! Yes, I could see the wires from the BD player to the TV; he was using regular AV cords!! Sabotage!!!...........IDIOTS!!! HATERS!!!

Off with their heads!!!!

True stories folks!

I assume you told him he probably would NOT get an HD picture without the HDMI. (HD-Component being the exception.) Did he just look stupid or fix the problem? I'll assume he looked stupid for a minute, gave a lame excuse and walked away just as ignorant. Sales people do not like to be corrected and learn like a normal human being.

So how did it end?

FYI: I did run an s-vdeo cable with composite adaptor from my BD-player to a portable TV. I think I saw a difference in Monster House on the portable vs SD DVD on the portable.

[supersix4]

you lucky!

[WhoDat]

Originally Posted by tron3

I assume you told him he probably would NOT get an HD picture without the HDMI. (HD-Component being the exception.) Did he just look stupid or fix the problem? I'll assume he looked stupid for a minute, gave a lame excuse and walked away just as ignorant. Sales people do not like to be corrected and learn like a normal human being.

So how did it end?

FYI: I did run an s-vdeo cable with composite adaptor from my BD-player to a portable TV. I think I saw a difference in Monster House on the portable vs SD DVD on the portable.

He looked stupid and the manager looked even worse like she had no clue as to what I was saying. Anyway, she asked him if they had any "HVMI" cables to use....HVMI...LOL... So he said he think they did and that he did not hook up the BD player to the LCD, (trying to save face) he just knows that the picture quality isn't as good as HD so he thought nothing of it. I went over there during lunch today and it is connected right and they were playing Planet Earth....looked sweet!!! There were a group of folks just standing around in awe.....They still don't have an HD display!......not that I care mind you!

[Weez_Dawg]

LOL!!!! At the grocery store I used to work at as a kid, if something was mis priced or rang up wrong the customer got the item for free. You should have asked the manager if that was the policy there..I doubt it though.

[CJS234]

Originally Posted by WhoDat

I haven’t run across any price errors, but I do run across idiots in retail store daily. Most don't know anything about BD so they shoot from the hip hoping you don't know the difference or they are pro HD fans and will try to sway you to the "DARK SIDE"!

I had one idiot at Best Buy tell me that "PS3 is a gaming system and not meant for movie play, I don't know why they put a BD player in it that's no good and if you play BD on my PS3 to often it will burn out the optical drive thus possibly making the whole system crash and burn"..........Ahhhhh, ha, ha, ha ,ha, ha, ha, ha......whew....idiot!

A 360 fan boy at game stop really lit up when I told him that I wanted to purchase blu ray movies (the web site shows they sell them) and asked if he had any..... I swear he spoke for five minutes straight without taking a breath trying to make a 360 believer out of me....dude, I already own the PS3...save your breath and just answer the question! They didn't have any!

A Target salesperson (male) told me that PS3 was going out of business and that people buying the system now will only regret it in about a year because XBOX 360 is the future for gaming and that HD DVD blah blah blah.......idiot

Now I saved the best for last.... At our local Base Exchange, it was noticed that they have a display of a 42 inch HD TV playing a BD movie with a sign that says the TV is playing in HD 1080p with a BD player etc.. Now, to me the picture quality looked like crap and I asked the store manager why that was? She could not say, so she called one of the "experts" from the electronics department over and she asked him the same question, he says that people make a big fuss about BD and the quality is not as great as HD (which was not on display) blah, blah, blah....so I cut him off in his spell of BD bashing and told him that the picture quality would probably look better if you actually had it hooked up with an HDMI cable!! Yes, I could see the wires from the BD player to the TV; he was using regular AV cords!! Sabotage!!!...........IDIOTS!!! HATERS!!!

Off with their heads!!!!

True stories folks!

Wow such ignorant peoples. That last one is horrible though. Intentional or not they should know that it should be hooked up with HDMI. Im going with option A: He sabotaged it on purpose. I vote for castration

CJS

[ESUNintel]

That's a great deal, I would have gotten a few more BD's, lol. It's true though, many sales people have no clue what Blu-ray or HD-DVD really is, and some don't care to know, ultimately I believe it is the stores fault though. Stores like Beast Buy (Magnolia), Ultimate, Sears and many others that pay sales people commission or some sort of incentive are more knowledgeable and actually care about learning more about the technology. It's these stores that actually have reps walk in and train their sales people. Then there are stores like Wal-Mart, Target and others where they don't do a very good job at training their sales crew, although there are times when these sales people actually care about what they sell, even if they are not paid enough.

It's true that many consumers todays are smarter, and actually learn from magazines and by going online. There is; however, still a need to train sales people properly because there are still many people that depend on their advice, and their knowledge. For example, if I want an LCD, I'll go online and search for TVs I might like, and even pick one. Then I walk into the store, but I am still open to opinions, I will ask the sales person what they think about the TV I chose, if there are any similar in features, or better than the one I chose.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by CJS234

Wow such ignorant peoples. That last one is horrible though. Intentional or not they should know that it should be hooked up with HDMI. Im going with option A: He sabotaged it on purpose. I vote for castration

CJS

Too quick a solution. You want something with longer term effects. Force him to watch Gili for a day straight.