We won't have a Best Buy store until later this year, but our local Circuit City is fantastic! Some of the nicest, most helpful people employees at nearby retailers.
I don't really buy much HDM there (prices and all... even though I can now price-match Wal-Mart's prices), but I buy a TON of other stuff from them.
We won't have a Best Buy store until later this year, but our local Circuit City is fantastic! Some of the nicest, most helpful people employees at nearby retailers.
I don't really buy much HDM there (prices and all... even though I can now price-match Wal-Mart's prices), but I buy a TON of other stuff from them.
~Alan
Better to buy from CC though (with price match) because it does show in Nelsen #'s where as Wally World doesn't.
I'll tell everyone in my own experience how terrible the customer service is at CC. About seven months ago, I purchased my first HDTV and they told me to park my vehicle near the front for pickup and while I was waiting for about 20 to 30 minutes and I was getting kinda impatient. I asked the CC employee that referred me into purchasing that tv and told me he forgot all about it. Afterwards, I started to remind myself not to buy any major stuff from them unless a really good deal comes out in the future
Circuit City certainly leaves some things to be desired.
The place does seem to be oddly empty most of the time. And their movies are badly organized. They are in, what I refer to as, quasi-alphabetical order. Meaning that a small batch of movies will be alphabetized, but then all of the sudden it will jump to earlier or later in the alphabet in the middle of looking through them, and this will happen all throughout their set up.
Plus, if you buy like 1 DVD, they give you a roll of toilet paper as your receipt. That's just pointlessly wasteful.
My wife and I did get our HDTV from them last year because we got a good deal on it, and the customer service all in all was actually pretty good despite some problems we had...
We first picked a TV, bought it, got it home, opened up the box, started setting it up, and found that there was a big crack in the side of the TV. We took it back, and they swapped it out with no problem. We got the new one home, got it set up, and after a week of using it I was just really unhappy with the quality. The picture just didn't look anywhere near as good as the floor model seemed to when I was there, and I wanted to swap it out for something else. I went to CC's website and looked at reviews for the TV we got, many of which were bad, but found another set of the same size and resolution that only cost a little bit more money, and found it had great reviews.
I called up the store to see if I could exchange my TV for this other one (though I said I want to come in and look at it first), they said it wasn't a problem and the guy even said the one I wanted to exchange it for is a much better set. So, I got it, and have been happy with it ever since.
I shop at Best Buy a lot more, and find that their store is set up better. But I've had some bad experiences with the customer service there as well. A few years ago, in 2002 when I graduated college, as a graduation gift my aunt got me a nice Digital DV video camera and service plan from Best Buy. Thank God we had the service plan, but it still ended up being a nightmare.
When we bought the camera and the service plan, the guy said that according to the plan that if something is wrong with the camera, they would have to try and fix it 3 times before giving out a new one, but that most of the time they just give the new one out right away because of the cost and complication with that type of equipment.
I had the thing for a few weeks, and at first it worked alright. But then something started happening with the eject button where it wouldn't always open (basically, I could hit the button like 30 times and I'd be lucky if one of those times would cause the door to open to insert the DV tape).
So, I took it to Best Buy, and they said they would have to try and fix it, but they couldn't do it on site, and they would have to send it back to the manufacturer to fix it, and the whole process would take like 3 or 4 weeks. I wasn't happy, but I said okay.
They sent it off, I eventually got it back. The eject button worked fine the first two times I used it, then the same issue occurred (this was all on the same day that I got it back). I went back to the store, and asked if they could just give me a new one since clearly they weren't able to fix it, and was told that the would have to send it in again to be fixed. This time it would be "expitidited" so it wouldn't take as long, but it still took 2 to 3 weeks, only slightly less than before.
I got the camera back, and the same thing happened again. I used the eject mechanism a couple of times, and then the problem occurred again. Went to Best Buy, asked if they could replace it, but they said that they had to send it in again, I asked to speak to a manager who wouldn't even make an exception. So, they sent it in, it came back, and this time the eject button didn't even work for one or two times like it did before. I was just still not working.
So, I went to Best Buy and said it's been sent back 3 times and it's still having the problem. They said they could replace it, but it would take a day or two to get approval from the manufacture. FINALLY they were able to give me a new one, after basically being without the thing all summer (and I had been planning on getting together and shooting some videos with some friends during the summer, as I studied media studies in college).
The only saving grace out of all of this was the extra accessories I ended up with. They had the same model of camera in stock, and they only kept my original camera, itself, and did not ask for the box or accessories back. But they gave me a whole new one in box with the accessories and everything, so I had double all of the accessories.
Not only that, but one of the times (it was either the 2nd or 3rd time) that I got my camera back from repair, the manufacturer had left the battery on it that they used to test it out (I did not send it in with the battery attached). I went ahead and kept that for all of my troubles. So, in the end, I had 3 batteries and 2 of everything else, and the new camera worked fine and still does. But it was still more complicated than it should have been.
I think FYE, Media Play, Coconuts, and maybe other stores like Camalot Music are all part of the same company. And I'm sure that company is quickly folding.
Something about the $27 CD's and $39 Blu Rays and stuff like that just doesn't work to well these days, even if you're in a mall.
Circuit City in San Antonio sucks something large. There's a Best Buy and a CC like 2 stores apart from each other, and the CC is always the least populated one. They keep opening Best Buy's closer to me too. First La Cantera and now one in my backyard on FM 471, so Best Buy is gonna be getting my business.
Circuit City should've been dead long ago. In terms of business and stock prices, CC is way worse to Best Buy than hddvd is to blu-ray.
But Best Buy will never monopolize electronics retail. Mostly because of smaller stores, regional electronic chains (Brandsmart, Fry's, etc), Walmart, K, Target, and online competition.
I prefer CC, even though there is a BB right across the street from the CC. Maybe its a difference in management, but the actual store setup is more appealing to me. The prices are usually the same as well. And for the most part, I prefer the brands that CC carries over the merchandise that BB has. I hope they stick around, I always choose CC over BB.
Ok, I am seeing a lot of hatred for Circuit City. To me, Best Buy is always more expensive, so I like Circuit City better. Granted, checkout can be a bit slow. But when you print out a long and wide receipts like that, how could it go fast?
Remember, one choice is as good as no choice. Ex: Toshiba HD DVD players. A monopoly in big box retail is not good. It guarantees higher prices. SOMEONE has to live to keep the competition in check. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
You don't have to shop Circuit City, but their existence is helping keep market prices down. PERIOD.
I think FYE, Media Play, Coconuts, and maybe other stores like Camalot Music are all part of the same company. And I'm sure that company is quickly folding.
Something about the $27 CD's and $39 Blu Rays and stuff like that just doesn't work to well these days, even if you're in a mall.
-Brian
There is still an FYE in the mall near me. But we had a Suncoast that closed down back around mid 2007, which was kind of depressing, though not completely unexpected.
Prices at stores like that just aren't that competitive these days. They never really were, but they were great for special ordering obscure titles back before shopping on the internet was as prevelant as it is now.
I used to buy a lot of my DVDs from Suncoast back in the late 90's/early 2000's. Back then there generally weren't great sales on the discs in stores. Though usually Suncoast would have new movies 'on sale' the week that they came out for roughly the same price as buying them on any regular day at Best Buy, so I decided to shop their more to support them.
Plus I got to know the one manager pretty well, and he would pull things aside for me that woud go quickly (like when McFarlane Toys made a collecor's line of Austin Power figures when the 2nd movie came out, and Mini Me and Fat B****** were hard to find, when that store got them in, he saved them for me).
Eventually that manager got transfered to another store farther away, and I was out that way with some friends once shortly there after and said hi, but the local store was never the same again.
I still popped in there from time to time, but as prices for DVDs at stores like Best Buy became more affordable, and as my habbit of buying them increased, it just became less economical to shop there. When I found the store had closed down, I was kind of sad, but at the same time realized that I hadn't really bought anything from there in years.
At one point there was a Coconuts store that was not even in the mall, but was a standalone store, and it was located right inbetween the local Best Buy and Circuit City. They were always extremely overpriced. I only shopped their a small handful of times, mostly when trying to find something obscure that I couldn't get anywhere else, and I usually paid a premium for it. They did eventually close down, but I don't understand how they actually stayed in business as long as they did with Best Buy and Circuit City being so close by and having much better prices on most of the same products.
I occasionally pop into FYE these days to see if they have any used Blu-Ray movies at a good price, though so far I've only ever actually bought one BD movie from them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bhampton
Hey,
I have never gone to Circuit City unless there is an amazing sale which sometimes is just the result of a mis-print or something.
Usually the sales people were un-aware of the sales I was trying to get in on.
Still,.. I don't have a local one so it's been a long time. (Last time I was buying DVD's which is something I haven't done in years.)
=Brian
The sad thing about those secret sales is that most of the time the employees aren't even aware of them. They will have some huge secret clearance on video games or something, and if you ask the employees about it, they just look at you like there's some weird growth coming out of your head.
I wouldn't want to be a CC stockholder, but I doubt you'll see them out completely anytime soon. Look at Kmart for an example of a chain that just won't die.
This topic prompted me to actually register after lurking for info on buying a BD player.
My wife worked at CC corporate in Richmond, VA until recently and here are my personal impressions...
1 - CC seems to act like they can coast on their pre-BB success. From what I heard salaries were drastically out of whack and mid-2007 there was a large layoff to try and straighten that out somewhat. But I didn't get the impression that they had a fundamental philosophy change, just that they lowered the current overhead.
2 - CC seems to have good service for returning stuff overall (and I think that helps them) but there is an amazing level of ignorance in the individual staff on products. Things like no preorders for big games, special editions, rewards cards, etc...
3 - CC just did an initiative to open 60 new stores with smaller footprints. And they are trying to slim down square footage in general. That seems to be a smart idea, but it seems to fail in execution when you see what they carry and how they lay it out.
Philosophically they don't seem to have the young, aggressive outlook they need to gain ground on BB. It seems like they keep using the same basic strategies they have since the 80s and aren't willing to change. I don't think they will shut down completely, but without a substantial leadership shakeup I think they are going to continue to lose ground to BB.
The faster CC is gone the better. I am boycotting them for their firing of everyone who was "overpaid" that happened earlier this year. Such an anti-worker company doesn't deserve my business.
If you want to save money why not trim the corporate level fat? The idiots that have run your company into the ground instead of the sales people who are trying to support their families.
Strangely Circuit City just opened a brand new store by me less than a month ago.
We are scheduled to get a new CC in my area too...near our newest BB. We already have a CC near our other BB, but it's terrible. Customer service is a complete joke, and a good portion of their sales staff is completely clueless.
The faster CC is gone the better. I am boycotting them for their firing of everyone who was "overpaid" that happened earlier this year. Such an anti-worker company doesn't deserve my business.
If you want to save money why not trim the corporate level fat? The idiots that have run your company into the ground instead of the sales people who are trying to support their families.
Disgusting.
It's not as simple as all that.
They did trim corporate - in fact that day there was no one left between my wife's team and the president of the company. Every manager between them was let go.
Also, at one point my wife remarked to me that someone she knew that worked there was planing to more to a store for the last few years before retirement - meaning that he'd effectively be paid just as much to be a associate or asst. manager at the store as he was for his corporate technical job.
Part of the issue (so I was told) was that they were comission and then went away from commission, but set salaries at the high commission rates. If you've got someone as an associate making 40k+ a year in a store, that's just not going to work in a business model in the current world (in my opinion).
The reason I just don't see them being successful is that they still seem to have the same mindset that got them to those high salaries in the first place. Unfortunantely the current business world requires companies to be very lean and precise if they are going to be successful and sometimes that means focusing on the $$$ bottom line and not the people.
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