Best Buy vs. Circuit City: Notebook Shopping Review

Can't really blame all of the salespeople. Some are a gem when questioned. There are too many laptops and specs to memorize that I don't expect them to know each and every one of them. Most will ask the main use of the laptop so they can get an idea of what you're looking for and steer you to the right direction.

The best way of evaluating the salesperson is to overhear their conversations with customers and I do admit most customers are "fresh off the boat" so to speak. Surprisingly the salesperson will recommend what the person is looking for and doesn't push for higher priced models.

Warranty sales is part of their training, they ask you automatically. I even get asked if I wanted a warranty on a $20 item! This happened to both BB and CC.

The best time to go shopping is early in the morning.. when the store opens and midday. Don't go during lunch and before and after dinner time.

 

I can attest to that.

Don't remember which models they specifically were, but one was a Sony with GMA 950 graphics and the other one was a Toshiba with a dedicated GeForce Go 6600 graphics chip. Both had a similiar CPU if I recall correctly. Considering the Sony was $300 more, the response I expected to get from the salesman regarding the gaming capabiltiies of each graphics chip was blatantly obvious - he's either going to lie to sell the machine that'll give him more commision or give me the dumb "I have no idea but the Sony looks faster" response.

Note: Little conversation I had with a Future Shop salesman.

Me: Would the GMA 950 run Quake 4 perfecty at 1280x800? Or is the GeForce Go 6600 a better choice when it comes to gaming?

Salesman: No doubt the GMA 950; should have no problem with 3D games released 2-years along the road.

Me: You sure?

Salesman: 100% positive.

Needless to say, I bursted out laughing. Didn't mean to be a jerk, but hey.

 

You had that experience purely because they make commission. Working at CC it didnt make a whit of difference to me what I sold, therefore I sold using common sense.

 

To all those trying to defend the good people that work at these stores: yes, we understand that there are good people that work at these places. The problem is telling a good one from a bad one, especially if you're uninformed in the first place. If an uninformed buyer walked into Circuit City, Best Buy, anywhere right now and asked for the best deal on a laptop, he or she would have no way of knowing whether or not the salesman was lying. The problem isn't that all people there are bad, the majority aren't bad, and we realize that. But you have no way of telling which is which, and therefore can't trust anyone. I apologize for hurting anyone's feelings, but it's the sad truth. Use the internet to make your buying decision (hint: notebookreview.com, hear they have great reviews on a lot of laptops), and use the store only as a convenient way to pick up your laptop sans shipping costs and wait time.

Heck, I was in Circuit City the other day and was looking for a product that they didn't have. I walked over to a display laptop and found it at another, close-by store in the mall. If you really needed to, you could go to the store, find what you think you want to buy, then look up reviews online from within the store (not reviews from the store's website, for goodness sake!).

 

Quite honestly you guys are suckers for going into these big box stores in the first place.

First, you should never rely on the sales staff to inform you about a product. Doing research ahead of time will give you a better idea of what your looking for and a very close approximate of what the price range should be.

Second, from my personal experiences places like best buy never have deals on anything I actually believe they inflate the prices of their products and the consumer is tricked into thinking they are the best because of the size of the store. Examples: their laptops are priced way too high for what you get, same with their headphones, same with their computer games even, same with printers, same with TVs, same with car/home electronics. If you want laptops order online or go to a small but established computer store. You want car radios? Go to a dedicated everything non-computers electronics store (i.e. you guys in Toronto go to Bay-Bloor Radio). You want to pay $90 for a Logitech G5 then go to BB, while canada computers down the road has it for $40.

Third, extended warranties are a total joke especially considering the level of tech repair at the "Geek Squad". Anyone who gets tricked into paying for extended warranties on their HP laptop purchased from best buy just got owned because HP already provides a 3-year warranty on the laptop...

I know im just ranting but big electronics box stores are totally not the way to go and you will most likely get bad customer service, overpriced products, and warranties/extras pushed on you.

 

Best times to get good advice at stores like that are during the day on weekdays when the full-time associates are there. Weekends and evenings you get the college/high school students that are just in it for the paycheck.

It's weird to hear about getting just no service at a retail store. I work part-time at Bed Bath and Beyond (to make the car payment, lol), and I know it's not an electronics store, but all retail businesses are pretty similar I think. At BBB, they slam associates over the head about giving "good customer service." We are required to greet every customer we see, and when we have our secret shoppers, they are expected to be greeted by at least five different people as they move through the store. In Best Buy, I've had a similar experience as others, i.e., spending 10-15 minutes on the same laptop and not being approached, or watching 5-6 associates sit around chatting and ignoring customers (usually with a manager in the center).

 

JerryJ - your experiences and review, while quite useful and revealing IMO - didn't quite match my experiences from the two (and others) in NYC. Granted, New York City is far different from the rest of the USA in more ways than ten, and perhaps retail electronics shopping is one of them.

I was a typical 'sucker' - and should have been a goldmine for any BB or CC salesperson. I was prepared to buy same day, on the spot, dropping $1.5K on a laptop. No firm idea which brand/model I wanted, but I definitely had to get one soon. Money was not much of an object, as I'm travelling from overseas - the currently weak US dollar plus extremely low cost of goods meant I could afford to spend more than I would have back home.

Here's a hint to all you retail employees who missed out - I was prepared to buy from the first salesperson who greeted me. I didn't care about price, didn't have brand affiliations, I just wanted something in stock, and you would have had a sale.

I didn't end up buying anything from Best Buy, Circuit City or CompUSA - and I had visted half a dozen stores or more during the week, thru'out Manhattan and even ones in Paramus, NJ. Not once was I approached. I'm not a teenage punk loitering around the technology I don't care to buy or can't afford, I was a mid to late twenties guy going into a shop because I was keen to buy something.

As I was away from home and without a laptop, I didn't have easy access to the 'net, so I couldn't shop/research online - although that would have been a massive time saver.

And then a revelation that Staples sold laptops. What a surprise to me - I didn't expect a stationery store to be selling serious electronics. Guess what? Staples got my business.

 

Well, to be fair the reviews of the stores were done during the middle of the week, so it would have been full-time associates.

 

How true, somehow the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the U.S. dollar. Im seriously considering converting all my money into U.S. funds now and when they have that "oh crap how did we let that happen" reaction ill change it back to Canadian .

 

I wanted to sell computers this summer because I really like technology and computers.

I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I was more knowledgeable than most of the other employees (although there were some who knew much more than me).

I didn't memorize the specs of the computers, so when someone would come in and ask for a "gaming" laptop, I'd be able to figure it out by exploring and not by memorizing.

FS puts a big emphasis on "features vs. benefits". There's no point in telling a customer "this has a 2.4 Ghz SR processor with 2 GB ram and a 160 GB hard drive and an 8600 GT...etc..." - most people want to know HOW that stuff will improve their computing experience. I always tried to talk in terms that were simple to understand. That's the way to do it, imo.

 

HEY! I forgot to ask this earlier. Why is the Firedog logo green? Shouldn't it be red? That has baffled me from the day they rolled out the service. The logo looks great, but the color green is beyond stupid. It should be red since fire is red... It's not like they're making it orange. Blue would even work too since that color is seen in normal fire. But green?

I remember how that goes. In my last year at Sears they were always cutting my hours because I had such high sales but such low warranty percentages. What would happen is that they'd be hard-pressed for people on a friday or saturday and I'd end up getting put on because the manager had no choice. Then many routine customers would come specifically to me because I didn't try to jam the warranty plans down their throats. The managers would rather lose some massive sale rather than make it without a warranty plan. I would rather see the commission money from the sale, warranty or no warranty. Of course, in my last year there Sears was on a huge decline and I have no idea how they're still able to be in business before and after the Kmart takeover.

In the rare event that I have to go into a brick and mortar technology store these days, I immediately warn the employee that I am not interested in any warranties the first time they ask. Pester me and I start complaining to corporate offices, business organizations, etc. Fortunately I haven't had to do that yet, but I'm sure in a couple of months it will probably happen when I go to make a purchase of an LCD HDTV of at least 32 inches. I don't think I'd be comfortable enough to make such a large purchase of a large item online, even from Newegg. I might change my mind though...but screen and color quality is something you can only judge in person.

 

I am an employee in best buy, computer sales department in Whitby Ontario. (Names Rob, if you wanna see me in action). It is frequently said that BB in the U.S. and in Canada are two completely different companies (except for their logo's and who owns them).

Some of these quotes have been addressed and some of them haven't. I'll just add my 2 bucks worth on them all.

Profit margins on laptops are very very small. Managers cannot cut the cost of computers we sell because of that. To get a discount, you have to buy things that are high in profit value (i.e. mice, keyboards, power bars, service plans). Computers that are on sale are within almost always near 50 bucks of the at-cost price (if not lower than).

Sale reps at BB are hired based on friendly personality, not knowledge (that is, any good manager hires that way). Any joe shmo can learn on the job what this or that part does. They won't know the intricate differences between a AMD turion and a AMD athlon, but they can still easily sell to joe blow computer user, who is the targeted customer for BB (and the person likely to buy a service plan).

Turn around is high in Best Buy, don't judge service based on a single employee. They will hire whoever is available if they need someone and no one else applies. Wouldn't you do the same if you were a business and needed someone NOW? I would. I'm grateful businesses do that too, it gives people a chance to prove themselves. To the business, it's a necessary risk. Managers don't tell us that the website in store is different from the one out of store. I don't think the ones in my store even know, and they are pretty competent people.

It is neither laughable or sad. Some Geek Squads are backed up with so many services that they need to do, or maybe they aren't backed up at all and the employee's in their geek squad are retards. You don't know all the details, so don't judge a book by its cover.

Have you ever managed a computer repair shop? no, no you haven't. There are tons of extraneous costs. What if a new employee blows a customer's motherboard? You have to eat the cost, and buy a new one for them for free. What about the programs they use, the computers they need, hell even the cans of air they use? Plus, depending on the problem and the urgency of the problem, it may take a whole day(s) of work to fix ONE person's computer. I am fully aware of the stories posted by websites (foremost being consumerist.com) saying that Geek Squad is terrible, that they will copy porno off your computer etc. etc. Once again this all comes down to the individual employee. If the company could control this, they would! But they can't.

I do agree however, that paying 20 bucks, or even 10 to install itunes on a 80 year old woman's computer in a ripoff (another story from consumerist).

As far as the printer cable is concerned, you are absolutely right. The at-cost price of a printer cable is about 3 bucks CDN. And they charge 30 bucks to the customer.

This doesn't matter. BB can't control that, only you, the consumer, can by not buying apple products. You don't buy apple products, then BB doesn't buy their products, and in turn, apple either innovates, or cuts costs. In this particular case, the marketplace has the power to fix the problem.

 

I hate to be negative Lt.Glare but that seriously pisses me off if best buy truly hires employees based on personality instead of knowledge. Sure, I can understand if they had MAJOR personality flaws but extensive knowledge then of course they shouldn't be hired. But your trying to tell me you'd rather have someone with a big smile on their face come up to you and say "Of course Intel 950GMAs are stronger at gaming than nvidia 6600s [insert giant smile here]".

 

No, they'd rather hire a guy who goes "Hey buddy, lemme be your friend. And oh, when you buy that laptop, don't forget to buy accessories, and internet subscription, and services "

BB and CC are businesses. They're there to make money.

 

I guess you haven't managed a computer repair shop either. You don't hire retards if you're whitebox, you hire semi-experienced to experienced workers in most cases. People who are willing to go get down and dirty to deliver quality. (Assuming a high-quality store, not some of those **** ones)

Having seen over 4000 repairs, I've never seen a shop error in blowing customer hardware unless they have done something stupid like vmods, and many other things that most people wouldn't think of.

Cans of air are also pretty cheap if you buy from a chemical supplies store as a reseller. I know of a couple stores that have switched to air compressors for their larger dust-cleanups and resorted to canned air only for spot dust-blowing.

Fixing computers is intensely not effort-consuming. Alot of the time used is waiting. There are however the occasional major problems which do take longer.

The prices charged by brick and mortar stores are however extremely high and they employ people who really have no clue what they're doing. At best, you can describe them as "Slightly more intelligent salesmen" at best in most cases. There is always a rare diamond in the rough in their packs who does actually have some kind of clue what they're doing.

But you really can't expect any large company to employ techno-savy employees. It would be unprofitable for them as they usually require a high salary due to their expertise in the technological fields.

Even in whitebox stores, yes profits on prebuilt machines, laptop or desktops are extremely low. Suppliers will even cut you off or shaft you on your next shipment if they have information about you selling too low.

BnM stores profit on service and low production cost items.
Whitebox stores rely mainly on service and contracts.
Two different worlds.

That's my take on the world anyhoo.

 

Did you see my post on the first page? Everyone I worked with in CC PC Services was extremely competent. I cant speak for the Geek Squad or even other CC stores, but in mine there were 4 of us. I had 10 years practical experience. The next one had post high school education in electrical engineering and also knew windows tricks inside out. The other 2 were just well trained. We never had any blowouts that were our fault, and things only ever took longer than was reasonable when we were really backed up. Computers were fixed on a first come, first serve basis with the exception of "do it while the customer waits" stuff such as ram and drive installations which were done on the spot.

 

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh God... I must stop laughing...

:laugh:

I think I just disturbed the quiet sanctity of the entire library...





Anyways, this report doesn't surprise me in the least. While it sounds like both services are lacking in key areas, I'd choose Firedog over Geek Squad if I had to deal with one of the two.

Luckily, I know enough about computers to easily avoid them altogether.

 

Unfortunately, this is very true. The big electronic retailers hire for personality, not knowledge.

I had once applied for a job at Circuit City, and when I was turning in my application, I had a chance to talk directly with one of the managers there. He asked me questions on how much I knew about computers and what I did. I told him the truth. I've built my own desktop, fixed the majority of my computer problems, and am currently a Business Manager/Business Information Systems student.

He told me flat out that they wouldn't hire me due to the "overwhelming" knowledge I had (Overwhelming? That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the computer world).

So I told him, "Well, hire someone who can successfully dupe a customer into buying a Turion instead of a Core 2 notebook." He looked slightly confused after that.



Anyways, to the point, this simply shows that big retailers aren't into knowledge. They only want personality. Don't get me wrong, personality is great, however when it comes to computers, they should try to find a mix of both knowledge and personality.

 

For those who were asking about Fry's...

You can see both kinds of salespeople there. There are those that know what they are doing, and there are also the salespeople who just want to make money. To be fair though, I have always been approached and greeted when walking to the computer section. I am pretty sure that the computer salesmen are paid on commission there. When my sister bought a desktop there, she was helped by two different guys, and the one that helped her first made sure that his name also got on the receipt.

if you want competent service when you have questions about parts, go to the parts section, not the computer section. The people in the parts section, the ones who can tell you what RAM to use and so on, are generally more knowledgeable.

They do have a fairly good extended-warranty program, including loaner laptops and desktops if the repair takes several days. However, the repairs generally take them a while, because they do not keep parts on hand and have to wait for the manufacturer to ship it to them.

Also, one warning. If they have to do anything with the operating system, they will WIPE out all your hard drives and return the computer back to you in its stock condition. There are signs all over the place warning about this. If you want your hard drives backed up, they will do it for $70 :-\

My sister took the desktop in because it wouldn't work. They had it for two weeks. Turns out the problem was a faulty stick of RAM. And yes, they did wipe the original hard drive, and also an extra internal hard drive that I had added for her. Good thing I kept backups.

 

Interesting about Fry's... at my BestBuy they make no claims like that at all. To my knowledge, they do ask if you have backed up your stuff before they do repairs, but it's based on what the repair is, and they phone you before they do something that may jeopardize your personal information on your computer.

More and more it seems to be that I work at one helluva nice Best Buy store... Yeah we have 2 idiots in my department who don't know much about computers, but the rest of us could fairly easily work in geek squad if we actually wanted to do the A+ cert test. One guy in particular runs a fairly successful computer repair business at home!

But your absolutely right. 99.5% of people in best buy need a computer thats built and ready to go. And that is exactly what seems to NOT be happening. 7-8 years ago you could grab a compaq presario computer that had windows ME on it, and it also had microsoft office pre installed with a recovery CD. Now, all the computers we sell have NO software except trail versions and vista (ugh). And recovery CD's seem to be going the way of the dinosaur. All computer suppliers have recovery hard drive partitions now. Conveniently enough (mega sarcasm), we now offer a geek squad service where we will burn a recovery CD for you ($50 CDN).

I suppose on the other hand, this does offer more selection for your computer, so you only pay for exactly what you need.

Anyways these are just my reactions after reading everything after my last post.

 

When a computer is checked into the Geek Squad, the customer signs a contract that states data may be lost. The agents are trained to ask: "have you backed up all your data" to every customer. The majority of answers will be "no", and then that's an easy $99 data backup service right there.

A+ cert is not required to work in the Geek Squad, though good foundation of computer knowledge is recommended. However, one of my friends has near no knowledge of computer repair, yet he's been on the Geek Squad for a year. He's there because he's a great charmer, and indeed does have an amazing personality.

 

hah , now thats funny . I figured hiring salesmen based on personality was bad enough but now tech support as well? What is he going to charm a broken computer? [to death?]

 

He doesn't fix the computers, but he charms money out of people's wallets. To be honest, he's very ethical to begin with. He has to be prodded to offer a service.

Geek Squad agents are salespeople, not much different from the blue shirts. Most of the actual tech work is outsourced - either to Geek Squad City in Louisville, KY, or India.