Wandering Around Best Buy in Brookfield....

[Matt Heebner]

My 20 year old and I were wandering around BB the other day, he wanted to check out some new car audio equipment, and I wanted to look at LCD monitors. Anyways I wander over to the area were they have the DVD players and Tivos, etc and what do I see up on the shelf ?  An open box demo JVC HD VHS player model number 9000 and something. I am thinking to myself, hey if I can get a good deal on this thing I will pick it up. There is no price on it so I walk up to a blueshirt and inquire about it. He walks over to it and writes down the model number and tries to bring it up on the computer. Nothing comes up on it.

I am thinking to myself...this might be very good. I have had instances like this before and it has always benefitted me regarding pricing. He checks a few more things and still nothing. I am already thinking...they dont know what they got, I might be able to score this thing really cheap, like $100 cheap or something and start getting kinda excited.

He gets the area manager over there and she pulls up something on the screen but I cant see what. They are talking in low voices and I pretend to be checking out a plasma right next to them. I hear the manager say "he should be happy with that, its an excellent price". I am thinking SCORE!! He walks over to me and says "We dont sell that anymore, and this is the only one. We will sell it to you for $599. Thats a $100 off, much more than the standard 10% we normally mark off.

At this point I almost laughed right in his face. I said "$599 ??!!! That thing is probably 3 years old, and totally obsolete now that the HD-DVD and BLU-RAY are out" He just looked at me blankly and said somethign to the effect that maybe they could do another $50 off. I really wanted to say "I hope that thing rots on the shelf cuz you will never sell it for that price" but I didnt. I still can not believe that they were asking that much for it. I mean my hopeful $100 got smashed to bits, but I still miight have considered even $200 for it. $599 ? Thats a friggin joke price.

Anyone who wants the JVC HD deck for the best awesome price of $100 off what the were retailing for 3 years ago...check out BestBuy in Brookfield. I think the days of really soaking them on prices of their demo equipment might be over. Years ago I swear half the time they didnt even know what they had and almost always priced things too low,(and could be negotiated as well) to now marking lousy 7% to 10% off retail prices from 3 years ago.

Just thought it was a funny story to share.

Matt

[Tom Snyder]

Back in the early days of our company, we used to go there for open box deals on all our computers. Not only would we get huge discounts, but they'd throw in a three year replacemnt service agreement for free.

All of sudden, one day, the prices stopped being really good, and the service agreements ended, too.  The guys we always worked with said that it was a regional policy change.  

That's when we started buying refurbs at Dell Outlet