Where to buy electronics and how to
bargain for the lowest price
Buying electronics
online was more pleasing for our readers than buying at a walk-in store,
according to our survey on almost 30,000 buying experiences. And the proportion
of major electronics purchases that readers made online more than doubled from
2006 to 2011.
How to get the best deal?
No wonder some big
sorters are cutting back. Best Buy, the biggest remaining chain, said it would
close 50 of its, 1,000 or so locations in 2012. Best Buy and Staples plan to
shrink the size of many of their stores. Wal-Mart, after years of expanding its
electronics offerings, has stopped selling Amazon’s Kindle tablets and e-book
readers.
Retailers blame their
sales woes in part on so-called showroooming, the consumer practice of checking
products out firsthand in stores before buying them online. Some 18 percent of
the 10,000-plus readers we surveyed who bought electronics products online
fessed up to showrooming. More than half of that group eventually bought from
Amazon.com, which accounted for almost two out of three online purchases in our
survey.
Amazon.com
Although online
purchases have increased greatly in recent years, about twice as many
respondents bought in stores as on the Internet. And though online shoppers
were more satisfied overall, the best walk-in options got high marks, too, as the
Ratings on the facing page reveal.
Wherever you shop, a
few simple steps can help you get the best deal on a major electronics
purchase.
Three ways to save
Consider coupons and
gift cards. It’s worth checking sites such as Techbar-gains.com for coupons and
other deals. Relatively few of the readers we surveyed searched for online
coupons before shopping in stores or on the Internet, but one in four of those
who did found it to be worthwhile. Another useful tactic: Check retailers’ ads
and bargain sites to see whether they offer gift cards that can save you money
on a future purchase from the retailer or manufacturer.
Techbar-gains.com
Haggling can pay off.
Negotiate for a major
electronics item? Absolutely. Only one in eight of the in-store shoppers we
surveyed tried, and those who did so this year were a bit less successful than
in 2011. Bu hagglers who prevailed saved a median of $86. Negotiators for a TV
set had the greatest savings, at $114, while those who bargained for a camera
saved a healthy $63, up from $53 last year.
Negotiation was typically
more successful at some stores, including independents, than others. Yet even
one in four hagglers at Apple Stores, which are known for stable pricing,
managed to get a break. You can also bargain online: 2 percent of online
shoppers tried and half succeeded, most by phone or e-mail.
Our advice: go to a
walk-in store armed with evidence of the lowest price you’ve found online and
ask whether the store will match the pride or at least come close. You may have
the greatest success in getting stores that also have websites to match their
own online prices.
Skip the extra contracts.
It’s more likely than
ever that you’ll be pushed to buy an extended warranty on your major
electronics purchase; about three-quarters of in-store shippers were, up from
two-thirds in 2011. P.C. Richard was again the pushiest retailer with those
plans, which we think are seldom if ever a good buy.
P.C. Richard was again the pushiest
retailer with those plans, which we think are seldom if ever a good buy.
At Best Buy, you might
also be pitched on the chain’s paid Geek Squad technical support. More than
three-quarters of respondents who bought such services in stores and used them
judged them excellent or very good. But free retailer tech support services
(offered by stores such as Costco and Apple Store) pleased 87 percent of those
who tried them
Overview
With so many retailers
highly rated for overall satisfaction, you can choose largely on the basis of
scored attributes that matter most to you. The recommended retailers listed
below stood out for the reasons cited.
Top
all-around online choices
A1: Newegg.com
A2: BHPhotoVideo.com
A3: Amazon.com
Ratings Electronics store: A. Online
Stores
Some categories of products might be
excluded from returns or subject to restocking fees.
Policies may differ for some products
Policies vary by store.
A1, A2, and A3 offer
high satisfaction overall and had high marks for every rated attribute. But A1
has a 15 percent restocking fee on some returns (unless item is defective or
unopened).
Newegg.com
Top
all-around walk-in choice
B3: Independents
Ratings Electronics store: B. Walk-in
stores
No retail store got
high marks across the board, but independents came close. And shoppers who
negotiated prices at these stores were more successful on average than they
were at Best Buy and Sears. B3 matched B1 for product quality and service and
beat them on selection than B1, which sells only its own products.
Great
products and service
A5: Apple.com
B1: Apple Store
While you can’t expect
low prices from Apple, you can expect high-quality gear and hand-holding.
Apple.com & Apple store
Low prices
and high-quality products.
A4: Costco.com
B2: Costco
This membership
warehouse club doesn’t pretend to do it all, but what it does it does
well-selling quality products at competitive prices. Just don’t expect a wide
selection of merchandise or top-notch in-store service.
Costco.com
