[geeks] So I went to Best Buy today...

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 10:49:44PM -0500, Lionel Peterson wrote:

> I could never do that to a customer, but I guess they think it is
> being "helpful". They also had a lot of "Geeks" on-site, nearly a dozen
> on a Sunday afternoon...

It's called "selling up". The computer equivalent of undercoating, whitewall
tires, fog lights, etc. Cheap items with very high markup. 

When they do it at Burger King, to me it's great. I get a larger sandwich,
(I'm on a high protien diet), a larger drink (I only drink half of the 
regular one anyway, so it is a waste), and enough fries make my kids happy
tomorrow (I only eat three or four anyway).

To them, they've sold you a lot of food, which costs 15%-25% of what they
charged you, and made a buck or two extra. 

To be honest, how much do you think they make on a $500 laptop? The people
buying the recovery disks, antivirus software and other "tweaking" service,
subsidize your low prices. I'm sure if you had not shown them the website
with the lower price, you would have been charged $50 more, which may have
been more than their markup at $500.

The reason they did not try to "sell you up", is that they wanted you to
get out of there as quickly as possible so you did not tell the people
waiting with you to check the website before buying. 

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM