[rescue] Fry's (was Re: I HAVE SEEN NIRVANA)

[Robert Novak]

On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Greg wrote:

> Bill Bradford wrote:
> 
> > Best Buy, CompUSA, and a couple of other local shops are never getting
> > another penny of my money.  Ever again.  
> 
> But when I first moved here Fry's was the place I had to go first and I
> still visit often.  It's getting hard to find new, unopened merchandise.
> Most people treat it like a 30-day lending library of electronics so
> for many products you'll find "returned" stickers on most of the 
> on-shelf product and often there are pieces missing and Fry's restocks 
> it anyways.  Take advantage of the store while it's still new!

I can say that the Chandler AZ store (3+ years ago when it was new) was
much better than the SFBA stores. People spoke English coherently, things
looked well organized, and they had no lines. They didn't seem amused when
I offered them my Incredible Universe keyfob to scan--it was a converted
IU store (Radio Shack's short-lived version of Best Buy, acquired by
Fry's I guess, hence the delabeled black IU trucks in the bay area) but
the employees didn't seem to realize that.

I'm told that SoCal stores are like NoCal stores in terms of support,
service, and female staffers hired for their ability to unbutton three
sequential buttons to emphasize a bra two sizes too small. Okay, so that
last thing might be a good selling point if it were a more consistent
feature and if the aforementioned staffers were consistently pleasant to
observe in that state.

Here in SFBA, it pretty much sucks. If you're lucky, your item is either
new in box or labeled a return. Lots of people find returns shrinkwrapped
to look new, but the item in the box doesn't match what's outside. "Hmmm,
64MB video card on the outside, dual 8250 serial card on the inside."

They're also good at grey market stuff. I bought a 9gb IBM SCSI disk for
my U1 a year ago, they told me I'd have to get the extra-cost extended
support plan or all I'd have is the 1 year manufacturer's warranty. Sent
the serial number to IBM and they said it was sold to Tandem for OEM
integration and there was no warranty. Took it back the next day.

Sometimes they're good, especially if you want the 90-minute warranty
memory specials (had 128MB SmartMedia and CompactFlash for $70ish last
weekend I think), and they usually have a good collection of computer,
game machine, and music software. And if you want someone to read a box to
you, they're good at that too. Want to know about a feature or technical
detail? Good luck. Want to have the badly-translated box recited to you in
broken English? They'll be glad to oblige.

Oh, they also have a good magazine selection. So you can get all the way
through your Penthouse Forum while waiting to get through the line for the
checkout. 

--Rob

Robert Novak, Indyramp Consulting * rnovak at indyramp.com * indyramp.com/~rnovak
        "And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
           Maybe this year will be better than the last...." -- counting crows