slightly OT re: computer retailing, CPU
So my printer went on the fritz last August. I went and bought a new refurbished model at Fry's. Doesn't work. Fry's won't honor the $40 performance guarantee I bought from them (since it was refurbished), and is generally a pain in the ass/attempting to screw me and succeeding. Hate Fry's. Deal with the printer until it absolutely gives out late this last week. Saturday, Fry's was still busy jerking its customers off, and 30 minutes with their idiot manager gets me nowhere (besides the satisfaction of yelling "fraud" so loud half the store could hear it) So I figure I'll just buy a new printer. Head to the internet. First zdnet then cnet. I'm looking for cheap prices from companies not in CA so I don't pay taxes. OnSale blows because their $523 printer turns out to be $611 when all the fees are added in. Buy.com blows for similar reasons. And after entering all my personal info for a third time on a third on-line site, the server responds that they cannot process my transaction now. I'd have to wait until they're phone lines open 10AM monday.
About this time it dawns upon me I don't want to wait for UPS ground to deliver my printer, and that this net shopping kinda bites anyway. Darned if I'm going to enter all my personal info one more time just to find out it's all a sham or some server doesn't work. Why they can't tell me the true price before I take the time I don't know. So I head off to OfficeMax. They have like 3 high schoolers manning the entire store who cannot figure out for the life of them how to handle a customer wanting to spend $600 on a printer, find my free paper shredder (one week only!), and still manage the 14 people in line to buy pencils. I give up, telling my fiancee I don't even want to think about printers for awhile.
30 minutes later I'm walking through my front door with my new "Editors choice" printer from CompUSA. And they had the power center/breaker I was looking for. While I was there I almost made an impulse buy of a notebook PC, some personal finance software, and I did make an impulse buy of a $129 CheckIt Diagnostic Suite. Don't tell me it's cheaper on the net. I don't care.
So I don't really think this anecdote is necessarily generalizable, but it seems to me that CPU's intrinsic value is not negative or zero. Not worth $36, but maybe $6? Still thinking about it...
Mike |
