Who can you boycott Newegg with?
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- čas přidán 13. 09. 2024
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Microcenter is fantastic. The problem is their online store is limited and they don't have very many physical locations. 😭
Sadly I moved away from Microcenter, and I didn't realize how good I had it.
Wish we had them in my country :(.
25 locations in a country with 50 states is not very many. I would have to drive for 5 or 6 hours to get to my nearest one even though there are a few in my state, but the sponsor ads for several CZcams channels - not singling LTT out here - make it sound like there are a whole bunch.
@@petenielsen6683 honestly, I'm surprised they advertise as much as they do with how few store they have and how little they sale online. The closest one to me is a 10 hour drive
Everybody always says micro center when they don't even have any East Coast stores. Why bring up a store that nobody has access to. "But I have access to one" You might say. Here's the thing though. You and everybody who shops there around you makes up like not even 5% of the fucking countries population so sit down.
Bought an AIO from Newegg and it showed up with a dead pump (horrible noise whenever it was running) and didn't want to get another AIO, and told them I was gonna go with air cooling. They charged me shipping to return it, and a 15% restocking fee. You shouldn't be restocking a broken AIO!
This is messed up, if this happened to me as a UK customer I'd be reporting them to Trading Standards
That would not fly in Australia either.
That's just one example. I've been a hardware tech for more than 10 years, I have 3 other really bad experiences with Newegg. And those are literally my only experiences with Newegg, I've never had a good one.
The restocking fee isn't necessarily to put it on a shelf for resale.
But yeah, they tried to have me drop a C-note on shipping back a DOA speaker system for exchange long before the buyout. That they both don't cover return shipping (I know what the discounts look like on corporate accounts - FedEx and UPS START at 10%.) and, at the time, required shipping back to a single California warehouse regardless of where it was shipped from... I easily was on the hook for double the shipping cost back to them that it cost to ship to me in the first place.
@@hiromasaki Really shouldn't be called restocking if it isn't used for stocking. I'm sure there's quite a few loopholes that can be used to get through any case made, but it's BS.
Newegg used to have a fantastic reputation in the community years ago. Their Lawyer Lee Cheng was brilliant for fighting against patent trolls rather than settling. They built up a lot of positive community support. How things have changed sadly.
Him representing Newegg is what ended the patent troll wars in the US: them fighting back, and winning, showed everyone that capitulation was how the trolls survived.
I bought a couple of tshirts from them with their Don't Settle logo. One almost immediately developed a long tear on the side, so I cut off the logo and my wife will eventually work it into a quilt. Newegg has even fought patent trolls attacking non-Newegg organizations. So seeing how Newegg has fallen is so disappointing.
I've been buying from B&H the past 5 years or so. Their "save the tax" thing is what did it for me. Not having to pay NY state tax is pretty amazing. If I can't find what I need there, I usually will just go to Best Buy.
Yep I love B&H their customer service is awesome. I’d always heard horror stories about Newegg but I didn’t completely swear them off until they started bundling the exploding gigabyte PSUs with graphics cards in the shuffle
You're still obligated to pay sales tax if the retailer doesn't collect them.
@@VitalVampyr they’re talking about a promotion that they did with a bank that would pay the tax for you
B&H is amazing!
@@VitalVampyr Look into it, it’s called the PayBoo card. B&H themselves pays the tax for you. You do not have to pay any taxes at all. The caveat is, it’s a high interest credit card, so if you *don’t* pay your balance off on time, the interest rate is like 30% or something crazy like that. If you *do* pay your balance on time, there are no penalties and no fees at all, and you can make tax free purchases from B&H 24/7.
So basically don’t buy stuff that you can’t pay for within 30 days, and you’re good to go. No taxes, and no fees or anything.
i have boycotted newegg for 14 years ever since they charged me a restocking fee twice to return the same defective item.
That's the thing...NewEgg became a giant because they had great service and tech support. Seeing GN's experience with their chat support was just shocking. "Thermal pate" -- I haven't bought from them in years, but wow. Almost as if cutting costs, at any and all costs, isn't such a great idea...
liver pate for computer nerds
I bought a monitor from them last year that had 1 dead pixel. After reading return horror stories I tried to return it. Luckily they actually refunded me.
They merged with a mainland Chinese company a few years ago. There you go.
Newegg USED to be good and it was a "bait and switch". They were good before the Chinese tech company bought them and then it went downhill fast but people have that nostalgia of when it was good.
I was just reading about that on wiki it seems to be a really weird coincidence doesn't it?.
Newegg sold me a monitor that was supposed to have a one year warranty. According to Asus, it should have been sold "as-is". The provincial consumer protection agency said the transaction was a violation of several of BC's consumer protection laws. But despite still advertising an address in Richmond, they've been gone for a year or more. So you can't take them to court.
Wouldn't buy another thing from this crooked outfit.
The problem with Amazon is you can literally spend over a grand on something and it will be shipped with 20 cents worth of packing.
Yeah they ship a 30 cent piece of plastic in the same packaging as a $2000 laptop
then you spend 3 dollars on a battery and it comes in with a massive box with packing and then a smaller box with packing plob 20 dollars worth of packing and free shipping.
add on it comes to a house about 200km away from any main town or city
There is a PC Part Picker for ammo.
How? The bullet dimensions are written on the gun and the only options are hollow point or FMJ
@@slightlyopinionated8107 brand, same caliber has different weights. And with ammo shortages different sites have different prices
@@frostedminibutss7059 that’s badass never saw a website like that
Problem is, there's very few components you can just go out and pick up in person anymore. Physical stores don't believe in stocking anything other than the most high-margin items. I'd be willing to pay a bit extra for the ability to go to a store and pick up something today. I used to save up money so I could go to the local "Computer Fairs", where I could look around, do some comparison shopping and be able to walk out with most or all of the pieces I needed.
And even for the online sellers, their selections are becoming crap too. I spent quite a lot of time trying to find a PC case (mid or full tower) that actually still had optical drive bays *AND* wasn't severely fugly. In the end I ended up doing some minor modifications on an old IBM System X3200 case for my Ryzen5 I just built.
And along with the main components, how about all the little parts like cables? Used to be you could just drive over to Radio Shack and pick up whatever you needed. They'd be fabulous to have now. You need that HDMI-to-DVI with audio breakout? Maybe a USB3 wide-Micro-B cable? Yep, got those too, and you don't have to spend just as much on shipping/handling as the cable itself costs, plus you have it NOW, not when the container finally comes in from Shenzhen.
I’d be really interested in seeing you do a 1yr experiment where you run a computer parts store, but no online ordering. It would probably be a horrific waste of money, but I’d love to see it
Even if it was online...I THINK it would bankrupt a lot of companies. ie Newegg.
No point in putting money into a risk like that when you’d have to take way less time on ltt and also run a store front it’s just not worth the time or money
@@adamtajhassam9188 exactly. They have to be careful with what they say and do, if they say something by accident they could easily bankrupt companies. Like you said if they open an actual store or online store, they will definitely bankrupt companies. People will go to them because they want to support a known company, they know the ceo, employees etc so it becomes more enticing.
If I lived in canada/America I'd probably buy from them even if it did cost 5% more.
Once upon a time, I was within proximity of at least 5-6 Fry's electronics.
Now? 5-6 empty storefronts with themed exteriors, some of which closed before the whole company went down, and all of which looked more depressing then a K-mart for the last 3 years of their existence.
Closest Microcenter is about 300 miles away.
Micro Center is my first stop. Pretty much my entire computer setup is either Micro Center or Best Buy cargo claims (cheap lol). Though living 10 minutes away from a Micro Center I know is a luxury, but having that luxury is freakin fantastic.
Best buy cargo claims?
The makeup thing exists. I forget the name, but there is a photo app that uses an AR filter to apply makeup styles, then links you to the products you need to make it happen IRL.
I really miss what Fry's used to be. So many great memories wandering down aisles of components with my dad. Our location in Austin even had a giant piano and food court lol
I couldn’t care less about the RMA situation, I don’t buy from any website that lets 3rd party sellers sell scalped cards. Either u sell for MSRP and get 100% sell through rate or I don’t shop there, tbh. I only shop from businesses that deserve my business, regardless of how futile it is
Sadly I've tried a couple local computer shops but they have higher margins like in the hundreds of dollars. I understand the economics side of it but it's just rough to spend 200-500$ on top of a 1000$ order for something I have to drive nd pickup.
Shopping local doesn't help the buyer in my area (Michigan). Paying a $1-5 upcharge on everythingis a straight ripoff and I'll gladly go to Walmart to save $25-100 per grocery trip lmao. Gas isn't cheap rn.
I'm sorry for randomly ranting
I worked at a local computer store back in the 90s when they were around. The issue then and probably why they all went away is that products die on the shelves. If you bought 50 CPUs and they did not sell before the next version came out then you lost money just by having them sit on the self.
1:53 "And I heard that Fry's Electronics was significantly bigger"
Yeah...about that...
I’m fortunate enough to live 20 minutes from a MicroCenter. Other than the store being INCREDIBLY busy sometimes, I’ve seriously only had good experiences there. Their customer service is unmatched, each time I work with a sales employee I feel like I make a new friend haha. Cannot recommend them enough if you live within a decent range!
From about 2002 to 2010 I operated an MSP. I had wholesale access to two of the biggest distributors (Synnex & TechData). NewEgg sold just about everything cheaper than their retail competitors and my distributors. If I purchased from TechData it was because they had what I needed in stock at the local warehouse and I could pick it up to save on S&H which just made it cheaper than NewEgg. Most of the time I had to sell at cost and rely on service and contract revenue.
I'd pay 2% more for a decent online or meat-space retailer. I wish we had a micro-center near Seattle.
Nearest one to me is 4 hours away. Still thinking about doing it just to see the place. If they had GPUs in stock guaranteed, I'd be there.
what the hell is meat-space?
@@tardonator It means in real life. As opposed to cyberspace.
@@chaos.corner the nearest microcenters near me are 81 miles away (130 km)
Well. You’re using IT incorrectly, hence why you’re confusing people. IT is predominantly software, support, and maintenance. If you’re talking about computer hardware manufacturers, then call them that.
I, for one, would LOVE to buy my next PC from you guys.
you have my families vote.
If i could get the motherboard in my prefered color i would pay way more than $3
The problem is that it isn't just the PCB colour, it's the heatsinks, the connectors... a lot of separate parts are colour coordinated.
Memory Express is a great option for Canadians. That's where I got the parts for my last build. (2020)
Huge fan of NCIX. They gave me great customer service.
Fry’s was so huge they had a full cafe in the middle of everything.
they are closed now.
I remember that.
@@craiglortie8483 ya. They had been a ghost of their former self since like 2013.
"We put a power supply around our fan. You're welcome!"
Noctua, can you please do this?
I live in Quebec, Canada and seriously, I would pay shipping from BC, Canada if LTT start selling parts online. Why you may ask? Because I fully trust them!
LTT computer parts store is a great idea.
Stopped using Newegg around 2010 when they started market base fulfilment. Once that happened the customer serv. tanked.
Places like Sweetwater in the music and audio space is an example of a store that I feel is the ideal store to buy from, and I'm really glad to see that they do well because Sweetwater is a great company.
I live close to Austin so Fry's use to be my go to but then they nose dived. I have to rely on best buy or internet commerce now. Not being able to see things in person and do a hands-on before a purchase is a bummer.
I moved to buying PC parts on Amazon years ago and keep my eye on sales at Best Buy. I haven't had issues with them. Newegg pissed me off with all the rebates they advertised and I never got. I was lucky to get 1 out of 3 rebates. Not messing with that shit no mo!
Isn't the power supply around a fan literally what coolermaster did? They wanted to advertise their new sickleflow fans so they advertised the fuck out of their new power supplies. If i'm remembering it right, every ad spot they bought mentioned the fan for about 70% of the ad.
Frye's was huge, but it was also a ton of consumer electronics like toys, music, TVs and Stereos, all kinds of appliances. Basically it was a mix of Best Buy, Radio Shack, Toys R Us and Microcenter
I'd be so willing to pay around 5% more, give or take, if LTT had a computer store with a customer service that doesn't suck. Like, if only they told me "We have the parts, we have the supplies, we can sell you anything from artsy equipment to streaming equipment, and everything in between for your system, all of it comes reviewed and rated by ourselves and, buckle up, we ain't treating you like and idiot and we're actually fucking answering your call.
Microcenter has always been nice in my experience
i actually had a bad motherboard experience with Microcenter as well. the casher did a literal 2 second inspection with me and when i found the motherboard had a missing (not bent, literally missing) pin i tried to return it. A tech in the back verified the pin was missing and I eventually got the manager to refund me when the tech agreed that there's no reasonable way I could have removed a pin cleanly without bending any other ones or leaving plastic/metal damage behind but it was quite a yelling match for a while. For a socket with two thousand pins even a minute inspection probably wouldn't have seen it, but 2 seconds is literally just for scamming people. Also shout out to gigabyte for managing to mess something up pretty much anytime i've ever ordered something of theirs.
I literally don't understand the issue. The cashier found a pin was missing and the tech confirmed it? Where's the scam at? Also I'm confused as well as to what's going on? Did you buy a motherboard, bring it home and it didn't work? There's a bit of info missing. I'm not saying I doubt you, shit is wild and occasionally Micro Center can be weird, but this story is missing some info
For companies you definately missed HP (maybe also NZXT, samsung and corsair?)
If ltt ran a computer hardware store i would totally buy from you.
This
If LTT started selling PC parts, id main that store for sure.
Well... There is a massive difference between pc parts and all other goods
1. They are way more expensive
2. With paint eg., the usual thing is buy cheap buy twice
3. Getting the cheapest price for a good usually involves buying when something is on sale, but barely anyone buys 200 CPUs as a private person
No way... TigerDirect is gone?
Man, that's so sad. I used to live in suburban Illinois, and my area had a "CompUSA" which got bought out and became a TigerDirect physical location. I could've sworn they were still open when I left Illinois.
I was really spoiled for choice back then. There was (still is) a Micro Center like half an hour away. Now I live in South Carolina and literally the only places in my area that sell computer parts are Best Buy and a single independent repair shop that sells used parts. All my PC parts came from Newegg and Amazon because I genuinely had no other option.
Edit: I totally forgot, about 20 minutes from both the TigerDirect and Micro Center there was a Fry's electronics! Only went there once, and for an extremely specific product, but holy shit Luke is right about the size. Easily the size of a Costco, possibly larger, full of JUST electronics and components. They had an entire aisle of just circuit components. We're talking two shelving units with nothing but bags of resistors here.
I live in an area MICROCENTER won't even deliver to, but when my MSI board killed my 5900X, B&H came in clutch.
Not a complete replacement for Newegg yet, but Gamestop has a great online store and customer service in my experience. Fairly limited on selection at the moment, but I wouldn't be surprised if they continue to add more PC parts with time. The company is under new leadership and they've been making a big push to improve their E-commerce. I'll be purchasing as much as I can from them, but bezos or best buy will have to get some of my money until GameStop adds more options. I'm definitely done with Newegg though. I've "won" the Newegg shuffle before and it's just SO scummy. I tried letting Honey do it's thing and save me some money, but Newegg deleted the GPU I "won" from my cart as soon as I did that and it wouldn't let me add it back. Sketchy company.
A Fry's was almost like a sports stadium. They used to have multiple restaurants in the store.
I would gladly pay 2% more if I was confidant about receiving good customer service and support. I already do with some things. It's not even theoretical. I already do it in other areas like part manufacturing. Noctua vs Thermaltake, Toyota vs Chevy, Samsung vs Hisense.
Rip fry’s it felt like a Costco for pc components back in 2014
Closest microcenter is a 3 hour drive :(
Try a transatlantic flight.
3 1/2 hour drive one way for me in Atlanta with no traffic, figure in rush hour traffic add another hour or so, then gas cost, time in store, back home, etc.. just not worth it for me. Rather just buy from eBay, and Amazon despite the issues.
9300 miles for me or literally a flight across the ocean from another continent :(.
I'm surprised about the motherboards. I've almost always bought EVGA (for motherboards and GPUs) regardless of the color or cost just because they're pretty much the only American owned company left in that space. I did however put a Seasonic Prime in my last build as they at the time had the lowest ripple and noise measurements. Empirical data does sometimes matter!
Was hoping for good suggestions of where to shop for computer parts in this video. Yes it would be good to have a reliable place to get hardware from.
Not sure what the needed markup is to make a business of it but if availability (normally) is there, selection of quality items with features I am after is there, price is at least okay, and shipping times are clear, then I'd look at a LTT store for it. Clear+detailed item descriptions and good customer service would be important for building and keeping a userbase if not trying to build it from a 'look how cheap we sell junk' business plan.
I love microcenter. The only reason I have ever seen an RTX series or 6000 series AMD Graphics Card in person is because of that store.
3060Ti owner thanks to Microcenter. Also bought one for my dad!
Let me just say that there are essentially no computer part stores in the entire Pacific NW. We used to have Fry's but there store was so massive that they couldn't stay in business when times were tough. The nearest microcenter is like 15-18 hour drive away. My power supply was dying and I tried to buy one from best buy and they just didn't exist. Online is the only option.
GameStop is building an inventory of PC goodness! I'm taking my business there!
Overclockers UK is generally more expensive. They have a huge customer base specifically because of their service.
There's a space in the market for it imo, just needs some serious capital up front.
I have always had good experiences buying from B&H. Their selection it more limited than other retailers', especially with 'noncritical' parts like cases, but for the important components I can definitely recommend them.
Microcenter's stores are awesome and the service is great, but they're sparse, and it honestly seems like they don't even try to compete in the online space. Where I am, it's worth the hour-ish drive to build a whole system, if you can afford it, but not for an individual component IMO.
They don't do components, but for other electronics, Adorama and Crutchfield have always been great for me too. Both of them also have excellent prices and service for scratch&dent.
Tigerdirect was what I got my first ever pc of my own from.
I commented this on gamers nexus but the situation is rough. Micro Center is fantastic, but extremely regional. Amazon has the warehouse issue of, no matter who you buy from you may get products from a scammer. There are also some worse than normal corporation ethical issues with amazon. For most of America it seems our best bet to not get scammed might currently be Best Buy, and as a 35 year old IT nerd that hurts to say on a deep level.
Maybe the Gamestop plan to turn into a PC part company will turn in to a valid option, but that's a big maybe.
I've ordered from Tiger direct back in the day. good prices, customer service was always lacking, but not so egregiously that I wouldn't use them again. though I heard at the end they'd gone down the bad path before the end
The issue is you have a handful of big manufacturers in the PC space that more or remove the "This product is more expensive but better" argument.
If you are looking for an Intel motherboard in the 180-200$ price range, does it really matter if you go Asus, MSI, Gygabite, ASRock? Of course you will probably get the cheapest one, that fits your needs. Unless you go for a super cheap MB, they all follow the same standards set by the CPU manufacturer.
Video cards are the same -> want an RTX3070? Asus, MSI, Gygabite, EVGA, etc. all offer essentially the same product (sure there might be some small differences in clock speeds, cooling, etc) but for everyday use, it really does not matter. So you will probably get the cheapest one, that fits your needs.
In most other industries, the same product type can vary greatly in build quality, you have to consider sizes (for clothing), matching skin tones (for makup). Also, in most of them, aesthetics take a much bigger part in the purchasing decision, compared to PC parts (sure it matters, but if you are on a budget you will most likely go for cheaper, instead of "better looking").
Unfortunately I'm stuck in bun ***k Iowa and I have 4 options and no Micro Center with in 200 miles. Newegg, Amazon, Best Buy, and mom and pop.
Newegg has screwy me over on small items since 2017.
Mom and pop shops charge 25 percent of not more over retail here.
Best Buy is no better than Newegg.
Amazon has not burned me yet but you have to reaserce who the sellar is.
This leads me back to Newegg. They know that a good percentage of us techies have no options in the United States so they can give the run around on customer service. Honestly when I have got a bad item to avoid the headache is just RMA it back to that company. Yes I have to wait but what other options do I have.
If you're in Australia, and have been burned by NewEgg, make sure you lodge a formal complaint with ASIC so the next time one of their executives so much as sets foot on Commonwealth soil, regulators will be keeping a nice pot of tea warm for them. ASIC's dealt with a number of multinationals who've tried to leverage their status to dodge jurisdiction but, when you're a jet-setter, you can run out of safe places to layover very quickly when assorted Trade Commissions start calling in co-signatories to international trade agreements and related extradition treaties.
In Ontario I use CanadaComputers. I have used MemoryXpress in the past. When I lived in Windsor I used to cross the border and the Micro Center was 40 minutes away north of Detroit. I could waste a whole day in there!
For me as an international shopper one of the most important factors while shopping is shipping charges!
Luke, you haven't been out much if all you can think of are those defunct NCIX stores.
Memory Express had a huge store on No.3 Road in Richmond in the early 2010's and was a great place to go if you wanted to shop for PC parts like you do groceries. It's shuttered now but a fairly big Canada Computers store opened up in Coquitlam which moved from the smaller store at the Coquitlam Mall plaza.
If you haven't already, you should give it a look although Micro Centers do look pretty damn big and nice.
LTT STORE AS COMPUTER STORE... DO IT !!!!!!
Regarding the PCPartpicker. Most other products aren't so directly "widget" based. Like you have an emotional attachment to one makeup company to another. Whether they test on animals. What type of allergic reactions. How it looks. etc. But for PC parts, a 3080 will be extremely similar across the board.
And this is part of why so many companies want a software component. If the hardware is the same, software can be the leg up or leg down for a product.
In Canada we just don't have a good store like Microcenter, they either have higher margins, or bad practice or super limited selection.
if microcenter upped their game and offered shipping with all items this would be their checkmate. the problem with microcenter is most of their good offers are in store only and with them closing their store up here in the bay area cali there is almost not option besides amazon. if not going with newegg.
I've recently seen a gaming pre-built with reasonably adequate specs EXCEPT it had a 2GB 1030. It's not even a matter of overpaying for some components, they are simply not available.
If Luke went to the Tustin, CA location, they recently remodeled and it’s way more densely packed with tech!
I feel like Linus tech parts could honestly have a 5-10% extra mark up but would be still a top pick for those in the community. Like I feel that those in the tech space would rather buy a mobo and CPU and know that an extra $50 went to Linus media group like we'd know that customer service would have some degree of training, and best yet if manufacturers are trying to be anti consumer would be almost immediately into a media shit storm.
Being nowhere near a Microcenter, and the fact that everything is in store only, I can only assume they are as good as others say, but also don't want any business as mothing is available online.
The "scalpers" certainly found a way to increase those margins.
Open your own computer parts store Linus!
I miss buying hardware from NCIX, they were the best.
Best Buy exists as a place who sells computer hardware. But they've always been over priced in my mind.
And yea once I had my own money and started learning how to upgrade components motherboard colours became quite important once my needs became standard features.
i have actually never bought anything from newegg. Not like i shop for pc parts all the time but i've bought more than my share of them, including building 4 computers. Canada Computers, Microcenter, B&H (idk if they have computer parts, but certainly for general electronics) and even amazon.
They should have a Microcenter in every major city, they would do well and the store's wouldn't fail. Their prices are just a few bucks different from online retailers and sometimes cheaper at Microcenter. I'm looking to buy more ram at Microcenter and it's $10 cheaper than Amazon.
Amazon has issues all right. They sent me a duplex singlemode data cable that they had clearly listed as an optical AUDIO cable in the middle of the lockdown and the public libraries were still closed in my state. It would have cost me more than the price of the cable to send it back since it would have cost me more to repair my printer and print out the business reply mail label. And of course now they are known for "third party" reviews that are not written by anyone other than the seller for items across the board.
B&H Photo Video has never failed me.
8:33 foreshadowing
Frys was absolutely amazing for builders. Best by always sucked( but has gotten better in recent days) so Frys was the only place. I mean isles upon isles of single component parts, games, appliances, ect....you name it, it was there. you could buy a new washer, dishwasher, motherboard, and a pack of resistors, LEDs and transformers for that home project all in one swoop. I mean its hard to even describe the amount of stuff they had. 2 isles of headphones, 2 isles of headsets, cb radio stuff, telescopes, TVs, DVD players. a whole corner of the store was dedicated to car stereo parts and they even had a subwoofer room and at least 50 different stereo head units in stock, 20 or so amps, 10 or so different subwoofers and 3 isles of wiring JUST for car audio along with 2 installation bays. Cameras, science games for kids, rc toys all were there. FANS FOR DAYS, PC PARTS FOR DAYS. at least 100 computer cases were there at any given time. The ram, motherboard, HDD, Power supply, and video card sections all had their own 2 isles. AND a full PC service center with certified techs on staff all the time. They even had CDs, DVDs, DJ Equipment, vinyl records, and magazines. Later, they got 3d printer parts, printers and filament. Oh and about 15 vending machines with soda you may never heard of before. Keep in mind a Frys isle was about as long as a Costco Isle, about twice as long and any Walmart or Target Isle. Im not even fully stating what they had either, there was plenty i left out.
Each store was themed too. Ours was Atlantis themed. Fish tanks everywhere, dive suits, and the world largest AND second largest Jacobs Towers (those rabbit ears in old science movies with electricity between them). The front of the store had the biggest ones(2 of them) 3 stories high and 2 shorter ones inside about half a story high. The LA one was old 50s movie themed with flying saucers and old cars. The Vegas one transformed the whole stores building into a slot machine with a huge handle on the side of it.
I grew up with Frys throughout my whole childhood and I was in that store weekly for the last 10 or so years of its life.. Some weeks even twice a week. To this day have that store memorized so well i could navigate it blind. I can still see where all the stuff was and could usually tell you what isle stuff was on and what section it was in. They had a coffee and sandwich shop too with with free wifi so id go study there some days and buy components afterwards. It was great and although microcenter is cool, nothing compares to Fry's and its Costco sized stores.
Fun fact:
Fry's Food and Drug stores ( the store was started by brothers Donald and Charles Fry. The sons of Charles Fry used the proceeds from the sale of Frys Food and Drug to launch Fry's Electronics in 1985 ) still exists and the logo looks eerily the same as Fry's Electronics' logo.
I've been trying to buy direct from the manufacturer lately.
Keep in mind sometimes it costs more to do so. It can help to check around!
@@QualityDoggo Yeah. I've noticed. But so be it.
@@QualityDoggo not for graphics cards tho, miners buy entire pallets of them
"TANSTAAFL" is heavily featured in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein.
having worked in a comp store all sales staff defaulted to a specific motherboard given the cost of the system and the feature set the customer wanted (wifi and such) and from there if the customer didn't have a preference then it was basically the sales persons.
When I sold systems I defaulted to gigabyte but I always leaded with the question "do you have any brands you prefer?" and from there I had 3 motherboards from each manufacture pre selected 1 lower end, 1 mid range, 1 high end, normally defaulting to the midrange to best bang for the buck. Asus this was the Z-Pro's and gigabyte this was UD5 or similar boards, both tend to be the same price from each manufacture anyways so it really wouldn't effect the customers end cost much if at all. There were also brands such as MSI but we didn't go with them often.
To give an idea how often we would go for 1 of these 3 boards they made up for around 90% of our board stock with the midrange from Asus and Gigabyte taking up the vast sum of that 90%, around 95% of the time the customer didn't care about the board. Asus with the insane amount of sku's they had were annoying and we often didn't even try to remember the difference's between them as sometimes it amounted to 2 less USB ports or something like that, the sales staff also REGULARLY COMPLAINED about how many sku's ASUS had ( same with EVGA and their video cards )
direct from manufacturer if you can. also, staples if it's an option for what you're buying.
My local Staples has a very meager selection of PC hardware at high prices. The highest end graphics card they used to have was a GT710 years ago. I'll need to check their website to see what they have.
I assume Noctua makes big money because they have comparatively few models and once a company has a good design it's not like the coolers/fans are built of exotic materials. HOWEVER at least some of that extra money is going somewhere because mannnn they are super quiet (especially perceptually not just dB), they're reliable & consistent and the mounting systems are excellent.
Case/Cooler fans are a big market but imho real good "premium" fans are still made by only a few companies who can charge much more, so I expect people will continue paying a premium when we want that type of product.
I miss Fry's. That was only an hour drive for me, but long before computer parts stores, there was Computer Shoppers magazine.... Ah, the '80s. Now I will have to do the 3 hour drive to Microcenter.
For a while I had 2 Fry's within 10 miles... The first was a converted Incredible Universe store that was a temporary home while they built the theme store 20 miles up the freeway, with me living halfway between. They kept both sites open until the end, with extra stock of different products so if one store didn't have what you wanted the other usually did.
Dude I thought Fry's was cool, but once I discovered Micro Center, I rarely came back unless I was looking for a cheap case for a build I was making. Fry's was substantially closer to me than Micro Center, but I'd rather fight the Houston traffic just to get there
I would buy computer parts from LTT Store. I would certainly trust prebuilt gaming PCs from LTT than anyone else
I like how this happened so newegg started a giveaway of a 3080 with ASUS to get people to click on all of their links.
Unfortunately Micro Center sucks if you can't go to the store physically because their online shop is horrible which is fascinating to me that a large company wouldn't try to take advantage of a money-making opportunity
I'm a software engineer and we consider ourselves IT, too, but it's certainly strange to work for a tech company and have an IT department, when we're all IT. There's also tech support and networking that I consider IT, but the networking part sometimes uses ICT to refer to themselves.
I think there probably is a demand for a more secure trusted vendor. Especially given the rampant price gouging and shady practices you can see everywhere in the market atm.
When you can't afford to be screwed over an extra 2% is not much to ask. Even more of a demand for a retailer that provides a secure platform for sub vendors. Vendors get royally screwed on retail site's. Tons of theft by the big online retailers towards sellers.
Honestly, the whole market for PC’s right now is depressing. If I wanted to go from my strix 1080ti to a strix 3080ti I would be jumping from like $850 MSRP to $2200 MSRP. Was it lower at some point? I don’t see how two generations of the same card account for a near 3x jump in price regardless if I could get one or not.
best places to sell products are like IT companies like third party vendors for hospitals if they aren't big enough to create their own IT department. IT Tech support companies need about 10,000 computers every year.
I left newegg after 22 years...they had started to suck so bad that the issues are not isolated
I just use eBay.
Haven't bought a component new since 2014.
Most major TCGs have sights that tell you where to find the cheapest version of cards
I’ve never had good customer service from Amazon
Buy from Memory express (in Canada) !! Also I picked a soyo motherboard because it was white with purple slots...