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Standing Over Circuit City's Cooling Corpse, Walmart Steps Up Its Electronics Game

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Kaiser-Machead
05/18/09

In reply to Standing Over Circuit City's Cooling Corpse, Walmart Steps Up Its Electronics Game
Does this mean that there'll be an even greater tradeoff of quality in favor of lower WAL*MART happy-faced prices? If so, then yippee!

We-Say-So. We know what you want. We know what you need. We know where you live.
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frigg
05/18/09

In reply to Standing Over Circuit City's Cooling Corpse, Walmart Steps Up Its Electronics Game
So when does Walmart start producing Wall-E's and the Axiom space ship to allow the citizens of Earth to drift in space while their planet is cleaned up?
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Kaiser-Machead
05/18/09

@frigg: Considering WAL*MART's push towards manufacturers to save costs to keep prices low in their stores, no doubt any WALL-E's produced by WAL*MART won't last nearly as long as PIXAR's version did.
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frigg
05/18/09

@Kaiser-Machead: A perfect opportunity for Buy 'n Large to grow their market share. Yeah, yeah, no one wants to pay the "Buy 'n Large tax," but mark my words, when people realize that Buy 'n Large's WALL-E's last longer and are more fun to use, it won't only be yuppies and college students buying them.
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Jimmy1
05/18/09

In reply to Standing Over Circuit City's Cooling Corpse, Walmart Steps Up Its Electronics Game
If I were Best Buy competing against this aggressive move by Wal Mart, I'd go Apple-Store-high-end: I pretty much guarantee that you won't see, say, Macbook Pros or Alienware gaming laptops at Wal Mart, or even the new LED TV's. For a drool display, Best Buy should have one of the new Sony OLEDS as a display, and purchasing option, in each major market store.

Wal Mart's pluses is their huge customer base and their heavy discounting. Their weak spot is that, for unknowledgable about electronics customers, $7/hr employees couldn't care less if they were stocking or ringing you up on a flat panel TV or Charmin toilet paper.

For you and me, Joe Consumer, who has researched a product pretty wall prior to walking into a store, we won't be hassled by blue shirts pushing warranties, installation and calibration services.
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ceilingFANBOY
05/18/09

@Jimmy1: From everything that I have heard, Wal-Mart carrying the iPhone was in part a test to see how they would do with carrying something Apple a little more involved than just an iPod to see if selling Macbooks could be viable.
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ceilingFANBOY
05/18/09

In reply to Standing Over Circuit City's Cooling Corpse, Walmart Steps Up Its Electronics Game
Of course, by eye-catching, higher end TVs they mean carry the lowest model of the brand names and then stock a few 120Hz Vizios so they can say they have 120Hz TVs.
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chauncy that billups
05/18/09

@ceilingFANBOY: That's what they do NOW. Presumably by "expanding into CC territory" they are going to start carrying mid-level models at least (you know, stuff that normal people can afford, not overpriced Sony XBR's).
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ceilingFANBOY
05/18/09

@bilups: What I meant is that we just got in 120Hz Vizios for this big mod reset of electronics. Before that, we carried no 120Hz TVs. For the name brands, we just got in more sizes (52" for Sony which used to only go up to 46" and 46" for Samsung which used to only go up to 40"). Also, now we carry up to 55" instead of up to 52" for Vizio and I think I recall seeing a Phillips 55" (Phillips are rebranded Emersons so I'm not going to call those a name brand).
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Chris Ledoux
05/18/09

In reply to Standing Over Circuit City's Cooling Corpse, Walmart Steps Up Its Electronics Game
I'm all for WalMart expanding their electronics sections. However, they need to address some issues:

1. Electronics asscociates lack of product knowledge.

2. Proper labeling of product specs.(LCD refresh rates, HDTV 1080p/1080i/720p/720i

3. Expanded offerings for DVD and Blu-ray.
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ceilingFANBOY
05/18/09

@Chris Ledoux: Product knowledge is something that's going to vary from store to store. In the store that I work at, the majority of the associates are people working their way through school who do actually have a fair bit of product knowledge. We also have the old people that make stuff up, but I think a lot of people know that when they have a tech question to ask the younger people. If you go to a more urban store, though, at least through my experience, you find that many more of the associates don't know anything and only work at Wal-Mart because they can't get a better job. For the past year, Wal-Mart has had a cyberscholar training that is much more specific than the typical job training and even covers individual products, but it is too easy to just find the answers to the questions just to answer the questions. Also, for someone like me, they are boring because they just give info that I already know, but I'm not the problem...

For labeling, I think they only didn't have refresh rates because up until this latest change, all LCDs were 60Hz at Wal-Mart. Now that we carry a few 120Hz TVs, you will probably start seeing that labeled as well. I'm not sure what you mean by the resolutions, because that is on the tags. The tags have resolution, screen size (actual, down to the tenth of an inch instead of rounded), contrast (of course, that number is mostly useless), inputs, weight, and overall TV dimensions. I'm not sure what else you want on the tags.

The blu-ray offerings are pretty lacking, though. However, considering Wal-Mart is not an electronics exclusive store, I think the amount of DVDs offered is reasonable.
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szrimaging
05/18/09

@ceilingFANBOY: How is contrast mostly useless? Maybe if you are someone who can't tell the difference....
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ceilingFANBOY
05/18/09

@szrimaging: It's mostly useless because unless you are comparing two TVs from the same brand, you can't compare the numbers. They are measured differently by each manufacturer so what one TV manufacturer says is a 29,000:1 set would be measured as an 8,000:1 set by another. Look at the TVs and the picture on the TVs and tell me if you really believe that the Philips TV that is rated at 32,000:1 actually has a contrast 4 times that of the Sony a few spots away that is rated at 8,000:1.

Since Wal-Mart only sells one model for most of the TV brands, it's not even useful for comparing between models of the same brand.
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Curves
05/18/09

In reply to Standing Over Circuit City's Cooling Corpse, Walmart Steps Up Its Electronics Game
Hate them or not, Walmart has the distribution network and buying power already in place in take that business from orphaned CC buyers and probably a lot of other electronics stores as well. In stock, nearby and rock bottom prices will be hard to beat, especially in this market.
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Chewbenator
05/18/09

@Curves: Yeah but a lot of people complained about Circuit City because the service was piss poor most of the time. I can't imagine Walmart having better service, even than BestBuy which is usually mediocre. Then again it's good for tech knowledgeable people like us which can just look up the TV, Computer, Gadget that we want and run in and buy it at those "rock bottom prices."
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OMG! Bacon!
05/18/09

@Curves: I agree 100%. They have the internal structure to make prices rock bottom. Probably not as low as online stores, but the *must have it in my hands today* factor is definitely worth it alot of the time.

@Chewbenator: For some reason I agree. Their service people will probably be fairly ignorant, even with training. But honestly, will it be much worst than the best buy setup? It's rare to find somebody who knows what they are doing in best buy. If you can see through their bullshit, you probably don't need their help. And if you cannot, well, you will believe anything they say! So in the end, it works out!

@PanhandleJoe: Eh, store credit kind of sucks. Except when you remember its walmart.....where you can get almost any type of food, toiletries, cleaning supplies....the list goes on. I regularly spend about $50+ at walmart for such items a week. Store credit would be, in my mind, extremely close to cash money. It's just the fact that they will take just about anything back which is amazing!

....re-reading my posts....I realize I am a walmart-fanboi =/
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ceilingFANBOY
05/18/09

@phoenix27: That varies from store to store though. My store will take just about anything back. The service desk employees took back a TV that wasn't bought at our store for the reason of "no picture." When the TV made it back to electronics we noticed the TV was scuffed up and had marks on the screen. Then when we turned on the screen, it looked just like one of those Wii remote throwing horror stories as there was a small black circle near the corner of the screen with lines radiating from it and crazy colors everywhere. Yea...that TVs picture did not show up...

Meanwhile, a store down the road from us won't take anything back that wasn't bought at their store, and even then sometimes won't take things back. They regularly send people to our store because they know we take everything back. The claims associate hates the service desk people.
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Curves
05/18/09

@Chewbenator: CC had awful service, and so does BestBuy as far as I can tell. I bought my first computer there and they assumed I was some sort of idiot and kept trying to charge me to "Install printer and scanner drivers, which are kinda tricky for women". I did not punch the guy in the teeth for stereotyping me, and took the computer home and set it up just fine on my own and NEVER purchased anything at BestBuy again.
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