Showrooming for Popular Electronics

By a show of hands, who here has gone into a store, found something they wanted to buy, looked it up online then went home and purchased it? Yes, I’m raising my hand also. This process is referred to as “showrooming.” It’s where you use a brick and mortar as your own personal showroom to touch and feel the product and make sure you want to actually purchase it. A prevalent practice with popular electronics and considered to be the beginning of the end for traditional box stores, Best Buy decided to embrace the process. We discovered Best Buy’s Low Price Guarantee first hand several months ago when we went to purchase a TV for my parents. Instead of heading home and making the purchase, Best Buy matched the price we found and my folks walked out of the store with a brand new television.

We’re in the market for a new television but not quite ready to make the leap. First, we need to figure out the furniture, the flooring and the paint. It’s a total room makeover in the works and by the time we are ready for the actual TV, today’s latest and greatest will have been replaced by something even grander. For now, we’re just looking to upgrade a few things to get us by until then. It’s a shame because from 1/12-1/18, they’re offering 25% off select HDTVs.

We headed off to Best Buy to check out all their home theater items. The minute we walked through the door, Samsung invited us to bundle up. The prices are pretty tempting!

We perused the store to check out what is new since our last visit. Hubby said he was going to get me a Lenovo Yoga computer for Christmas but I reminded him we had a “no gifts for each other” agreement this year. He wanted to show me what I missed out on. I’m prepping for a new phone and have my eye on the Samsung Galaxy S4 so I stopped to check it out. Pretty, isn’t it? 

As we walked through the home theater section of Best Buy, we found a great selection of accessories including floor speakers, ceiling speakers, Blu-Ray players, internet TV systems, wall installation accessories, projectors and more. The service we received from the department sales associate, Caitlin, was excellent, too. She introduced herself, asked questions about what our needs are then let us walk around uninterrupted. When we were ready to ask questions, she quickly made herself available.

While our current television was state of the art with an HDMI port when we purchased it in 2004, a single port no longer does the trick. Virtually every device requires an HDMI connection and since we have DirecTV, our one port is spoken for. Until we upgrade the TV, we are focusing on purchasing affordable accessories that work on the kids’ television but aren’t plugged in full time. Primarily because they have so many electronic devices connected that we ran out of outlets.

 
We’ve purchased some Blu-Ray movies lately and I’ve received offers to review others but have always had to turn them down. Now is a great time for us to pick up an inexpensive Blu-Ray player so we checked out all the options.

Yes, I was showrooming to make sure I got a good price. What we discovered is that Amazon had the closest best price and it usually wasn’t cheaper on a lot of the electronic devices. Best Buy didn’t need to worry about price match because their prices were already best on the models we were looking at.

Ultimately, we purchased an LG Blu-Ray / DVD Player and are looking forward to watching some new movies.

If you’re looking to upgrade your television or devices, be sure to check out Best Buy’s Home Theater Buying Guide. You can connect with Best Buy on Twitter and Facebook  or jump in and ask questions on their forums. To see what other #CollectiveBias members purchased, check out #OneBuyForAll.