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Retail computers are a tough business because of the need to stock rapidly depreciating inventory. There was a big market for doing it better and cheaper (chiefly through having less retail inventory, forgoing some of the instant gratification); see Dell and Gateway and the web. There is a market for doing it better and more expensive; see Apple. There is a market for overpaying for instant gratification and somebody to provide you marginal advice; see Best Buy.

If your fundamental disagreement is against the concept of overpaying for instant gratification and a bit of hand holding, there are many better targets that meet your complaint. I'd probably start with restaurants, for you can cook at home for a lot less in 20 minutes and it's a relatively simple thing that restaurants charge so much for. Yet people seem pretty ok with the opportunity to sometimes trade their hard earned cash for somebody else to do it for them.

That being said, when I go into BB it saddens me to see how they up-sell ignorant people. It bothers me so much. I'll be inline behind someone and they'll offer an initial setup and cleaning of your new PC for $75+ and I'm thinking to myself I could do this in 20 minutes and I'd do it for a lot less. Installing memory is way more than it should be. Backing up and restoring, etc, all relatively simple things they charge so much for.

You're right, and there's a big potential for disruption here. But it isn't easy- once you have a service that relies on physical presence somewhere things get expensive quickly. But I can see it- a sort of AirBnB for tech support. Or something.

Outside of the geek squad prices, their price on hardware/software is pretty cheap, and they and their sister company in Canada: Future Shop have single handedly changed the pricing of electronic goods in Canada to much cheaper prices, and have subsequently put some Canadian/provincial chains out of business. Granted they are not cheaper then online retail but I for one thank them for the price change they have brought

Right. I hate their "bait and switch" tactics with the low tagged price on a given machine acting as a trojan horse for their ridiculously expensive warranties. They must place a ton of pressure on their salespeople to push them; I refused one a few years back and the customer service guy put me through a gauntlet of managers drilling me on why I needed it before they all finally fell back. The average non-tech savvy customer is just going to cave in.

> I refused one a few years back and the customer service guy put me through a gauntlet of managers drilling me on why I needed it before they all finally fell back.

You must have really, really needed that machine. I think I would have been escorted off the premises somewhere between the introduction of Manager #1 and the attempted introduction of Manager #2.

It wasn't so much the machine, just the fact that I had to confront the arrogance. I knew what I wanted. I also knew that if the sale was lost (me walking out), it would not have shown up in said managers performance metrics. I purposely bought it without the warranty, knowing that they would have to account for why I wasn't an "upsell".

I worked at BB for a year back in the day. I can say that the blue shirt employees were only good for 2 things: attaching overpriced high-margin peripherals/cables to sales, and pushing the extended warranties. Those who were not good at either did not last long there.

This is what bugs me. I used to want to work at best buy being a geek, but instead they hire people with selling knowledge rather than technical skill.

You're right, as a more knowledgeable person, we always can do it better with less money.

But let me play the Devil's Advocate:

1) Customers are always looking for better and cheaper, always.

2) Race to the bottom happens if #1 won

Eventually the service becomes commodity and businesses don't scale and not making enough money/razor thin margin.

B&H is like this, but their only retail location I know of is in Manhattan. Their selection of high-end consumer / pro-grade electronics can't be beat for a walk-in store.

Apple retail stores do a great job in this area of customer service and really trying to help the customer. Too bad their product selection is limited.

> That being said, when I go into BB it saddens me to see how they up-sell ignorant people. It bothers me so much. I'll be inline behind someone and they'll offer an initial setup and cleaning of your new PC for $75+ and I'm thinking to myself I could do this in 20 minutes and I'd do it for a lot less. Installing memory is way more than it should be. Backing up and restoring, etc, all relatively simple things they charge so much for.

The same argument can be made for cars(oh boy, a car analogy!). It's much cheaper to change your own oil yet people still go to oil change shops and pay a ton of money for it.

The reasons are ignorance(not knowing how to do it yourself) and convenience.