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Comment by stephengillie | Hacker News Reader

Why do most electronics retailers use empty or powered-off demonstration devices? To reduce costs - from customer theft, employee theft, damage or abuse by prospective customers, etc. At Best Buy, when a customer's kid spills their soda on a laptop or phone, who pays for the hardware? Best buy, the parent, or the manufacturer?

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But... how often does that happen? And would one not think that they might - maybe, possibly, just might - sell a few more by having usable computers people can test drive before shelling out $799? The increase in sales might - again, crazy I know - just might help absorb the cost from the occasional spilled soda on a laptop.

Did you not get the consultant's report on inventory shrinkage and oversight? I'll send you another copy along with the Powerpoint presentation. Please review it, we'll be moving forward with standardization on action points 2 through 7.

It helps that Apple stores have an employee density many, many times that of a Best Buy or similar, which means people are unlikely to get away with anything sneaky for too long.

I don't know about electronics specifically and different country issues (I live in Ukraine), but in general store if you would accidentally* break anything then, regardless of store rules, the store can't require customer to pay for it.

*I don't exactly remember about "accidental" part. I suppose that store would be required to prove that action was intentional in court.

In the US we hear "you break it you buy it" a lot, but most retailers will bear the costs in the interests of customer retention.

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