J.J. O'Shea wrote:

I don't know much about Circuit City, but my clients have told me enough
stories about their visits to CompUSA to make me conclude that:

1. Their employees don't know anything.

True. (Mostly. There are one or two who know something.)

The CompUSA a couple of miles from here has one Apple employee, working
in the Apple section there. _He_ is quite knowledgeable, but since he
doesn't work for CompUSA I'm not counting him. The actual employees
don't like him much.

2. They're trained, when asked a question the can't answer, to make up a
response.


Also true. (Again, mostly.)

So don't ask 'em anything.

That's the problem. *I* don't have any reason to ask them anything, but
the unsuspecting public doesn't know not to. The people going there for
Mac-related stuff who aren't lucky enough to go during the one Apple
employee's 40 hours a week are at their mercy.

The main advantage CompUSA has is that it has a
_lot_ of stuff all in one place. I go there to have a look at stuff before
buying, and to check pricing. If the prices there are better than prices +
shipping from some website, I buy there. (And, also, for certain items,
such as large printers, it's nice to have somewhere to return it to that
doesn't involve boxing it up and paying FedEx.) But I don't ask questions.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anything at CompUSA that I can't get for a
better price at Office Depot or Staples locally, and definitely online
somewhere, and the office stores are much better about returns.

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