shitty customer service, redux.

we dediced to use some of our xmas monies to buy a new digital camera. our old one is crap, and it's quite bulky. miyuki wanted something she could keep in her purse. I did some research, asked some friends, and decided to get a canon powershot.

the initial reviews I'd read lead me to think I wanted the G9. it has a ton of professional quality features and was supposed to be sturdily built. it was also in our price range, albeit at the high end of it. the only place local that had it was circuit shitty in lynnwood. so I drove up there last night. their website said they had it in stock (as well as several other powershots). I stood around for fifteen minutes waiting for someone to help me. during that time, I noticed how HUGE the G9 was, and called miyuki to ask about the alternatives. the SD950IS is a sexy camera, with a sleek titanium body, but the performance wasn't as good as the SD870IS. given that shutter speed and lag was my primary concern, I opted for the SD870. it's not as durable or pretty, but it's supposed to perform better. I told them I wanted one. and I wanted it at the website price of $300, not the sticker price of $350 (the G9 was $430 on the website, $500 in the store). I asked them why they charged more online, when they offered in-store pickup, and they couldn't tell me other than "the website is corporate, and they don't update it as often"... turns out the website also lied. the only powershot they had in stock was the SD750, which didn't have image stabilization. when I asked why I just drove half an hour based on their website's false information, I got the same "corporate" line of bullshit...

so I drove across the street to best buy. within thirty seconds, someone asked if they could help me. I picked up the display SD870IS and was amzed that it had a charged battery and I was able to take some practice shots (none of the displays at circuit shitty worked). I asked about availability, they had one left after selling two that day. I asked about the $350 price tag, and mentioned the aforementioned $300 price on their competitor's website. they said they couldn't match web deals, but she asked her boss and they agreed to knock 10% off. I asked for $50 off, they gave me $35 off. for five seconds of haggling. I'll take it. they didn't give me a bunch of crap about not buying the warranty or accessories, either. I gotta say, for an evil box store chain, best buy ain't bad. and these seems awfully similar to my record store experiences the night before... I used to shop exclusively at circuit city, often blowing as much as $100 a month on CDs and gadgets there when I was living at my parents and had disposable income. I probably bought 200 CDs there in a two year span. I haven't bought anything there in years. I've been in several times, and always walked out empty handed. yet best buy gets a lot of my business. sure, their inventory can't rival amazon or other online stores for the obscure and foreign stuff, but they've got great stock of current and new release type stuff. I don't mind popping in there to grab a DVD I want immediately.

we also stopped at easy street last night. dropped about $75 there, money I had planned to drop at sonic boom. they had at least fifteen copies of the new band of horses. arctic monkeys was $14, not $17. I picked up that lily allen cd (I have a weak spot for eurotrash, okay?) and saw that the mighty mighty bosstones had a new album, grabbed it since it was only $9. miyuki picked ip via audio and jens lekman. we're now one purchase away from another free CD. and when the cashier asked if I found everything okay, I gave him the nutshell blog rant from yesterday and complimented his store on always having what I was looking for, mentioning it was worth the extra effort of getting there. he was gracious about it, and even apologetic for sonic boom which was surprising. knowing how rarely we get those kind of comments at my work, I thought it was important to pass along the feedback, even if it didn't go any higher than him. I'd certainly hope he mentions it to his superiors tho.

so now we have plenty of new music for our trip to canada this weekend, and we have a nice new digital camera to take some pictures at that hockey game tonight. yay! consumerism!