PC World has an excellent roundup of the best places to buy "tech" things. They included online and offline stores (remember when it used to be online and real world? Now the real world stores are called "offline" and sound somehow dysfunctional). Read about the All-Star Tech Stores in PC World.
Perhaps it's just me, but it seems stores don't even bother to stock slower moving items anymore, directing users to online sites. Or they may have one item in a range of items (like fountain pen ink in black, but not any shades of blue) in stock, but only one.
Some stores do a good job integrating their online and real world stores, but not all. At the least real world stores should accept returns of items you bought from their online counterpart, but that was a struggle a few years ago. I've not seen any tech retailer do as good a job for customers as
Coldwater Creek, my wife's new favorite clothing store. Last time we were in the physical store, a clerk offered to have a blouse in the right size shipped to us free of charge from their online store. You pay for the item along with your other items, including sales tax but not shipping, and they handle the details.
PC World's article balances the cost of sales tax and immediate acquisition versus often lower prices online that include shipping costs but not sales tax. Companies and consumers are supposed to report sales tax purchases from out of state voluntarily, but no one does. I'm amazed the local governments can't agree on a national plan to charge sales taxes for online purchases, but they haven't. I'm afraid the online sales tax exemption will go away soon.
Nodding to the incredible influence of eBay, the article mentions that thousands of retailers now use eBay as their primary online presence. If you haven't noticed the "Visit seller's Store" listing in the Meet the Seller box on the top right of some auction pages, you may not realize how pervasive this has become. If something goes wrong with a transaction at one of these stores, eBay may (not will, but may) be able to get the problem fixed.
The headline
Wal-Mart to peddle PC Components makes many smaller computer retailers nervous. Others believe customer service will be their Achilles heel, foot, and leg. Have you ever met a Wal-Mart employee you would trust to recommend the right DDR memory stick with a newly purchased motherboard? Would the memory still work with the Wal-Mart RFID tag glued to it? I doubt it.
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