Best Buy Adventure
So, the other day I went to Best Buy to finally spend a gift card that I still had from Christmas. I knew what I wanted, The Universe season 1, so I was going to be in-n-out. Well, I had been wanting to pick up a HDMI cable for my Xbox 360, so I figured what the hell I’ll see how much they are at Best Buy while I am here. I have always heard that Best Buy is overpriced for audio and video accessories, but hey I had a gift card so who gives a shit
When I finally stumbled upon the cables in question, I was a little awestruck. They had two HDMI cables, one for $100 and another for $65. After I finished laughing to myself I was ready to leave. But of course, here comes Super Salesman out of nowhere, “Need any help with anything?”. So reluctantly I ask “Is this all of your HDMI cables? Are these the cheapest ones you have?”. He responds with “Yes, these are the only ones we have. But, I tell you what, I can knock 20% off”, pointing to the $65 dollar cable. I politely say “No thank you. I can find them much cheaper than that elsewhere.” I notice him having doubts about whether I am just trying to haggle him, or maybe I actually realize their scam. So he replies “OK I tell you what, I can let you have the $65 dollar cable for $30, but that is as low as I can go.” Realizing that he just knocked over 50% off the cable, I reply again with “No thank you. I can find them much cheaper elsewhere.”
With a dumbfounded look on his face he sarcastically asks “Really? How cheap are we talking?” I say “About five dollars or so.” Realizing that I might actually know something about electronics, he doesn’t even respond. He walks over to his little kiosk, and says “I think I might have an opened cable that I could sell you for really cheap.” But of course, there was no opened cable. So as I start to walk away he says “You know, those cheap cables really are crappy. You get a much better quality picture with these gold tipped, blah blah blah cables.” Being the good little electrical engineering student that I am, I almost start to lecture this guy about digital logic and digital signal processing. But surely he knows about this sort of stuff, right? So instead I politely say “Thanks for the help, but I need to be going.”
On the drive home I started thinking to my self “Thirty bucks for a sixty-five dollar cable, that just doesn’t make sense.” How can he, without hesitation, drop that much off the price? How much are they paying for these cables that they can sell them for less than half price and still make a profit? Are there really people out there that are stupid enough to pay $100 for an HDMI cable that is no better than a $5 one? For anybody else out there in the market for a HDMI cable, do some shopping around on Amazon or something. At least read this article before you blow $100 dollars on some Monster Cables like a dumbass, Cheap HDMI Cables.
