7 ms·

> it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you.

> it made me pine for the days when you could walk into a shop and a knowledgeable salesperson would ask you a few questions and pick the right stuff for you. I still remember being in Best Buy and hearing the salespeople scamming less knowledgeable customers about how much computer they need or how important expensive cables are. I don't think there was ever a time when you could trust electronics store salespeople to sell you "the right stuff for you".

colechristensen 5y ago
I've only ever overheard good quality advice at Microcenter.
- wetmore 5y ago
  As much as I love Microcenter, even there I've had a salesman give me uninformed advice, throw his bar code sticker on the thing he told me to get, and walk away.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    So don't talk to that guy again. The others should be fine, unless your local store happens to have a lousy GM. Initially I dealt with this concern by benchmarking the advice I got on a topic I do know a lot about. I haven't worried about that in a while; at least in the Towson store, the quality of advice and discussion has been such that the next time they steer me wrong will be the first.
carlivar 5y ago
There was a time - the smaller the store the better. I agree big box stores were rarely good. But Radio Shack had excellent, helpful employees. Probably because RS vetted their employees carefully and paid pretty well (I know this from trying and failing to get a job there when I was around 16 years old).
- ghaff 5y ago
  It wasn't really a golden era. Small local camera stores didn't carry much and were expensive. They tended to recommend something that they had in stock. Was still a pretty regular customer though because mail order wasn't as developed and you couldn't easily showroom gear locally. And Radio Shack was certainly convenient for cables etc. and had often knowledgable employees. But most of the actual stereo equipment and other gear they carried just wasn't very good.
  - matsemann 5y ago
    While not perfect, it was often good enough. Go in, see 6 cameras in three price ranges, choose the one fitting the best for the price you're willing to pay, then walk home happy. Now there's sooo much choice, and most of us end up trying to find the perfect purchase.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      The (somewhat disputed) thesis of the paradox of choice. But I don't really disagree especially for relatively commodity purchases. Yes, I actually looked up a spray nozzle for a hose on Wirecutter. But would I have been perfectly fine just walking into Home Depot and grabbing one? Probably. That said. I'm probably better off researching thins like dishwashers rather than walking into a store (then or now) and picking one that catches my eye or that the salesperson recommends. But you can certainly get into analysis-paralysis with any number of things from travel to cameras. And you're often better off just shutting the analysis down at some point.
    - yourapostasy 5y ago
      > Now there's sooo much choice, and most of us end up trying to find the perfect purchase. The challenge I have now in most product categories is filtering out the sewage-offerings from the genuine values. I don't mind lots of choice if presented with an adequate McMaster-Carr type information-oriented UI (as opposed to the ad-friendly UI's we suffer through these days). I mind when most of the choices are dumpster fire quality, and I have no way to filter them out.
bcrosby95 5y ago
My favorite line was some salesperson saying "you wouldn't want to connect a $2k tv with a cheap cable!". It certainly made me laugh.
tomc1985 5y ago
The folks at Frys (particularly in hardware) were a useful resource (and good source of shop talk) all the way up until Fry's faded into irrelevance. They helped me sort through a good number of hardware-related issues
- throwanem 5y ago
  Micro Center staff still are like this, and that's much more than anything else why I buy whatever I can from them before looking anywhere else. I want them to stay in business, because otherwise I have to do my own research every time, and who has the time for that? - well, this, and also because I just delight in being still able to walk into one brick-and-mortar store where I know for sure I won't have wasted the trip.
datavirtue 5y ago
Ah best buy sales incentives. It reminds of the time I watched a salesman force the wrong case on an old lady's iPad, cracking the screen, and then blaming her for it.
seanp2k2 5y ago
At least that was better than Fry’s or Home Depot, where salespeople actively walk away when they see you approaching, and have zero knowledge of what is even carried by the place they work. After a while I figured out that it’s better to just look myself on the shelves and endcaps vs trying to ask anything of the sales drones. Kinda like a physical Amazon. I’m sad that they’re out of business now, and with no more MicroCenter left in the Bay Area, the choices are now basically Amazon, eBay, or small online shops (if Central Computer and Halted, now closed as they sold to Excess Solutions @ 1555 S, 7th St. San Jose, CA 95112 don’t have what I’m after).
- sgerenser 5y ago
  Odd, I’ve never had much trouble at Home Depot or Lowe’s getting an employee to help me find something. Usually they at least know where things are even if they couldn’t tell you how to use or install said item.
sgtnoodle 5y ago
I was recently in a Best Buy and overheard an employee explain the difference between a Pixel 6 and a 6 Pro as, "EVERYTHING is better". I had personally just compared the two side-by-side and concluded that the pro's only material differences were more RAM, worse build quality due to the curved screen edges, and the addition of a telephoto camera.
zo1 5y ago
We kid and joke about expensive cables, but we're at a point where it's become true. It's hit or miss buying USB cables. For fast-charging as an example (double-trouble if you don't have a quality or compatible charger to pair it with). Likewise for USB transfer rates (e.g. for the Oculus Quest that I was not planning on testing with 10 different 5m USB cables to see which worked). Same goes for the connectors. All the IEEE and ISO standards out there in the world and the damn USB plugs stick out half the time (nevermind the Chinese-made ones I had that were 1.5x the normal length). In other instances 3.5mm jacks don't stay in or something or other becomes loose. And trying to find reviews or info about this online, or filtering it out to some level on purchase sites like Amazon is...tiring.
tehaugmenter 5y ago
> a time when you could trust electronics store salespeople to sell you "the right stuff for you". Remember RadioShack?

colechristensen 5y ago

I've only ever overheard good quality advice at Microcenter.

wetmore 5y ago
As much as I love Microcenter, even there I've had a salesman give me uninformed advice, throw his bar code sticker on the thing he told me to get, and walk away.
- throwanem 5y ago
  So don't talk to that guy again. The others should be fine, unless your local store happens to have a lousy GM. Initially I dealt with this concern by benchmarking the advice I got on a topic I do know a lot about. I haven't worried about that in a while; at least in the Towson store, the quality of advice and discussion has been such that the next time they steer me wrong will be the first.

carlivar 5y ago

There was a time - the smaller the store the better. I agree big box stores were rarely good. But Radio Shack had excellent, helpful employees. Probably because RS vetted their employees carefully and paid pretty well (I know this from trying and failing to get a job there when I was around 16 years old).

ghaff 5y ago
It wasn't really a golden era. Small local camera stores didn't carry much and were expensive. They tended to recommend something that they had in stock. Was still a pretty regular customer though because mail order wasn't as developed and you couldn't easily showroom gear locally. And Radio Shack was certainly convenient for cables etc. and had often knowledgable employees. But most of the actual stereo equipment and other gear they carried just wasn't very good.
- matsemann 5y ago
  While not perfect, it was often good enough. Go in, see 6 cameras in three price ranges, choose the one fitting the best for the price you're willing to pay, then walk home happy. Now there's sooo much choice, and most of us end up trying to find the perfect purchase.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The (somewhat disputed) thesis of the paradox of choice. But I don't really disagree especially for relatively commodity purchases. Yes, I actually looked up a spray nozzle for a hose on Wirecutter. But would I have been perfectly fine just walking into Home Depot and grabbing one? Probably. That said. I'm probably better off researching thins like dishwashers rather than walking into a store (then or now) and picking one that catches my eye or that the salesperson recommends. But you can certainly get into analysis-paralysis with any number of things from travel to cameras. And you're often better off just shutting the analysis down at some point.
  - yourapostasy 5y ago
    > Now there's sooo much choice, and most of us end up trying to find the perfect purchase. The challenge I have now in most product categories is filtering out the sewage-offerings from the genuine values. I don't mind lots of choice if presented with an adequate McMaster-Carr type information-oriented UI (as opposed to the ad-friendly UI's we suffer through these days). I mind when most of the choices are dumpster fire quality, and I have no way to filter them out.

bcrosby95 5y ago

My favorite line was some salesperson saying "you wouldn't want to connect a $2k tv with a cheap cable!". It certainly made me laugh.

tomc1985 5y ago

The folks at Frys (particularly in hardware) were a useful resource (and good source of shop talk) all the way up until Fry's faded into irrelevance. They helped me sort through a good number of hardware-related issues

throwanem 5y ago
Micro Center staff still are like this, and that's much more than anything else why I buy whatever I can from them before looking anywhere else. I want them to stay in business, because otherwise I have to do my own research every time, and who has the time for that? - well, this, and also because I just delight in being still able to walk into one brick-and-mortar store where I know for sure I won't have wasted the trip.

datavirtue 5y ago

Ah best buy sales incentives. It reminds of the time I watched a salesman force the wrong case on an old lady's iPad, cracking the screen, and then blaming her for it.

seanp2k2 5y ago

At least that was better than Fry’s or Home Depot, where salespeople actively walk away when they see you approaching, and have zero knowledge of what is even carried by the place they work. After a while I figured out that it’s better to just look myself on the shelves and endcaps vs trying to ask anything of the sales drones. Kinda like a physical Amazon. I’m sad that they’re out of business now, and with no more MicroCenter left in the Bay Area, the choices are now basically Amazon, eBay, or small online shops (if Central Computer and Halted, now closed as they sold to Excess Solutions @ 1555 S, 7th St. San Jose, CA 95112 don’t have what I’m after).

sgerenser 5y ago
Odd, I’ve never had much trouble at Home Depot or Lowe’s getting an employee to help me find something. Usually they at least know where things are even if they couldn’t tell you how to use or install said item.

sgtnoodle 5y ago

I was recently in a Best Buy and overheard an employee explain the difference between a Pixel 6 and a 6 Pro as, "EVERYTHING is better". I had personally just compared the two side-by-side and concluded that the pro's only material differences were more RAM, worse build quality due to the curved screen edges, and the addition of a telephoto camera.

zo1 5y ago

We kid and joke about expensive cables, but we're at a point where it's become true. It's hit or miss buying USB cables. For fast-charging as an example (double-trouble if you don't have a quality or compatible charger to pair it with). Likewise for USB transfer rates (e.g. for the Oculus Quest that I was not planning on testing with 10 different 5m USB cables to see which worked). Same goes for the connectors. All the IEEE and ISO standards out there in the world and the damn USB plugs stick out half the time (nevermind the Chinese-made ones I had that were 1.5x the normal length). In other instances 3.5mm jacks don't stay in or something or other becomes loose. And trying to find reviews or info about this online, or filtering it out to some level on purchase sites like Amazon is...tiring.

tehaugmenter 5y ago

> a time when you could trust electronics store salespeople to sell you "the right stuff for you". Remember RadioShack?