Rip-off merchants
Did a quick tour of Merry Hell over the weekend looking in the electrical stores at TV's and Blu-ray players. Now the model I'm particularly interested in is the Panasonic 32LZD85 and to match the Panasonic BD35EB - £650 and £185 respectively from Amazon. John Lewis do the TV at £749 with a 5-year guarantee and the player at £244 with a 2-year guarantee.
So £99 and £59 for the extras isn't that bad. Onto the 'real world' and only one store had both in stock Comet. £750, so the same as John Lewis? Nope - if I want a 5-year guarantee that'll cost me an extra £250; same for the player, same price sans guarantee which'll cost me extra.
Damn, I mean damn how the hell can they get away with this?
Dumb thing was I wouldn't even have considered John Lewis if it wasn't for Orphi as I've always classed them in the 'expensive' bracket, but he mentioned them positively and I thought they'd be no harm in a look-see. Glad I did.
3 comments:
John Lewis: Expensive, but with some danger of actual customer service.
Personally, I don't mind paying extra if you actually get something for the money.
I bought an expensive LCD monitor from them a few years back, and when the backlight failed, they had the whole monitor replaced inside of 5 days.
On the other hand, my dad bought my laptop from *cough* PC World, and when the harddrive broke, they weren't interested. Didn't give a sod.
It turns out that if you buy that model of laptop, Sharp give you a 2 year warranty, and if there's a problem you contact them to get it fixed. Unless it's from PC World. Then you get a 6 month warranty, and all servicing must go through PC World; Sharp won't touch it.
Nice to know…
Plus John Lewis claim to match anybody else's price. E.g., I bought a water filter from them for £12, even though Curries had the same thing for £8. I told them so; a week later they sent me £4.
As for warranties… I bought some cut crystal ornament from a jewlers for £100. They offered me breakage insurance; but they wanted £90 for that. WTF?
I declined. And when my fat-fingered mum actually broke it, I bought a new one. Saving £10 hardly seems worth worrying about.
And yet they were in fact cheaper than Comet (and Curry's and Argos) in terms of what I wanted.
Sure they're not cheaper than Amazon, but I'm not getting an extended service warranty with them and, like you, I don't mind paying extra when I'm getting something for it.
It's very tempting just to order both.
"Never knowingly undersold" is a pretty powerful statement, and it's important to John Lewis, because it's the only way they can keep their body of loyal customers who always go in there first regardless of what they're trying to buy. The fanaticism they generate is somewhat reminiscent of Apple, but when you go in for a pillowcase they don't insist you buy a new bed as well (*cough* Quicktime *cough*) and when you buy something from them it won't self-destruct if you try to give it to a friend (*cough* iTunes *cough*).
As for PC World, they always do these dodgy dealers with manufacturers. In return for taking on the support costs (which they can discharge cheaply by simply not providing any), they get the stock much more cheaply.
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