Micro Center

[RevGAM]

If any part of this violates the rules here, I do apologize. I tried to make sure it doesn't but I've had a very long few days and I'm not entirely sure I succeeded. If you will let me know what's wrong, I will be happy to edit my message to comply. However, please note that I will be unavailable for much of Saturday and Sunday, so it may take me a while. Thank you to the moderators for your hard work!!!!!!

 

There are pros and cons to shopping there.

 

The best time I'm aware of to go there is during the Black Friday sales, but be sure to have ample time to wade through the sea of humanity, or order online. When I was there a couple of months ago, a lot of the prices were not competitive, but they DO price-match if you can show them the proof, so you can save yourself the wait and the risk of a stolen package, and not pay shipping (aside from shipping yourself there and back in your vehicle!). This definitely encourages me to go. They had a lot of things overstocked to cover the demand but even with that preparation, one of the items I wanted was out of stock.

 

Almost every aisle has a small area dedicated to open box items. Clearance areas are few and far between, however.  If you go into the area for pre-builts, sound systems and monitors, you'll have to ASK a sales agent about clearance and open box items. I managed to snag a Noctua NH-D15S for $54.96, a be quiet Pure Rock Slim 2 for $11.96, a 12-port Micro Connectors ARGB/PWM fan hub for $9.96, a 3-pack of NZXT F120 RGB White fans for $35.96, a 33x33mm Thermal Grizzly Kryosheet for $9.96, and a Lian Li Uni Fan AL140 V2 RGB for $11.96! That was all because of open boxes!

Heck, I even got a Vernier Caliper from Enkay for $6.99, and the prices I paid for my nieces computer parts:
$259.99 for an MSI Ventus 2x 3060 12 GB GDDR6 ($10 less than the 12GB on NewEgg, which was what I asked for)

$151.99 for an i5-12600K ($2 less than NewEgg)

$129.99 for G.Skill Rip Jaws V 2x32GB DDR4 3600 MT/s C18
$95.96 for Dell 27" IPS 52721HS Monitor (open box, too, normally $160)

 

Unfortunately, the sales agent, T. Brown, put the 8 GB GC at the counter for the same price as the 12GB on NewEgg and neither the cashier nor I noticed even though he checked the model to make sure it matched. There is no phone number to call so I had to text MC to ask about getting the correct card. They have it but they won't match the NewEgg Black Friday price, so I'll be returning it.

 

I was drooling over some OLED monitors from LG, Samsung and Asus. OMG!  The odd thing was that the 27" LG and Asus OLED monitors were almost identically priced, but the Asus had significantly better clarity in terms of bright and dark - neither Kali, the lady who helped me, nor myself were able to figure it out - the LG was already on max brightness but the image we were looking at (a close-up portrait of Spiderman) was really dark and some of the definition was a bit washed out. The Asus, in contrast, had way more brightness range, and provided a better result. The Samsung and LG 37" OLEDs were both amazing with even higher prices, of course, although I could barely tell the difference between them even though the LG was an older "version 1" model. Kali was pretty knowledgeable and friendly and we had a very interesting conversation since she's both a gamer and a photographer who's trying to learn video editing.

 

3 things to point out.

• Sales agents are paid on commission. Even if you pick things out without help (like almost all the open box stuff I got), it'll probably get assigned to someone who DID help you - in my case, the cashier assigned them to himself.
• Just to reiterate - always show a cheaper price to the cashier for a price match - someone with authority will have to approve it, of course. However, price-matching is not allowed on special/time-limited sales, including Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Understandably, also excluded are clearance, refurbished, re-manufactured, off-lease, pre-owned, out-of-stock, and open-box items; mail-in or instant rebates; and competitor's coupons.
• Always look for clearance and open box items, but be sure to check them. I found one item (a TG thermal sheet product) was missing. A fan had a missing part although it showed as complete. And I've found some empty boxes robbed by shoplifters. Not about MC: I emailed Lian Li and NZXT to buy missing parts from open boxes items but they never responded.

 

Ultimately, if you're willing to:

1. research beforehand what you want so that you can find better prices (compare with MC's website);
2. shop for bargains, open-box and clearance items, etc.;
3. avoid falling into the trap of blindly trusting the sales agents while still giving them the chance to earn their commission;
4. be wary of the few that are unethical;
5. price-match at check-out;
6. you can save yourself time and shipping costs and go home with what you want. Take that, Amazon!

 

SHAMELESS REQUEST FOR SUPPORT

I am an Amazon Air employee. Due to the violations of labor laws perpetrated against us at at least some Amazon facilities, I am boycotting purchasing from Amazon. I hope you'll join me in boycotting them to show them that they need to stop breaking the law. I'd link to my video about it but I'm not allowed to do that. Instead, here's the letter from the lawyer that represents the Amazon Labor Union KCVG Northern Kentucky. Please support us!

[Brooksie359]

For me their bundles are where you save the most money. Bought a R9 7900x plus Asus strix B650E-F and 64 gb of 6000 mhz memory for 550 which is pretty insane considering how much that would have cost me anywhere else. 

[GuiltySpark_]

42 minutes ago, RevGAM said:

• research beforehand what you want so that you can find better prices (compare with MC's website);
• avoid falling into the trap of blindly trusting the sales agents

 

I'm going to be honest but I don't really know what the point of all that was. As for the above two points, if you're going to MC and aren't already far more knowledgeable than the store associates, you're in for bad time. They can't help you.

 

Nothing can be learned about monitors in a retail store. Terrible/no calibration, awful interior lighting, bad "seating" position. Reviews from trusted sources are how to shop for the model you want, then you just go to the store, talk to no one other than pointing it out. 

 

I think the only time I speak to people there is to tell them that no, I don't need help and the person at checkout.