Do You Really Want Me to Buy This?

My kids have been using an old PC I built 4+ years ago. It’s a an AMD Athlon XP 2800, that has a new habit of shutting down randomly. It was originally a Linux desktop and later a server. Now it’s retiring as a Windows XP Pro system. I wanted to replace it with a new off the shelf system. I don’t have the time, or desire to build another box right now. With Windows 7 arriving this last week, there were a number of sales on new systems. So, I did some shopping around to see what was available for $500 or less. I settled on an HP system that was going for about $479. It’s a basic system that will be good for my kids computing needs. I waiting until today, Sunday, to see if there were any new sales. Sure enough, the system I wanted was available at Office Depot and Office Max for $399. At Office Depot, the sale involved a mail in rebate. But, Office Max, which is only a mile away, had an instant “rebate”.

I walked in, located the system and was approached by a salesman. He was typical of the type of technology guru that find employment in the consumer electronics departments of big box retail stores. He assumed I was a technology idiot. I told him what I wanted, and he went off to see if there they had any left in stock. He gave me a sales flyer with additional “deals” if you were buying a new system. He returned a couple of minutes later with the “last” one they had. He asked me if I was interested in a copy of MS Office Home & Student for $70. I told him I would be interested if it were the Mac version. (My wife can use it on her Mac). His response: “No, we can’t do that. Why would you want to, anyway? It won’t work on this PC.”

If you have ever bought any consumer electronics item then you heard the inevitable extended warranty sales pitch. He quickly outlined the benefits of spending 25% of the cost of the system on an extended warranty. I gave him the only sensible answer to the offer, “Thank you, no i’m not interested”. He took another tack on explaining the benefits. I then informed him that in the last 25+ years of owning computers (starting with a VIC-20), I have never needed to use the standard warranty on a new computer, much less an extended warranty. This did not deter him. He brought out his A game argument. “We are losing money on every one of these systems. The only way we make money on them is by selling the extended warranty. I’m not trying to pressure you for my benefit. I’m doing this for the companies benefit.” So, I am supposed to feel guilty that the company has chosen to employ a moronic business model (“We’re losing money on every sale, but we will make it up in volume!”) and spend another $119 to help the company stay afloat. He then passed me off to the register clerk to finish up. He then threw a nice condescending “Good luck!”, as he walk off.

I’m a pretty tolerant person, (my wife would have walked after the response to the Office question) but I was about to tell him where to re-stock the PC, and walk. In this economy it seems to me that when you have a customer in front of you ready to spend money, you treat them with a lot more respect and deference. Apparently, I am just an “old economy” customer who doesn’t understand the “new economy”.