Circuit City/Best Buy experience

First off, I was in Circuit City on the weekend and they were selling all receivers 10% off and will likely drop them further as the clearance continues. Sirius had less inventory less than XM, but I would expect them to go and have to believe this will give us some subs with them clearing out 500 stores or so by March. I know some are just replacement or upgrades, but I bet there will be new subs and gifts given, so this is a positive.

Secondly, I was in Best Buy for 10 minutes last Saturday and 3 seperate people approached the audio section and were extremely interested in Sirius or XM, which was a positive and I was very surprised and wondering why all ofa sudden. Again, I was only there for 10 minutes. Now I listened to the sales rep converse with them and actually confused them, did not give them accurate info and actually scrared them away in a sense because she was making them believe they had to spend more than was reuquired and could not answer the questions.

I actually stepped in and said if you don't mind, I know alot about this and can help them. I then proceded to take them through the different radios, their capabilities, portables, ala-cart, pricing plans and the coming interoperable. I gave them all the options and this may have also been alot to take in and they really wanted a radio, but decided to leave and read up more on the internet and come back. They also made mention of the concern that the company may go under and I said that will not happen. They seemed extremely excited about the interoperable I mentioned and might wait a few months for it to hit the stores.

The sales girl said to me, thank god you were here because they (meaning Sirius XM reps) don't teach us all this. I told her that I would hope they wuld now start to focus much more attention on educating you now that there is no more Circuit City.

The sad and scary part is that there are so many prospective buyers scrared away by uneducated sales people. I plan on going back on this coming weekend to see if there is more activity. At X-Mas time, you could here crickets, so something is spurring interest.

Anyone see anything similar ?

The sad thing is that as much as I know about all of this stuff, I still don't feel comfortable buying a radio at bestbuy or circuit city.

Why?

Because I like to get hands on with the products that I am going to buy. I went a couple of weeks ago to BestBuy because I was looking at getting an XMP3. The unit they had was a dummy for display purposes only. You could not use it at all. I'm sorry, but I have to be able to play with something before I buy it. Look at all of the cell phones that they carry. The majority of them are working models. They have radios all over the place blasting out tunes. Their speakers are set up to blow out your ear drums, and there are TVs and Computers all over the damn store that you can interact with. Why not a satellite radio?

I don't have a best buy story, but my nephew said he was afraid to buy into sirius because of "all the channels" meaning he seemed overwhelmed by all the options to listen to. He is technically savvy too, so to me its a good sign at least that word is still getting out and people are getting interested.

I posted before that my niece had a SAT button on the car radio but wasn't sure how to activate it, interested, but not sure what to do.

There's no rocket science in these radios. People just need to experience them and read... the brochures, the instruction manuals, etc...

Is not as if they will be researching and developing them. They will just be operators and listeners for crying out loud.

The store employees (they are not sales people) do need to know about the plans and how to operate the product.

I bought my first radio @ Target and I was in a rush because we were driving back from a 4th of July vacation. How difficult is it to understand the plans and the radio itself ? I hooked it up while I was driving on the freeway and called to activate it, gave them my cc and shazam ! Sat Radio in my car.

If people is going to buy, they will, if they are just looking around, they are just looking around...specially me... I guess I have too much testosterone, I've known guys that go to car agencies to look around, I only go when I need a car and I usually come off the lot driving one....But then again, that is me.

My Best Buy (Holmdel, NJ) has always had a good working display. They recently moved the Satellite Radios and Slacker display to the back of the auto section which is in the back of the store behinds the GPS. No Man' s land if there every was. They did expand it slightly. Everything seemed to be working including the Slacker G2. I didn't specifically try the XMP3.

Circuit City, a few years ago, let it be known (it was mentioned in the press) that they were laying off their higher paid store sales people and replacing them with less-qualified, lower paid, employees. I had not been in a Circuit City store before this change over, but when I've been in a Circuit City store in New York City a couple of times this past year. The sales people were clueless about the various products and did not seem to be in a rush to come over to help with anything. Also, although they had a couple of Sirius Radios on display at the store, they were out of stock on them the past few months, so I wonder if the demise of Circuit City really matters at all since they obviously did not have the money to restock the radios.

At the Best Buy, a few doors down on Fifth Avenue from the Circuit City I just mentioned, service for the whole store is generally spotty. There are knowledgeable and eager salespeople there, there are some who make statements like "all the MP3 players are the same" and some who just stand around talking among themselves. Also, Best Buy (although it has the name "Best Buy") is very expensive. I priced an mp3 player there. It was $189. The very same MP3 player downtown at J&R Music was $129 - the exact same model!!! (By the way, J&R is a fabulous store, with a dedicated counter and sales person for Sirius and XM, and generally great service, huge selection and great prices for all kinds of electronics, computers, etc. They also do mail order.)

So, with the lousy Circuit City out of the picture, I wonder if people will go into other stores (e.g., Walmart, Radio Shack, Best Buy) and have a better impression of satellite radio, and therefore be more likely to become customers.

That is just one of many, many reasons why Circuit City went under but Bestbuy, Radio Shack and most of all WalMart are no better from an educated sales staff standpoint. My wife and I were in a Chrysler dealer a few weeks ago and we knew more about SIRI than the salesman and were answering questions he asked about it. The guy had no clue! I think WE sold HIM on SIRI in his soon to be purchased car!

In the end, who has much of an incentive to sell something if they aren't well paid for it?

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Originally Posted by SteveSirius

So, with the lousy Circuit City out of the picture, I wonder if people will go into other stores (e.g., Walmart, Radio Shack, Best Buy) and have a better impression of satellite radio, and therefore be more likely to become customers.

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made it to ccity today, not much of anything left, I couldn't tell for sure but the sirius and xm radios that were left seemed to be only 10% as the sign for each said not applicable with other discounts or whatever that usually means the sign above that says 30% doesn't apply to the radios, just accesories. There was one inno left, a couple INV2's, and a couple xm radios, not sure what they were. The stand was right at the front by the check out and the line went right past it. Every person in line checked out the stand for sure. i overheard 2 women say, "oh thats that radio that he got" and the other girl said, "yeah but you have to pay a monthly fee" It sounded like they were interested because a friend thought it was cool.

Then I went across the street to best buy and I found the radios in the back by the car audio like someone here said, otherewise I would have wondered around...is it in the MP3's, is it in mobile audio, is it in GPS or phones? Wasn't sure but found a small display which was rather confusing because right behind the small display was a huge layout of many radios you could try, so at first i thought, is this it? Immediately an employee asked if i needed help but I wasn't interested in talking so i just said, thanks found the xm radios. And then another gentleman came up with a question about accessories for an xm device he owns. The xmp3 was available to monkey with and seems cool, the stilleto 2 was also in the same spot and on. There was one radio set into a boombox and it was playing lithium? Some heavy death metal, and although I listen to rap, the death metal sounded sweet because i know you cant hear that on FM!

I give the Best Buy set up an A-. Could have been easier to find but all of the models were plugged in to play with and an employee was right there to help. I would have liked to see some larger signs like the phone companies have etc. that come down from the ceiling and direct you there.

Can't wait to get my tax refund.

I went to another city today. Toledo, Oh. the circuit city was closed, as in closed never to open again. there was a best buy across the street so i checked it out. i found the stand quickly knowing now that it is in car audio. i was offered help twice, but only asked if there were any sales this week. the employee said no, the price shown is the price for the week. it was not a real fancy setup, the radios were on and a few were operable. it took a few seconds to realize i had to push the best buy demo button to turn their speakers on. after that it was audio bliss. the sound quality was superb. i am going to wait until wednesday to see what siri is offering with this weeks big sale. it was 11 am on sunday not busy of course and no one else looking at the radios.

Imromo24

Check out TSS radio, just saw add on orbitcast for XMP3 for 199.99 limited time only. do not know what it comes with though!

Yeah, once you know what you want, TSS Radio is better. You can get everything there at one time. Too often i've found that the chain stores are out of stock on one thing or another. BestBuy does seem to be getting their act together lately but no sales is likely an outshoot of no competition anymore. Circuit City always sucked anyway. Goodbye and good luck!

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Originally Posted by just sirius

Imromo24

Check out TSS radio, just saw add on orbitcast for XMP3 for 199.99 limited time only. do not know what it comes with though!

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