PC World -Vast difference between web and instore price!!

Ronni

I went to PC World today to purchase an LITE-ON ETDU108-01 External DVD Reader, I checked stock and the price at my local store before I made the journey and confirmed that my item was in stock and the price was £28.11.
I drove to PC World and went to pick up my DVD Reader, they had plenty on the shelves, but the instore price was £49!!!
I queried this with a sales man and he brushed me off saying the cheaper ones were probably out of stock and the website is normally wrong anyway!!!
After some coaxing I managed to persuade him to check if he had any in stock but not on display, he passed me on to someone else. (Really not suprised by this he didnt win top salesman of the week for me thats for sure)!!
My second assistant was far more competant and helpful, he checked the stock, confirmed that the £49 DVD Readers on the shelf were the LITE-ON ETDU108-01 External DVD Reader's advertised on the web at £28.11 and advised me that if I had reserved the item online I would have got the lower price automatically!!!
He also let me have my reader at the lower price as I had checked it prior to going to the shop.

The moral of this story is, always check PC Worlds website price and reserve the item before you go into the store to buy it. At lease that way you can check the instore price before you collect your item.

zenseeker

You can't reserve it online, so he's talking out of a different hole.

Online prices are very often different, always worth checking. For example, could have saved yourself even more if you'd bought it from Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B002FB7JCO/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new

Ronni

Thanks for that, I needed the reader today though, so amazon wouldnt have been quick enough.

Is naughty of PC World to do that though, dont you think?

StumpyPumpy

According to the PCworld website the LITE-ON ETDU108-01 is marked at a "web-exclusive" price of £28.11 (with free delivery) I'm not saying it was that at the time you saw it - I can have no idea - but it certainly is now. As has already been said, web prices are often lower than store prices. If I see a price on line but want to buy in-store I always take a printout of the web page with me as a bargaining point.

Not that I feel I should defend PC-world as their products always seem overpriced and underspec'ed to me and the one time I did buy something from there (a hard disk caddy) I was overcharged by £20. When I complained, they insisted they were right, until I took the obnoxious store manager to the shelf I had bought it from and pointed to the price label. He tore it off the shelf and ripped it up in front of me, with a smug look on his face which only receded when I pointed to the fact that I had my hand on another, identical label. He then became slightly more contrite and to cut a long story short, I agreed not to complain to head office and he agreed to give me the caddy and refund my money in full. What is worse is that I only went in there because my OH was spending a lifetime next door in TK Maxx.

zenseeker

I find HMV to have a similar online/instore price differential too, especially on DVD boxsets. I rarely actually spend cash in real stores anymore, they just cannot compete with the good ol' internet

Ronni

I have to admit that I didnt see the web exclusive price, but i did see the options to have free home delivery or to collect at store.

And just to be sure I have just gone through the motions and reserved another on online 5 minutes ago. At the price of £22.49.

What I am trying to warn other people about is that : If I had not bothered to check their website price before going there I would have paid £49.

I will admit I was probably lucky that the assistant didnt make me go all the way home to reserve my item and then come back with my reservation number. But if he had, I would have because it would have saved me £26.51!!

Can you not see the point I am trying to make?

StumpyPumpy

I can't speak specifically for PC-World but many retailers operate their web sites as completely different operations from their real world stores. Online has different and lower overheads and also operate in a more competitive environment (There may only be one place nearby where you can walk into a store and buy a external DVD, online you can shop at dozens) A lot of the time all the web site is doing is trading on the familiarity of the name and sharing a central warehouse.
If your DVD was always a web-exclusive then what you have inadvertently done is haggled the price down - well done :T and PC-World would argue that £49 is the list price and you got a bargain at the managers discretion.
You can find any number of examples of where prices differ depending on where you buy even if you limit yourself to DSG who own Dixons, Currys & PC-World plus their online incarnations. For example, there is a fridge freezer I might end up buying if mine packs up like it is threatening to do, On the Dixons website it is currently £239.00, on Currys it is £279.99 (Beko CDA539FW for anyone who is that interested) and the prices fluctuate almost weekly.

What is the answer to all this? IMHO you've already found it. It is MSE and always doing your research before you buy.

SP

vicki83

i bought a computer from them earlier this year and it was £40 cheaper on the web when i checked it later so i took my receipt and they refund the difference because they have the price promise thing although i don't think it actually applies to internet places but i said i will bring computer back and buy it off the internet and they refunded the difference

wrumble

you shouldnt be buying anything from pcworld in the first place, those megastores are all a complete rip off. They have to bee when you look at their overheads in comparisson with an online store. Always buy from anywhere but pcworld.