Don't shop at CompUSA

[MaxKaladin]

Heh, I remember working for Radio Shack back in the early nineties and finding out some of the cheapest items had the highest prices. Stuff like diodes you could buy for $1.19 cost them a $.05. It was insane.

 

[ManicFuel]

You keep saying, "you don't want to know," but trust me: I do.

Just give me a rough % of your profit. And is there really any difference in these "copper/gold/silver/platinum/stainless steel/adamantine" ends for coax cable?

Well, since you're a regular here...

I was buying 10' CAT5 patch cables in low quantities (no more than 100) at $1.20 each. I charged $8.99, significantly lower than our shelf stock of Belkin. Sold like hotcakes, couldn't keep them in stock.

I'll confirm the notion that low cost items = high margin, percentage-wise. But I'd like to point out that the reverse is also true. The margin on PCs and laptops was very low, never more than 5%, usually closer to 3%. Some Toshiba models had a big 1% margin. During a sale (not a rebate sale) on PCs or laptops, you're buying the system at or below store cost almost every time. The only money we made was through backend vendor incentives or, more likely, the sale of add-on or accessory items.

These are extremes. Target margins for all sales were 20%. My markups on tech items were generally between 15% and 35%, since I could use outside vendors the store as a whole didn't get product from. The prices were competitive with other brick-and-mortar shops, but we couldn't touch online prices.

 

[D20 Addict]

Try JDR.com!

 

[Calim]

also quite likely since they don't have to maintain an inventory for the online store. CompUSA can stock the PNY memory in store and all the cheap stuff online, so unfortunately they are not lying. it is likely a different part altogether you are seeing online compared to the one in the store.