Circuit City

Interesting computer shopping experience today. I'm upgrading my desktop computer (added a new motherboard and processor) and decided to buy a larger hard drive. I went online to look at prices at my favorite online source, and compared those prices to the ones listed at Circuit City, which is close to my home. Circuit City was having a sale on hard drives, so the prices were almost even. I happily jumped in the car and rode over to Circuit City, only to find the very same hard drive priced $30 higher than I'd seen online. At first I thought I must be crazy, but it then dawned on me that Circuit City might very well have targeted pricing schemes set up. On their webpage, they know they are competing for online customers against places like newegg.com. In the store, particularly the one in Charlottesville, they have no such competition.

So what did I do? I walked over to the silly Sprint Broadband demo computer, logged onto circuitcity.com, ordered the hard drive and designated express pickup as my delivery option, walked 10 feet to the merchandise pickup window, and received my new hard drive for $30 less than the price in the store. That felt pretty good.