Tuesday, November 12, 2013

SMART INVESTOR: 5 Reasons You Should Shop In-Store For Electronics

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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

5 Reasons You Should Shop In-Store For Electronics

With the holidays right around the corner, everyone wants to get their hands on the latest tech gadgets at deep discount. But before you start snapping them up online, you might want to reconsider those “old fashioned” electronics stores.

Big-box retailers will be desperate to compete with e-commerce sites, and that means in-store shoppers can have the advantage.

Here are some reasons that it might be better to ditch e-tailers in favor of the real thing:

In-store discounts. Customers with store credit or rewards cards have direct access to big savings during the holidays that they may not find online.

Price matching. Retailers have finally given in to the whole "showrooming" craze (when customers search products on their smartphones to compare prices in-store). Best Buy and Target, for example, have expanded their price match policies to online retailers as well as their regular brick-and-mortar rivals.

Instant gratification. Admit it. There is something strangely satisfying about the weight of a newly purchased thingamajig dangling from a shopping bag on your arm. And if you buy in-store, there's no fear that your order will be lost in transit or delivered late.

Better return policies. Sometimes in-store return policies beat online shops when it comes to returning defective or unwanted merchandise, and you won't have to worry about covering return shipping costs.

The touch, the feel of ... hardware. There's only one way to really get a feel for a new electronic item, and that's to see it for yourself. Shopping in-store will also allow you to compare products to one another. Who knows what 22.4 ounces really feels like until you've held it in your hand next to one that weighs three ounces more?