Home Theater

Want to purchase a home theater for my new home. Is purchasing on online is safe and beneficial?

Want to purchase new home theater. My colleague suggested me to purchase on online. Now i am in a big confusion. Where to shop. Is online shopping is affordable or expensive. help plzzzz

Be very, very careful if you buy electronics online.

Most of the nicer products available are transshipped. That means that you are not dealing with the dealer (the company that has the relationship with the manufacturer) you are often dealing with someone that has purchased from a dealer and is reselling the item. Don’t even believe the web site when they say they are “authorized.” More lying goes on over the Internet than in a political campaign! Be sure to check with the manufacturer.

I find this often holds true for “reputable” Internet sales organizations too. You have to hold their toes to the fire if you don’t want to be cheated.

Many good manufacturers have warnings about buying on the Internet right on their web sites.

Here’s a couple examples:

http://www.usa.denon.com/Warranty.asp

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/customer/warranty.html?CTID=5010080

Then there are the even less scrupulous companies that pass off repaired or b, c, d stock items as new. They are repackaging experts!

Infant mortality is a major concern for consumer electronics. They are more likely to fail in the first 20 hours than in the first two years. You will be responsible for freight on returns, if they allow returns at all. You may have limited legal remedies in this situation. For example, the Uniform Commercial Codes of California state that you can demand a refund if the product is defective or misrepresented, but that won’t help you if your purchase came from another state.

I have clients that buy on the Internet and ask me to install for them. When I identify a faulty component, they are responsible for getting their warranty handled and paying freight to the sales organization. Often, the sales organization has to turn around and resend it somewhere else for warranty repair, or return it and wait for a replacement. There have been times when my client has waited weeks before getting the issue resolved.

Some manufacturer’s tech support departments require you to give them your serial number and the name of the company you purchased from before they will help you. If the store doesn’t line up with the serial number, they simply won’t help you. They will tell you to contact the company you purchased from. Needless to say, you’re not going to get any decent tech support from an Internet reseller.

MOST OF THE BETTER CONSUMER ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURERS DON’T LIKE THE INTERNET FOR SALES. They feel their product needs to come with the kind of support that is only available through trained authorized dealers that can demostrate the features and benifits of their products and support you after the purchase.

And still other manufacturers have entire product lines specifically for the Internet. They are typically inferior to their normal product line, which allows for a lower price. In receivers, they even use a different rating scale for amplification. In other words, the Internet 120 watts is the real world’s 80 watts. (they are measuring peak power instead of root mean squared)

A company doesn’t have to be big to have a huge presence on the Internet. Pictures of giant warehouses full of pallet racks and fork lifts give consumers a sense of security when considering a purchase. Sometimes, when your product arrives, it’s “shipped from” address is different than the stated address on the web site, if they state it at all. This is called dropshipping, where the sales organization never has to handle the product in the sales process. Keep in mind that the Internet sales organization’s “Global Headquarters” might just be some guys kitchen table. lol

Okay, I’m not saying don’t buy consumer electronics on the Internet. I’m saying proceed with caution!

And, I would never buy speakers on the internet! There are numerous reasons, but here’s a particularly dastardly one: There are many very nice, very expensive speakers on the market. Let’s say I wanted to own a set but I wasn’t willing to spend the money. I understand speakers reasonably well so it would be very easy for me to purchase a set, go to Radio Shack and buy cheap replacement drivers (the speakers inside the wood box) and a crossover network (also in the speaker enclosure) and swap parts. Then I could sell the dumbed down speakers on the Internet at a reduced rate, say 10% less than I paid. I could install the awesome drivers and crossover in an enclosure of my own and have a fantastic setup for cheap. Do you understand speakers well enough to realize when you’ve been cheated in this fashion?

Others here would say that buying on the Internet is fine, and then cite their personal experiences to prove it. I’ve had good experiences purchasing online too, but that doesn’t discount the facts I’ve stated above.

Oh, last thing: I do not own or work for a brick and mortar store, even though it may sound like it. )

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