Tiger Direct, II

Worse: remember my to-be-returned hard drive from Tiger Direct, a local/US “cheap” electronics retailer?

After the broken English and vague promises from the Philippines yesterday, today, contrary to what the agent said, I get this:

WHOA. Jump though hoops: Contact manufacturer? Ship back at my own cost? “Fast, friendly service”, but it is slow, based in the Philippines, inefficient, doesn’t speak English, and.. the list goes on.

As in photography:

  • Price is not everything. Cheap means it does not get done well, or does not get done completely, or is risky, or comes with strings attached.
  • Service is everything. Tiger Direct has of course lost me (and I presume, now a fair number of my thousands of readers) as a customer forever: Best Buy gets me as a client from here on, even if it costs more.

You can do things efficiently, but you cannot do things cheaply. As Nasa says:

Fast – Cheap – Good : Choose Any Two

I cannot spend half a day finding a box, buying tape to close box (I have none!),  finding all the original bits, contacting original manufacturer, driving to post office, filling forms, paying for shipping plus “full insurance”, etc.

That $189 is lost, and I will now drive to Best Buy to buy two more drives.

Like in photography: cheap is expensive. I am editing photos as we speak – every shoot means lots of preparation and finishing work, and it is real work, and hours, and costs money; and no, you cannot cut it without compromising quality. As Tiger Direct shows. My strong advice: never, ever use them. Not worth it. Look:

Capitalized “DO NOT”… contempt for the customer if ever I have seen it.

 

6 thoughts on “Tiger Direct, II

  1. Hard way to Learn.Tiger Direct has been on my do not buy list for years. I will only deal with retailers who I know who have excellent customer service. It’s worth paying more.

  2. Large USB drives are less expensive at Costco, than at Tiger Direct’s store on Woodbine in Markham. Costco offered to take back my HP 7600 printer when they stopped selling ink for it in their stores — after 3 years! I didn’t feel they owed that to me so I just trashed the printer and purchased an Epson instead, which I have been much happier with.

    Tiger Direct has their place, I will purchase some things there, but they sell a lot of referb items, so I am very careful about what I am purchasing.

  3. I’ve stayed away from Tiger Direct for a while. I while I never had a bad experience at one of their stores or online (though I’ve never really purchased much from them), I would much rather visit local store, such as NCIX or Canada Computers.

  4. Wow. Just… wow. I guess if you’re big enough, you can afford to screw over a few percent of your customers. Reminds me of XKCD’s bobcat…

    Not trying to be overly commercial here (and I have no affiliation with them) but Canada Computers really does an excellent job… their return policy is “If it’s broken, bring it back and we’ll replace it on the spot for free” and their pricing policy is “if another authorized dealer online or in the same city sells it for less, we’ll match their price”. Their regular prices are usually within 2% of Tiger, Newegg, etc.

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