PC world

[t_guest]

Hi all

for a couple of years now i have been seeing and hearing that PC world is S***

i would like to know your views on this as i think Pc world rules

[webman]

All of the above apart from 'good' 8)

 

I know someone who worked at one store.. they were actively encouraged to sell people things they didn't want or need; and the aftercare service is (or used to be) dreadful - charged a fortune for something that didn't need doing or couldn't do a simple task.

[Norphy]

They're owned by the DSG. If that isn't reason enough to avoid them, I don't know what is. Overpriced, poor quality spares, with a few exceptions utterly ignorant staff and very annoying adverts.

[acrobson]

A bunch of people who are all theory and no pratical with no field experience. Wanna be's!

[Halfmad]

PC world use the odd product to lure people in, that's usually the ones which are on their adverts on TV. The problem is that the average person going in will have a badly spec'd computer thrown on them with a pile of software they might not need or ever use and peripherals that are cheap and/or not needed as pack of a "package".

 

Saying £900 worth of goods for £400 makes it look like a great deal to people but frankly you'd be better off spending £500 and getting what you need with the extras that you'll make use of.

 

I'd told staff if they go near PC World not to come crying to me, the same goes for most high street retailers. If they want me to spec a Dell etc for them then fine I will but obviously I wont' support it. I have more faith in Dell than PC World by a fair bit at the moment especially as I seem to be getting Irish and Scottish chaps on the support lines these days instead of a guy with a dodgy english accent from India called "George".

[GrumbleDook]

If you look carefully you can pick up some cracking deals from PC World ... but you have to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

I dislike the sales techniques practiced by some of the staff and get frustrated when you want to drool over any Macs they may have only for some pimpled-faced oik to try and persuade you that the cut price celeron laptops actually perform better.

[elsiegee40]

I go in there for a bit of fun... As I'm a middle-aged mum, the spotty-faced oiks assume I know nothing.....!!!

 

You can really tie their sales-brats up in knots! See how long it takes them to work that I actually know what I'm talking about.

 

I really only go in there to look and then go home and find it cheaper on the internet!

[alonebfg]

Ok i have two trains of thought here personal and business. Personal in store they are crap with a capital C Overpriced and giving you the big sell i hate it. Now for the business bit I have never bought spares parts or anything else but what I do buy from them are my licences. They have give me my own microsft licencing account i get every disk evey month as it is reliced and yes i do have disks of vista and ever other microsoft product you can think of. As for pricing they are just as cheap as the rest of them and in a lot of cases cheaper IE exchange plus 60 exchange cals £167.00 which is schools select agrement and have not found anyone much cheaper. plus i already have the discs so i dont need to worry about them ariving.

[srochford]

plus i already have the discs so i dont need to worry about them arriving.

 

Help save the planet - cancel the disc subscription :-)

 

For a volume licensing agreement with MS you can use the licensing web site (http://licensing.microsoft.com/) which will allow you to download any of the packages and get the license keys.

 

I'm not sure about the select agreement, but with the Campus agreement you're also licensed to use almsot all the software on something like 120 day trial.

[Sylv3r]

If you know what you are doing / looking for you can often pick up a bargain or two.

 

For those that dont they are easily lead down the garden path and after going in for a pack of paper come home with a laptop with the added bonus of a 3 year warranty!!!

[PeterW]

If you know what you are doing / looking for you can often pick up a bargain or two.

 

Yes I would go with this and the other comments of this nature, the name of the game in PC World is 'Cherry Picking'.

 

A friend of mine was after a large monitor and PC world appeared to have a good enough price and he wanted it that weekend, we trotted off down there and they had nothing on display bigger than 19" Asked one chap that hasstled us as we walked in but he went off to find somebody else then we were greeted by a fairly old chap (not saying there is anything wrong with that) he dissappeared for 10 minutes and re appeared with the monitor and explained 'this is the last one' & 'had a run on these we sold one yesterday as well'.

 

LOL no wonder they were selling so WELL they didnt even have any on display and there was me thinking they were all about the up sell !

[broc]

If you must shop at PCW, it's always worth checking their website before visiting a store. Often you can reserve goods at their website price & collect in-store, just paying the website price. I bought an HP Photo printer this way for my wife, their website price was similar to other online resellers and £50 cheaper than their in-store price.

[Skoggmeiger]

I agree, it's good for cherry picking. Got my girlfriend a Linksys Cable router for about £35 last year, after seeing it advertised on TV.

 

However, I made the mistake of not printing the offer out, as when we got there, the Oik behind the counter hadn't heard of the offer and tried to charge us double. He wouldn't shift, so we had to go back home and print out the offer. He still seemed urked by it.

[localzuk]

They are also good for making mistakes on their prices. I have picked up a 19" TFT screen for £25 and a 250GB External HDD for £8.99. Pretty good prices really

[Friez]

For me PC World are hit and miss. Sometimes you can get a good deal but you really have to search around. I've walked into a store before and come out with nothing but the firm belief that I have more knowledge about computers than all of their staff combined.

 

I'm sure they have some computer literate people working for them somewhere...

[Butuz]

Whatever you do dont get PC World confused with PCWB (PC World Business) - I've recieved great service from PCWB, next day delivery if order before 4, and the coupleof returns I have had to do have gone smoothly.

 

I think anyone that shows some promise in a PC World srore is moved up to PCWB.

 

Butuz

[enjay]

PC World do have some genuine good prices - as seen on their TV adverts, but those are clearly just things to pull you in and buy the less-favourably priced stuff. Buy your new printer for £39 and then the USB cable for £14.99...

 

If I do go to PC World, it is because I want to see a specific piece of kit in person because the pictures on web sites don't tell me what I need, etc - I then write down the model number and go and buy it from ebuyer instead :-)

 

Their staff are clearly shop assistants and not technical assistants, and sadly I don't think their in-store "experts" are much better. Things might be different now they have a new partnership with can't-remember-their-name, I don't know...

[mrcrazy04]

Someone recently got sold an extra £150 worth of stuff. I told them they should have come to me, I would have given them Avast! and Open Office for free, rather than £99 for Office Student edition and £50 for Norton!

 

They also sell rubbish computers - 1.8MHz, 2.0MHz etc!

I did consider pointing it out, but thought it reflected them as a company :twisted: !

[Midget]

i think you may just be an idiot. Because at those speeds they are most probably Core2Duos or their very very bottom of the spectrum super cheap celeron machines which do the job well for what most people want.

 

Also people use Office because it is industry standard and does the job, OO just isnt as good. oh but Norton is rubbish, AVGFree is better.

[mrcrazy04]

Midget - read my post again.

I said MHz, not GHz! - That's what amused me!

I have a 1.8GHz Sempron, and a 2.0GHz Celeron at home and am happy with them.

I can usually only afford to buy the cheapest stuff (within reason) for my home machines. In fact half of it is stuff I scrounged off people who upgrade their machines!

[localzuk]

Also people use Office because it is industry standard and does the job, OO just isnt as good. oh but Norton is rubbish, AVGFree is better.

 

So you are saying a home user would need all the features included in Office and OpenOffice wouldn't suffice? I'd be extremely dubious about that claim.

[googlemad]

The funny thing I've always found is how they just seem to put that looping sales video on every laptop and PC so you can't evaluate how fast the system runs until you get it home!

 

(Yes there are certain system settings which are risky to let the great British public to be messing with but have they never heard of Local Group Policy?)

[Midget]

Midget - read my post again.

I said MHz, not GHz! - That's what amused me!

I have a 1.8GHz Sempron, and a 2.0GHz Celeron at home and am happy with them.

I can usually only afford to buy the cheapest stuff (within reason) for my home machines. In fact half of it is stuff I scrounged off people who upgrade their machines!

 

Sorry, it's just that I'd had this conversation earlier that day with someone going on about how the Core2Duo wasn't very good because he had a 3.4GHz PentiumD which was obviously faster and betterer as the numbers are higher; and assumed you were doing the same.

[t_guest]

well thank you every one

for your posts and a quick vote on the poll I know now the reasons why most people like pc world and most think it's high priced and etc.