QOTW: When did you last buy a PC component in an actual store?

[LSG501]

My all in one printer/scanner, I think... 3ish years back ago, it was cheaper than buying new ink (as usual). Other than that, due to the lack of 'pc stores' in my area it's usually an online purchase and has been that way for years.

All I have to pick from is a 'big independent', a couple of small independents, both of which are 'over priced' (I don't mind paying a small premium to get it 'now' but I can usually wait a day for most things) and pc world which 99% of the time doesn't have what I want anyway lol

Basically my issue is 'lack of options' on where I can get things locally and in all honesty, that isn't just in the pc sector either.... even things like clothes I'm buying online, limited choice of stores but even in the ones which have something I like they generally don't stock my size in the store (I need long length due to height) or 'they're out of stock' (these aren't small sized stores either)...

Then there's just the physical cost of going in to town to 'shop', parking fees out my way are stupidly high which when you ultimately come back with nothing due to them saying 'get it online' anyway kind of makes you not bother in the first place...

[Phrontis]

Depends on what you define a store as. I buy everything on line these days, but sometimes I buy online and then go to the collection at CCL computers in Bradford to pick it up, its only 15 minutes from home as long as the M62 is not slow or blocked. Really cannot remember the last time I actually bought a PC part in a shop like Dixons or PC World.

[Gentle Viking]

a few weeks ago.

[Wolfsbane2k]

Component - Er, 2009 ish?
Laptops - ROBO in Dec 2019.. (they wouldn't price match their own in store price)
Monitor - March 2020.

[chj]

I don't live far from scan in Bolton and so when my PSU died in 2019 I shopped there.

[chinf]

2016, a CLC from Maplin as it was on sale.

Prior to that - probably an external 2.5" HDD enclosure shell from a small electronics shop in the far east sometime in the early 2000s, but other than that I don't think I bought any other PC components in a bricks-and-mortar shop.

I can see the appeal of physical retail shops for shopping for accessories or laptops that you want to assess for tactile feel, noise or otherwise build quality - that's something that shopping online is still lacking, though the fairly recent availability of in-depth review videos online does help a little.

[meuvoy]

I just bought an HDD caddy yesterday! Really anything that's small and cheap I get on local stores as it wouldn't make sense to buy a $20 thing and pay $16 shipping for it. So I only buy online, big and/or expensive things. I might throw in small cheap things alongside bigger expensive ones but largelly only buy cheap things locally.

[Saracen999]

Shame John Lewis is heading towards disappearing then isn't it really.... someone who knows says they look unlikely to survive this year unless Christmas is "outstanding - like 3 in one"

From my point of view yes, it is a shame.

But they have gone downhill markedly, in recent years. There's been a couple of rounds of redundsncies ovef the lzxt few years taking out a couple of entire layers of management, no doubt due to pressure from online. In one xense that's not bad, but a LOT of very experienced people, that had decades of experience in narrow areas, be it tech, curtains or kitchin equipment, were lost overnight. Service to the customer suffered. I've also noticec a marked drop in the number of staff on thd sales floor so getting help is harder than it usec to be. Customer experience suffered again.

If JL are going to survive then to my mind, teo things are key. First, back thd high street presence with a good online offering .... and I find their website 3rd rate.

Second, they must offer in-store customers the experience they go to stores for.
Fail to do that, and why would I, or sny other traditional JL customer bother doing so?

To be clear, I will continue to prefer the in-store experience provided they continue to offer enough to justify going. But if they continue to degrade the in-store experience, there's no point.

Can they avoid degrading the experience and still make money? I hope so, but Covid lockdown sure didn't, and isn't, helping.

Survive? Dunno.

[Top_gun]

Yoyotech is the last place where I bought a PC component in 2011.

However, I do regret the day when I have to depend on a reviewer on whether a product looks good as there's no accounting for a sense of style.

I do prefer to buy stuff from shops as I enjoy the process in buying the best product possible. Also love clothes shopping and trying things on to achieve a certain sense of style. Plenty of places sells quality clothing as long, even cheap places, as long as you have a fit body.

Buying stuff from the internet is a sterile process. I'm all for individual thoughts and style. All hail to individualism rather than boring copy cats.

[markzero]

February? Not counting when I ordered something from a different store, online, and picked it up in the parking lot, in July. I hope even after we go back to "normal" we can still do that, instead of waiting at a pickup counter and then pushing through a long line of people waiting to check out.

[deepblue08]

2018...An SSD drive

[Ciber]

Mid 90s IIRC. Possibly a 3dfx voodoo (the first one). Back then online shops for computer parts existed but nobody wanted to trust their credit card numbers to them.

[cheesemp]

To be honest I've no idea other than my mechanical keyboard which was cheaper in PC world than online about 3 years ago (Do you count a keyboard as a PC component?). Otherwise it might be a 256gb SSD I bought about 6 or 7 years ago? To be honest the only items I like buying locally are keyboards and mice so I can try them out but even then PC world seem to have given up putting many on display, so a trip is usually a waste of time.

[WithTemper]

I believe it was a year ago when I bought 1TB SSD

[Roobubba]

I don't remember buying any component in a store in my ~25 years of building my own PCs

[ik9000]

I don't remember buying any component in a store in my ~25 years of building my own PCs

25 years ago? 1995? You must have used a shop - that or mail order via the phone. That is well before online shopping was available.