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

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Do you still feel the need to touch and see, or have your builds and upgrades shifted entirely online?

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2011, and it was just a pickup as I've been shopping online only well before that

The closest thing is probably around 2006 when I bought a custom-build from a local PC shop.

Other than that, I believe my component purchases have always been online as the prices were always clearly cheaper than brick-and-mortar.

I bought a used Pcie XFX Geforce 7800GT from a local shop around 2008, the shop has survived and still does repairs etc now which is good.

Just before the lockdown. Some networking stuff.

Our local Novatech closed a few years back. I bought some things from Maplin a few times, but now they're gone too.
I did trek up to OCUK to see/try the new Vive and did buy some bits then.
I do sometimes amble through PC World, especially if it's something I want more immediately.

I'd use shops more often, but they've been driven away by big brand fashion shops and stomped on by the likes of Amazon.

I cannot wait until the dystopian future where the world is owned and run by a handful of megacorps. We're so very nearly there, and I want to jack in to the matrix, man..... I wanna get 320 gigabytes of storage for my head!!

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Originally Posted by Ferral

I bought a used Pcie XFX Geforce 7800GT from a local shop around 2008, the shop has survived and still does repairs etc now which is good.

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Good to hear yours is still going. I believe mine closed within a few months after my purchase.

That is a tough one, I'm not sure I can actually remember! Or maybe I just never have :o Our first couple of (family) computers came from physical shops (local one, then Evesham shop on the edge of Leeds) - but home builds many moons ago when I was a teenager were all bought online.

bought an SSD from pcworld - was cheaper than online. was many, many years ago now.

2010. Maybe 2009. Needed a very specific PSU for an old system and Maplin happened to have one. Actually it was a case from Yoyotech in London. That was a year after that so late 2010.

Honestly I can't remember, it was so long ago.

3 years ago. now, no more shops left where I live.

Does a full system count? I bought a laptop fro PC World, last year. Parts for my PC.... I'm not entirely sure. I remember buying a TV-Card, from Maplin around 2011. After that...

I live near a microcenter, so as often as possible I go there. (In particular for CPUs/MOBOS, can't beat them for that, and their Inland line of SSDs is a great deal.) But I also go to Best Buy, once in a long while... just because. Not sure I've bought anything there in a long time, but I'd rather get something local than through Amazon.

PC World for 8gb ram back in 2009, it was actually for someone else's PC tho, it was actually a really good deal, £44 if I remember right.

For me it is in 2005, when I got some parts at a Computer Fair. If I remember right, it was a PC Case, a DVD-RW Drive, and a stack of DVD-R Discs. The rest of the components were bought online, and I've got everything else online ever since.

Maplin a few years ago. But it was purely for a fan extension lead which would have cost more in delivery than the item itself elsewhere.

Other than that then a long, long time ago.

2011 when I picked up my i7 2600K, Asus P67 Sabertooth, 8Gb ram, and EVGA GTX 580 from Fry's Electronics. Everything since then has been all Newegg orders.

1986 - it was 2 x 80KB 5.25 inch floppy disk used for disk drive 1541 for Commodore 64 !

3dfx Voodoo Graphics card in the late 90s to play the South Park PC game.

Probably around 2003, a Maxtor 120GB HDD iirc, which ended up being RMA'd a few months later because it was rubbish.

January. Bought a SATA cable and a couple other items at the local Micro Center. I prefer to buy from there when they have what I'm looking for. It's convenient to have a local store, I can refer non-technical friends there and know they'll wind up with something halfway decent at a reasonable price, and it's just a really cool place to browse. That's worth spending a bit extra, and a surprising amount of the time they have deals that are as good or better than Amazon or Newegg.

Since the 'rona started, other than an external mic that I got on delivery from Best Buy (where it was in stock, a rare attribute at the time), I've only bought components for 10+ year old computers. At that age, I usually wind up buying them used on eBay.

Maplin's closing down sale - everything was super cheap and they were discounting a further 20% at the checkout. You didn't find this out until you got to the checkout though, so I did another lap of the store and hoovered up some crazy cheap SSDs.

Before that, it was probably three or four years ago in PC World, and it was a peripheral instead of a component - they had a brand new Asus RT-AC87U router labelled up at £80. Impulse buy - they were retailing for almost £200 at the time. Still using it.

I struggle to remember the last time I bought PC component at all, never mind where it was from.

That said, until Covid and shops shutting, I bought anything and everything I could locally and only bought online if I couldn't avoid it. Except for clothes. Shirts, etc, I buy online because, first, I struggle to find well-made stuff locally, second, I don't give a hoot for fashion and typically buy fairly plain t-shirts and polo shirts, provided I can get wdll made stuff.

Most household items come from John Lewis. We have one pretty local and the warranty is usually good, as is customer service. Recently, bought s few bits from Amazon as, well, lockdown, etc. Also, JL stocks have been dire.

But overall, I buy locally unless I either can't get it locally or doing so is silly expensive compared to online but even then, I'm highly selective about who I will buy from, online. Price is far from the most important criteria.

Why buy locally? To avoid, wherever possible, faffing with couriers especially if returns are involved. If I buy locally and hit a problem I czn usually take it back, get it sorted on the spot, and be home in no time instead of waiting around for couriers. i.e. hassle minimisation.

Oh, and normal shopping? Small independent local shops when I can, and local supermarkets the rest of the time. Never yet done grocery shopping online and don't plan on starting.

about 3 years ago when a component (psu) turned up d.o.a.
Was right royally shafted on price as well

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Originally Posted by Saracen999

I struggle to remember the last time I bought PC component at all, never mind where it was from.

That said, until Covid and shops shutting, I bought anything and everything I could locally and only bought online if I couldn't avoid it. Except for clothes. Shirts, etc, I buy online because, first, I struggle to find well-made stuff locally, second, I don't give a hoot for fashion and typically buy fairly plain t-shirts and polo shirts, provided I can get wdll made stuff.

Most household items come from John Lewis. We have one pretty local and the warranty is usually good, as is customer service. Recently, bought s few bits from Amazon as, well, lockdown, etc. Also, JL stocks have been dire.

But overall, I buy locally unless I either can't get it locally or doing so is silly expensive compared to online but even then, I'm highly selective about who I will buy from, online. Price is far from the most important criteria.

Why buy locally? To avoid, wherever possible, faffing with couriers especially if returns are involved. If I buy locally and hit a problem I czn usually take it back, get it sorted on the spot, and be home in no time instead of waiting around for couriers. i.e. hassle minimisation.

Oh, and normal shopping? Small independent local shops when I can, and local supermarkets the rest of the time. Never yet done grocery shopping online and don't plan on starting.

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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"

September 2019 Central Computers Howard St San Francisco. Was there on a road trip/Holiday from Scotland that started in Las Vegas and ended in San Diego. Purchased an EVGA RTX2070 Super :D

couple of external harddrives at PC World/Currys last year, within a few p of online prices.

the shop at SCAN, 2017 and then again 2018 for that.
for big orders i prefer to go in to the sore and see whats available, save waiting around for 'order processed, now awaiting picking..' emails. just go in, see if it in stock, if not do the next alternative on my parts list.

plus was buying the systems for mates, who prefer physical shops, so if theres a problem they can go in and talk face to face to people, get it sorted quicker than using an online chatbox or over the phone.

Phew thats a tough one, about 10yrs ago I had to go to PC World for a 2.5" drive which was needed urgently for a broken laptop. I don't think I've been to a PC shop since.

PC World, but only for a printer.

I'd never shop at Scan due to their re-stocking fee. Plus if you have an issue, it won't usually fall in your favour. (DJI Mavic Pro drone - Known issues at the time, later fixed with firmware. Apparently nothing wrong with it)

I literally cannot remember the last time I bought something for my PC from a shop, we did have a Maplin down the road from where I used to work and I picked up a PSU for a work machine, but for personal use, probably before I started online shopping..

Last purchases were all in PCWorld and work related, needed some USB pen drives to test and offline build of an SCCM task sequence so got some 64gb Sandisk flash drives.

Needed to backup the above build so purchased a 2Tb usb hard drive.

Working on a customer site, only 1 network point so had to go and buy a couple of their el-cheapo switches, again for work.

For personal stuff, I think my last purchased in a store was a cd writer many moons ago.

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...

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.

a few weeks ago.

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

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

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 3dcandy

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"

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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.

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.

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.

2018...An SSD drive

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.

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.

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

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

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Originally Posted by Roobubba

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

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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.

I don't think I've ever bought a component in a store, I've always got them online. I didn't start PC building till 2005, so by then online shopping was pretty well established.

Last time was when yoyotech was still in London and and cannot remember how long that was.

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Originally Posted by Kovoet

Last time was when yoyotech was still in London and and cannot remember how long that was.

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circa end 2012/early 2013 IIRC. Used to head there in my lunchbreaks back in the day. They got bought up by some behemothic company who restructed them and moved them to an online only affair - I think they might still be around in some guise, just not the physical store of old.

I bought a Voodoo II from PC World back in the 90s. That was the last computer component bought in store.

I'd go to stores if I could get what I want at a reasonable price. The last one I went to was Overclockers, and that was a couple of years ago.

Some things such as a keyboard and mouse I am STRONGLY of the opinion you need to feel before buying - have wasted so much money on mice trying to get one that feels right....

Never, always on-line

I bought last month a Geforce RTX2060 Super videocart

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Originally Posted by ik9000

circa end 2012/early 2013 IIRC. Used to head there in my lunchbreaks back in the day. They got bought up by some behemothic company who restructed them and moved them to an online only affair - I think they might still be around in some guise, just not the physical store of old.

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I think they based themselves in Basingstoke. So wish we had a store in London somewhere. I know my Mrs would hate as I'd be bankrupt but what a way to go down.

This year when my WC stopped working and I went and look at some but mainly online

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Originally Posted by WookieSM

This year when my WC stopped working and I went and look at some but mainly online

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I hope I'm not the only one who initially thought "What does the toilet breaking have to do with PC components?"

Obviously I then realised that the 'WC' was referring to watercooling. :D

I bought my monitor from pc world about a year ago coz when one ordered online come faulty. And i didn't want wait 2 weeks for a replacement.

3rd September 2013 from Aria PC, Manchester, UK. I purchased the last item that I needed to complete my first desktop build, namely:- 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance Jet Black Low Profile 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Dual/Quad Channel Kit [CML8GX3M2A1600C9] . At that time it was priced at £59.99, you can still buy the RAM from Amazon priced £40.10 GBP

they still have those? kidding...9 years ago, I think.

Possibly 1999 or something like that. Defo pre-internet

Can't remember the date it was a 3DFX card when it first-ever launched I often wandered down to the local office supplies store who had a computer section on the 1st floor I always remember being shown Quake and just being blown away. I bought it on the spot!
I never found what I wanted in a local PC store namely PC WORLD they always appealed to the novice or going back to school/college types and never seem to stock the kinda kit I was interested in.

thank god I don't have a scan or anything like that in London, I'd be bankrupt with the prices these day's.

Almost two years ago when I built my new PC. I picked up the motherboard and processor at Micro Center.
Everything else I had shipped.