Do you continue to support Mem-Ex or other local computer retailers?

So I've used Mem-Ex for a long time (as we all have I know). Still fond memories of going to PM Hobby, Coco Brooks, and Mem-Ex all in one stop. Anyway I need some NAS drives and I've been watching constantly for them to go on sale. They recently went on sale for $50 - $60 off which I thought great! The issue is that their awesome sale price is still a good $30 off Amazon's normal price, let alone the sale prices that Amazon put it on.

On one hand I am very much into supporting local but I've found the last few months that we're not talking $1-$3 for things, that supporting local could be hundreds of dollars if not more.

Just curious what you guys have been doing? I'm pretty much only getting stuff off NCIX and Amazon now a days. It is hard to support local for 30-40% more.

I've had memex price match amazon I'm fairly sure, definitely ncix.

I've been trying to support local brick and motar for sure., including memex. Switched from Safeway to coop and recently bought a bunch of stuff from barbecuesgalore instead of home depot.

They'll price match if its sold by Amazon themselves in my experience. I prefer buying local for electronics because I've had some bad luck with shipping materials and DOA items online.

for one off stuff i'll shop around, but when i built my new computer last year i just went to memex and got it all, not worth the hassle of piecing it together here and there.

I don't buy a lot, but I do try to use memex. Usually will price match, and have never had issues with that.

95% of my computer related purchases are through MemEx. They'll match newegg / ncix / amazon (if sold by amazon) so anything that they have listed I price match and buy through them.

Typically I don't buy my backup drives there because they are often more expensive. Best buy sometimes has the Western Digital portable hard drives for cheap and then you can shuck them so you get a much cheaper 8tb drive than if you bought just the drive. It's a stupid system.

Otherwise the only things I don't buy at MemEx is if I'm looking for a particular brand of thing that they don't stock (case or watercooling parts).

MemEx is definitely a huge benefit to having here so I try my best to support them. Even if someone wants a prebuilt I always direct them there.

I usually try to purchase there, once and a while amazon/newegg for an amazing deal or if I don't have time to stop by. Also stuff they didn't have available like unifi but now they carry most of the stuff I am interested in. Would generally price match when buying a bunch of things but now most of those places like ncix are gone. Wish they had more water cooling stuff. At least now that corsair has stuff they have something available that isn't thermaltake.

MemoryExpress is a necessary evil and I buy most things there still but if they didn't price match, I wouldn't shop there.

I can only speak to the employees that have helped me over the years, but it seems all they care about is commission now. They push the IPR so hard (which is almost useless now compared to years past), and act like you just killed their dog when you inevitably turn it down. On top of that the information they give has just been bad - outright lying to people to try and up-sell parts. I was in there building a PC for my Dad and they told me an 8700K (no gaming or overclocking) simply cannot be cooled by air, and I needed to buy a huge AIO :rofl: Things like that.

I just go in there with a list of exactly what I want and a list of pre-checked price matches and it's fine, but if it weren't for that I would just buy everything online elsewhere.

Hakkola used to work there and he was great to deal with but it's been years since he has worked there to my knowledge.

If you're looking for hard drives, chances are the best deal is in an external hard drive. For example, 10TB 7200RPM PMR Helium Filled Seagate Barracuda Pros are $199-229 on the regular if you're willing to spend 30 seconds shucking the drive. As a standalone, that drive is $550 at Memory Express.

If you're specifically looking for NAS drives, make sure you don't buy one of the garbage SMR drives that some companies like WD are using as their "RED" NAS-specific drives.

https://blocksandfiles.com/wp-conten...4/WD-Chart.jpg

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Originally Posted by Mitsu3000gt

MemoryExpress is a necessary evil and I buy most things there still but if they didn't price match, I wouldn't shop there.

I can only speak to the employees that have helped me over the years, but it seems all they care about is commission now. They push the IPR so hard (which is almost useless now compared to years past), and act like you just killed their dog when you inevitably turn it down. On top of that the information they give has just been bad - outright lying to people to try and up-sell parts. I was in there building a PC for my Dad and they told me an 8700K (no gaming or overclocking) simply cannot be cooled by air, and I needed to buy a huge AIO :rofl: Things like that.

I just go in there with a list of exactly what I want and a list of pre-checked price matches and it's fine, but if it weren't for that I would just buy everything online elsewhere.

Hakkola used to work there and he was great to deal with but it's been years since he has worked there to my knowledge.

If you're looking for hard drives, chances are the best deal is in an external hard drive. For example, 10TB 7200RPM PMR Helium Filled Seagate Barracuda Pros are $199-229 on the regular if you're willing to spend 30 seconds shucking the drive. As a standalone, that drive is $550 at Memory Express.

If you're specifically looking for NAS drives, make sure you don't buy one of the garbage SMR drives that some companies like WD are using as their "RED" NAS-specific drives.

https://blocksandfiles.com/wp-conten...4/WD-Chart.jpg

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More or less the same for me. I do NOT use them for product advice, ever. Always research before and go in with a list of parts you want and any price matches. Even if I get there and something is out of stock I'll dip out of the line and go look things up on my phone first and then get back in line.

Appreciate everyones responses. Seems consistent. And yeah I noticed the IPR push as well. I've never felt more educated than people at MemEx until the last couple years.

As for shucking the drives, I guess their figuring that out and soldering them into place now and you don't know until you crack them open. Also apparently people are assuming that since it is USB they are the platters that fail on SMART, which I've never seen; and I've scavenged 2 -3 of them by now, but I'm hesitant now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mitsu3000gt

MemoryExpress is a necessary evil and I buy most things there still but if they didn't price match, I wouldn't shop there.

I can only speak to the employees that have helped me over the years, but it seems all they care about is commission now. They push the IPR so hard (which is almost useless now compared to years past), and act like you just killed their dog when you inevitably turn it down. On top of that the information they give has just been bad - outright lying to people to try and up-sell parts. I was in there building a PC for my Dad and they told me an 8700K (no gaming or overclocking) simply cannot be cooled by air, and I needed to buy a huge AIO :rofl: Things like that.

I just go in there with a list of exactly what I want and a list of pre-checked price matches and it's fine, but if it weren't for that I would just buy everything online elsewhere.

Hakkola used to work there and he was great to deal with but it's been years since he has worked there to my knowledge.

If you're looking for hard drives, chances are the best deal is in an external hard drive. For example, 10TB 7200RPM PMR Helium Filled Seagate Barracuda Pros are $199-229 on the regular if you're willing to spend 30 seconds shucking the drive. As a standalone, that drive is $550 at Memory Express.

If you're specifically looking for NAS drives, make sure you don't buy one of the garbage SMR drives that some companies like WD are using as their "RED" NAS-specific drives.

https://blocksandfiles.com/wp-conten...4/WD-Chart.jpg

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Yeah I went with Seagate, they have their own issues but I did 3 seagate and 1 WD Red as I didn't want 3 identical ironwolfs

Only thing I'd consider IPR on is a monitor just because dead pixels and such. The rest of computer hardware is pretty solid. SSDs would be the only other weak point but those have gotten much better in recent years. I honestly don't even know the last time I had a component fail (and even then it was a old as fuck computer which IPR would've expired on).

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Originally Posted by pheoxs

More or less the same for me. I do NOT use them for product advice, ever. Always research before and go in with a list of parts you want and any price matches. Even if I get there and something is out of stock I'll dip out of the line and go look things up on my phone first and then get back in line.

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Yup, that's exactly what I do as well. DO NOT used them for information or research, or ask them for advice. I always tell people to do all their homework before hand, go in with a parts list and know which websites have the product in stock for a price match, and you're good to go. Like you say, if you need to substitute a part, step out and do your own reasearch, do not ask them to suggest something. After that, everyone gets what they want - I get my parts at a fair price without having to wait, and they get local business. If that price matching policy ever goes away, I would be buying 100% of my computer parts/accessories online because they are almost never the cheapest anymore.

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Originally Posted by pheoxs

Only thing I'd consider IPR on is a monitor just because dead pixels and such. The rest of computer hardware is pretty solid. SSDs would be the only other weak point but those have gotten much better in recent years. I honestly don't even know the last time I had a component fail (and even then it was a old as fuck computer which IPR would've expired on).

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I think even without ipr they can deal with the manufacturer for you. I had a 960 evo die and after a few days they said samsung authorized a replacement so I got a new one. I did buy the IPR on the one I replaced it with in between that time though. Monitors though I always get IPR since they are so ridiculously expensive. Didn't have to use it on my predator but had to use it back in the day on an asus where I was getting red pixels and had no issues replacing.

2020 and NCIX still being brought up lol.

MemEx for me is usually a “I need this today” type shop, they seem to pretty rarely be the best price on anything anymore.

They very rarely even have what I want these days.

The problem with IPR is they get to decide an equivalent replacement at their sole discretion. This is often an issue because the customer has bought a very specific part (say, a GPU) for a very specific task, but they don't care - they will just give you something of equivalent monetary value, not necessarily equivalent performance for your usage scenario. If you go through the manufacturer, you will typically get either an identical replacement or an upgrade. They also reserve the right to take up to a week just to diagnose the issue - time that could be spent just getting a RMA from the manufacturer yourself. They technically do not cover overclocked CPUs either but I don't know how strict they are with that.

I just buy EVGA hardware when possible. One time they overnight shipped me a PSU right before Christmas - amazing. My brother had one of this two GPUs fail as well, so EVGA sent him TWO new GPUs and upgraded them both for free as well to current-gen. That's better than IPR, and it's free. Memory Express makes it sound like dealing with manufactures is the most painful thing in the world, but it rarely is. I've used most of the major brand's warranties over the years and it's always been smooth. Overall though I've had extremely few issues with PC part failures.

The price of IPR is also very disproportionate compared to realistic failure rates - with the money I have saved over the years never buying IPR, I could easily build an entire PC haha. Extended warranties are almost never a good deal though, that is no surprise to anyone.

Some people just need the peace of mind though, and are willing to pay up to a 20% premium for that.

I shop at Memex if it's convenient (ie: if they have something I need and I can't wait for it), not because it's local. If it's cheaper on Amazon and depending on what it is, I'm not going to go out of my way to Memex to price match. I'll just order off of Amazon.

Their service has been on the decline for years and to me it's just another big box store, which is a shame because I do like helping local business if the service is good. My opinion of them has soured over the years, especially after the owner called me a liar after I posted my experiences in this thread:

https://forums.beyond.ca/threads/329...ss-experiences

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Originally Posted by Mitsu3000gt

They push the IPR so hard (which is almost useless now compared to years past), and act like you just killed their dog when you inevitably turn it down.

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:rofl:

Can confirm. I get the majority of my PC stuff there. Always price match. I just prefer the 10 min drive to get something in hand vs shipping from elsewhere.

They push IPR on everything it seems. I tell them "this is for work, and if a part fails, I need a new part same day to continue work, and I can afford to just rebuy it". They are always bummed.

Hard drives I'll buy at MemEx cause in my experience Amazon likes to ship them in just an anti-static bag and a bubble mailer.

Also crap, didn't see that chart a couple years ago. Didn't realize my 8TB Red was SMR. Have to get another one soon so probably will go Ironwolf.

Was at MemEx a few weeks ago to buy a new screen.

The dude helping me had an attitude problem to the point where I just about fucked off and left. I thought maybe it was just me, but when the dude beside us at the other till was talking down to HIS customer too, I realized that it was a culture thing. MemEx just kind of sucks now.

They went from being a store I advocated for to a place I go to, I guess, when I have to. They can take their attitude and shove it. Plenty of other places around for me to give my money to.