Circuit City

Full review
Oh Wii, wherefore art thou, oh wondrous Wii?

After much scouring of stores, I finally got a hold of a Wii. OK, OK. I have two kids. “Scouring of stores” consisted of making a few phone calls, checking eBay and several common sites, and watching a Wii tracker site (http://www.xpbargains.com/wii_locator.php). But as soon as I saw CircuitCity.com had some of those game consoles in stock, I jumped on it. I’ve shopped on the site in the past and have been happy with their customer service and easy return policy. This recent purchase was just as good an experience.

CircuitCity.com sells a slew of electronic equipment and media, from TVs and computers to video games, MP3 players, and movies. The site even sells repair and installation services through firedog. There is free shipping for orders $24 and up. They also offer a sort of Pizza Hut 30-minute or less deal with their 24-minute in-store pickup or you get a $24 gift card. The site is professional looking and I’ve never had a problem navigating it. The pages load quickly, there are extra sort-by menus that come up when you’re clicking through to find merchandise (for instance, laptops can be narrowed down by RAM, price, brand, screen size, deals, Internet-only items, etc.), and the product descriptions and specs are very detailed.

Although their site mentions a 15% restocking fee for returned items, when I contacted them about a faulty TV last year, customer service was very helpful and didn’t charge me any fees. They picked up the return FedEx shipping cost and quickly credited my account the full amount. Perhaps the TV problem was a known issue? I’m not sure. But I was very happy with the ease of the return.

I had hoped to use their in-store pick-up to buy my Wii recently. Even though the nearest location is an hour away, I was willing to do a little legwork if I knew the Wii would be there. But that was not an option for that highly coveted object that is sold out in every store I’ve contacted. It was an option for one of the games I bought at the same time but I decided to have everything shipped together.

I have a P.O. box for the next couple weeks and I was unsure if I could ship to it or if I needed to send it to my house address so I called their 800 number, which is prominently displayed on the site, to check the shipping methods and was given a roundabout answer. They do deliver to P.O. Boxes and they use different shippers including FedEx. Still, I got enough of an answer to satisfy my concerns. Even though I initially got a recording saying there was a long wait time, I got a live person in under two minutes. The customer service rep. I spoke with was very friendly and offered to process my order, which I had half-started online, but said that the Wiis were all sold out already. That scared me so I hung up with her and went back to my transaction. All went through so I guess they hold your purchase while you’re checking out in the same way Ticketmaster gives you five minutes or so to enter your credit card info.

Buying the Wii and adding other equipment was easy. They have a simple package deal where all you need to buy is the Wii (at retail price) and an extra Wii remote and nunchuk, which I needed anyway. But I also added two games out of the fairly wide choices. They didn’t, unfortunately, have a Wii Fit, which my husband’s been bugging me about.

Since I’ll be moving soon, I didn’t want any shipping confusion and I opted for 3-day mail, which cost an additional $28.82. I got a total of three emails after my purchase: one to welcome me after registering my email address, the original confirmation that arrived moments after the transaction, and shipping notification with FedEx tracking links later that day. My order arrived 3 business days later in two boxes (one for the console and the other with the remotes and games) in perfect order. I even found a couple of $15 off a $100 purchase coupons in the boxes and a sample of Pledge Multi-Use Wipes. Woo-hoo!

All in all, I’ve had good experiences with CircuitCity.com and will gladly turn to them again.