Ranting Canuck

When I got my new TV one of the things that it brought to light or rather annoyed me again is how much retail stores gouge people on cables. When I ordered my TV purchased my TV from Best Buy the kid tried to sell me on Monster Cables and other accessories. He tried to go through the sale pitch on how Monster Cable is so much better to justify the $200 HDMI cables. I told him that I worked in the IT industry and he just looked at me and said “oh” and dropped it.

I clearly was not falling for the sales pitch and I know that Monster cables are just over priced good cables that are marketed well. But the annoyance is how many people would fall for this and would buy the $200 HDMI cable or $300 power bar, thinking it will improve the performance of their AV equipment. This is similar to the guys, girls never do this, tweak out their Honda Civics with large tires and a big muffler since you know it will make the car faster.

Anyway I guess it easy to separate ignorant from their money, but it just not the super high quality stuff that is ridiculously priced. Best Buy wants $120 or more for just a standard HDMI cable which is about a 400 percent mark up. But they have a captive audience if you are buying a TV chances are you going to buy the accessories you need for it at the same store. But the price that stores are charging is nearing highway robbery, don’t get me wrong I am a capitalist and I am all for making money but the mark up that stores are charging is nuts. I ordered some high quality HDMI cables through work from Cable Zen, aka Startech and they cost me $25.00 per cable. For the exact same quality of cable Best Buy wanted $120.00 and for the same cable from Monster they wanted well over $200.00.

It is not just Best Buy who is charging their clients these insane rates, Future shop does it also and it not just on home entertainment equipment. Recently I had to go a job sight with the cables afterhours and we did not have any patch cables in stock so I had to run to Staples (Business Depot) to pick them. Staples was charging $14 for 7’ Cat 5 patch cable, I can get the exact same cable from distribution for $1.50. Also as the length of the cable increase the price increased exponentially it would seem, when they cost maybe goes up for $0.10. I remember commenting to people that I felt a little violated that just spent over $140 on $15.00 worth of network cable, but I needed the cable and had no choice in the matter.

My only advice I have to people is shop around or order your cables off the internet. Even though you will pay for shipping chances are you will come out ahead. Having saying that do your homework because there are lots of poor quality cables on the market, especially for home audio video cables that you will want to avoid. But that is why you should always pay with a credit card and if you receive cables that are not what they claim to be you have your credit card company reverse the charges.