Why Comet is not a good buying experience

When buying a product or service the experience is just as important as the item itself. Whether it be the shop or website, finding out about a product, buying, unwrapping and setting up, its all part of the value adding aspects of shopping. I want to feel happy and confident about the product I have brought especially if its a large amount of money, this is where Comet fails.I went with my parents yesterday to Comet in Shrewsbury to buy a new TV. They had seen an LG one advertised with £200 off and as ours was almost 10 years old it was due a replacement. Soon after entering the shop we were greeted by a salesman and were shown the TV advertised. I wouldn't normally shop in Comet but the TV wasn't a bad price so couldn't really argue.

We found out the usual stuff about the TV and had a good look around it, my parents had the sense to ask if there were any similar models and we were shown a smaller more expensive Philips TV, instead of simply saying it wasn't as good a deal we were told to stay away from Philips TV's as they were going to pull out of the TV market in a couple of years and start selling pharmaceuticals!

We went back to the LG TV and he started explaining the ports on the back, when he got to the PCMCIA slot he told us this was for TopUpTV (the TV had a built in Freeview recorder) though my parents weren't interested he explained that for £7.99/month we could get TopUpTV. Up to this point I had stayed quiet however I thought it would be useful to point out that this service didn't exist anymore for new customers and that it had been replaced by the £9.99/month TopUpTV Anytime service that required a £200 Digital TV Recorder. This would render the PCMCIA slot useless however I was told this was wrong and must be thinking of another service!

My parents decided to buy the TV even through the BS it was still a good price. The salesman had shown the good quality of the TV picture, sound and general build. My parents were happy that they were getting a good TV for the price. Though I was dubious of the salesman I have several LG PC monitors that have worked fine.

It got to paying and the salesman told us how he didn't believe in hard selling however there was the option of the extended warranty. If it wasn't for this article I was reading on digg last week I might not be writing this rant but this is where the good buying experience in Comet died.

After explaining how great this new TV was we were then told why we need the extended warranty and how Comet's extended warranty was better than the others as it would replace your TV if it had over three dead pixels. Even though our house is full of LCD displays my parents still wanted to see an example so we were shown a TV with a single dead pixel. The salesman explained how annoying that dead pixel was, my parents agreed until I pointed out that this wouldn't be covered in Comets extended warranty as it was less than three dead pixels. The salesman then explained that most of the time when you get one dead pixel you will get more come in the same area!

It came to a lose - lose situation, either buy the TV under the knowledge that it will break and get dead pixels or fork out another £180 for the five year warranty. This is where Comet have killed the buying experience, after buying what was described as a good reliable TV they have now been told that in fact the manufacture is not to confident in its product.

My parents didn't go for the extended warranty but clearly weren't happy that spending £600 on a new TV was a good buy.