Microcenter is a surviving personal computer retailer from the DOS days.
Seemed like they were intentionally flexible enough at the beginning so they would be able to go forward with any and all manufacturers that might turn out to prevail, back when nobody knew for sure.
Whether the future would more strongly include Apple, IBM compatibles, or any other alternatives which have come & went.
It was a "superstore" by design, decades before Walmart got there through its unavoidable momentum.
The vast majority of items do need to fly off the shelf, but it's best not to purge too much of everything else. The smartest operators can actually stock a larger number of slower-moving items too.
Also I have seen some affordable stock pulled from the shelves and online like smaller capacity SATA SSDs, after higher-capacity or more modern units naturally replace them as technology progresses. Looks like they mark down the less-modern units, or they won't move at all, and those can then end up at the point where further markdown would be below cost. All remaining stock disappears to a liquidator, which are more common than ever these days. Just when you thought it was really going to get good. It used to be easier to browse for "stragglers" that were too expensive when first released, if you waited a year or two those prices could be really slashed when more modern versions took over the mainstream, if you could find any stock remaining.
I drive right by the one in Houston almost every week where you can see the store conveniently a block away from the freeway, only sometimes for that same reason the traffic can get so bad that it's a 20 minute ordeal getting back out of the parking lot, down that block, and back on the freeway :\
So sometimes I'll wait a few weeks before just dropping in, but it's also always been good to have when you need something right away.
Except recently when I knew exactly what I wanted, a 2TB SATA laptop HDD, not an SSD for this particular PC. I still had a 1TB NIB in my storage unit from a few years ago when I picked up a couple but only used one at the time.
Well, these days they had nothing. Except a few items of one SKU that was your typical modern garbagey SMR HDD, which modern SMR is miserably sluggish (you know, like a snail without a shell) by comparison to regular HDDs from previous decades (which were all conventional CMR until some SMR bozo came along). SMR is very frustrating even for long-term storage, and completely useless in a laptop. Give me a break.
Had to then go to the storage unit and dig out the 1TB one I already had.
Nobody's fault but mine for shopping and trying to be a consumer when it's not absolutely necessary :\
Seemed like they were intentionally flexible enough at the beginning so they would be able to go forward with any and all manufacturers that might turn out to prevail, back when nobody knew for sure.
Whether the future would more strongly include Apple, IBM compatibles, or any other alternatives which have come & went.
It was a "superstore" by design, decades before Walmart got there through its unavoidable momentum.
The vast majority of items do need to fly off the shelf, but it's best not to purge too much of everything else. The smartest operators can actually stock a larger number of slower-moving items too.
Also I have seen some affordable stock pulled from the shelves and online like smaller capacity SATA SSDs, after higher-capacity or more modern units naturally replace them as technology progresses. Looks like they mark down the less-modern units, or they won't move at all, and those can then end up at the point where further markdown would be below cost. All remaining stock disappears to a liquidator, which are more common than ever these days. Just when you thought it was really going to get good. It used to be easier to browse for "stragglers" that were too expensive when first released, if you waited a year or two those prices could be really slashed when more modern versions took over the mainstream, if you could find any stock remaining.
I drive right by the one in Houston almost every week where you can see the store conveniently a block away from the freeway, only sometimes for that same reason the traffic can get so bad that it's a 20 minute ordeal getting back out of the parking lot, down that block, and back on the freeway :\
So sometimes I'll wait a few weeks before just dropping in, but it's also always been good to have when you need something right away.
Except recently when I knew exactly what I wanted, a 2TB SATA laptop HDD, not an SSD for this particular PC. I still had a 1TB NIB in my storage unit from a few years ago when I picked up a couple but only used one at the time.
Well, these days they had nothing. Except a few items of one SKU that was your typical modern garbagey SMR HDD, which modern SMR is miserably sluggish (you know, like a snail without a shell) by comparison to regular HDDs from previous decades (which were all conventional CMR until some SMR bozo came along). SMR is very frustrating even for long-term storage, and completely useless in a laptop. Give me a break.
Had to then go to the storage unit and dig out the 1TB one I already had.
Nobody's fault but mine for shopping and trying to be a consumer when it's not absolutely necessary :\