Lying for fun and profit. Mostly profit.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Our store manager was telling us this today.

A year or two ago, he bought a Westinghouse LCD TV from our store. It recently shit the bit, so he began calling around to find a repairman or a parts supplier.

He ended up calling a local mom-and-pop electronics store. The guy there asked store manager where he bought the TV from and he told us our store.

Mom-and-pop store guy responds: "Oh. Those TVs that Westinghouse, Philips, JVC, etc, produce for the big box stores don't have all the parts in them, so they fail faster."

Yeah, okay, sure, whatever. Who else thinks mom-and-pop guy was trying to drum up business for his store which sells their TVs for twice as much as we do?

[BookstoreEscapee]

<raises hand> I do!!

[Broomjockey]

"Don't have all the parts"? Uhhhhhhh...Somehow, I think that if a TV was missing parts, it would likely be non-functioning, not just break faster. I think I'd make them open up the TVs and show me each part.

[rerant]

Who else thinks mom-and-pop guy was trying to drum up business for his store which sells their TVs for twice as much as we do?

No doubt.
But can you really blame him? I mean with all the revenue lost to big box stores (assuming you work at a big box store - I'm likely to have seen you mention it before but at the moment just don't remember) tossing out a few lies in hopes of reeling in a new customer or two isn't that bad.
It's not as though the big box guys are the ones who would suffer without the sale of that TV.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Is my store a big box? Yes and no.

Our stores are about 90,000 SF on average and we only have 130 or so locations nationwide.

We sell the same kinds of things as Target and Wal-Mart but we don't do anywhere near their volume.