The customer is King and the customer is ALWAYS right. If a business does not adhere to that principle its business is going to suffer and deteriorate because of it. Remember Circuit City a few years ago? They decided to do away with the 30 day return and or exchange policy (no strings attached) and instead if somebody brought back an item within 30 days they were charged like a 30% restocking fee. Well as you can imagine people balked and took their business elsewhere. Circuit City soon saw there sales slipping (bigtime) and probably would have gone out of business completely if not for the fact that they relented and restored the no hassle 30 day return guarantee.

I sympathize with GC's sales staff. GC should pay their sales people a salary on top of their commission and the salary should be more than the minimum wage [bracket]. It would draw better qualified personnel to GC giving their establishment a more polished image with more knowledeable workers. That could only benefit their bottom line because more people would shop there by the fact that they "know their stuff".

I also agree with other people's sentiment here. I would NOT just buy a Keyboard to try it out without fully investigating and researching a product first with the intention of really "wanting it and with the intention of keeping it". Then and only then if it just wasn't what I had hoped it would be, I would then return it and most likely with the intention of "exchanging" it for something else instead of just grab the dough and bolt out of there. Which would be okay too but I for one would most likely exchange it for something else usually.

When a person shops at GC or another music store make sure the item you buy is a "Boxed" item. Boxed means it is factory sealed "from the factory". There are enough newbies (and other people who simply don't mind)- around that aren't aware of returned items and their previous history and don't mind buying a returned item. PS: 99% of the time a returned item is going to still be in imaculate condition and is 'guaranteed' to work 100% by the company who sells it, eg., GC, Sam Ash, etc. For those who are more finicky about what they purchase and are more buyer savvy, they should insist on a "Boxed" sealed from the factory item. But make no bones about it; GC, Sam Ash, Music123.com, Zzounds.com, Same Day Music.com, etc. are doing very well financially thank you. If their business model is lacking in any area they either change it for the better (with the mindset that the customer is always considered #1) and building their empire around that principle or they suffer and deteriorate for lack of making and keeping the customer: "is King and ALWAYS right philosophy and their primary business model IMO.

Best regards,
Mike

[This message has been edited by keybplayer (edited 11-25-2003).]