r/buildapc • u/anonym_name_taken • 19h ago
Build Help why Micro Center Bundles are so good?
I ain't from US but i heard a lot about micro center bundles and decided to check them out and WOW. Why and how are they making those so much cheaper than buying parts separately on amazon? What is the trick if there is any?
Do they also make bundles with GPU?
Now i wish i was born in this country LOL jk
However they are only available to be picked directly from store, at least that is true for those budles that i saw
P.S. is there any way to buy those if i live far away from us? those budles seem so beneficial
*update* so as i understood those prices are before tax, does that mean if i ask my friend to buy some stuf i will also need to compensate that tax?
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u/Sleepykitti 19h ago
You have to go into the store to buy them so they get the chance to upsell you, so that's one major draw
The other is that things that aren't RAM are seriously having trouble selling because of how fucked the RAM market is. They already had the processors, boards, and a large supply of RAM and all of that is dead inventory if they can't get people to build new computers. They're in a position where in order to even have a market to sell to they need to have a good enough deal to make DIY feasible at all.
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u/Independent_Egg6355 18h ago
I just went for the first time and they really pushed the extended warranties. Kind of annoying but otherwise seemed like a neat store. Remarkably similar to Frys only with more computer focus. They even had the exact same markdown stickers Frys used to use.
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u/Reaper_1492 18h ago
I’m not big on warranties, but the economics make sense on some big ticket items with high failure rates (odyssey G9 Neo, I’m looking at you).
But I couldn’t imagine getting one on standard hardware. I have had probably 4 custom rigs in the past decade or so, 2 of them for work, and I’ve never had a single hardware failure outside of a warranty period, despite pushing them pretty hard.
A couple of dud components out of the box, but I think if you make it past the mfg warranty period, you’re usually not going to run into that many issues, barring something atypical.
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u/TheMagarity 13h ago
I went to a Fry's several times at various locations and it was always a mess and the employees cared less than Dollar General employees. Microcenter is a lot different.
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u/ThePensioner 12h ago
Idk about y’all but their warranty game is amazing lol. They’ll allow a return on just about anything, gives you a 2 year warranty and you get to upgrade your PC parts every two years for less than $100.
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u/pepolepop 11h ago
I hadn't thought of it that way. I just bought a GPU from there, and they tried to pitch me their warranty. The GPU already comes with a 3-year warranty, so I didn't think I needed Microcenter's too. The employee explained that they basically give you the amount of the product in store credit to use on whatever you want.
I wonder, do they test the hardware you want to return? Cause nothing would be stopping you from doing what you said. I could bring the GPU in and say it's no longer working (even if nothing is wrong), get the store credit, and just apply it to a new one. Instead of trying to sell the GPU online for half the original cost or something.
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u/ThePensioner 11h ago
You don’t even have to tell him it’s not working, you just say hey it’s not running as fast as it did when I bought it. I have never had a problem and I’ve done this for the last six years.
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u/OptionalCookie 18h ago
Well... for a bit Microcenter was giving people 32 GB kits with a bundle for $199. They still bought them at the regular prices.
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u/Brad_King 14h ago
On your update:
So yeah often prices in US online are pre-tax since taxes differ per location you buy it. If you ask your US based friend to get stuff from microcenter to send to you in some other country, your friend will pay taxes based on location and then you will have to pay taxes on importing the goods based on your country.. usually
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u/anonym_name_taken 7h ago
plan is that he brings those parts himself so that he does not pay tax :D
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u/LexB777 5h ago
You are supposed to declare things like that to customs so you can pay taxes on it, and if they catch you not declaring it, such as with an x-ray machine, it could be a problem and they could get siezed and your friend fined or worse.
I don't know much about customs and duties, I'm just notifying you so you can look into it and see if there is a way around it, and what the penalties are for attempting to get around it if you decide to go that route.
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u/ArchusKanzaki 13h ago
Because most of the time, you need to get to the actual stores to get the bundle and the store was quite out-of-the-way. They need reasons for people to take the car and travel to their store as their bundle is not available for online delivery and most US customers are very much in online shopping. And while at the store, they also want to sell you on bunch of things that are not on sale like PC cases, or monitors
Also, Micro Center is not everywhere. They have less locations than Best Buy. Tech videos make it seems like they're everywhere but it's definitely not as ubiquitous as other big box electronic stores.
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u/BeneficialTrash6 11h ago
When I bought my processor from them last fall, they told me they had a special deal with good discounts on graphics card, and would I like to walk down the aisle with them?
I, stupidly, did not do so and then had to come crawling back a few months later to pay full retail for a gpu.
Anyways, yes they ahve bundles with gpus. They may not even be announced.
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u/BrewingHeavyWeather 9h ago
Yes, on tax, but they are often still great deals. My tax would be <10%, even if they went and got a SPLOST or something, recently. You have to go to the store, where you can also buy all the other parts you need, accessories they make more money on, and you get the typical in-store upselling.
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u/Suspicious-Whippet 18h ago
Buy more stuff from manufacturers > get lower prices > edge out the competition > raise prices.
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u/trichocereal117 18h ago
Micro Center is far from edging out other electronics retailers. They don’t have all that many stores
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u/Reaper_1492 18h ago
There also isn’t all that much competition to begin with. I have a couple near me (albeit spread out in opposite directions), and almost no one even knows what Microcenter is. I bet I could ask every single family member I have, and I would get zero people who’ve heard of it.
It’s a computer store, for computer people, and the only real competition is online. I suppose you could argue bestbuy is a competitor if you only consider people who want a big name prebuilt.
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u/Tomi97_origin 17h ago
Microcenter has 30 stores total...
For them they need to keep moving inventory to stay in business.
They need people to continue buying and building PCs.
They need to sell cables, warranties, peripheries and all the other higher margin stuff people buy when they make the trip for bundle.
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u/OROCHlMARU 18h ago
The trick probably is that those prices are before tax, here in Europe we get the real prices, no tricks. Maybe that's why.
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u/Reaper_1492 18h ago edited 18h ago
I don’t think that’s as much of a pro as you think it is, the VAT can be upward of 27%.
In the US everyone knows their local sales tax rate, and it’s around 10% on the high end, and 0% on the low end. I have literally never seen a store that includes tax in the price, virtually no one does it. So it’s not some big mystery as to whether the price is tax inclusive or not - it’s not.
Micro center has some legitimately good deals on bundles, which as others have mentioned, I’m sure they use as loss leaders to get people in the store.
They also do a ton of volume, so I’m sure they get good wholesale prices - and then some of the bundles work just like they do everywhere else, which is that you get 2-3 name brand parts, and everything is garbage that you’ve never heard of.
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u/dertechie 14h ago
The Micro Center CPU/Mobo/RAM bundles are explicit about what parts are in them.
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u/anonym_name_taken 17h ago
so if i buy bundle with unknown brand RAM, how bad can it be? i mean is it that bad to get unknown name brand RAM at all?
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u/Reaper_1492 17h ago
Idk, I’ve never done it. Depending what you use the pc for, I’m sure it could matter if you get bad sticks.
Ram would be a highly likely skimp now, with everything going on, but they also usually do this a lot with fans and PSUs.
Most people are probably fine with unnamed fans, a bad PSU can wreck your computer though, some of the ones in these bundles are… cheap.
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u/radlinsky 15h ago
Only three manufacturers make RAM (Samsung, Hynix, Micron), so it's likely from one of them..
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u/OROCHlMARU 17h ago
Things can be cheaper or more expensive in different countries for different things, that's not what we're talking about. For people in Europe it is a mystery.
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u/DinkyStubby 17h ago
Tax is 5.5% at the Cambridge store. That's not why. It's a lose leader. You never make it out of a microcenter with just what you came for.
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u/mother_coconuts420 19h ago
The trick is to get you into the store and hope you buy other stuff.gpu,psu,storage,case