Retailers Looking to Move Plasma TV's
By Joshua Freed
Hanging stockings by the chimney with care? Retailers hope that St. Nicholas soon will be there -- to hang a 42-inch plasma-screen TV.
As prices drop for high-end televisions, sales are leaping. Retailers expect to sell twice as many plasma-screen televisions and three times as many LCD televisions this year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.
And with new sellers such as Dell Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. now in the market, retailers are looking for new ways to differentiate themselves.
Dell and some other sellers will deliver a TV free of shipping charges. Wal-Mart, competing on price, offers a 42-inch plasma TV for $2,000 at many of its stores, about $1,000 less than many other sellers. Many Best Buy Inc. stores will send a technician to visit prospective TV buyers at home, at no charge, to measure and suggest other products.
"That has been a huge difference between a guy buying just a TV and a guy buying a complete solution," said Joe Brandt, the home theater manager at a Best Buy store in the Minneapolis suburb of Maple Grove.
And that "complete solution" -- such as a sound system and DVD player -- can be a way for Best Buy and others to grab sales it might have missed by selling just the TV. more...
