Your kidding me?

Question

So I went by Best Buys last night to get my new TV and all the other stuff I needed. the total purchase came to over 3 thousand dollars and they wanted to charge me 75.00 to deliver it and 400 to set it all up!!!!!!

Is this typical? seems like if you spend that kind of money they would set it up for free. I did not buy it when I found out they expected me to pay for the setup also

Answer 1

It's one thing to bring home a new TV, hook up power, cable, and run the TV through it's setup to scan for channels, choose 480, 720, 1080 etc.  One delivery guy can do this.

Mounting a bracket and attaching the TV takes 2 guys.

Running cables in the wall - hour or two and can be easy if its on an inside wall, hard for an outside wall.

So it all depends on how much work there is.  Circuit City uses an outside company called "RocketDog" to do this. Check them out to see what installation will cost you. (They both carry similar brands of TV's).

Answer 2

$400 is reasonable since they are mounting it on the wall. Make sure that they understand you want the wires run through the wall and ask what they do with the power cord. They won't install a new outlet for that price so the power cord will either have to be run inside the wall and out to an outlet (not a great idea) or you'll need to have an electrician put a new outlet in to hide that cord.

Installing a mount is a fairly easy job if you have 2 people and a little know how but it does take time. You need to find the wall studs, drill pilot holes (making sure they are level), then attach the mount to the wall. Part of the mount gets screwed to the back of the tv then hung on the part you attached to the wall. All this takes time and $400 isn't bad. You may want to forgo the mount for now and simply use a tv stand. This would make setup much easier and a real do it yourself job.

Answer 3

What a few people have been saying is true.  If you are getting it mounted on the wall then yes that is normal and actually a good price.  More goes into just hooking up a tv system however.  Once its mounted and the wires are run everything gets connected and then they should do a basic calibration of your system because when you first but a tv out of the box it is set up for a show room display and not your home.  The picture settings should be adjusted and the resolution settings fixed.  The one thing you might be able to get them to drop is the delivery fee if they come out to install it but then again with gas prices going up maybe not.  Just so you know best buy employees dont make a commission on what they sell so the salesman isnt going to really try to hit you on a big price because he dosent see anymore money for himself.

Answer 4

I work for a custom installation company, and charging for install is more than just typical, it is our business.  Keep in mind that retailers are lucky to make 10 to 15% on TV's so to install it for free would likely mean that they would go in the hole just to provide you with a new tv.  To say if the $400 setup cost is high or not, I would need to know what they are doing included in that cost.  If they are going to wall mount the TV and hide the wires, than I would say that is cheap, as we would likely charge closer to $500.  If all they are doing is connecting things and sitting the TV on a stand, then I would say $150 is more reasonable and also, you might be able to do that part yourself, or take others advice and get a geek friend to hook it up for you.  A custom install would take the better part of a day and two guys to do it, so in that case the $400 is more than reasonable.

Answer 5

You don't have to pay for setup.  You can read some manuals and fill in some blanks from the internet and you should be fine.  Enlist some tech-friendly friends to help and then treat them to dinner or something.  The $75 for delivery sounds right.

Answer 6

Buy the stuff and then have a "AV geek" friend set it up for you.

Ooops! You did not say the TV needed to be mounted.   That is not a bad price because mounting a flat screen to a wall and running cables etc can be time consuming and tricky.  The installers will have all the right tools and hardware and they probably will do a good job - I would go with a professional no matter what you do.  That is a heavy TV.

Answer 7

$400 bucks to set it up is way high.  It's just a matter of plugging ina few wires unless you're getting some custom type flush wall mount speakers or something.