Joel Spolsky on the perfect electronics store

Writing in Inc. about what a crummy story Circuit City was before it died, Joel "On Software" Spolsky describes what may just be the perfect electronics store, B&H at Ninth and 34th in NYC.

And what a roof it is: The whole operation is a crazy Willy Wonka factory. If you want to check out a product that's not on display, a salesperson orders it by computer terminal from a vast stockroom in the basement. Moments later, as if by magic, the product arrives at the retail counter, via an elaborate system of conveyor belts and dumbwaiters. You can try out the gear, see if you like it, and, if you do, the salesperson puts it in a green plastic box and places it on another conveyor belt, which runs, above your head, to the pickup counter. There, an employee bags your purchase. Meanwhile, your salesperson gives you a ticket, which you take to a payment counter. After you have paid, you get a different ticket that you take to the pickup counter to get your merchandise.

At first, this all seemed like incredible overkill to me. But then, as I thought about it more, I developed a theory as to why B&H operates this way. With all the expensive electronics and cameras and lenses and laptops floating around the store, the system creates a series of checks and balances — typically, five employees are involved in every purchase — in order to reduce shoplifting and employee theft. That it works at all is not the most amazing thing about B&H, however. The most amazing thing is that the prices are so low that I don't even bother to comparison-shop anymore.

No, wait: The most amazing thing is that the salespeople at B&H really know their stuff. When I recently bought a portable digital recorder, the salesperson knew that some gear was not compatible with flash memory cards larger than 2GB and spent a few minutes surfing the Web to make sure that the 8GB card I wanted would work with it.