Tiger Direct Absorbed By TheBorg
4"After more than 25 years of providing the brands you trust at the prices you love, TigerDirect.com has been retired. Thank you for your loyalty and support.
In 2019, Insight acquired TigerDirect. Insight is the leading solutions integrator serving clients of all sizes.
If you’re a small business looking for a better way to buy IT, we’ve made buying the latest tech easier. We invite you to try our simplified and streamlined tech procurement process."
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TD has kind of been irrelevant for a while now, no? They at least outlasted Fry’s Electronics, though – not that they were serious in the online business. But still – that pretty much leaves Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, B&H, and Adorama as the larger players in the consumer computer parts business, I guess.
@narfcake B&H and Adorama do computer parts? I thought they were camera retailers.
@narfcake What about Micro Center or BuyDig? I don’t know how Best Buy is still around. I do miss CompUSA though.
@narfcake TD became briefly relevant for me a few weeks ago when I saw (too late) that they were selling 12.9" iPad pros for $599. Before that I hadn’t thought of them for many years. And I stopped thinking of them soon after.
@heartny @narfcake You only miss CompUSA because you didn’t have a Computer City around you.
@PooltoyWolf Yes, they started with cameras and video equipment, but has branched out to computer stuff over the years. At my old work, we ordered printer toner from Adorama because they had better pricing than any of the office stores. Last year, they B&H had better pricing on CPUs, so we ordered from them.
@heartny Oof, I forgot about Micro Center! Bad on my part because that’s where I got my laptop, 3D printer, a few CPUs, motherboard, RAM, lots of flash drives and SD cards …
Alas, a lot is in-store only.
@heartny @narfcake Boy, do I wish we had Micro Center here in central Florida.
@narfcake Provantage is aimed more at businesses, but they’ll sell to anyone. Their cable prices are often extremely low for good brand name stuff.
@narfcake Seems like Monoprice is still around.
Haven’t bought from them in years, mostly just Newegg and Amazon anymore. Occasionally I find something good at StackSocial.
@2many2no Yes, MP is definitely still around. Bought some cabling from them not too ago at work. Computers and components are few and far between there, though.
Micro center has survived by not getting to big for its britches.
Tiger has had a rough many years. I’d used them for work for years, and had a good sales rep. Then they changed their name from Tiger to something else. Then changed it back to Tiger a couple of years later. Then they changed it yet again. I cant remember where the Insight buyout fit in, but that changed more stuff, and then the business version of Tiger was killed, and accounts were moved to Insight.
Along the way their prices kept creeping up, and I quit using them.
I thought TigerDirect was already “dead” many years ago and then came back with different ownership and products (I think this was implied earlier). At around that time (before 2010 I think), I pretty much stopped looking at it. But I also stopped regularly building and tweaking my own PCs, so had less interest in that type of product.
Similar with CompUSA – yes, there’s still a website, but it’s just a front for some other company, not related to the old B&M CompUSA.
CompUSA used to be fun for the big rebate deals, which in looking back was a whole lot of work, and you sometimes got the rebates but sometimes not. It was a fun outing about 15-20 years ago to see how you much you could buy for “free after rebate.” Funny thing now is I’m cleaning stuff from my house including my old computery office room, and finding still sealed boxes with UPCs cut out (to mail in for the rebate). So if anyone is looking for soundcards or network cards or low-end video cards from around 2005, I might have some. And of course 3.5" floppy disks and CD-Rs.
@pmarin Worth money these days!
@narfcake @pmarin
Boy, I remember those days. Did the same with a bunch of software titles from Office Depot over the years. Anyone need some 20yr old graphics programs"
@pmarin My local CompUSA was the last place I saw the absolutely massive Mitsubishi 92-inch DLP TVs for sale new, around 2008 or so. Regret not trying to get one. A fantastic TV technology on a gigantic screen for a comparable bargain at the time. I wish DLP was still being used in consumer TVs but because projection tech cannot be made truly ‘flat’ it will never come back.
@pmarin You wouldn’t happen to have a plus 2c i/o card? I have the cassette deck, but need the card it plugs into.
Wow … I remember tiger direct from the early 2000s. Didn’t think they were still a thing.
@medz the Tiger Direct that you remember died long ago. The name and trademarks was sold to someone else and got “rebooted” by another corporation. The only thing that was the same though was the name and logo (and sold same type products) its not like it was the same original people, or the same original offices.
@OnionSoup ok
Tiger Direct had an “outlet store” off of I-85 in eastern Georgia for a while, but on my only stop there, I found precisely nothing of interest. Not just nothing that was a bargain, but nothing that I’d have bothered to haul home from a “free, no obligation to accept included kitten” table. (I’d probably have taken the kitten and left the whatevs.) I’d actually stopped with the intent of shopping for a laptop that would work well as a traveling POS unit, hoping to replace the aging compact Dells that I’d had for several years, but no dice. I won’t say that everything in there was useless, but a whole lot of it was very specialized kit that had excess gongs and calliopes which made it less attractive for any more generalized use, and pricey to boot. On my last trip in that direction, the store apparently was gone.
@werehatrack That describes my $80 Asus unit – BR1100-something with a N4500, 4GB of soldered RAM, and 64 GB eMMC. Unlike many cheapies, it does have a M.2 slot, which I plopped a 500GB NVMe into.
I stopped by a Micro Center 3 days ago for some “window shopping”. Killing time, seeing what the state of the art of discount bins were, etc
They had CAT-5e cable, 100 feet for about $60.
I haven’t looked at Monoprice in a while, but I was buying 100’ CAT6 cables for around $25 or less, if memory serves.
Other stuff was competitively priced, as far as I knew, and lots of bargains. But the cables were stupid expensive. Maybe that’s the going rate these days. Dunno.
@G1 They may be stuck with stock that they acquired during the shortage era. That has happened in several categories of merch. Because people are still used to the inflation, those who don’t already know of a place to get it cheaper are probably just going to grab that cable in order to save time. Once the demand tapers off, I suspect that they will have to trim that price back a bit. Or maybe not, the market price could go higher than that for all I know.
@G1 @werehatrack They are apt to have some high profit margin category somewhere. MC’s sale prices on some components, like CPUs, can be lower than every online retailer.
At a retail electronics store, the profit on a TV isn’t on the TV itself; it’s in the $100 “up to 500 pounds” wall mount and $50 “8K ready, gold plated, high speed, shielded cable with braided covering”.
@narfcake @werehatrack I mentioned monoprice to the service guy, he said that they will price-match any advertised price, but it had the be an exact match, and a few more qualifications, but I was bored by then, so I’m not sure what EXACTLY was meant by an exact match.
Brand? Not possible for cable without extreme effort ( my guess ).
Stupid stuff like “oxygen-free copper”?
Real stuff like twisted, stranded, wrapped in foil? That comes with the CAT rating I believe…
@G1 @narfcake Monoprice will match on an identical UPC, or at least identical brand and model with identical described accessories and capabilities. That’s actually a fairly common proviso of price-match guarantees.
@narfcake @werehatrack Sorry, I wasn’t clear:
I mentioned monoprice to the Micro Center service guy, and he started to talk about price matching.
And yes, most stores will price-match for the exact same item (brand, UPC, etc.).
Little known fact for the Midwesterners, Home Depot will match the Menards 11% rebates. It doesn’t matter what you are buying - whatever Menards offers, so do they.
@G1 @narfcake @werehatrack I remember once taking apart a $100 retail (I didn’t pay that much) Monster Cable brand power strip / surge suppressor, and one from some other brand, Belkin or something, that was about $20. They were essentially identical inside except the “Monster Cable” one had a prettier cord and fancy colored printing to indicate which plug was for VCR, DVD, ETC (they all had identical circuitry anyway so the distinction was just to make you feel how cool it was.)
Don’t even know if Monster Cable is still around, but they were already an inside joke even 20 years ago
@G1 @pmarin @werehatrack Sadly, yes, they still exist – but if Wikipedia is to be believed, barely.