I first came across JB Hi-fi on a trip to Sydney and every time I went to Sydney after that I made sure I visited the stores. When I was growing up there were record stores everywhere and when we went into the city (Timaru in those days), for me it was a tour of the record shops looking for either the latest albums or an album to fill the back catologue. There was no internet back then and so pretty much what was available in your local shop was what was available, you could buy albums overseas mail order, but you'd be taking your chance as more often than not they'd never get here. So JB Hi-Fi was the old style record shop selling vinyl and CD's, as well as lots of other cool stuff including TV's, computers, phones, cameras and routers.
When they announced they were coming to Wellington, they were instantly my favourite shop. Besides the prices being better than most other shops, they also allow their staff to do a bit of bartering over price, sometimes giving significant discounts on the official price tag. I gather the staff are on commission and can in effect discount their commisson, but unlike many stores they can actually negotiate, Far to many stores need the store manager to talk to you about any discount, and even then many are bound by whatever head office said it should be (even if the shop next door is selling it cheaper, they can't bargain).
I haven't yet had to take anything back to JB Hi_FI so I don't know how they are with returning items under the consumer guarantees act. However for me the shop might as well be a gold mine, I try to get there and browse the CD collection once a week at least, I know a lot of other people who work in IT also head there regularly. The staff all seem friendly as well, a culture difference they achieve by some mysterious mechanism that has evaded many other big chain in New Zealand. This is a shop that so far has never given me hypertension!!
