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How satisfied are you with this retailer?

  • Extremely Satisfied

    Votes: 10 45.5%
  • Somewhat Satisfied

    Votes: 2 9.1%
  • Somewhat Dissatisfied

    Votes: 3 13.6%
  • Extremely Dissatisfied

    Votes: 7 31.8%

Review: Gibby's Audio Video

27K views 18 replies 17 participants last post by  probak118 
#1 ·
The purpose of this thread is for Digital Home members to review and relay their experience buying consumers electronics at Gibby's Audio Video.

This thread is strictly for reviews and is not for discussion. If you have any questions about what belongs in this thread, then please this thread prior to posting.

When you post, please try to include the following information:


  • What product or service you purchased.
  • Approximate timeframe you ordered the product
  • What location you dealt with if it’s a company with many stores or service locations
  • Your overall level of satisfaction
  • If you had a positive experience, please explain what made it such a positive experience.
  • If you had a negative experience, please read our guidelines below.
 
#2 ·
Guidelines for Posting Negative Reviews

The truth is no retailer or service provider is perfect and occasionally even the best companies can disappoint. Our experience is that good companies have problems but they typically make every reasonable effort to resolve problems.

If you had a problem and are posting a negative review, then please note what efforts you made to resolve the problem and the feedback you received. If you think the efforts to resolve the problem were NOT reasonable then please explain why. Saying you phoned up and talked to some idiot, suggests the problem may lie with the consumer and NOT the company!

No posting URLS or Directs to Competitors will be deleted

Posts containing URL's to competitors or posts saying gee you should have shopped at this retailer will be considered spam and deleted.

We want opinions, NOT sales pitches or spam!
 
#4 ·
A store worth avoiding..

Let me be as objective as I can.

Gibby's is a store with excellent prices and a great selection. They carry a great variety of products including many high-end items that you will not find in your standard electronics retail outlets. They have sales that put their items often several hundred dollars cheaper than their competition.

That said, should you happen to buy something from them which doesn't work properly, forget about getting any sort of help. I bought a high-end home theater projector from them which was defective (manufacturing defect). I called several times over a period of 8 days, left voicemails, emailed the salesman, his manager and even the store owner and did not get a SINGLE call back. I did get several replies to emails, but the turnaround was typically over a day after sending the message, AND they did nothing to solve the problem or get me a replacement unit.

The problem was eventually resolved by the manufacturer of the projector, but I have nothing positive to say about the service provided by the store.

I know I will not be shopping there again.
 
#8 ·
Let me be as objective as I can.

Gibby's is a store with excellent prices and a great selection. They carry a great variety of products including many high-end items that you will not find in your standard electronics retail outlets. They have sales that put their items often several hundred dollars cheaper than their competition.

That said, should you happen to buy something from them which doesn't work properly, forget about getting any sort of help. I bought a high-end home theater projector from them which was defective (manufacturing defect). I called several times over a period of 8 days, left voicemails, emailed the salesman, his manager and even the store owner and did not get a SINGLE call back. I did get several replies to emails, but the turnaround was typically over a day after sending the message, AND they did nothing to solve the problem or get me a replacement unit.

The problem was eventually resolved by the manufacturer of the projector, but I have nothing positive to say about the service provided by the store.

I know I will not be shopping there again.
I was once a faithful shopper at Gibbys for not only the deals you mentioned, but also because I like to support the "little guy". That being said, I experienced the same thing when I bought my 42HDT52 42" Hitachi plasma there several years ago (a $3500+tx TV at the time). I had some minor issues shortly thereafter and went through months of dealing with them and it was like pulling teeth to even get them to call/email me back, and when they do, all I got was the run around. In speaking with a Hitachi rep during this process, I found out Gibbys was dropped as an authorized vendor/repair centre due to the problems they were having with his service. I eventually got worked up enough over it that I contacted a vinyl sign maker to have a decal made up for the rear window of my car (regarding Gibbys poor customer service) - I never did go ahead with it, but the guy was more than willing to make the decal as he had experienced the same terrible service with Gibbys.

I loved the store until the first time I had a problem with one of the products I purchased there - the customer service is beyond terrible. If you have a problem, they simply do not care and you'll have to bug the manufacturer to resolve it, despite the fact they want you to deal with the store you purchased it from.

Based on that experience, I haven't stepped foot in the store again and do not plan to. He's lost thousands of dollars of business that I've spent at other locations that I surely would have spent there... and I take every oppurtunity I get to spread some free 'word of mouth' advertising.
 
#5 ·
pleased with extra service

I purchased an Elite BDP-23FD blu-ray player from Gibby's yesterday. I mentioned to the salesman that I had no means of upgrading the firmware of the player myself. He had another employee at the store immediately burn an upgrade cd, and then he took my player out of the box and helped perform the upgrade, there and then. I walked out of the store with the player knowing that it had the very lastest upgrade from Pioneer.
I've never had a store display this kind of customer service before. He even offered to personally perform future upgrades for me!
How does customer service get better than that?
lazerfan
 
#9 ·
After reading the mixed reviews for Gibby's, I decided to take a chance and order a Pioneer vsx919ahk AVR from them, since they are probably one of the last places in Canada that had this model in stock.

Called on Tuesday and got a very helpful sales associate who took my order over the phone. I was skeptical when he told me they had one left (I thought: floor model or return), but after verifying that it was NIB and that he could actually lay eyes on it, I went ahead and bought it. They emailed me when it was shipped yesterday (free!) and I got it today. Box was factory sealed as promised. Powered it up but haven't hooked up anything yet.

The invoice says "All sales final. No cash refunds." which they neglected to tell me on the phone :(, but overall it was a pretty positive experience.
 
#10 ·
Not so good so far. I ordered an LG 55LE8500 from them last Tuesday and was told it would be in by Friday. Now I'm being told there are none to be found and maybe one will show up this Friday. I also keep hearing (The long weekend really screwed this up) Which I find odd because they had 3 full days before the long weekend to sort thing out. I'm just hoping I wasn't told they had one just to get my cash.
 
#11 ·
The Very Worst

Purchased Speakers on-line as the price was quite good. They gladly took my money, 3 months of phones calls and emails finally resulted in the delivery of the speakers. They were are described and in great shape. Gibby's promised free speaker wire for my troubles; after another 2 months of emails, (even to the store manager, thinking he might give a sh$t), I have moved on. Horrible experience, will NEVER deal with them again. Spend about another 3,500 on electronics since the speaker purchase at other stores.
 
#12 ·
I bought a Pioneer VSX-31 over the phone from Gibby's back in January.
It was $599, haven't seen it that low since.
Received the brand new unopened receiver in about 4 days.
Works great, very happy.
An all around pleasant shopping experience.
Would buy from them again.
 
#13 ·
I am more inclined to give Gibby's another chance now that they merged with Electronics Supermarket who I have had good experiences with.

I haven't had bad experiences myself at Gibby's, but I have seen inflated prices often including listing some items $100 over what the manufacturer's MSRP is.

One person here said they helped with their Pioneer firmware upgrade, I did not have the same help. My DV-45a wouldn't load a couple discs, they said they'd have to send it to Pioneer for the firmware. I ended up selling it for $145 on eBay and bought a $99 DV-48 player from Vanns in the US which has worked great and allow me to use HDMI for SACD and DVD-Audio.

I haven't bought anything recently, but will check them out sometime next year when I want to upgrade my centre channel from Monitor line to Studio line.
 
#14 ·
Great service, fast shipping and awesome customer service,

Sales rep honored a 3 day old sale price on current regular priced listing. Shipped them out the next day.

Hello Greg,

We can honor the price of $ that was listed online a couple days ago for the remainder of today.

Please give me a call at the store so I can place the order for you.


Great customer service, can't ask for much more then that from a store.
 
#15 ·
I have Purchased twice from them now

1) Was in the actual store 2 black fridays ago. Got an amazing price on clearout Paradigm v6's speakers. The prices were good, They held the product for 2 days without issue. I bought it on my way to the states so i picked it up on my way back.

2) I decided to try out there website on this boxingday when i was tv hunting. bb and fs sold out of the sony 60R550 and gibbys listed them on there site for the same price. So i took a chance and ordered it.

TV arrived in about 2 weeks in perfect shape. I should of had it in less then a week but Gibbys never gave the shipping company my phone number! It wasnt till i called a week later to enquire about the shipping time that gibbys gave me the tracking number and i was able to figure out why it hadnt arived.

So overall i have been very satisfied with the shop. Its a localy ran shop that competes well for prices with the big boys. Just like others have stated they will be harder to deal with if you have an issue as they dont have the same overhead a FS/BB would have.
 
#16 ·
shipping is a nightmare - good luck getting delivery

Bought a receiver and was told i would get tracking info. Never did and got home last night (friday) to find a sticker saying canpar couldn't deliver and it was being held for me. Had to go to their website where it indicated it was 25km from home and only available during working hours 5 days a week. im away until thursday and its a 50km drive from work so i would have been much happier to drive the 100km to St Catherines today and pick it up rather than have to take time off! i only hope its still there because i cant tell them to hold it longer because they are not open on saturdays. what a nightmare - wish me luck and that the unit works if i ever get it.
 
#17 ·
never, never, never buy from gibby's

He doesn't even deserve a star
They are far from being professional, I ordered two black pairs, I just received only one pair she is white, I contacted them by e-mails, no one replied, I contacted them by phone, the manager said he would check, nothing no Response, I bought an amplifier it was wrong idea, I have not received it yet, they sent me a tracking number without giving the parcel to the carrier.
Assistance on line is absolutely useless, just questions your name, your phone number, to settle your problem, it disconnects you without notice
 
#18 ·
Just noticed this old thread now ,I have always called the toll free number and talked directly to an associate. Was sent a tracking number and no issues with its delivery with two purchases. Not sure why others had issues, I simply verified the invoice sent to me electronically and paid with credit card. Maybe talking to a person is better ?
 
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