The end of in-store retail?

Has this happened to you lately? I've always been a supporter of my local retail stores. The owners were always there to answer a question, show you how the latest gadget worked and generally support the products they sold. Apparently those have become quaint relics of a by-gone day... Kinda like the friendly neighborhood grocer before he devolved into the Quicky Mart or the local Hardware before they were replaced by cavernous warehouse filled with bins of stuff that no one knows anything about or even where they are! That was brought home to me today when I ventured out to the local Best Buy to pick up a sound bar for the big screenTV. I had done my homework and had settled on the unit that Best Buy customers had rated 4 1/2 stars so I really just went in to see it demoed and pick it up. A half hour at most I thought... Silly me. First I couldn't find anyone who worked in the department. No surprise there. But the real head-scratcher was when I did manage to find them and none of them could even demo it for me. Why... Out of 4 people in that department, No one could figure out how to make the sound bar work! After randomly trying plugs and TVs the only thing they could agree on was that the unit was defective. "Let's try another one." Was my contribution to the conundrum. Shocked looks all around. But once that novel idea had been batted around another new box was opened .. With the exact same result. Hummm... What are the odds, I wondered? But their keen intellect had the solution. Yup, you guessed it. "It's defective." The brain trust concluded. Hummmm... On to a third unit and as the hours of the day slowly ticked by guess what they found when me they opened the third brand new box...? Aww you peeked. Yep. About this time as I was mourning an afternoon of my life I'd never get back I boldly asked if maybe the problem was that none of the TVs they hooked them up to had any working sound!! ... "Nah," they explained as if to a small child.. They had just changed the displays around and now due to this improved set up.. none of the TVs sound could be turned on. "Wow!" Says I in increasing bewilderment..."that must make it hard to sell TVs?" Shrugs all around. "Well," says one, "If someone really wants to hear a TV I think there's a Sony in the stereo room that does have the sound working." And I know I shouldn't have throne gasoline on this 'bonfire of insanity' but I just had to ask. "But suppose I wanted to buy this Samsung right here?" An uncomfortable shuffling of feet. "Well," ventures one... We could take you in and let you listen to the Sony" People I am not making this up!!! So finally having run out of excuses and new boxes of sound bars to open and puzzle over they comforted me by telling me that the unit, which their customers had rated highly, was really "a piece of crap" anyway and offered to sell me another that was 6 times the price. Ah but I had them there ... "Sure," I said, "could you demo it for me?" And then I left.