How expensive can it really be to allow users to order directly off of the Gateway website? This is very strange news.
I rated you one up because that is a good question. I think that Gateway is doing away with expensive service. By selling at Walmart they can limit their repair services more easily.
Here's two little stories about how this might pay out for Gateway:
1) You're an ignorant Wal-Mart loving consumer, and you want a computer. You go to Wal-Mart and buy a POS for $350. You take it home. After a year and two months your hard drive quits. You don't have your receipt or your warranty card and you have no idea how to look it up online. It wasn't worth upgrading when you bought it and it certainly isn't worth repairing now. You're screwed. You're ignorant, so naturally you follow someone's advice and take it to Geek Squad instead of a local shop where they actually know something about computers. Or, you let it sit in your humid basement where it collects dust and becomes a home for a common house spider and a small family of mice. You love Wal-Mart so much that a year later you decide to buy a laptop from there for $300. Little did you know that the laptop was poorly cooled, and one year and two months later, the NVidia GPU starts to give you a BSOD after 10 minutes of use.
2) You're an ignorant consumer who doesn't trust the internet for shopping, and you want a computer. You go to Best Buy and buy one. You take it home. After a year it breaks. You take it to the newbie repair techs at Geek Squad. They sell you a new video card and motherboard because your via onboard chip overheated. Price of motherboard? $75. Video card? Another $65. You get a budget micro atx board and a two year old low-end video card. They just suckered you and Gateway earned good money from the original sale.
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