For Christmas, I got a gift card for Best Buy, so I was looking through their flyer, and noticed that the “Garmin ETrex Adventure Pack” isn’t available in all stores (fair enough), but is also “Not available in Howell, NJ.” What?
None of Best Buy’s other GPS units or accessories, including other Garmin products, have that restriction, and bestbuy.com doesn’t seem to have the product at all. I don’t live there and I’m not looking for a GPS unit, but I am curious. Does anybody know what’s going on in that town?
A good friend of mine went to Howell High…the Howell Owls! We’d kid him he was out in the sticks of NJ. Now, I know it’s true! No GPS can find the region! Thanks for the validation!!!
Because I’m in the same metro area as Garmin, I called them and explained the situation to their tech support people. They said that they had no idea at all why it would say that, and they searched their database of customer queries and claimed that no question about that subject had ever been asked before. They speculated that it may be a Best Buy-specific licensing thing, but I found another site with Google that said the same thing, and at that point they didn’t really know what it could be.
I can verify that GPS worked in Howell as recently as 2001. I used to live in Howell. I cannot guess why they wouldn’t sell GPS units in the Best Buy in Howell but it was built after I moved. I would guess it is something specific to that store and the “Garmin ETrex Adventure Pack”.
One possibility is NJ has some odd Sale Tax rules[sup]1[/sup]. Lakewood[sup]2[/sup] is a 3½% zone and apparently some stores in south Howell[sup]3[/sup] can also get the 3½% rate if they don’t sell luxury items. Maybe, maybe selling the “Garmin ETrex Adventure Pack” would lose them their sales tax rate.
[sup]1[/sup]Sales tax is normally 7% in NJ.
[sup]2[/sup]Lakewood is the town just south of Howell.
[sup]3[/sup]There was a store, Pool Town that somehow was in Howell and got the 3½% tax rate when I lived there.
Thanks, Fubaya, but shopLocal.com looks like it’s just shilling for Best Buy, and that the ad came from BB. Thanks goes double to Una - calling Garmin was above and beyond the call! I hope those techs enjoyed that little bit of strangeness in their lives. And thanks to What Exit? for what could well be the answer. If BB is getting the lower rate, the rules could be convoluted enough to exclude just that one product (even though a huge flat-panel TV or a wide selection of video games sound like luxury items to me).
I’ve been living in NJ for 40+ yrs, and can’t imagine that tax laws have anything to do with it. How would the law single out one item from a whole product line? My guess is that it is either a typo or a deliberate goof from someone in the department that wrote the text for that paragraph.
I called and spoke to a Sales Rep. She said they don’t carry some products as they are a small Best Buy and that I should be able to find the item in the Best Buy in Manalapan. (Two towns north on Rt 9)
One possibility (pure speculation) is that some shopping centers will negotiate exclusive rights to sell certain types of products to certain tenants in the center. If there were a GPS store in the shopping center prior to Best Buy and it had a deal that no subsequent tenants would sell GPS units, the lease for the Howell Best Buy might prohibit such sales for that store only.
I’m not sure I agree. There would be a lengthy list of small stores, not just one. My money is on either local ordinance or some kind of exclusive deal with the mall or similar entity.
There’s a takeout/deliv hot dog & pizza place we sometimes get lunch from at work. One day, a couple coworkers are checking the menu to prepare and order when someone noticed there were no burgers. They called and asked and the guy says that since they’re in a stripmall with a Burger King, they can’t sell hamburgers. And because of the Dunkin Donuts, he can’t sell doughnuts or coffee. He said it was right on the lease.
