Your best bet is to go check out what you want in a big store and find out what the market rate and discount being offered are. Then, you get in touch with a local dealer or someone you know who will better that offer, notwithstanding sales offers. What I have found is that the associates in big stores are poorly trained and can't really help you. I am fairly certain that you will get the best deals from neighborhood stores and very possibly even the best customer service. I recommend Atul Runwal(Arihant Sales) on Tilak Road.

If you are not sure of what you are looking for, Chroma has really good support. Whether you should buy from them or not is a completely different question.

I recently purchased a 22" LCD TV from them and from my research found that they were around Rs. 500 more expensive than the rates I got from local stores.

But then, unless you trust your local store-wala to give you after sales support incase something goes bad, large stores are still a safe place.

I've also had good experience with DASS on East Street while purchasing my existing music system. Ready finance was available and the sales man even negotiated on the price quite a bit (you need to portray that you are interested in making a purchase and making a purchase immediately).

If you know of a local store-wala that you trust, I would go with Abhijit's advice. Have been doing that with computers and laptops and have always been able to get a good deal.

I have bought a few things from Staples in Baner. I bought my laptop, MP3 player, Fountain Pens and loads of stationary and office and school supplies. Their prices are always below competition. Shopping experiece is not disturbed by over-enthusiastic salesmen. Some times you can hit a great deal as well !!

for computer consumables (DVDs, USB hard drives, pen drives, peripherals), there is a shop called "HERTZ" behind the Aundh MacDonald's. His stuff is definitely cheaper, and very reliable of course. Immediate availability can be an issue, but he gets stuff for you within a day or two usually.

Try Maharashtra Electronics on Tilak Road / MG Road. I found them better than any of the so called 'Super stores'. Do negotiate the prices.

If you are living near pimpri(wakad, pimple saudagar, etc), My experience is Radhika electronics in Pimpri is cheaper among all the electronics shops.

Vijay Sales (my exp. was with the one on Baner Road) is the store to go to. But you do need to have an idea of the prices for sure. Visit Dass once to get an idea.

After a lot of research when I went to Vijay Sales and told them their prices were higher they immediately negotiated and brought the prices down to lower than Dass also. The sales rep. were good and knowledgable. I bought my TV and AC from them. After sales was also good. The TV remote had a problem after around 15 days and I just called them and they in turn contacted Samsung promptly and got the remote replaced within a day.

Croma (esp. Aundh) is to be avoided. They are big store and so their rates are fixed and much higher than the market and service both in-store and otherwise is poor. No after sales support at all even after buying extended warranty from them!

Since Vijay Sales did not have the Microwave model I needed I bought it from Croma. Their price was higher by at least 10-15%. Then they took ages to find out that they did not have the 2 models they had displayed and I liked. Finally they promised to deliver one of them the next day. Then they forget to deliver the complimentary cooking set with it and asked me to come to the store again to collect it. There was some strange sound coming frm the microwave and when I complained within 1 day of purchase they did nothing and told me to talk to Samsung guys. Thankfully it turned out to be a loose screw somewhere and Samsung fixed it.

No electronic store here in India is reliable. Malls like Croma, Staples, Ishannya, etc are all same, they charge more, no properly trained sales person, no after sale service, etc. And better not compare with Circuit City or Fry's from California, we don't expect such great service but there's a lot to improve. Still small shops here are still a better option and people do go there, but trust matters. Even in malls you will not see many options in models as someone said in small shops they may not have the model what you want, same with malls. They will display what they have and many costumers are not aware of other models so they tend to buy what they see, like in TV, washing machines, microwaves, etc. Good Luck

Thats Right if you go to big stores you see that the Sales people lack of training and they do not understand the technical as well as basic information of the product and its difficult to deal with them. The big mall management should really give trainings to their representatives and save their image,time and customers time. Hopefully some day they will understand this .