The Santa Clara Microcenter is lit up with RGB lights flashing in every direction. Every kind of technology fills the shelves: keyboards, mice, sticks of RAM, and more.
Between the sprawling products, Dan Ackerman, Microcenter News Editor-in-Chief, said Microcenter provides a place for people to access a variety of technology products conveniently as well as providing an in-person experience.
“We find that a lot of people are in cities that don’t have a store that’s anything like MicroCenter,” Ackerman said. “And they really want a place where they can go and they can see a wide variety of tech products.”
Stepping into the shop is like entering a workshop for tech enthusiasts. It’s a hub for custom PC building, stocked with every conceivable component that brings a unique vision for everyone. Instead of looking for listings online, the store offers an in-person experience. You can get hands-on experience by touching and comparing components side-by-side to guarantee for a compatible build.
“A great example is keyboards and mice,” Ackerman said. “It’s not out of the question to spend $100 on a mouse or $200 on a mechanical keyboard, but … if I was doing that, I would want to be able to go to a store and actually touch it and feel it, or try out different types of switches on the keyboard, different types of key caps to see what really suited my style.”
Palo Alto High School senior Matthew Wei values the depth of stores’ offerings.
“You usually have to buy a lot of stuff online, and there’s not really a different place you can go if you need something quickly or you’re just missing a part,” Wei said, “Micro Center has a lot more specialty stuff; they just have a larger store so they have more stock.”
Microcenter has hired tech experts to offer the best advice for their customers and give customers the experience to observe the assembly process of their PCs.
“The people who work in the stores are all tech fans and tech experts,” Ackerman said. “And what I really like is especially at the Santa Clara store, and a lot of our newer design stores, is when you bring your parts over to have a PC assembled. Since it’s open air, it’s all right there in the open. Because of that you can sit there and watch them work on your PC.”
Wei also said that it’s a really good place to see the products in person, even if you end up buying them online.
“I think it’s worth it to go over, but I think if you’re trying to save costs, then you probably just go over, pick out what you want to buy for, like form factor reasons and stuff, and then you just buy it online.”
Microcenter puts a big focus on the longevity of its tech products. The company values how to make people more likely to maintain their products in an effort to increase sustainability. The company has partnered with iFixit, an American how-to website that publishes free wiki-like online repair guides and teardowns of consumer electronics and gadgets.
“We’re big believers in the right to repair, in empowering people to maintain and repair and upgrade and improve their products,” Ackerman said.
“In fact, we have a new partnership now with iFixit, which is really one of my favorite organizations.”
Aside from the custom PCs, the store offers many other tech products. One feature is a 30-foot-tall 3d printer filament storage robot. “What you do is you walk up to this big wall of almost like paint chip style samples that are all printed, they’re like little rectangles, and they’re all printed with the actual 3d filaments,” Ackerman said. “You pick
your filament slots, you scan it, and then this gigantic machine just delivers it to you.”
Ackerman said he is excited to open their shop in the Bay Area and that the store offers opportunities for people to get exclusive items within the tech field.
“I’m very excited that we are back in Santa Clara,” Ackerman said. “And I’m also excited that we get to do special events at this store. That’s one of my favorite things. Nvidia actually just released the GTX Spark, which is their mini AI supercomputer. And Micro Center is the only retail store where you can get that to celebrate that launch.”
