I tend to shop locally at CompUSA, Best Buy, and Fry's, besides on-line
shopping.  If I know what I want and am certain about it, I'll even try
purchasing it on eBay.  My luck on eBay has been excellent (until recently
when some guy sold me something that was broken, although it was advertised as
"as-is" and he admitted he had no way of testing it).

I have had very little trouble returning things to each of these three
stores.  It's gotten difficult to return books to Fry's, but if I'm unsure up
front, I'll ask someone about their latest policy first.

The "worst case" scenario is returning something that's broken and wanting
something other than a replacement -- they get very suspicious of that sort of
thing.  I've returned things for refunds and store credit that were working
fine, just not for my purposes, and I've returned a couple of things that were
DOA for replacement.  But attempting to return something that was broken for
non-replacement only got me an in-store credit (which wasn't a big problem).

CompUSA used to be a PITA, but they've gotten much more liberal lately.  Their
store people have gotten more ignorant and their flexibility to order things
has been reduced.  So, I guess they compensated by loosening their returns
policy.

-David Schwartz