For those missing Weird Stuff, who haven't been to Halted Electronics, I highly recommend paying their warehouse in Santa Clara a visit. Big warehouse chock full of surplus goods.
Take your kids there if you have 'em, and while they still exist. I have many fond memories of afternoons spent in these places.
The impression I got is that Halted really prices stuff up to about the maximum of what they can get away with. But still, I do appreciate them existing.
Someone is inevitably going to say: "Well, they need the prices that high in order to pay costs." But I don't think the person with that line of argument has thought their argument through deeply.
Various things start happening when prices get up to gouge level: inventory starts getting stolen by bitter people who otherwise would have been customers, or inventory simply doesn't move as fast, and customers aren't as happy and tend not to be as supportive. My most recent purchase there was a small glass lens (smaller than a mini Altoids mint... yes, mini, not regular size) and it was an average sized one, not unique, from a random bag of similar sized ones, not any certain spec for any specific purpose, and they got $8 for that. Weird stuff had all their lenses bought up the week before that, go figure.
Weird Stuff, on the other hand, was dirt cheap and very cheerful about everything, and their customers were huge fans, from what I know. Halted... I do still like them, but they sure are grumpy and those prices, sigh.
Still, maybe if Weird Stuff had higher prices (slightly higher... not Halted-level higher, mkay?) they could have survived and moved nearby? I guess we'll never know.
Take your kids there if you have 'em, and while they still exist. I have many fond memories of afternoons spent in these places.