Not Costco, Not Best Buy: This Walk-In Electronics Store Gets Consumer Reports' Top Rating

Even though online shopping is incredibly convenient, being able to go into a store to physically interact with the product you're interested in and talk to a sales associate remains vitally important. This is particularly true for electronics, which can be quite the investment. They can also go wrong, requiring you to rely on warranties and after-sales support. Thus, buying your electronics from a reputable and reliable store is critical. Consumer Reports has surveyed over 56,000 of its subscribers about their experience buying electronics across 25 different walk-in stores, and at the top of the list is a store a huge percentage of people have probably never heard of: Abt Electronics.

Named after its founders, David and Jewel Abt, this family-run store has been around for 90 years. There's only one physical retail location, which is in Glenview, Illinois. That may make it seem like some small, mom-and-pop shop, but it's anything but. Abt Electronics claims it's the largest independent, single-store electronics retailer in the United States, with a 114,000-square-foot showroom.

Abt sells more than electronics, of course, and carries everything from furniture to luggage to jewelry. CR respondents couldn't be more pleased with their shopping experience, with the outlet earning perfect scores in just about every category CR measures, including price, product quality, and customer service. The only thing it didn't get a perfect score on was ease of buying, but it still performed very well. You rarely see near-perfect CR satisfaction ratings, but Abt Electronics is one of the few to earn them.

Not everyone can get out to Glenview, Illinois, just to visit Abt Electronics, but that's fine, as plenty of electronics retailers throughout the U.S. do well in Consumer Reports surveys. Two of the four stores tied for second place on CR's rankings are quite specialized, though, as they're the Army & Air Force Exchange and Navy Exchange stores. These are primarily located at military bases for members, so most people aren't going to those either.

The only chain store tied for second place is the Apple Store, which gets the best ratings possible from CR for product quality, customer service, and ease of checkout. The only area where it dramatically falters is pricing. This isn't surprising, as Apple products are known to be pretty pricey — and are only getting more expensive in 2026. Costco places just behind the Apple Store in the ratings. Its major faults lie in product selection and its average customer service experience.

At the very bottom of CR's list is Walmart. While its overall satisfaction score is fine, it gets average or below-average scores in most of the categories evaluated. Even though you can find some deep discounts on electronics at Walmart, customers still only found Walmart prices to be average. Customer service was the store's weak point; however, considering how many outlets it has, your experience will likely differ dramatically depending on the outlet or the staff member you're talking to. That said, given how many great retailers there are, you may want to think twice before buying electronics at Walmart.