Warranties (Policy)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

Warranties

Warranties, policy

The Company provides warranties on certain merchandise it sells with warranty periods ranging from 30 days to limited lifetime warranties.  The risk of loss arising from warranty claims is typically the obligation of the Company's vendors.  Certain vendors provide upfront allowances to the Company in lieu of accepting the obligation for warranty claims.  For this merchandise, when sold, the Company bears the risk of loss associated with the cost of warranty claims.  Differences between vendor allowances received by the Company in lieu of warranty obligations and estimated warranty expense are recorded as an adjustment to cost of sales.  Estimated warranty costs are based on the historical failure rate of each individual product line and are recorded as obligations.  The Company's historical experience has been that failure rates are relatively consistent over time and that the ultimate cost of warranty claims to the Company has been driven by volume of units sold as opposed to fluctuations in failure rates or the variation of the cost of individual claims.