Best place to buy an LCD?

From my experience of TV shopping, once you include shipping, buying in store really isn't that much more expensive. Some TVS you can find for crazy deals online though. But for brands like VIzio, you HAVE to shop in store.

I worked at a big box retailer for a while, and you do have some bargaining power. Your best bargaining power is when you want to bundle more electronics with your purchase.

Retailers get to be #1 by bundeling sales and getting the product off the floor, not necessarily by profit alone, so they really want you to go home with that TV.

From your price range, I would suspect you have massive bargaining opportunity as opposed to Zero bargaining for a sub $1,000 TV

Costco automatically doubles the manufacturer's warranty (and some credit card companies also do it too, if paid using the card). Costco has local warehouse locations (and an online website) - same for Sam's Club [owned by Walmart].

Lowest retail prices (day to day) are at Fry's Electronics [but locations are mainly limited to California and Texas].

Other retailers with either low prices, or special discount sales (and/or coupons), are Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, Sears, CompUSA, K-Mart etc. Many of these will price match another store's current non-closeout price (but usually not any online price, except their own site's price).

The best sale of the year is coming next month - BLACK FRIDAY (day after Thanksgiving), especially early Friday discounts, many available only for walk-in customers that morning. You should pick up the Thanksgiving day newspaper for the many advertisements from retailers, to give you an idea of the sale prices to expect.

If you are relatively new to the HDTV thang, it might be best to start at Costco or Sam's where you can try one out and return it easily and unconditionally.

If you are more experienced and have more money, Best Buy and store like it have a great selection to choose from.

If you are fairly experienced and risk adverse, you can get some great online deals.