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Best Buy Apologizes For 360 Bundles
drScott2 writes "During the launch of the Xbox 360, some Best Buy stores created bundles of Xbox 360s and accessories, and would not sell the Xbox by itself. Thus, if you wanted to buy an Xbox 360 you had to buy the accessories too. The president of Best Buy has officially offered an apology. From the Brian Dunn's letter: 'I'm writing to apologize. While all of us at Best Buy were thrilled to be part of the recent launch of Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game system - one of the most anticipated events in the history of electronic gaming - the launch did not go as we had hoped.'"
RTFA, you can.
"Customers who are unhappy with Xbox 360-related purchases made in November 2005 may return unwanted items for a full refund at any Best Buy store. In addition, if your Xbox 360 purchasing experience did not meet your expectations for any reason, please email us at [email address will be inserted when the letter is posted to the website]. (Employees with information pertinent to our investigation are encouraged to call our Ethics Hot Line instead.)"
Freedom of Speech only include discussion that are approved by the RIAA, MPAA and DMCA.
Of course, you're also a moron if you paid through the nose just to be one of the first people to get an Xbox 360.
I have little pity for people who got "hurt" by this. If you were able to control your consumerism just a little bit, it wouldn't have been an issue.
Its all BS. They're probably gonna do it again anyway.
When you think about it, M$ probably sells it to BB at $375, and BB sells it at $400. IIRC, EBgames gets XBOX 1's at $138 and sells them for $150.
They're just looking for some extra cash. And once they have it, they'll say sorry, and do it again. I'm really sick of bundles. Why should i be forced to buy things i dont want anyway? Like those EU retailers forcing consumers to buy PSP Giga Packs with 2 crappy games, for a total of $400 USD.
Proudly posting without RTFA.
IANAL, but isn't this sort of bundling actually illegal? I.E. you must buy unrelated item A to get B?\\
$100+ purchases? What do I care? Any receipt for less than a grand or two gets tossed the moment it is handed to me. Are you poor or something?
Maybe if they required you to buy a refrigerator to get the Xbox360, but I hardly think that games and accessories are "unrelated."
Total BS. Does anyone honestly think that the pressure to sell accessories with the 360s as bundles came at the salesperson level or just store management level? They went in knowing this was gonna be a high demand item, and that they would have increased leverage. They also probably knew that there was going to be a supply shortage of new 360s in the near future and didn't want to hold onto stocks of accessories, games and other stuff and let shoppers potentially get their extras elsewhere.
Besides which, what does this cost Best Buy? Issue an apology probably written by his assistant/secretary/lawyer and then agree to give refunds for those people who actually manage to hear about this and bother to take the time to go through the process. I really only accept a corporate "apology" if it means they take a financial hit worse than what they gained through the improper behaviour in the first place.
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
I waited outside Best Buy for 5 hours on Black Friday (for the $380 laptop and $150 PC/monitor). Quantities of unbundled items were very limited (the minimum specified in the advertisement) and the employees were trying to sell extremely overpriced "bundles" to drive up the price.
Best Buy is all about upselling - from extended warranties to cables to services, their whole strategy to increase margin is to bundle overpriced junk with anything you buy.
Best Buy is fine as long as you remember one thing - don't believe their lies.
On the other hand, it might not matter if they can get a much better "refund" by selling the accessories on ebay.
If I remember correctly (after the altzeimers kicks in...), rumor had it the retailers were under pressure to "sell out" of the XBOX 360 and related accessories from Microsoft. MS is a legal monopoly now, so they can get away with unreasonable requirements like that. Anyway, the bundling was probably the only way BB could guarantee selling out the accessories.
And no - I don't think they're really sorry about it. They probably planned the apology weeks ago knowing that accepting returns for parts of the bundle after the inital sale wouldn't be a violation of their agreement to sell all of the accessories in the first place.
Well that letter was so full of corporate BS it was making my PC steam. And the aroma! At least the flowers will grow.
It's ridiculous that someone in his position wouldn't know about bundling practices, it was probably his idea. He apologises that it happened, he says he'll look into it, but he doesn't actually bother admitting that it was their own idea and they did it to make money. A sales and marketing exercise like the release of a new console is probably almost as important as christmas to these guys. Just like anything that makes customers (aka walking wallets full of cash to take) to line up outside the shop has got to get some special attention at the highest level.
It's purely a PR exercise. They're not really sorry, and if they thought they could get away with it, they would. Heck, from the attitide of that letter, if they thought they could get a good revenue stream from stealing old ladies handbags, they would. Especially if all they have to do afterwards is write a "sorry, don't know what happened to your handbag, maybe it went missing, I don't believe in stealing handbags so I will look into it" letter.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
I tried to order an xbox at ebgames.com - and all they would sell me was a bundle.
I did this with the PSP, and got burned big time (all the games were very bad indeed)
So now, instead of having a pre-orded xbox because I wanted to avoid the bundles, I have a brand new DS with Mario Kart. And you know, I think I may be happier.
...when the PS2 released. We did the EXACT same thing. We setup tables, put the bundles together, and WOULDN'T sell a ps2 without them. It is all leverage. BBY knows that the people standing in line to buy the latest and greatest consoles are going to jump a few hurdles, and part with some more cash to get it first.
Best Buy does not condone pressuring customers to purchase items they may not want or that may not fit their lifestyle
The don't condone it, but they do reward it. The sales force at BBY is not on commission, but the management IS compensated for store preformance. An in-store sales manager determines how sales are conducted, and this would not be the first time a manager decided to artificially inflate his numbers. Regional management and upper management only looks at the balance sheet and customer comments. So if the store makes or exceeds expectations, and no one complains, then the store management gets some cash.
http://www.bestbuysux.org/
The scope of politics shrink to the point where major parties have only minor differences, quibbling over how they think the jacket should be adjusted.
For America to rise back to the great core that it's forefathers founded, 2 things must happen:
1) there must be multiple political parties (not just 2)
and
2) the Executive branch of government must become a committee, not just a single person.
The current "administration" has demonstrated that a single point of failure is not the American way. We don't settle for failure in our critical systems, why should be settle for it in our current Commander-in-Chief (whom never really served in the miliary)?
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Because unless you're a karma whore you don't care about a downmod and the moderation system is in place to help people who browse at a higher threshold not see Troll/Offtopic/Duplicate/Etc posts.
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Isn't that just tough? If you don't like it, don't buy it. It's so popular it's selling out everywhere, if they can make more money with bundling then fair play to them.
To everyone speculating on the legality / rules of this, I can comment on this with some authority.
I work for BBY, so first, it was simply some stores that took initiative on their own to create these bundles to drive their numbers. My store did not force people to buy bundles, we did put together folders with suggested accessories as well as coupons to entice people to purchase their accessories at a discount wiht the 360 that day. To my knowlege, none of the stores in my area participated in this practice, but clearly some did.
That said, BBY is very competative internally, so stores are always looking to innovate in ways like this. Unfortunatly, bundling in this way is against BBY's corperate policies. We can create all the bundles we like, but when we say you *HAVE TO* buy a bundle to purchase a product, that's where it steps over the line and is against BBY's corperate policies (not the law, though).
As far as law is concerned, it's not illegal at all. I seem to recall some of the game stores only sold bundles. If you wanted a 360 from [GameStoreX], you had to pay $800 or something retarded like that to get the system, controllers, a memory card, and like 4 games, or something. Didn't even get to pick the games. This makes sense to me, as if something is going to be ultra-rare, and it's price controled, like the consoles are, and you *know* you're going to sell out, why not make the most money possible for it?
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
Step 1. Sell a product in an overpriced bundle.
Step 2. Since the buyer already bought the bundle, probably openend the items, and discarded much of the original packaging, offer a refund for the unwanted items weeks later. Not only will many buyers not bother to return an item they really didn't want in the first place, many buyers will not be able to return the items due to the packaging, etc being thrown away.
Step 3. Profit.
The people responsible for apologizing for the first apology have been sacked.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
That was what the punitive damages turned out to be in the "scalding coffee in the lap" case against Mickey-D's. McDonalds was originally assigned damages equal to a few days (IIRC) profit from their coffee sales. The company's own doctors had described the temp the coffee was served at as undrinkable and dangerous given the cups. McD's execs said the higher temperature was a competitive advantage thing, that they'd gained an edge over their competition serving it noticeably hotter. So the jury assigned damages that went to that issue: removing the cash they'd made via that competitive advantage. (After the settlement that followed, we won't know what McDonald's really paid, though.)
Not sure how you feel about that one. It's often used as an example of a frivolous lawsuit, though I think that's a knee-jerk reaction taken from pop media accounts. But it's a decent example of what you say you want...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
That gave me a chuckle. I never have mod points when I need them.
My other Slashdot ID is much lower.
Back in the day, game companies used to pack in games for free as an incentive to buy the hardware (Super Mario, Sonic, etc)... now the retailers use the appeal of the hardware as a way to force consumers to buy games/accessories they don't necessarily want. Interesting how things have changed.
Per ardua ad astra.