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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.)"
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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?\\
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.
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.
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.
No, it's true. I work for BBY, and I did much of the pre-launch planning for my store. Corporate sent us brochures, tickets, and some other miscellanious stuff for the launch, but there were no mandated bundles at all. In fact, it's against BBY policy. Stores that did this did so of their own initiative, and probably felt the heat for it. BBY is an organization of people. People who are under (sometimes massive) pressure to succede. Sometimes those people step over the line of what they're allowed to do. This is one of those times, and it's regretable.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
The people responsible for apologizing for the first apology have been sacked.
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