The Gradual Death of the Brick and Mortar Tech Store

Cutting_Crew writes "As we all know brick and mortar stores have been closing left and right recently. We had CompUSA, Borders and Circuit City all close their doors within the last 4 years. According to an article on Forbes.com, it is spelled out pretty clearly why Best Buy is next in line to shut its doors for good. Some of the reasons highlighted include a 40% drop is Best Buy stock in 2011, lack of vision regarding their online services, management too concerned with store sales instead of margins and blatant disregard for quality customer service."

Comments

Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[n1ywb]

Thank god we still have Radio Shack. I went in recently and found they were even selling arduinos. I've bought a bunch of components there for my electronics projects. It's not Fry's, but at least there's one 10 minutes away from my home in Nowhereville Vermont.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Sorthum]

I've long thought that Radio Shack must be a front for the mob; there's no realistic way they could still be in business selling overpriced cell phones and inexpensive components to hobbyists...

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[twotacocombo]

Radio Shack these days is a shadow of it's former self. I went there with my dad as a kid, and remember shelves full of electrical and radio crap that I couldn't even comprehend. I went in there for the first time in ages about 3 years ago.. holy crap. It looked more like an AT&T store than the Radio Shack of old. People were lined up to pay their phone bills, and the walls were lined with cell phones and MP3 players and whatnot. Only in the back corner were any sort of electrical components, and nobody could really help me find what I was looking for. It's almost as if someone bought the Radio Shack name, and slapped it on a completely different store...

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[QuasiSteve]

Thank god we still have Radio Shack

I saw a Radio Shack a bit back in a mall - that was just filled with cell phones and cell phone accessories.

I also was at a big Fry's Electronics... they had some stuff, but it's not like you could just pick up some random resistor or even set of resistors.

For components, and arduino's etc., online is really your friend.

What I don't get, however, is the projection of Best Buy going away. Would that be in favor of Walmarts and the like? Because I can't imagine somebody buying a a big screen TV or even a laptop based solely on online descriptions (unless you're determined to get Apple gear in which case going to a store and poking at the laptop adds nothing to the decision-making process).
They might still buy them online to take advantage of lower pricing, of course..

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[viperidaenz]

There is a franchise in Aus/NZ called Dick Smith. Same thing happened. Up until around 10 years ago they were an electronics store. 1/4 of the floor was components, 1/4 for audio, 1/4 for phones and 1/4 for computers.

Now its 1/4 cell phones, 1/2 computers and tvs, 1/5 audio and the last tiny section electronics.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[mjwx]

Thank god we still have Radio Shack. I went in recently and found they were even selling arduinos. I've bought a bunch of components there for my electronics projects. It's not Fry's, but at least there's one 10 minutes away from my home in Nowhereville Vermont.

Australia lost anything resembling radio shack years ago. Dick Smith Electronics was once a store where you could go in and buy capacitors, electronics kits (pre-arduino days) and just about anything else you need. Now days they sell phone plans, Norton AV and overpriced HDMI cables.

If I want electronics components I go online, especially if I dont want to pay a 400% mark up (this is not hyperbole, it's Australia).

But I figure this is the way all shops are going. Frontage is becoming less and less important with the advent of smart phones. An online business with a warehouse in an industrial district near the airport is just as competitive as a store-front in the CBD with millions walking past each day. If I see a PC component I want in a store, the first thing I'll do is look up prices on StaticIce to see how much cheaper it is if I order online. I dont think the traditional storefront is going to survive for too many more decades, rather we'll start to see kiosks attached to large automated warehouses (basically forklifts on rails). You buy what you want at the kiosk and it gets picked out and delivered to you shortly. We're already hallway there with Australian supermarkets providing an order online function and having that delivered to your house.

I think people are getting over the appeal of seeing a product and will happily give it up for some savings. Obviously this doesn't apply to all industries but to things we consider a chore like grocery shopping are the prime candidates.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Danieljury3]

Isn't 1/5 a bit generous. I went into one last year and the only electronics stuff they had was a soldering iron. I think at the time I was looking for some solder which they didn't have. Jaycar is the place to go for electronics stuff in Aus/NZ

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Pubstar]

Frys is good as long as: A) You know exactly what you want and B) You avoid the white sticker of doom. I went in, bought a Razer Lycosa keyboard from them. I kept getting phantom keystrokes from the keyboard. No problem, just update firmware? Didnt fix it. New drivers? Didn't fix it. Different computer? Didn't fix it. Okay, so the keyboard is obviously broken. After talking to someone at Razer, they told me that the keyboard was faulty and to return it instead of sending it to them for replacement. I get into Fry's, tell them its broken, and I watch them repack it, slap on a 5% discount sticker on it, and have someone go put it back on the shelf. Oh, and don't even get me started on how many DOA HDDs my dad and I bought from them that all had white stickers.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[cheater512]

I needed about 30 meters of low voltage DC cable (figure 8) which my local Dick Smith had in stock.

Took 30 minutes to buy it. I couldn't see it anywhere and when I asked someone they pointed at the opposite side of the store.
After I went through isle by isle I found it between the printers and cordless phones. Once I had found it it was easy though.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[lymond01]

Reality is that people don't need to build cool gadgets anymore. Cool gadgets are mainstream. And fixing digital circuit boards no longer requires colored resistors. You just toss it out and buy a new product.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Algae_94]

Awesome quality control. Rather than waste their time confirming your diagnosis, they waste the next guy that buys its time.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[mcavic]

I like your sister already.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[symbolset]

Maybe you'll find this funny: Even the CEO can't figure out how Radio Shack is still in business.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[JWSmythe]

Funny, she didn't charge me a thing.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[number11]

What I don't get, however, is the projection of Best Buy going away. Would that be in favor of Walmarts and the like? Because I can't imagine somebody buying a a big screen TV or even a laptop based solely on online descriptions

They'll stay around a while for the TVs and refrigerators, you're not going to buy a refrigerator online (though the home improvement chains offer serious competition for appliance business). People will get their computers at places like MicroCenter, which gets the big box store stuff right, at least as it applies to computers.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[dgatwood]

I've never seen this, and I return defective products to Fry's at least three or four times per year. If you tell them the item is defective, they put a sticker on it, but the sticker says "Return to vendor". They only stick the rebate sticker on it if you tell them you changed your mind about it. So either you weren't clear enough when you told them that it was defective, or you went to a Fry's store that is poorly run compared with my local store.

I'm dubious about returns because I worry about parts being missing, and I'm dubious about returned hard drives because I wonder if the previous customer dropped them, but for most things, the sticker of doom doesn't bother me too much. Usually it just means that I saved a couple of bucks.

That said, it may depend on the store. Which Fry's store was this?

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Sorthum]

I really don't think that selling $3 packs of capacitors to hobbyists is sustainable in 2012...

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[n1ywb]

I agree RatShack has gone downhill, and it's especially unfortunate that they no longer sell amateur radio gear. But I think it's actually been improving of late. They carry way more components than they used to and they finally took my advice and put them in drawers. They still have solder, RF adapters, antennas, some basic computer parts, kits, books, arduinos, basic stamps, 100 in 1 electronics sets (I've already bought one for my 2 year old, can't get 'em started too early!) Radio Shack is a hell of a lot better than nothing and let's hope this positive trend continues.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[JonySuede]

And fixing digital circuit boards no longer requires colored resistors.

You are right, nowadays it only consist of changing busted capacitors... I never saw another defect in a modern electronic device. Sure my sample is small since I do this as a hobby but it must be one the most frequent sources of failures or I won at the sampling lottery...

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[dgatwood]

Between Fry's and Radio Shack, I've generally been able to find most of the components I need for most hobby projects. They have a pretty good selection of resistors, capacitors, etc. as long as they have them in stock. Unfortunately, it often takes two or three stores to find them in sufficient quantity. Hint: for components, always go to Campbell. Never go to Sunnyvale. YMMV with San Jose.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[griffjon]

What Brick-and-mortar store can hope to compete with the internet for commodity-level components? It's not even fair to hope they would. I mean, cmon - Best Buy stocks even-further-overpriced Monster Cables as their entry-level cable. I don't fault the Shack for seeking higher rungs on the value chain. And I'm hardly a fan of either the Shack ("You have questions, we have blank stares") or Best Buy ("Best means most expensive!"). But, I do fear for the complete loss of generalist tech stores. A book is a book is a book, but when deciding between tablets or notebook PCs, or the like, actual interaction with the device answers a gazillion questions that don't seem to have answers on websites.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone in the Central Valley (California), with *2* Fry's stores, I can tell you this is SOP for their stores. 9/10 return stickered items are missing parts, many of them are faulty (not all, and occasionally you'll find swaths of items that were returned because customers often mistook what they were, good way to get a discount assuming everything is in the box!). But they'll have memory with bad sectors, cpus with bent pins (gotten both pre-LGA Intel, and all models of Athlons like that!), motherboards with missing accessories, etc. Basically anything with a sticker on it might turn out to be unusable giving you a 15-30 minute drive back to the store to replace it (although in their defense Fry's return policy is EXTREMELY flexible as long as you return it within 14 days (for most internal parts) or 30 days for everything else, assuming it's not your third time returning the item (They've had junk before that item in the batch was dead, think it was older MP3 players or something, but not a pleasant experience to have to come back 3 times to return something!)

Additionally: I had a friend working for them for 2 years who after a disagreement with their manager was told to sign a VQ rather than be fired (to avoid paying unemployment to him). Another employee I overheard after they set up electronic signins next to the sales board who had to quit and get rehired (thus losing seniority) in order to shift back from full time employment to part time due to schooling. Their employee handling is horrible, and the people who aren't constant turnovers fall into the categories of (career underachievers, mostly buerocratic, and older layoffs who can't find work anywhere else. The latter are often the nicest and most helpful people in the store, while the former make you really wish there was somewhere better to shop.) Sad, but another sign of the inexorable decline of American society (it's not even just business anymore.)

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[ColdWetDog]

My local Radio Shack (rural Alaska) sells:

- Batteries, lots of different kinds of batteries. Actually reasonable quality batteries.
- The standard bits of Junk Electronics - cordless phones, clock radios, a scanner or two, cheap marine band radios (a local favorite).
- RC airplane stuff.
- Junk electronic games.
- Cables, actually a reasonable selection of cables. Most 'normal' people can get what they want. (No 15 pin Amphenol waterproof bulkhead mounts).
- Junk electronic games.
- TVs.
- Hot tubs.
- Tanning booth in back.
- Espresso Bar in front.
- A rather odd selection of component parts - resistors, capacitors, LEDS, some surface mount stuff, some generic transistors, a couple of coils.

So, it appears that the owner has taken the core of Radio Shack inventory and overlaid it with stuff he thinks that the locals would want or just stuff he's interested in selling. Whatever works, I suppose.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Concerned Onlooker]

"After I went through isle by isle I found it between the printers and cordless phones."

Did you have to paddle very far?

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[ShanghaiBill]

you're not going to buy a refrigerator online

Why not? I bought a refrigerator online last year. It had good ratings, I read the reviews, made sure it had all the features I wanted, and then I clicked and bought it. It was delivered two days later.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[JWSmythe]

    You know, I really wonder about that too. I picked up a cell phone there, not too long ago. It was the same price as anywhere else. I only got it there because it was closest. It took 3 employees about 2 hours to figure out how to activate it. In that 2 hours, no one else came in. There was plenty of traffic coming into other stores around it though.

    How does a $100 purchase pay for 3 employees, and the overhead of the building?

    I'd say it's rare, but in other locations around the country that I've been to, it's always been the same situation. Since most of the stores stopped carrying small electronic components, I really haven't been going there much. When they did have the small components, there were always people coming in. They may only want a pack of resistors, but they frequently buy something else, just because. That impulse buy is a powerful tool. They have nothing that makes a consumer *want* to go in. So it's a store full of impulse buys, and no reason for customers to ever see them.

    The last trip there, I bought some shrink tube, solder, and on the impulse buy I got a new multimeter. When I got it home, it turned out that it took a weird little battery that I could only find via Radio Shack, and even then the battery was $30, and was exclusive to their online store. The multimeter was only $10, so I returned it. They tried to talk me into keeping it, and they would order the battery for me. {sigh}. Then they tried to upsell me to another one that took regular batteries. They could quite comprehend "no, I don't want it, because it doesn't work, and I won't spend $30 for the battery for a $10 multimeter."

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[prehistoricman5]

Every time I walk into a Best Buy I end up asking myself the question "Why am I here and not Fry's?" Their prices are not competitive and their selection is crap. I once went into one to see if I could buy an inexpensive screen protector for my phone. All they had were expensive ones that exceeded 10% of what I paid for the phone. Furthermore the installation of this brand is notoriously difficult, but they offered installation for another 8 bucks (or so). I didn't buy it. I also was in there recently returning a usb hub that someone got for me (the design of the hub had a fatal flaw and I knew it wouldn't last). The prices were appalling. Honestly just about the only positive thing that a best buy has done for me recently was convince me that a tablet is a waste of money. The only thing that keeps them operating are the people that don't know better.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[SydShamino]

I spend my days designing modern electronic devices, and I have seen other parts with plenty of defects. But...capacitors are generally crap. We as a company have decided to stop using tantalum electrolytics in our products because they fail far too often, and do so with flashy results. But ceramics while stable crack too often in the manufacturing process and still aren't always available in larger capacitance values. We're moving towards polymers for bulk use and ceramics for pretty much everything else, and have to design boards around protecting the ceramics from cracking.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[DigiShaman]

That's exactly what Dell does and I suspect others as well. Although it's not official. When a part is returned for RMA replacement, it will get trashed if the fault is obvious (bad fan, blown PSU, or clicking HDD). If its status is questionable, further soft diagnostics are ran. If they pass, the gremlin infested part with an intermittent hard failure goes back into circulation for the next poor sob.

I want to know if they track the serial number of the parts as they're cycled in and out of Dell. How many time must it come back and forth before they capture it for good and smash it with a sledge hammer?!

Honest to God. I once had a faulty RAID card get replaced three times in a PowerEdge 2950 in attempt to resolve a faulty PERC processor failure according to diags. Dell support thought the system board was killing them. Eventually everything except the chassis got replaced! Soon after a regional Dell rep for the Houston area decided to pull the whole damn server and replace it with a brand new one fully upgraded. Eventually word got out that other customers and techs were shorting out their RMAed RAID cards by not installing its cache memory battery in the proper (but critical) order.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[hairyfeet]

And I think you just nailed why these stores are going down, its a total crapshoot as to what kind of service you're gonna get. for electronics in my area we have two Best buys and a Staples. Now the first best buy, the farther away one naturally, actually has helpful staff, will help you find what you are looking for and if you seem interested in a new PC they will often throw in a little swag just to seal the deal, like a sleeve for that netbook or a little bookbag to carry your laptop, its just little stuff but it does make you feel better about buying there. Now the closer best buy is like a ghost town, if they didn't have RFID tags you could carry off half the store without ever seeing anybody. and if you do see an employee they do this almost comical trying to pretend they don't see you, this "Quick! look the other way and move at a brisk pace away from them!" kinda thing. And the staples? God that store is total crap. there is NOT A SINGLE THING on the shelves they will sell you, not one, its ALL bait and switch. that printer? that monitor? laptop? desktop? anything? all you get is "Nope outta stock, but we do have" and they will point out something that is nearly double the price. and that is of course not counting the fact that their prices sucked to begin with, but i guess a 40% markup isn't enough for the manager of that location, its 70% or nothing. No wonder their parking lot always looks like the place is abandoned.

So frankly i don't blame people for just not buying offline, frankly even if the price was a little higher I'd rather deal with amazon. with amazon i have a problem and its "No problem, we'll fix it" and its hassle free. When my sister bought some books and they just disappeared thanks to the thieving local post office (tracking showed it getting there then nothing, just gone) they never said a word other than "We're sorry we'll fix it" and had new replacements shot out there by fed ex in just two days. When i ordered a PC case that ended up looking like it was used as a tire chuck they said 'Don't bother sending it back, we'll send you another one" and there it was, no muss or fuss. Between them, Newegg and Tigerdirect I rarely even shop local for anything other than groceries anymore and even though the prices ARE cheaper online even if they were 20% higher I'd still buy thanks to hassle free shopping. Maybe if the shops would take a "customer is always right" attitude about service instead of having such high turnover and taking clueless workers because they are cheap maybe their business would go up.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[hairyfeet]

I can actually answer how they stay in business....DIYers with their balls in a vice. i have an engineering friend and i don't know how many times the shack has bent him over because he needed a spool of solder or resistor or some other little thing for a project that the deadline was looming on and he'd rather get the bite took out of his wallet than risk not getting paid. Since these little projects he whips off for the local college can easily net him a thousand or more a pop can't say as i blame him, but man do they gouge on that kind of stuff.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[ceoyoyo]

Meh, I went in about fifteen years ago with a friend and asked for a flux capacitor, then watched the sales guy search for one for ten minutes.

It hasn't really been Radio Shack for a long time.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[TheLink]

Might be reflective of the USA's electronics manufacturing industry.

You want to see old school radio shack style stuff (and more), go to China (especially Shenzen). Of course there's a difference, in those places you may see people doing dubious stuff like assembling batteries in front of you and sticking the "original" holograms on them: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=283 ;)

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[aXis100]

I dont have a Jaycar in my town and used to really miss it, but it's turned out to be far better to just buy stuff online, and you only have to be slightly organised.

Lately I get stuff from element14 (farnell), and with a $10 minimum credit card order you get free express courier shipping. The components are at my door within about 36 hours, even when it's just a few crappy components. The prices are good too - the other day I ran out of diodes and decided I should get a stack to avoid that situation again. 100 x IN4007's later my shopping basket was only $2 and I had to spend another half hour finding other fun stuff to bump up the total :)

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[hairyfeet]

Because reviews from actual geeks is usually worth more than hands on? I mean holding that Seagate 1.5Tb would have taught me nothing but over a dozen reviews that were 'Holy crap i bought a dozen of these and they all choked and died hard in less than two months!" tells me quite a lot. Take the new netbook I got, most places had it listed as having win 7 32 bit and with a max RAM of 4Gb, but Amazon had as its first review a guy that pointed out it was actually Win 7 X64 and oh it takes 8Gb and here is the link. it was only $6 difference between the 4gb stick and a matched pair at that time so I bought and can say i'm really happy with my EEE. Handling it frankly wouldn't have told me anything more than i already knew since i had handled 12 inch netbooks before and had already tried out a customer's older EEE so i knew what to expect. it was online where they had not only the info about it actually being 64 bit and a link to the matched pair but even a tutorial on how to take the unit apart if you'd like to change out the HDD for an SSD. The first reviewer had actually done that and according to him with 8gb of RAM and an SSD the EEE handles more like a CULV than a netbook.

so I can see wanting to do your shopping online because handling it only tells you about size and feel, it tells you nothing about whether the unit sucks power, or dies 5 minutes after you get it home, runs too hot to watch HD video or struggles with some kinds of content, all that you can find out from reviews. Hell I had a real nice back and forth on a review I did for a Deneb X4, I even ran a couple of programs for the guy and timed them just so he'd know what he was looking at, and i'd probably do the same thing for someone with my new Thuban if they asked on my review, you just can't get that kinda thing offline.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Kleen13]

You know, I live in Vancouver, Canada. Every single major issue I dealt with for or Dell servers that was solved on the 1st attempt was by the Houston support offices. Anyone know why they were so much better?

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[LordLucless]

There's a place for the storefront, but it's not mass-market commodity items. I'm sure that in the next couple of decades, storefronts will be pretty much limited to boutiques, custom work, one-of-a-kind things like antiques, and services. And I think our retail districts will be better for it.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Winter]

I do design of some telco electronics, and we only use tantalums. After we figured out you have to double the voltage rating, we have not had a single tantalum failure in 6 years. Before then we had a few flashy failures.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[SacredNaCl]

I don't know, but MicroCenter seems to be able to do it. I haven't looked at their books, but on price, they compete against the Newegg's, Amazon, and everyone else on the major items that matter. You pay a slight convenience fee for some items (1-2% above to have it today), but most things it works out in your favor even with the tax.

Now they could be bleeding money left, and right ... However, I don't think so. I think they are just making slightly less money on each sale.

 

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Zontar The Mindless]

...I can't imagine somebody buying a a big screen TV or even a laptop based solely on online descriptions...

Hate to disappoint you, but I bought my new widescreen TV online about 9 months ago. :)

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[DurendalMac]

I can see Best Buy going away. So many of those stores are run by inept morons and so much corporate policy is made by inept morons. If you're really lucky, you'll get an honest salesperson who actually knows what they're talking about. Otherwise it's brainless chunkheads throwing whatever they can at you. If you're really lucky, you'll get a Geek Squad tech who knows what he's doing and will fix it right. Otherwise, you get some idiot sales flunkie who can barely read the checklist of crap to do, a checklist that probably ends with "Just sell 'em a bunch of crap if you can't figure it out". Best Buy's reputation has been dwindling because they're bloody incompetent. People will go elsewhere for their goods if it continues and BB will tank. Any town big enough for a BB already has alternate stores.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[DigiShaman]

It's keyed so that's not the issue. Typically a PERC (RAID) card is assembled in three parts. The card itself, cache memory, and battery. The entire PERC card assembly can be removed and installed into the motherboard just fine as it's acceptable to do so. The problem is that when Dell ships an RMAed PERC card, it's just the card by itself. It's up to the customer or on-site tech to migrate the cache memory and battery over to it. This is where the problem begins. According to the service documentation, when removing the card you must first disconnect the cache battery before removing the cache. Reverse the steps when installing cache. If you leave the battery connected while adding or removing the cache, most certainly you will fry the module and potentially damage the PERC processor too.

I suppose the argument could be made both ways. On one hand, this card could have been designed better from an electrical engineering standpoint to be more robust and serviceable by adding additional checks and balances in place within the circuitry. On the other, if people would just RTFM and protect against ESD, this wouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Grishnakh]

Same goes for Best Buy. I tried buying a laptop there for my wife; I really didn't want to, but she didn't want to wait for NewEgg to deliver, so we went to BB since it's local. Got a floor model Lenovo on sale. Took it home after refusing the extra warranty BS, started setting it up with all my regular software at the time (Firefox etc.), and it had some weird intermittent problem (I think it either reset spontaneously, or the screen blanked out, I forget exactly). Brought it back for a return, they said they'd have to charge us a restocking fee, as well as some big fee for Geek Squad to clean out the software I had installed, so they could resell it. I pointed out that it was faulty, but since they couldn't see any problem, they were going to resell it. Never mind how ridiculous it is that they want to resell a PC without wiping the HD first; you never know what I might have screwed up or planted there (keylogger, etc.). So I started removing the software myself to avoid the stupid fee, and the intermittent problem manifested itself, so the morons there actually got to see it and decided to give me a full refund.

We took the money and this time my wife let me order a laptop from NewEgg; it arrived a few days later and is still working years later. She refuses to buy anything from BB any more.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Grishnakh]

This doesn't sound like an ESD problem at all, it's a problem with hot-plugging. Cache memory likely isn't hot-pluggable (would you plug a DDR3 stick into your motherboard with the power on? Of course not). When the battery is installed, that memory is powered up. Plugging the battery in before the memory means you're hot-plugging, which means failure. There's probably no easy way to avoid this without either 1) designing a special memory connector with a built-in switch ($$$), or 2) designing special memory modules that are hot-plug safe ($, or if they're saving money by reusing some kind of standard modules instead of making their own, $$$$$$).
 

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[compro01]

$80. The firmware would be for the macroing capability. The thing also glows and doesn't ghost, so you can press as many keys at once as you like.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[skine]

Probably the only reason I continue to shop at BestBuy is that their computers have access to the internet, and specifically NewEgg.

That way, I can see how well it's rated, understand the specifics of the item, compare prices, and determine whether it's something I want now or within three business days.

Also, I feel bad for every Best Buy employee who asks if I need help (which they have to do, given the ten-foot rule). Two minutes of reading the reviews of a single product on NewEgg tends to make me more knowledgeable about the entire product category than most BB employees.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[lord_mike]

Obviously a franchise. A company store would never sell that stuff. The franchise stores are great, 'cos you can still get all the discontinued and outdated Radio Shack items from years past that are still of interest.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[JDAustin]

Was down at the Fremont Fry's this weekend. The only internal HDD they had were some 320 Cavier Blues. Not a single OEM drive. The HDD drought has hit them bad.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[DigiShaman]

I only mentioned ESD because people tend to be careless when handling bare electronics. Of course I have no way of knowing how a particular item got damaged in the first place, but the fact ESD precaution is often ignored doesn't exactly improve the situation either.

With regards to hot-plugging, I agree. The card wasn't designed to have a cache DIMM installed or removed with auxiliary power engaged. But of all the items to replace in a server, I can understand how this component gets mishandled among all the rest. Again, I'm not saying it's justifiable, just understandable.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[evanism]

I installed a train load of 2950's, and the instructions on the PERC were in capital LETTERS IN RED

Only a person who couldnt see lightning up close would have missed it. :)

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Rakarra]

Because I can't imagine somebody buying a a big screen TV or even a laptop based solely on online descriptions (unless you're determined to get Apple gear in which case going to a store and poking at the laptop adds nothing to the decision-making process).

I don't see why you wouldn't buy a TV based on online descriptions. Unless you're at a high-end videophile store, the TV you see in a store will most likely be calibrated incorrectly, have the brightness turned Waaaaay up to match the bright store lighting, and an image split and shared with a hundred other TVs which may or may not be the display's native resolution. Seeing a TV at a store is usually a horrible way to get a judge of image quality and online ratings and tests are a more reliable way than your own eyes to get a good idea of the visual quality. Not a bad way of figuring out how the bezel will look to see if it'll match your den, though.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[robthebloke]

They sell the refurbs via dell outlet. I bought a rather nice XPS from dell outlet a few years ago (with a big discount). It's still going strong, so I assume they fix them before sending them out again.....

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[RoboRay]

Well, in their defense, "remove power first and apply power last" ARE kind of standard procedure for any electronics removal & replacement procedure.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Dorkmaster Flek]

This must not be in Canada, where Radio Shack has become "The Source" and been transformed from an actual electronics store to a cell phone reseller. For a little while, they still had hobbyist electronics stuff in the back, but now it's all gone. I bought a 12V DC power supply from there once for my model railroading and the guy who rang it up knew neither what it was nor what you would use it for. The only reason I knew they had it was because their online inventory said so.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[DigiShaman]

Yes. Dell does run a full hardware diagnostic for all computers being resold.

It's been over 7 year since I've lasted worked for Dell. Back when I lived in Austin, they had a warehouse like facility where trucks could load and unload at the trucking dock. Anyways, my contracted job was to refurbish laptops and desktops. It was a simple matter of taking the unit in question and PXE boot them into hardware diagnostics. When a fault is found, we simply order a replacement part from a list available to us at our console. Within a few minutes, a parts running would search and deliver the part to me in person. Once installed, tests are re-ran. If the test passed, we could save the new hardware configuration to be updated with the service tag. That final configuration determined the new cost of the machine to be sold at. The last step was to PXE boot them again for re-imaging of the OS with drivers. How exactly did the right OS get chosen with the proper drivers slip streamed into them? Not sure, but Dell had the system down to a science. It worked.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Andy Dodd]

Yup - The two Best Buys I go to actually have semi-competent sales staff that never does upsells and cross-sells, and actually goes away when you say you don't need help.

However - both of them are in towns with large universities, so many of their staff are college kids looking for extra pizza money. These tend to be much better qualified for a tech sales job than the typical Best Buy employee.

Re:Thank god we still have Radio Shack

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife bought a cast iron tub online. I knew that she was looking for one, but didn't realize she was actually going to purchase one online.

Well the company drop shipped it to our house for free, and provided kick ass support for finding the correct hardware for the tub (I guess the faucets that she chose were European, so we needed adapters). I would certainly buy a big / bulky / large ticket item online again, as long as the firm was reputable.

Of course our plumber quit on the spot when he saw the tub. I guess you are supposed to buy from your plumbers so they can get the mark up. Oh well, no wonder the tub was so cheap compared to what the plumber was showing us -- my wife just thought that she was doing the plumber a favor by finding something better and less expensive than what he was selling. LOL

Forgot to add older stores

[xQuarkDS9x]

Older stores in the 1990's like Computer City that was active in the USA and even Canada for awhile. I had worked at Computer City in Coquitlam, British Columbia from 1997 to 1998 and it was a very sad day to see the store close down and this was even before the internet and online sales really took off.

Re:Forgot to add older stores

[MightyMartian]

Margins are very low on electronics. You had to move a lot of product to keep a brick and mortar electronics store afloat even before the Internet and Walmart became such huge competitors. Quite frankly I rarely go into them any more. I find even taking shipping into account that I can find better deals online. I haven't bought an actual computer from a brick and mortar store in seven or eight years.

Re:Forgot to add older stores

[SJHillman]

They're nice for when you need it NOW. A few times I've had a fan, PSU or video card die and for one reason or another, I couldn't wait for 3 day shipping (2 day and overnight shipping usually costs twice as much as the component is worth) so I headed down to Best Buy or Circuit City and grabbed it.

Re:Forgot to add older stores

[Pharmboy]

Now that you mention it, I haven't bought a computer from a brick and mortar store in over 10 years. Then again, I've never been able to buy one off the shelf, or willing to pay 300 bucks for a 50 dollar ram upgrade, so I have always bought the box from one company, and the upgrades from several others. Online since before 2000. I get better service from a website than any electronics store I have ever been in.

Re:Forgot to add older stores

[Savage-Rabbit]

Now that you mention it, I haven't bought a computer from a brick and mortar store in over 10 years. Then again, I've never been able to buy one off the shelf, or willing to pay 300 bucks for a 50 dollar ram upgrade, so I have always bought the box from one company, and the upgrades from several others. Online since before 2000. I get better service from a website than any electronics store I have ever been in.

I'm the exact opposite, there are just some things I like to hold in my hands, feel and test-drive before I buy them. These are things like mobile phone cases, computer mice, keyboards, tablet computers, laptops... the list goes on. Half the time photographic coverage of an item on a webstore isn't good enough or you simply can't tell what you want to know from a photo. There is nothing more annoying than, say... buying a laptop computer online and finding out afterwards that you can't stand the keyboard layout or buying a Galaxy Tab and finding out after you bought it that every time you rotate the thing you accidentally press the capacitive buttons on the sides of the monitor, dunno about you but that drove me nuts. A tour of the local retail stores can save you quite a bit of hassle.

Re:Forgot to add older stores

[Anonymous Coward]

that's why you have a stash of junk in a closet (i have the pieces to 3 old machines) and lot's of computers (another 3 plus a server) so that you are never ever 100% disconnected.

Stock Price is an Effect, not a Cause

[afabbro]

I thought this looked familiar...this article was published on the Forbes web site on January 2nd. It's also a bit ranty rather than well-researched, though there's no doubt that Best Buy is not doing well.

Cutting_Crew...because Best Buy is doing poorly, its stock is down 40%. Its stock price is not one of "the reasons highlighted" for why it's doing poorly. Stock price is an effect, not a cause.

On a related note...is Fry's having problems?

Re:Stock Price is an Effect, not a Cause

[Sorthum]

Well, one of their VPs embezzled $65 million from them back in 2008, so they could probably be better...

I used to work for best buy

[assemblerex]

They have no concept of the competition that Amazon represents. They think in store purchases will keep them alive. They need to:
1. Fire half the staff, and only hire professional sales people (Not 30 seventeen year olds)
2. Reduce the store size by half or more.
3. Reduce prices by having less selection but enjoy the bulk purchase price point.
4. Stop high pressure pushing of accessories and service plans on people.
5. Work with vendors to have exclusive items made for them not found online (like a white or pink dyson)
Still doomed by their horrible reputation.

Re:I used to work for best buy

[wanzeo]

As someone who has spent time as an electronics sales rep, I say good riddance.

I was always as honest and informative as I could be (much more so than my coworkers), but you really can't give meaningful advice in a 10 minute sales pitch. Half of the people are coming cold to the technology, they are not going to be educated in time to make a good decision. The other half have made up their minds because of marketing, and nothing you say will convince them otherwise. And then add to that the fact that most technology purchasing is rather subjective. Just look at the heated discussions on any tech website about which products are the right choice, they go on for pages and pages. And that is between people who are already very well informed about the basic principles.

Spending a few hours reading user reviews on amazon or newegg, and being able to google unfamiliar terms, is more valuable than the most tech savy and personable sales rep. And because most sales reps are subpar, internet shopping wins by a landslide.

Re:I used to work for best buy

[viperidaenz]

4. Stop high pressure pushing of accessories and service plans on people.

That is sometimes the only products they sell with any significant profit margin.

Re:I used to work for best buy

[tlhIngan]

It's a cultural thing.

In Canada, we have "two" tech stores (Best Buy and Future Shop, but both are owned by Best Buy). The retail selection in Canada is far better than the B&M store in the US in my experience, showing that people still shop retail.

Of course, online, the US is way better.

The problem is there really is no reason to buy online in Canada - Amazon.ca barely sells more than books, CDs and DVDs, and at prices you can find retail. Plus you hae to pay shipping or wait a week (no Amazon Prime).

So given shopping online in Canada is really only about getting stuff you can't find in a store, the stores are doing quite well. Especially since the stuff you can find in a store - once you add shipping and such, the price is often higher than the store.

Re:Apple

[LWATCDR]

Because you can not go online and buy an apple product for 60% price of buying it in the store.
It is that apple control thing working for them.

They've got longer than that

[damn_registrars]

Brick & Mortar will still serve a purpose for a while yet. There will always be times when you need some widget that day, and no amount of money will solve that problem through Amazon. It might not be Best Buy, but it certainly won't be WalMart either; we will have a large nationwide chain carrying electronics for people who need something now and don't mind paying a little more for it than they would online.

That said the complaints listed in the (over 1 month old) article are very similar to what was happening at CompUSA when they were in their death spiral; young kids were being hired with no knowledge of anything, and corporate suits with decision making power were being promoted who knew even less.

Re:They've got longer than that

[Doctor_Jest]

I think people will pay a little more if they have a better experience. Stores have forgotten that, and like the failure of all those who tried to compete with Wal Mart on price, they lost. Retailers can't compete on price with the online retailers, even with sales tax (which is a nightmare of logistical nonsense just waiting in the wings)..

Retailers need to stop focusing on price and margins and wonder if there is still such a thing as customer loyalty. I don't know if there is, but companies like Best Buy don't seem to give a shit about trying. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work... but for fuck's sake, how can these companies make the SAME EXACT mistakes that their dead competitors make and expect to come out on top, or even alive for that matter? It's like watching monkeys throw shit at each other. It's funny, but you don't want to get any on you.

Re:They've got longer than that

[damn_registrars]

I think people will pay a little more if they have a better experience

That same statement is made, instead ending with "to support a local business" or "to buy an American-made product" or "to support a good cause". But in the end it's just words, words that most often are not backed up by action.

Retailers can't compete on price with the online retailers, even with sales tax (which is a nightmare of logistical nonsense just waiting in the wings)..

The problem is though - and anyone who works in retail can tell you this - customers walk in to the store and if it isn't something they need right away (and even some times if it is) they'll say "I can buy it for less through [random fly-by-night online site that's been up less than a week]". So the retailers have to be aware of their online competition and at least put up a good fight on price.

Retailers need to stop focusing on price and margins and wonder if there is still such a thing as customer loyalty. I don't know if there is, but companies like Best Buy don't seem to give a shit about trying.

I'm moderately happy with their rewardzone program. Granted I live in a place where there is no alternative for electronics if I can't wait for them to be shipped, so they have me in somewhat of a bind.

If it doesn't work, it doesn't work... but for fuck's sake, how can these companies make the SAME EXACT mistakes that their dead competitors make and expect to come out on top, or even alive for that matter?

Because they all get lead down the same street. They all face the same customers.

The real tragedy, though, is that they all promote the same kind of shit-for-brains thinking to upper management. Not only do they push the stores to select for the least knowledgeable (and hence least expensive on payroll) employees, they also strive to give their employees as little power as possible when dealing with customers.

Quite honestly, many of the employees at Best Buy couldn't give you good customer service even if they wanted to, as they simply are not allowed to do such a thing. I saw the same thing as an employee at CompUSA and now I can see it in the employees at Best Buy with myself as a customer.

Why should I buy stuff from Best Buy?

[Peter Simpson]

When there's Newegg? I mean, honestly: $25 USB cables and re-boxed returns vs easy return, no tax and better prices (even including shipping).

Re:Why should I buy stuff from Best Buy?

[Sorthum]

The sole reason to go to a BestBuy is "I need this item today." That's about it.

Re:Why should I buy stuff from Best Buy?

[lymond01]

And Best Buy needs to consider that. Drop its online prices. Up its in-store service and knowledge. Work to maintain its employees for more than 6 months. Hire people at reasonable salaries, train them regularly, don't mess with their schedules without telling them. As it stands now, most of the employees in Best Buy are high school kids who stand around and chat with each other, don't know the answer to your questions, and will be gone in 3 months. This is no way to sustain a business where knowledge is useful. Let the transitive staff wait tables. Hire real employees and pay them real money and treat them like real company employees.

The only problem with Best Buy is that management doesn't see the company's role in the new age. And since they're lost, they feel their company is lost, so they treat all their employees like a 4 year old's goldfish.

Re:Why should I buy stuff from Best Buy?

[greg1104]

If you have some number of computers or help other people with theirs, the main things worth keeping some stock on are cables (USB and network) and a power supply. Recently I've added HDMI cables to that list too. They're all relatively inexpensive, have high markup when you do buy them retail, and are likely things to need. When I use up my last spare network cable or lose a power supply and install the spare, I order a replacement unit/batch the next time it's convienent. The way people use these items as examples to justify why retail should exist boggles my mind a bit. Keeping a small stock of items that are cheap online, expensive at retail, and commonly used is easy to justify as a sensible investment.

Re:Why should I buy stuff from Best Buy?

[number11]

$25 USB cables

Wow. Was that a typo? My local independent computer retailer sells most USB cables for $5-$10.

And monoprice sells them for a dollar or two.

I never understood how they stayed in business....

[dgatwood]

With consistently higher prices and terrible customer service policies, I can't imagine how Best Buy has stayed in business as long as they have. There's a reason I've always called them "Worst Buy". They usually are.

To give you an idea of their customer service, I priced a product online with Google, and it told me that Best Buy had it for a great price. I went there, and found that they had just raised their price by nearly a hundred bucks. I knew this because they had a recently returned unit available for less than their previous price. I bought the returned unit.

Unfortunately, it was defective (flaky HDMI output). At most stores, when a product is DOA, you can go in and they'll swap it out with a working one. Not at Best Buy. Because they didn't have any more customer-returned products from when the price was lower, my only option (at their store) was to pay an extra $120 to get a working product.

I pointed out that their new, higher price was about thirty or forty dollars higher than Fry's, just two blocks away, and over a hundred dollars higher than Amazon. Needless to say, I opted for a refund.

I then drove to Fry's. They matched Amazon's price, so I ended up getting it for almost exactly what Best Buy had been charging two weeks earlier.

Why anyone ever darkens the door of Best Buy is beyond me. I could see buying stuff like DVDs from Best Buy online (where you can price compare easily), but just walking into the store, your odds of getting even an acceptable deal are right up there with winning the lottery.

I find best buy to be frustrating

[Osgeld]

The closest one to me is a good 40 min away, and when you get there its almost a circus of disorganization. Example when you walk into our location theres geek squad, and some networking on the first isle, then pens and paper and post-it notes, then printers, then celphone accessories, then laptops then camera accessories, oh then celphones, then laptop accessories and on and on until your in the back of the store looking for the power supply you went there for in the first place they are out ... even though their website says in stock in that store.

so while you are somewhat forced to check every fucking isle cause they are now interweaving departments, that way you wont miss some stupid gadget you dont want, you cant find anyone to answer a simple question cause all 3 of them are busy upselling the newest HP laptop and your wasting your time cause these people wouldn't know what they have in stock even if they were paid to.

Hm sounds just like compUSA doesnt it?

The only reason I ever go in there anymore is because once in a while you can find a openbox or floor model deal, which is why I have a stainless steel microwave that only cost 35 bucks, but its at the very bottom of my list to even consider when I am out to get something specific.

Microcenter?

[iamhassi]

Ummm.... doesn't Microcenter count? Guess not according to Forbes, because in 2006 they had 19 stores, 20 in 2007, 21 in 2008, and in 2012 Microcenter has 23 stores. Sure that's slow growth, but still growth none-the-less, and they're much better than CompUSA, Circuit City (is Circuit City "tech"?) and Best Buy because Microcenter actually has competitive prices.

Want a new MSI Geforce GTX 580 video card? $500 from Newegg, $520 from Microcenter. Think I'd just pay that extra 4% to have the card TODAY and have a local shop to return/exchange it to if there's a problem and judging from the 13% 1-egg reviews I'd there is a good risk there could be a problem.

Re:Microcenter?

[iamhassi]

Need a drive in a hurry? 2tb for $130 at Microcenter, same price as Newegg. Gee, do I wanna wait a week or have the drive in my PC this afternoon? Decisions, decisions.... oh Newegg wants $7.86 shipping? Microcenter it is!

But I guess if the Forbes reporter included Microcenter that would have gone against his 5-page theory generating god knows how many banner ads. Best we just forget Microcenter exists so Forbes can make a few extra $$$ off ads. Selling out journalistic honesty to make a few bucks? You betcha!

Re:Microcenter?

[russotto]

Ummm.... doesn't Microcenter count? Guess not according to Forbes, because in 2006 they had 19 stores, 20 in 2007, 21 in 2008, and in 2012 Microcenter has 23 stores. Sure that's slow growth, but still growth none-the-less, and they're much better than CompUSA, Circuit City (is Circuit City "tech"?) and Best Buy because Microcenter actually has competitive prices.

They also tend to have stuff in stock, and for many items (printers, monitors) working items you can examine. Why would you go to a store when you could order online for much less? Three good reasons
1) You want it now
2) Shipping cost overwhelms the price difference
3) You'd like to take a look at it before buying it

But most brick and mortar retailers mess up _all three_. They won't carry much and what they carry they won't keep in stock, so you have a good chance of not finding what you want. For things where shipping cost is significant (e.g. cables), they'll carry only ridiculously-priced brands so they're STILL more expensive than ordering online + shipping (even for one lousy cable). And if they have any samples out, they're often obviously broken, and usually not actually working.

Re:Microcenter?

[mcavic]

Yes, I really don't see it as the death of brick and mortar stores, but a consolidation. We need good tech stores. We don't need office supply stores trying to be tech stores.

Re:Microcenter?

[TarPitt]

Why would you go to a store when you could order online for much less? Three good reasons
1) You want it now
2) Shipping cost overwhelms the price difference
3) You'd like to take a look at it before buying it

and

4) there is nobody to accept deliveries at your home during the day, meaning you either accept the high risk of theft (if the package is left by your door) or you have the pleasure spending your evening at a UPS depot on the edges of the ghetto

Re:Because they're not a tech store

[the eric conspiracy]

Don't forget the $100 Monster HDMI cables.

try to think like a Forbes reader

[decora]

you are probably a hedge fund guy, or friends with a hedge fund guy, or some other type of person who makes money by buying and selling big chunks of other people.

you see a story about an electronics retailer.

they see a story about an opportunity to short sell or buy credit default swaps against a company's debt. imagine if you are sitting at a poker table and instead of chips you are playing with coins that each say '1 million dollars'. you can start to get an inkling of the mindset here. you dont care if the other people at the table are nurses, waiters, hairdressers, authors, poets, politicians, soldiers, etc. all you care about is what is in their hand, and which way the game is going to go, because you can get rich off of it, but more importantly, you can get the high you get from winning. thats what the "their stock price is down" thing means. it doesnt pretend to have any intelligent commentary on cause and effect. its poker information for poker players.

Good riddance.

[Higgins_Boson]

Best Buy is a horrible, horrible place. Those stores are typically overpriced, asshole-filled warehouses with a stench I can only guess is dead animals hidden in the car audio department. Lump all that in with morons on the sales team and even bigger morons in management and you have the reason this place will not be missed by most people.

If you are a Best Buy idiot (read: employee), I apologize for offending you... but you deserve it. Last time I went to a Best Buy was to buy a family member a flat-screen LCD television. I asked for help from no less than 5 people before someone ACTUALLY came back "in a couple of minutes" as promised repeatedly. It was a mistake, especially since the same set was $70 cheaper online. Too bad it was too close to Christmas at the time to bother ordering it online.

Good riddance, assholes.

P.S.
I am sure this will be modded flamebait or troll or whatever... I simply do not care. Especially since those titles (flamer and troll) are used to say "I disagree with you" these days, instead of what they are really meant for. Which is to label someone who actually IS trolling.

What about Apple?

[diamondmagic]

The Apple Store should disprove this, though: At $4,032 per square foot per year, the NYC Apple Store is the most profitable retail store per square foot in the world, period.

Re:What about Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

I say they're really fetish stores.

Re:Apple

[greg1104]

TFA talks about loss of control over margins at Best Buy. Apple Stores are known to have some of the highest margins in retail. Their success demonstrate that people are willing to pay high margins for products if they feel they're getting good service for it--which is certainly not the Best Buy experience.

Also, it's rarely the case that there is a large advantage to purchasing an Apple product outside of their stores, due to their extensive price controls at all retailers. As you can also see from that chart, Apple makes an ever higher margin for the products they sell online. They could adjust their price to match the lower overhead and sell them cheaper direct. The fact that they don't is an interesting component to their overall strategy.

Re:Apple

[atriusofbricia]

Yet Apple can't seem to open stores up fast enough. Go figure.

That's because Apple stores are not electronics stores. They're fashion stores that happen to sell electronics.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

hmm

[buddyglass]

I'd like to see a chart of the revenue growth of "brick and mortar" Apple stores over the last 10 years. Fry's also seems to be doing alright, and like Best Buy they also have questionable customer service.

web vs. intranet site

[wjcofkc]

Let's not forgot that this is the same place where if you go in citing a price on their website they will pull up an intranet site that is a clone of bestbuy.com with different prices to "prove" you wrong. Getting busted for that was the end of me shopping there.

Best Buy? You mean....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

"Amazon showroom" ?

Same day delivery from Amazon

[michaelmalak]

Even the Internet is starting same day delivery .

Re:Same day delivery from Amazon

[petermgreen]

In terms of total hours it doesn't really seem much quicker than the more expensive "next day" services. It's just rather than "order in the early evening receive in the morning" it's "order in the early morning receive in the evening". I'm sure there are occasional situations where that is handy but it's still considerablly slower than driving to a nearby retailer. Heck it's considerablly slower than catching the bus to a nearby retailer.

When the shit hits the fan the difference between having something in an hour or so and having it in 10 hours or so is likely to be pretty significant. When the shit hasn't hit the fan a couple of days is usually fine.

This SHOULD NOT BE NEWS

[manual_tranny]

I guess I am one of the only ones that noticed the way Best Buy did business more than 15 years ago? As a child I remember them charging an exorbitant fee for diagnosing and repairing a radio, only to have replaced the batteries. Best Buy has always been a racket. In the early 00's, Monster Cables were apparently made out of Pixie dust and Myrrh, from the way their employees talked them up. The poor employees. They are hassled and forced to mess with customers, but they get no commission for being pushy salesman. Best Buy has an opportunity now to prevent failure. If they don't change, you can bet that someone is making money on their failure.

Best Buy is not dying! The article is WRONG!

[David_Hart]

The theory presented is that Best Buy is dying due to lower than normal sales and lower margins. This is presumed to be caused by poor customer service based on personal experience with the writer's local Best Buy store and some inventory issues for items that NO retailer had in stock during the Christmas season.

The truth is actually more boring. Best Buy sales are down because the economy has been in the toilet. Best Buy margins are down because margins are down for all electronics. In addition, the mad rush to 3D that electronics manufacturers were hoping for never happened. Very little of this has to do with customer service.

Personally, I have never had a problem with my local Best Buy. I've been able to return items without question and they have been very helpful when I am looking for a particular item. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big proponent of Amazon. But there are many people like me who just don't feel comfortable buying appliances and expensive TVs over the Internet.

Re:Best Buy is not dying! The article is WRONG!

[Jawnn]

Personally, I have never had a problem with my local Best Buy.

Sure, Astroturf Boy. Whatever you say. My experience at Best Buy, every single fucking time I've been in one, is exactly the same as everyone else here who points out their lousy merchandising, ignorant sales people, and deplorable customer service. Probably well after I should have, I stopped patronizing Best Buy. It's abundantly clear that others have had the same experience and have made similar decisions. In a good economy, that wave might hurt, but it wouldn't be fatal. In this economy, where the pool of... let's call them "less demanding" shoppers is sharply smaller, the loss of the tech-savvy demographic because of gross mismanagement is inexcusable, and probably fatal. Stockholders should be pissed.

Re:I never understood how they stayed in business.

[TrekkieGod]

Priced a product online with Google, and it told me that Best Buy had it for a great price. I went there, and found that they had just raised their price by nearly a hundred bucks.

The thing about Best Buy is that the price their advertise online is always lower than the price at the store. I learned this a while back, and as a result I always buy at their online store and choose "pick up at the store."

Usually I'll just avoid them completely, but if they do have a competitive price, or if I can't wait for the shipping from Amazon or Newegg, then at least I save myself the annoyance of going over there expecting a price only to see it 50% more expensive than the price advertised online.

Circuit City had the same problem. Years ago I needed a wireless keyboard, and they had a pretty good deal advertised online. I showed up, saw their in-store price was significantly higher. I figured, "hey, I'll just price-match it at the register," only to have the cashier tell me that they couldn't price-match online offerings, even if they were their own. So I walked to the side to make sure I wasn't blocking anyone else in line, pulled out my PDA and logged on to their website using their public wifi right in front of her (blast from the past, huh? It was before the smartphones took over), ordered the keyboard with pick it up at the store, showed her the confirmation number and asked, "can I pick it up now?"

Re:Apple

[Daniel_Staal]

I'm not always sure they even sell electronics. Have you tried to purchase something at one of them recently? It's nearly impossible to find someone to check out with.

The point is to show off shiny devices, and to have a local point-of-contact for in-person support. Actual sales are secondary.

Re:I still to work for best buy

[lexman098]

wtf is a printer cable?

Re:Black Friday 2011: The Nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

As a former employee at Best Buy, I can tell you exactly why they make it difficult to buy that stuff. The three big times in the year are Chirstmas, tax time, and back to school. The seasons around each of these events takes up around 70% of the year. In that part of the year, there is only a finite number of an item available at the store you are at any given time. Best Buy will sell out of the hot laptop that everyone wants. Frankly they don't want you buying it if you don't buy the additional warranty or accessories or whatever. If you don't buy it, someone else will. I'm convinced that corporate would just rather have you shop somewhere else. They get shipments twice a week, but there is a million different variations that the public demands so it's hard to keep all of the stock flowing to the exact right places, so it's easier to make it a difficult experience for the grab and go customer who just want to buy four of the laptop with a $5 markup and leave none for customers who might potentially want to buy other items to go with it. Contrast this with Amazon, where they can ship your item from anywhere and it makes little difference to the customer. Best Buy has a pretty decent store transfer and warehouse ordering system, but customers often refuse to wait as they have waited until the last second to buy a gift and only budgeted for the laptop that has been on sale the last six days.

more of the same

[kermidge]

Okay, I just read most of the posts. There is much truth therein.

Out of my own ignorance and un-brightness I post a few thoughts.

Apart from general overhead (rent/lease/taxes, wages, utilities, whathaveyou) the single largest hassle as I see it is in inventory. This has always been a large factor in, for instance, hardware stores. With electronics all the problems of inventory are magnified - everything stocked is automatically obsolete before it even reaches the shelves, for starters. Don't even bring up things such as support, drivers, etc.

That's bad enough for old-fashioned business models. Complicating factors such as lack of awareness and understanding on the part of customers and staff only exacerbate the situation. Emphasizing 'bottom-line Friday' and 'get the sale' as distinct from establishing customer relations and developing accounts helps clinch the fail.

The owners and smart stockholders will always make out like bandits, especially if they've paid the slightest attention to the standard CYA aspects of law and tax law no matter what happens to the brick and mortar realities. The CEOs and such will do quite fine even if they technically "lose" some money due to bankruptcy/failure of the businesses they're 'in charge of.'

The only people hurt will be everyone else. [paragraph unwritten because it's obvious/transparent/redundant]

In the meantime, everyone who shows up to work has bills to pay - they all have need of income: their livelihood, and lives, depend upon it. Yet, as I've been saying for thirty years and more: if you show up for work and do not understand, janitor to CEO, that the only reason you have a job and the only reason there is a business is because you have customers. and act accordingly, you might as well turn around and go find something useful to do or kill yourself and remove a burden from the species.

One way or another, whether it be pumping septic tanks or working out of my real estate office, I spent half my working life in sales. While I was happy to have happy customers, to this day I prefer, and strove for, _satisfied_ customers; that is, people who knew I stood behind what I did or that the company for whom I worked did so. Everything else, IMHFO, is dross. YMMV.

That Best Buy is going down the tubes is simply a matter of time. Whether owners, management, and staff change their world view or no, perhaps it's just a matter of watching another species of dinosaur die. I'm young enough to be sad and old enough to simply try to make it through the next day. When the local hardware store and bookstore close, then, apart from the congenial tavern, should I be able to afford them, it'll be all she wrote apart from what's available to me on the 'Net.

Brave new world, indeed. Cheers.

you know what really grinds my gears?

[metalmaster]

Managers worried about numbers and goals over customer service....

I work as a mobile consultant for an office supply store that recently started in wireless sales. They sell electronics stuff including computers and tablets. Anyways, when im not selling phones i'll help customers with electronics and other things that i know about.

Just last week a customer comes in with a sales ad, and shows me the exact laptop they want. They dont need a sales spiel they just wanna buy. I go to a keyholder/manager to get the laptop and i get a "stern talking to" about how their tech associates have to reach goals on computer sales and warranty sales. The manager told me to send the customer to a tech associate(who has a queue of 5 or so customers because he cant multitask.)

I sure as hell dont care about their numbers and i know that the customer wasnt really willing to wait for a tech associate when i'm available to help right now. I went to someone else to get the laptop and ended up selling the customer on a 3 year warranty. Some managers can be so thick-headed

Re:Thought I'd mention Staples.

[Zibodiz]

Being a former manager for Office Depot, let me explain their tech side. They make no money on tech. At all. They bring people in for the tech items, then make money by convincing them that they also need a package of pens or some stationary. It was never about tech -- tech just brought the people in. The markup on tech was typically 0-15%. The markup on 'supplies' (i.e. everything else, including furniture) was 50-95%. Copy center was the biggest cash cow, with a minimum 75% markup on everything.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Black Friday 2011: The Nightmare

[J-1000]

...so it's easier to make it a difficult experience for the grab and go customer who just want to buy four of the laptop with a $5 markup and leave none for customers who might potentially want to buy other items to go with it.

That seems to be a common thread among failing businesses: They all have well-reasoned excuses to intentionally inconvenience their customers.

Re:Apple

[bennomatic]

Huh? Basically everyone there can check you out. What's impossible to find is cash registers because they don't have them. Or maybe they have one tucked away. But most transactions are done via credit card, and every employee has mobile devices which can help you check out.

Not to mention the fact that if you have an iTunes account and their store app, you can actually self-check-out without talking to anyone, except to maybe show the electronic receipt to someone on the way out the door.

It's easy to shit on Apple, and clearly it's fun, because lots of people do it. But to say something like "actual sales are secondary" in the face of outrageous success on their part is just pure silliness. It's not like people are just pointing to foot traffic and calling them a success for that--although that is one of the metrics getting played up--it's about dollars per square foot, and love them or hate them, they are indeed making more dollars per square foot than pretty much any other retail establishment.

If actual sales are secondary, then their success at whatever you think their primary goal is must be absolutely stellar.

They should re-group as Maker Shack

[SuperKendall]

Imagine how awesome Radio Shack could be if they started supporting local efforts of Makers to build things. Why is Radio Shack not offering modern electronics courses, along with rentals of some gear too hard to afford yourself?

They could really transform themselves into something powerful with a small twist.

Re:What Brick-and-mortar store can hope to compete

[TaoPhoenix]

Maybe I'm off track here.

But maybe part of the flaw is using "boutique like locationing". Upscale mall branches, etc.

Most hobbyists wanting parts are men, right? Aren't we supposed to just want our parts and not overly care about the pretty cell phones?

Why not do the BJ's / Sam's Club approach to parts? Make it a little out of the way, and stock all the basics. Then if a real expert comes and stumps you, get really good at being a location for ordering parts.

Re:Black Friday 2011: The Nightmare

[TheSpoom]

Never go to Best Buy on Black Friday. They're well-known to be full of bait and switch offers. In fact, there's really no reason to go out on Black Friday at all. Just wake up at / stay up until 4 AM and do all your shopping online. No lines, no up-selling, and the products get shipped directly to your door, at the same crazy Black Friday prices. I prefer Walmart.com for this sort of thing; there's remarkably little BS with which to deal. So far have bought a ~$400 42" TV and a ~$130 surround sound / Blu-Ray system, both of which were surprisingly quality.

By the way, the reps argue with you about buying the "advertised" items in Best Buys primarily because they don't get commission / do get yelled at if those items are what are sold, rather than the designated, higher-priced snake oil switched items. And God help them if they sell something without a warranty...

Hassle-free?

[phorm]

You've just described several incidents where items ordered online arrived broken, incomplete, or not-at-all. How is that hassle-free?
You have to wait for the item, then go through the RMA process, return the item, and wait for refund/replacement.
Meanwhile, the merchant has your money, and you have no product.

This assumes the merchant is reliable too. Amazon may not be bad for returns, but ebay/paypal can be pretty awful for both buyers and sellers.
For pricing, I've noticed that a lot of online merchants have gotten into the habit of "sales" that are more than the regular price elsewhere. Amazon seems to be pretty bad for this with books, and Newegg was selling REFURBISHED iPad 2's around Xmas as something like $200-300 off... at a reduced price of $699, except that $699 was the REGULAR price of the things elsewhere new...

Weird Stuff Warehouse

[durdur]

I sometimes shop at a place in Sunnyvale called Weird Stuff Warehouse. They have great bins full of surplus and second-hand cards, connectors, keyboards, mice, power adapters, and components. Standard operating procedure is to buy at least two, preferably three, of everything and hope one of them works. But it's cheap enough you can afford to do that.