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Best Buy Closing 50 Stores
An anonymous reader tips news that electronics retailer Best Buy will be closing 50 of its big-box stores across the U.S. this year, and laying off hundreds of corporate workers besides. The company plans to start testing new types of outlets as it tries to adapt to the changing face of retail sales. From the article:
"Best Buy shares were off 7.7% at $24.56 on Thursday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange. Also Thursday, Best Buy reported a $1.7 billion loss for its fourth quarter ended March 3. ... Consumers armed with mobile phones are increasingly using stores as showrooms to check out merchandise they later purchase for less online, a trend greatly benefiting Internet retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. that aren't encumbered by the costs of running physical locations and in many cases don't have to collect sales tax. Meanwhile Apple Inc.'s phones and tablets, showcased in its own namesake stores, have eroded the status of specialty chains as the one-stop shop for the latest in gadgetry. In response, Best Buy said it will launch large-scale tests of what it calls new 'connected store' formats in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., as well as San Antonio. The stores, which will emphasize services such as technology support and wireless connections, will feature large new hubs at their center to assist shoppers, as well as reconfigured checkout lanes and new areas to accelerate the pickup of items purchased earlier online."
If any retail chain deserves to fail it is Best Buy.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Since that seems to be the thing Best Buy makes money off of, why not sell only the warranties that they try to weasel out of?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
...or, if there were such a thing as justice in the world, 50 Percent of their stores?
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Maybe then I'd buy in the store instead of at Amazon where I save 33% and get free shipping.
This is one of the first times I have read something on a major news site before /. had it. Saw this yesterday.
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
For me, Best Buy is a matter of convenience. If I don't need it RIGHT THIS MINUTE, I will order it online from Newegg or Amazon and get it in a few days. But sometimes, you need something right now, and you're willing to pay a premium for it. For me, that premium is $10 or so more than what I could get online, assuming the product is under a hundred dollars. About a year ago, I needed an HDMI cable. Amazon had it for ten bucks. So I said, all right, going to Best Buy, if they have it for around twenty they've got my business. The cheapest six foot HDMI cable they had, from their own house brand, was forty dollars. And that's not even touching on the sales tax.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I went into a Best Buy just last week. My wireless mouse was acting up and tired of replacing batteries, I wanted a good old fashioned wired mouse. After searching for an employee to show me where they were (because I couldn't seem to locate them myself) I was shown to a small corner of the showroom behind the Ipad 2 displays.
23 mice. Thats it. Every last one of them was Wireless. When I asked about this I was shown some package deals they had of Keyboard and Mouse (which I didn't need) that had a wired mouse. Aside from being horribly cheap looking, I didn't need the keyboard.
When I got home, I went on Amazon.com, read a few reviews, and ordered excatly what I wanted. Its on its way as I type this, sure I didn't have it same day...but when you can no longer even FIND what you're looking for in a big box store, what the hell is the point?
They always claim its because consumers 'test drive' stuff there. You know why we don't buy? Because outside of the ability to 'test drive' the retail experience SUCKS. The staff have no clue. Or worse, they try and push crap because they've been told to. Which means you get a worse shopping result than just choosing at random. They push RANDOM assorted products on you. They try and get you to buy overpriced warranties on $10 items. Half the time they don't have what you want. When they DO have what you want, especially the things you want quick (like a cable) they only have the $40 version of a $4 cable. Fuck it, I'll order online and save both the test drive and the $36 extra you wanted for no reason. The checkout process is borderline hostile with all the checkers, security people, etc. Customer service seems to be codeword for "fuck you, we got yo money bitches". Die Best Buy. Preferably in a violent spectacle that I can watch for my personal amusement.
So how is that "firing customers" they don't want thing working for them?
With things like Amazon, eBay, and NewEgg I wouldn't be surprised if the only physical retail stores that existed in the coming years was Wal-Mart, Target, and grocery stores.
"Amazon showrooms"? Cuz I check the price in there and immediaitely head to Amazon and get it lower with Prime shipping.
The online retailers should have invested in BB, fired all the saleskids, and supported keeping the stores around as showrooms. I would think that returns (costs!) will go up for the online shops when people are eventually forced to order blindly.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
"This is a great product, you've made a solid choice. It will be a good investment for years to come."
"Okay, I'll get it."
"Sure, but you'll want the extended warranty."
"Why?"
"Because these are badly made, they break constantly and are very expensive to fix."
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I like killing time at Best Buy. I never actually buy anything from them, way overpriced. But when I want to see if something looks like quality or crap it's a good place to go for a demo.
But then I become tempted to buy something.... A few weeks ago I wanted to get a new screen protector for my wife's Samsung Epic. "Can I help you sir?" "Yeah, do you have a screen film for this phone?" "Yes, we have this one with a lifetime warranty for 20 dollars."
Honest Abe. 20 bucks for a fancy piece of scotch tape.
"Oh, we're going broke!!!!" Good.
Forbes had a really good article explaining why this was inevitable a few months ago. The author was absolutely dead right about his central point contrasting best buy and amazon.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/01/02/why-best-buy-is-going-out-of-business-gradually/
He makes the point that it isn't about money, it's about the customer experience and he is absolutely right. Amazon goes to extremes to make the customer have a better experience. Best Buy goes to extremes to make the customer more profitable. Best Buy needs to drop their customer as the enemy mentality and learned to embrace the customer instead of alienating them on a routine basis.
I love Best Buy. Not because it's the greatest tech retail store out there, but because I like brick-and-mortar stores. I can see, feel and test equipment. Sure, I still buy most of my tech online, but I like to make the occasional purchase in person, as well as being able to see stuff I may not buy that way.
FYI
Bestbuy has about 1000 stores. Where I am (in canada) they bought out futureshop as they moved into the market, as a result there is literally a bestbuy 300m from a futureshop, on the same street. One of those two could go easily. Same products, same prices, different name on the door.
As with any business that big, some of your floorspace isn't going to be working out.
and yes, I'd love to see them largely out of business or be forced to radically transform their business model, just like everyone else, but I'm not sure this is what we'd like them moving to.
All of this is a stark reminder of what Circuit City did to "prevent" their bankruptcy and eventual closing at the end of 2008.
Less-geeky computer repair alternative for Lansing, MI
Just hope the North Seattle Best Buy is on the closure list. I don't even want the temptation. The sad truth is they all suck in one way or another. Fry's isn't a whole lot better. It's not orders of magnitude better than Best Buy. It's bigger and a lot more fun to shop, but it's ten miles south of the city, it's still a cattle herd line-up at check-out, a mistrustful return policy and pushy sales people who aren't real knowledgable. What I really hate is how manufacturers are making it harder to comparison shop by creating unique model numbers for the same products at different stores, which also negates any prices matching (conveniently). I had to practically take up a research project before buying my Samsung LED TV....by the time you're finished educating yourself sufficiently, you've got no need for sales people...they only serve to annoy because they actually know less than you do and full of opinions (like all dumb people). So why have any of them? All the info is available online with a lot less dumb bias and far better prices on just about everything. The price difference on the TV was especially huge. Apple Airport Extreme, not so much. Good riddance, Best Buy.
This is how Sleep Number stores operate. They have no inventory in the showroom besides the samples. They take your order and your merchandise gets shipped to you.
This is efficient, but still has room for improvement - the big cost is last-mile delivery. It's relatively inexpensive to ship a tractor-trailer full of goods from a regional depot to a store. Doing door-to-door delivery is substantially more expensive. Best Buy already has the pieces in place to solve this -- a fleet of trucks, depots, and local distribution points, as well as the web infrastructure to order online and pick your purchase up at the store. Going to smaller, showroom-and-pickup stores would save them a fortune.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
This really doesn't make sense. You're wasting gas driving to the store, to see the item, so you're really not saving any money. Especially with the cost of gas approaching 5 dollars.
I guess you're saving some money but not as much as you think.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Sales tax doesn't bother me. I don't even notice it on anything that isn't a really large purchase particularly since from most places you pay shipping anyhow so it is kinda a wash. Also I'm willing to pay more for local convenience. It is nice to just go and get something, and not have to wait, and also be able to take it back, should that be needed. However there's a limit to what I'll pay, it has to be in the same ballpark.
So one time I'm looking at cheap(ish) speakers. I find some JBL E series that looks good. J&R had them for like $300, shipping included (who is a retail store I might add, they aren't mail order only). Ok that's good, and shipping is non-trivial because they are big towers. However let's check local. Nice to not have to wait a week (things that big come by train) and if there's a problem I'd rather take them back to the store than fuck around with shipping something that big for RMA. Best Buy is listed as the only local dealer by JBL.
So I head over there. They do have them in stock... For $600. Are you fucking kidding me? Double? You want twice the price of J&R? Hell no. So J&R got the order.
Best Buy wants to price themselves like they are some kind of premium shop. However their employees don't know shit. They try to pretend they do, which is more annoying than if they just said "I'm not a subject matter expert, I'm just here to help you with basic retail support." So if you don't get the premium service, why the premium price?
Hence I never shop there. I've bought things form Wilson Audio, which is a local premiums shop and ya, it is expensive but they really do have some experts there. I also shop at Target, no premium service there but the prices are good and I can get what I want right now (and physically look at things before buying).
Best Buy is being killed by their own stupidity, not by Amazon.
Oh no, I've lost the last place around here that sells HDMI cables for $30/foot! However am I going to find someone with outrageous markup to rip me off? And where am I going to go to get constantly upsold on every damn thing?
To be fair though, I have not actually bought anything at a Bestbuy in years now, so this doesn't really affect me very much. Their business practices already killed me off as a customer as sure as closing my local store will.
I read the internet for the articles.
Gateway did this, and it seemed obviously stupid at the time. You go to their store, find what you want, and then go home and wait for them to ship it to you.
Interestingly, this very issue was discussed recently here Retail Chains To Strike Back Against Online Vendors
Pretty much everything is marked up way too much at Best Buy except Apple and Nintendo stuff. So, if you need something Apple or Nintendo, you are set. Otherwise, they are way overpriced.
When I worked for Sears ten years ago I refused to "push" extended warranties. I told the customer that for $25 extra they can warranty their refrigerator five years and get free replacement of food if there's a power outage or failure. Plus repair. 95% of the time they'd say "no" and I'd ask "Are you sure?" and then drop it.
Sears responded by pulling me off the floor (thus I earn no money except min. wage) and making me watch Warranty training videos, because my EW percentage was too low. Basically punishment.
I didn't stay at that store long. I thought it would be a fun parttime job for extra cash, but it made me feel dirty instead.
EWs truly are a waste of money. Appliances either suffer infant mortality (first few months) or end-of-life mortality (15-20 years). The infant mortality is covered by the manufacturer's 1 year deal, and EOL is just EOL. Extended warranty covers neither of these two cases.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
A few months ago I decided to go buy a new TV, first time in 15 years. I went to the local Best Buy, checked out models, figure out a plan and price, worked with the store rep to get it all set. We go to finalize and pay for it and they tell me that its OUT OF STOCK and they could order it but it would take 8-10 days. I spent over 3 hours working with various people in his team on a $1000+ deal only to get jerked around at the last second? I was so pissed I went home, hopped online, found the EXACT same make and model on Amazon for $200 less with free 2 day shipping. I find it interesting how they complain about people using their stores as showcases to browse, when that is the ONLY service they are capable of providing.
"Where is my mind?"
Can be dealt with very easily
Provide services that are impossible to provide online
Provide data migration, set up assistance,etc
electronics stores in India manage to do this
American stores should have no problem doing this in a much better way
No one seems to have brought it up so I will. I don't mind paying a premium for getting an item today. Or for being able to hold the thing in my hands while I'm making a decision. But they're so worried about getting ripped off, they treat everyone like a criminal. Their security at the front of the store and their policy of requiring GOVERMNMENT-ISSUED PHOTO ID to return an item, even if purchased with a credit card, is absurd. Next up: a full-fledged TSA groping on the way out the door. No thanks. Good riddance.
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Kind of surprised you'd take that stance. Things might have changed, but it used to be that you could use the EWs to "upgrade". Buy a printer w/ the EW, and when it's just about to run out, bring it back and claim it's "dying". If they don't have it in stock anymore, you get store credit for the price that you paid, and can buy an even better printer with it. It might be fraud, but a Best Buy employee explained it to pretty much exactly as I just did. And for the item I was purchasing, two years later as the EW was about to run out, that's exactly how it went down.
Such a tactic seems right up your alley.
Yet, the Government and mainstream media keeps telling us the economy is getting better, and unemployment is dropping.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
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I would be visiting such a show room, and buying stuff from it, on a monthly basis. Being able to try the hardware before I buy it would be awesome. I hate the fact that I must currently rely on user-written reviews complete with shills and morons.
Apart from a show room, Best Buy must stop punishing people for going to their stores. For example, if you want to pre-order a video game, they require that you give them your phone number. Of course they say it is for identification purposes only, and of course they will use it for marketing anyway. And even if they don't use it for marketing...I don't have to give it out to buy the pre-order directly from Blizzard. The price is also the same. Best buy offers nothing but more hassle and risk.
EWs truly are a waste of money. Appliances either suffer infant mortality (first few months) or end-of-life mortality (15-20 years). The infant mortality is covered by the manufacturer's 1 year deal, and EOL is just EOL. Extended warranty covers neither of these two cases.
That's a very good point. I wish I had some mod points to dole out today.
Best Buy recently bought MindShift, a managed service provider (e.g. mail hosting, "cloud" services, etc.). I promptly "shifted" myself away from them -- no way in hell I'm going to let Best Buy host my email! But this just goes to show you that they're going to be making themselves over as a services company. It's only a matter of time before they purchase Sprint or T-Mobile.
Are Always At Frys!!! Guaranteed!!! Heh heh, Best Buys is an overpriced dinosaur, and when times are tough, evolution favors a leaner predator...
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I live in Minneapolis and work as an IT contractor/consultant.
About once every couple of weeks, some client needs something, usually small, TODAY. My first choice is to go to Microcenter -- they have just about everything, from PSUs, CPUs, fans, weird cables, tools, but mostly it's a computer store oriented at consumers, selling name brand stuff, a store brand and with their own little Apple section.
And it's always busy. Even right after opening, the checkout line is like 10 people deep, later on during the day, lunchtime or God forbid on the weekend, it's 25 people deep. And their prices are nothing to write home about.
Yet if I go into a Best Buy during the day, it's a graveyard.
Now, to be fair to Microcenter they sell a lot of "geek" parts/tools, but when I'm in the checkout line it's mostly consumers with the same kinds of stuff you'd find at Best Buy.
It mystifies me that Microcenter is wall-wall whenever it's open but Best Buy is only really kind of busy on the weekends.
I haven't spent a dime in one since 1997!
short version is printer ate a transparency (an "approved/certified" HP one for that model), they initially didn't want to repair it b/c I didn't buy the "extended" warranty (it was ~2 mo old), lied repeatedly about when it'd be done and climaxed w/telling me it was done, driving hour & 1/2 in rain in rush hour Atlanta traffic to repair center (they refused to ship it to store literally across street from my office at time where I'd bought it) and getting home to find they'd substituted a different model (naturally several levels below the one I'd actually bought). lots of other gory/unbelievable details I'll spare everyone and to be a LITTLE fair the woman I finally picked up _MY_ printer from was very polite, apologetic & said: "we want to do whatever's necessary to keep you as a best buy customer..." I politely thanked her but told her that ship had sailed weeks ago (this dragged on for FOUR MONTHS!).
in the fifteen years since I've spent well into 5 (possibly 6) figures on electronics of which they've gotten exactly ZERO!!! real smart business there, guys (/gals)...
I always tell people the day they're the last electronics retailer on the planet will be the day I do a full 1040 (w/all required supporting forms/schedules) w/an ABACUS!
GOOD RIDDANCE!!!
I don't see how it's feasible for a retail store to match Amazon's prices. The whole point of Amazon is that they have lower overhead due to lack of a store front, sales staff etc. and they pass that savings along to the consumer. A retail store cannot match their prices and operate at a profit.
The way you match or beat Amazon's prices is with scale (like Walmart) or with specialization in products Amazon can't accommodate easily (like John Deere) or by being the manufacturer and selling direct (like Apple). Also remember that Amazon has costs the retail stores don't (particularly in IT).
Is that big box stores have just forgotten how to be profitable. WalMart is a prime example of this: in their never-ending spiral of death to please those 5 greedy children of Sam's (and to a greater degree the shareholders of other such venues - ie, Sears, Kmart, et al) they've forgotten to put choice and quality in volume on par if not above the constant profit gain motive. Sam never did that - he knew if he could find it cheap enough and buy in bulk, he could pass those savings on to the average Joe and still make a handy profit in volume. He was also mighty keen on buying stuff made in the good ol' USofA. A good conservative if ever there was one.
Not so any longer. Go to a WallyWorld looking for something as innocuous as a stereo splitter cable and if you're lucky you'll get your choice of 1, and that at 300% over what you could find it for online. ShowCaseMuch? Yeah. But then meander over to the iPod accessories aisle and - looky golly gee! 223 different colors of earbuds from three manufacturers (low, middling and pricey)! Wow, that's helpful. Why don't I want an iPod/iPhone/iPad? Because every retailer in America is trying to shove one down my throat!
At least online, we have variety at reasonable prices. Too bad the big boxers have forgotten that.
On the bright side: look for your local small business to get a bump in sales when they're gone!
~Just as a thing fails if it lacks a kernel, so too it fails if it lacks a skin. ~ Rumi, Discourses
Because $90 dollar gold plated contacts give cleaner digital signals than the $10 competitor. Every pensioner with a new widescreen can tell you that!
Back in 2010 (I think) soon after Citizens United both Best Buy & Target made sizable donations to some anti-gay-rights pro-corporate political entity, I think in Minnesota.
I sent similar emails to both corporations complaining about the donation. I explained that they really shouldn't make these sorts of donations at all, but if they wanted my business I demanded they make an equal donation to the opposing side.
Surprisingly to me, I received what appeared to be sincere, personally written responses from both companies. I don't believe either reply was a canned response.
Regrettably both companies replied that they were simply supporting the political side that they believed was most favorable to their profits, and by extension their stockholders.
Since then I haven't purchased anything from either company, and haven't persuaded friends or relatives to do so either. (I'm the guy people always turn to for tech advice, and often end up advising them on purchases or accompanying them to stores for purchases - a fact I mentioned in my emails to the comapnies.)
Given how many stores have closed up over the last few years I do sometimes find myself constrained by my personal boycotts, but I also find myself flat-out buying less crap than I used to, when I'd go to Target almost every weekend just because something in their circular appealed to me.
In general, I agree. I will, however, offer up an anecdote of how my TV (bought at Sears) blew its power supply 4 weeks before the end of the extended warranty. After fixing, it served well for 4 more years. I consider that warranty to have paid off... but it's definitely a gamble with poor odds.
I have had similar upsell experiences that were quite funny. I was looking at car audio. Salesman: "that model isn't very good, it will break down, why don't you look at some other makes", me: "OK, what have you got with features X,Y and Z". Salesman: "crickets.wav".
I wonder if the salesman learnt to ask what the customer requirements were before attempting the upsell?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
So if I can't go to some big box store and see a selection of 10 different TVs, what does the average person do?
Read online reviews? These are normally stuffed by the vendors themselves.
avsforums? Often too niche/technical for the average person consumer.
In the past I actually preferred to purchase video games and dvds from best buy rather than amazon simply because I'm impatient and was not that upset over spending sales tax etc for the instant gratification of having the item in my hand. Best Buy, however, convinced me to switch to Amazon because of their sales tactics.
Every single purchase was introduced with "Do you have a best buy rewards card? No. Do you want one? No. Can I have your zip code and phone number? Why?". This was terribly annoying. The breaking point was when they added the Best Buy gamers club membership. So now they are nagging me to become both a rewards member AND a gamers club member. I simply can't take that sort of annoying every time I make a purchase. This sort of sales tactic is specifically why I refuse to shop at a GameStop.
One tactic I've seen B&M stores start to use is selling products branded exclusively made for their store. Even if it is the same exact product as something they sell online, they make sure the sku and model number is different to make it tedious for users to match online.
Umm... Not to burst your conservative bubble or anything, but if that were true, wouldn't Amazon also be folding like a card table with one leg? I do believe they operate in the same economic free-trade market as every other retailer in the country.
Perhaps you should wield your wrath at shareholders who demand constant profits over customer satisfaction and return patronage.
See, the problem we have here is commun-ah-kayshun.
~Just as a thing fails if it lacks a kernel, so too it fails if it lacks a skin. ~ Rumi, Discourses
I know of several customers who Best Buy store management "fired" because they reported bad service they received.
When you treat your customers like scientology treats theirs, you are bound to fail.
I can offer the counter-anecdote of my people who bought extended warranties & either the thing broke while still under the free warranty (thus EW not used), or never broke until the EW was long expired.
If they had taken the hundreds of dollars wasted on EWs and simply put them in a bank, they could have used the cash to replace that rare item that break after the Free 1 year warranty expires.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
You've got to be kidding. User reviews are one of the best things about online shopping (the others are price and selection; it's a lot easier to see all the things that meet your requirements using "advanced search" on Newegg than to stare at a bunch of boxes on a shelf). Yes, many of them are bad, but many are good; you have to read them with a discerning eye, and you can frequently pick out some real gems in the reviews (either positive or negative--warnings about serious problems with the product, or detailed and useful information about the product that the mfgr didn't bother to include, such as which hardware revisions are compatible with alternate firmware and other esoteric stuff like that). What's the alternative? Listening to some know-nothing moron salesperson at a retail store? How is that an improvement?
I did not know Micro-center existed until less than a year ago. I felt like I'd just found the Newegg of bricks & mortar since they carry processors, RAM, cases, power-supplies, etc.
I bought a keyboard and then found it cheaper at Best Buy. I would normally have gone for the best price but something in me said "f___ Best Buy" that day. It's been getting easier and more fun to say that since then....
I walk into BB's big flatscreen section.
Drone comes up, asks if he can help.
Me: "Hi, thanks for coming over. I'm a moderately knowledgeable customer, familiar with the basic functional differences between LCD, plasma, etc. I would like to buy a 50"-55" flatscreen. I know I can buy anything here cheaper online. I'm fine with that. I want to see the screen before I buy, so I'm willing to pay a small premium for your bricks and mortar. I will not shop here, then go buy it on Amazon. I'd like your particular help finding the best cross-section of price and my list of features that you have in the store today. I will stay as long as you deal intelligently with me, and don't insult my intelligence by touting 'infinite' black ratios or crap like that. Deal?"
Drone: "Sounds good, so what are your criteria"
(I review the list of things I want; I don't tell him, but my goal is a TV for around $1200, an AV receiver for about $300, and a blu-ray player for $100)
A few minutes pass as we browse through the store to the bigger TVs.
Then - I shit you not - we go past the cables, and he pauses saying "...and we'll make sure we come back here and get you top-of-the-line cabling, you don't want to spend all this dough and get interference with cheap cables."
M: "You sell cheap cabling?" (knowing where this was going)
D: "Not to smart buyers. The guys that know what they're doing just go straight here and grab the Monsters."
Seriously. He went with the Monster cables.
So I left. I think I'll buy online.
NOTE TO BEST BUY: IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH SALES TAXES. This was your Richfield store, 494 & Penn I think. You know, like 1km from your HQ.
-Styopa
Is it true theyre bringing back Fred and Freida Rated?
I still don't understand why this isn't right up your alley.
User reviews are good, but they are not a substitute for actually seeing the product with your own eyes, holding it etc. It would be positively awesome if I could find what I think I want on, say, Amazon, using reviews to screen through, but then actually go to some place where I can see the thing live before I click "buy".
Sadly, when/if they start Chuck in syndication, nobody is gonna get the Buy More and Nerd Herd reference anymore...
I'm sure this is yet another reason we won't see this series in syndication (although with only 91 episodes, instead of the magic 100, its syndication value was probably fairly limited to begin with).
It has been a decade since I regularly went to Best Buy and then it was for new game releases and when I had an immediate need for hardware.
Back then BB always had the cheapest prices and decent incentives for new releases. Has this changed? If so are there other local companies or is everyone going online?
Seeing a product first hand is of limited value. Holding a Netgear gigabit switch in my hand isn't going to tell me that it's made with shitty capacitors that fail within a year, but a dozen different reviewers complaining of the same problem on Newegg will tell me that, and help me avoid a bad purchase, and let me instead purchase an HP gigabit switch that has consistently excellent reviews, and furthermore isn't available at my local retailer since it only carries crappy consumer-grade junk and not business-class networking equipment.
That depends on the product. For a switch, yeah, it's probably pointless. For a TV, a laptop, a smartphone? It would be very useful.
The only guy I know who still goes to Best Buy is the completely technophobic friend that has to call me when his wireless mouse battery dies. He only goes there to buy $50 HDMI cables, which is a good source of laughter for me.
Yes, different products definitely alter the equation.
TV: For this, I'd probably buy local, but I'd check reviews online. CostCo has good prices on large-screen TVs, and here you have the advantage of being able to easily return it if there's a problem. Shipping back to NewEgg isn't cheap.
Laptop: Online. All the laptops I see locally are shitty ones, and it's hard to find Lenovos locally. For those, you have to go online, and as a bonus, the prices are much better and the selection much better too (I got a Lenovo from a local store in my employer's town for work, and didn't care much about the price as I wasn't paying, but we were limited to the few models they had on-hand as we needed one that day (my hiring day), and so not only was the price high, it wasn't exactly the model I would have chosen). And unlike phones (below), you don't need to try before you buy, you buy on specs (and build quality) alone. Unlike phones, the software is irrelevant, either you're running Windows (which runs exactly the same on every device), or you're going to install your own Linux distro (in which case reviews warning you of pitfalls WRT Linux compatibility are very useful). The only thing you're going to see firsthand is how the keyboard feels and maybe the build quality, but then again they don't usually sell Thinkpads at BB and those are the ones with the best reputation for durability.
Smartphone: Local, mainly because of price and convenience. I looked into buying my HTC Sensation outright, but the price is about the same as with the subsidized plan. I also just checked out Newegg's price, and it's $150 with the plan, whereas I just bought two of them from CostCo for free (plus sales tax on original price). Basically, cellphones in the USA just aren't set up to be bought separately; you can do it these days, but you're not going to save much money if any. And CostCo's kiosk seems to have better deals than you're going to get online. Then, if you have a problem or just decide you don't like the phone, you can return it easily for free. But this is largely because of the weird way that cellphones are marketed and sold here, although of course it's nice to try before you buy, esp. with Android phones since, unlike Windows on laptops, they can be very different from device to device and mfgr to mfgr (which is kinda the point of Android phones; it's like how cars are all very different from each other, unlike Henry Ford's idea of them all being identical, which is exactly how Apple wants it).
So I do agree, with some products being able to see them firsthand does help a lot (esp. phones), but with most, it doesn't; it's sealed up inside a box anyway, and you'll only find fairly superficial things first-hand. It's not quite like buying fruit at your supermarket.
Stores continually charge 5, 10, even 20 times what they do online and sell stupid "high end" cables that do nothing. The funny thing is if they could just contain their greed to 2-3x, it'd probably work. However it goes too far and people won't have it.
Had that happen to a friend like 2 months ago. The HDMI cable to his 360 busted, he just got a blank screen, but it worked with cables for other devices. So off to a store (might have been BB, can't remember) to get one. He wanted it up and running now, and didn't want to rewire things. I got a call from the store because he was so pissed at the $50 cable and he wanted to make sure he was remembering right that they were less than that. He considered briefly getting on from Monoprice next day which was like $5 for the cable and $20 in shipping but instead decided to get one from Amazon for like $10 with shipping included and wait a couple days. He said $20 (pretax) would have been no problem but $50 was just insulting and I don't blame him.
I'm fine with paying for convenience but they have to not be assholes about it. If it is half the price for FedEx to put the thing on a fucking jet to get it to me next day, then your ass is charging too much.
See, when you talk about local buying experience, you basically describe it as it is today. I wasn't talking about that. What I hope for are dedicated "local showroom" services, which don't really sell things, but just showcase them and contract with Amazon to do the selling (where they are basically paid some small percentage from the price by Amazon itself for bringing it more customers).
Basically, cellphones in the USA just aren't set up to be bought separately; you can do it these days, but you're not going to save much money if any.
Well, it depends. Suppose I want a specific phone, due to its features (Galaxy Nexus in my case). But suppose I also want it in GSM, because I want it to work in other countries when I travel there. And I also want it to be unlocked so that I can swap the SIM card when I travel and not pay roaming charges. So I buy unlocked European model from Amazon, and use it with T-Mo. It's an awesome phone, and I never regretted buying it, but I was a bit worried about it when making the purchase originally - it's hard to know if that 720p screen really is as gorgeous as reviews tell you without seeing it (in this case it is, but it was different for SGS2).
I do build my own desktop at home, but we buy them from vendors at work, despite being IT. Why? Because there's something to be said for having one company you call to get shit fixed. We cannot afford to spend tons of staff time on that shit, we have too much other stuff to do. We'll diag it and if ti is broke, Dell or Lenovo gets to fix it.
I've though about it at home too. Would be nice if when something broke I could just have Dell dispatch a tech with a new part rather than having to go and jump through hoops with whatever vendor made the part (some are ok, some are pretty hoop-jumpy).
Not everyone wants to be their own tech support and that's what you are if you build the thing.
That's why they like them. In 99.9% of cases, it is pure profit. Sure there are occasions when things fail, but it is rare.
Hell that's why companies like Squaretrade can exist. They are just insurance underwriters and it is low risk. They don't have to worry about the fact that they might have to just buy you a new unit because they can't get yours fixed, no problem it happens so rarely they have plenty of money.
Also speaking of that, if you really want an EW for piece of mind you can get a third party one, like Squaretrade, for less. They'll happily underwrite the cost of replacement or repair in the highly unlikely event of failure.
Same shit with home warranties. Shit breaks down in homes sometimes but the costs don't exceed the massive amount they charge you. It was like $600 a year to get one. My house came with one and then I wouldn't renew it despite their prodding. One of the things they told me is "Your AC is older, it may break down in the next few years." Well they were right. About 6 years later it failed in a major way. Would have been $2000-3000 to repair. However those of us who have L2math in our lives can see that I'd have paid more in fees than the cost, and then I'd still have an old inefficient AC. Instead I could take the savings and use it towards buying a new efficient AC that will last a couple decades likely (and is warranties for a full decade) which is what I did.
Well, it depends. Suppose I want a specific phone, due to its features (Galaxy Nexus in my case). But suppose I also want it in GSM, because I want it to work in other countries when I travel there. And I also want it to be unlocked so that I can swap the SIM card when I travel and not pay roaming charges. So I buy unlocked European model from Amazon, and use it with T-Mo
Yeah, I wanted all that too (except I wasn't so picky about the phone model, so I got the HTC Sensation), so I just got a locked phone from T-Mobile. I don't plan to travel outside the country within 90 days, and after that, T-Mobile will unlock the phone at your request (even though it's a subsidized model) so you can swap the SIM card for a local carrier's; it's right there on T-Mo's website, and one of the big reasons I switched to them. Even if I don't use it anytime soon, it shows they care a little more about customer service than the likes of AT&T.
See, when you talk about local buying experience, you basically describe it as it is today. I wasn't talking about that. What I hope for are dedicated "local showroom" services, which don't really sell things, but just showcase them and contract with Amazon to do the selling (where they are basically paid some small percentage from the price by Amazon itself for bringing it more customers).
Isn't this basically what the old Gateway2000 stores did? It didn't work out too well for them. The problem I see here is that, if I'm going to waste gas going to see something locally, and have to pay sales tax, I don't want to pay for shipping on top of that, and also have to wait. Your idea about them contracting with Amazon sounds like it'll go over about as well as their "affiliates" scheme did with the state tax authorities; they'll say that Amazon now has a local presence through this affiliate and now you need to pay sales tax on top of your shipping charges. So people will instead go to the "local showroom", check out the product, and instead of buying through Amazon, they'll get it through Newegg or whoever instead, and avoid the sales tax, which on something expensive like a good laptop ($1-2k) can be significant ($1-200).
Doesn't sound like such a tragedy, unless of course they don't meet the Al Sharpton test, then it's a calamity.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/01/02/why-best-buy-is-going-out-of-business-gradually/
It's not that they are a showroom for online - it's that they fail at too many things, and you end up leaving angry/upset about nearly every interaction.
I hate the fact that I must currently rely on user-written reviews complete with shills and morons.
Ever been to a Best Buy? The whole staff is nothing but shills and morons.
(Apologies to both competent employees forced by economic circumstances to work at Best Buy.)
Required reading for internet skeptics
Why wouldn't they fail?
1) Their sales staff are woefully ignorant of what they are selling. At best they know what's on the packaging (and that's unusual even), but they are /never/ helpful beyond very basic retail staff things.
2) They are full of shit. You can't tell them what you need, and get a product matched to that need, because of Issue 1 above coupled with their obsessive need to upsell on everything, particularly things that are entirely ridiculous.
3) Their prices are terrible. I understand they can't directly compete dollar for dollar with Amazon, NewEgg, Tiger Direct and co, but I find they are typically 50-100% more expensive than their online competition; with the price differentials particularly heinous on "accessories" where it can easily push 400%.
4) For PC components, their selection is atrocious. Typically only very overpriced, very low end components. Ever go shopping for a video card there? Hell, I haven't even seen a single internal hard drive in Best Buy in years. Not one
I'm impatient. I *WANT* to buy my toys in a store because I want instant gratification, and I'm ok with spending a couple extra dollars to get it. I head into Best Buy every time I'm shopping for a new bitty, and I always leave empty handed and dissapointed, and have to buy online anyways.
Meh.
Are you still $20 ahead when you factor in shipping + tax + return shipping + restocking fee because the product turned out not to be right for you?
I recently found myself in the market for a digital piano. I went to my local (actually local) piano store and checked what they had (wanting to feel the keys more than anything else), and fell in love with a particular model. They had it for $699. I went online and found an online retailer who had it for $499 ($20 shipping) in a special sale. As this is an actual local store, with actual local owners, I called the owner up and explained the price I had found (with a printout ready, which he didn't even demand).
Although he said he couldn't match that price without taking a loss, he immediately offered to knock $100 off his price, and to take my old model on consignment. In addition, he offered some great advice about stands, offered to deliver it for free. He also explained that he wanted me to be happy with it, so I shouldn't hesitate to return it if I had any problems with it. So, I went with the local guys, and picked it up (and the owner even stayed around 15 minutes after closing to seal the deal that very day).
All told, I probably ended up paying around $100 extra to stay local. But with the return policy being humane, the service incredible, and with actual expertise on the accessories needed, I still feel good about it, and feel it was money well spent. Had I demoed the unit at Best Buy and they'd had such a high price, I likely would've ordered online without a second thought, as I know they have a crappy return policy, no expertise, and no service to speak of.
Retailers need to know that price is not the sole factor that drives people towards (or away from) online retailers. Showrooming isn't all about price. With the piano, I paid the extra money for service and expertise (and to support that service and expertise being available in the future), online didn't just win instantly because of price. Lower prices aren't the reason I use Best Buy (and their ilk) as a showroom. Crappy service, pushy sales, and bad policies are the reason I showroom. Prices are just the excuse.
You're wasting gas driving to the store
Not if the store is a block away from the grocery store and you can combine the trips.
to see the item, so you're really not saving any money.
Sometimes seeing the item can save you money. Otherwise, what happens when you buy a laptop, tablet, or smartphone through mail order and then, once you start using it, find it to be unusably unergonomic? It's not like a desktop PC, where you can buy a different mouse, keyboard, and monitor and still use it as it was intended. You end up sending it back and eating shipping, return shipping, and a 15 percent restocking fee.
For some people, travel expenses are negligible because a lot of Best Buy stores are at most a couple blocks away from the grocery store that you were going to anyway. So it becomes time + tiny travel expense vs. shipping + return shipping + restocking fee if you happen not to like the way a product's screen looks or its touch screen or keyboard feels.
I don't do business with best Best Buy, they treat their customer like shit at best and like criminals at worst.
I hope that corporation just disappears and the faster, the better.
ok here is my retail experience at best buy 1 day they got about 50 printers in on the box it said cable included the managers made us tech's open the boxes and remove the cables the told us they were supposed to get printers with out the cable and then had us tell the customer they had to buy a $40 cable this was around the time XP came out so i told a few customers not to buy them i quit about 6 months later i also work at circuit city and compusa ill never work retail again devobtch
Smartphones are nearly ubiquitous now
Just because they're "Present, appearing, or found everywhere", as Google defines "ubiquitous", doesn't mean that a given shopper happens to have one. The cheapest smartphone plan from Virgin Mobile USA, for example, costs $336 more per year than the cheapest dumbphone plan from the same carrier. (Beyond Talk: $35/mo; payLo: $7/mo.) Where's the return on this $336 per year investment?
Consider splitting an Amazon Prime membership. Find friends
How should one find friends if one ends up finding that no family member wants to split an Amazon Prime membership?
or look up one of the many threads online where people split them.
But then how should I trust a stranger with my shipping address and especially billing method?
They pay return shipping
Is this just for replacement of a like item, or also for exchange for an unrelated product? Say I buy a laptop, but it turns out that I don't like its keyboard or screen. For example, the screen might be high DPI and the application I want to use doesn't support high DPI. Or I might get too many typos on the keyboard or an inability to hold down enough keys simultaneously. Or the battery life doesn't come near the claim in the listing. Can I exchange it for Amazon credit without having to pay return shipping or a restocking fee?
I think the people who buy monitors, TVs, laptops, and tablets on Amazon are people who see a product owned by a local friend or relative and buy the same product online.
One part of their problem is they sell *everything*, resulting in a large store, and lots of overhead costs. If they got rid of appliances that would be a good start. Secondly, their prices are very high. Compare them to your Average One Stop Grocery/Department store, Costco warehouse type store, etc. and their prices are obscene. Since their prices have been so obscene for so long, they have earned a negitive view in the publics eye. They shot themselves in the foot long ago, its finally starting to play catch-up.
You've posted this more than once. Yes, two different professionals agree that I have Asperger syndrome. No, I'm not offended by a polite argument. Politely correcting me isn't bullying. Nor is telling the other side of a story. It starts to become bullying when someone uses obvious intentional insults, such as sexual slang, disability slurs, or sexual orientation slurs, or strongly recommends ignoring obligations to family, such as "there's no way to find a job or get your work published without moving hundreds of miles away from everyone you know".
I hear this story all the time from various people at all different shops and it drives me batshit. These are the kind of people *I* want to deal with. Not pushy salesmen. I want people knowledgeable about what I'm after and are looking to meet my needs the best. Ugh.
Sadly Gateway's past CEO is now governor of Michigan. Boy do we know how to pick 'em.
We regret not getting the extended warranty on our first over the stove microwave because damned if the magnatron didn't die after 1.5 years... $400 later, we have it on our second one. They tend to die early because all the steam from the cooking underneath corrodes them, even if you run the vent.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Seeing a product first hand is of limited value. Holding a Netgear gigabit switch in my hand isn't going to tell me that it's made with shitty capacitors that fail within a year, but a dozen different reviewers complaining of the same problem on Newegg will tell me that, and help me avoid a bad purchase, and let me instead purchase an HP gigabit switch that has consistently excellent reviews, and furthermore isn't available at my local retailer since it only carries crappy consumer-grade junk and not business-class networking equipment.
I'd have to agree, even the Linksys "Cisco" business grade Gigabit switches use shitty capacitors which seem to have been meticulously provisioned to last for 12 - 13 months and then fail just outside of warranty. I changed the capacitors instead of buying a new switch, and it's been working fine for the 2 years plus since I replaced them.
With Office supply chains offering more hard tech (laptops, wireless, printers, cables) BB has brick and morter issues to worry about.
Bring up Staples.com and look at the wireless router selection IN STOCK compared to a 'tech' store like BBuy. More selection, better prices, and more locations.
The trifecta for hard tech items: ebay - cables and misc. accessories. Staples/Office Depot - Wireless networking and printers/laptops, PDAs. Amazon.com just about everything else.
What need can Bbuy fill?
Whipping it out in a shop is guaranteed to "get results" ......
I'm the opposite; I would love to just browse around Best Buy like in years past but I can't do it any more due to the constant badgering by their employees. I ventured back there for the first time in probably a year, and it got to be so ridiculous I left without buying anything. I was asked about a dozen times in less than 5 minutes if I needed help with anything. Some people would love this constant attention; I'd prefer to be left in peace to actually browse on my own. I'd much rather read reviews online and then buy from a B&M store in case I needed to make a return. Even if I had to pay a reasonable premium. But the customer experience there is just so terrible due to the up-selling and constant badgering, I just can't do it.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
I'm surprised no one's mentioned Best Buy's results only work environment (ROWE) policy which was all the rage a few years back.
Here's an article on how Walmart is dealing with Amazon: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-wal-mart-is-worried-about-amazon.html "The company has spent more than $300 million acquiring five tech firms since May and hired more than 300 engineers and code writers in the U.S. and India. Wal-Mart is also launching a program to allow the 20 percent of its customers without credit cards or bank accounts to make online purchases. Wal-Mart’s acquisitions include Kosmix, a social-media firm, and iPhone app creator Small Society. The company hopes the newcomers can find a way to stop shoppers from engaging in scan and scram. That’s when would-be customers use their smartphones in stores to scan an item’s bar code and then buy it online from a rival merchant."
Yep, with most devices like this where they use shitty capacitors, they can pretty easily be made to have much, much longer lifespans (probably in the decades or more) simply by changing out the electrolytic capacitors to higher-quality versions, preferably with higher specs (temperature and/or voltage). However, if I'm buying something new, I'd really rather avoid this altogether so I don't have to take time out of my schedule in a 13 months to take the thing apart, write down all the caps, place an order on Mouser.com, wait for them to arrive, and then solder them in (and hopefully not damage the PCB in the process; many of these newer PCBs don't rework very well, with high-temp lead-free solder and really tiny pads that easily lift off).
But once you go through that trouble, the only thing that should render that device non-working again will be either the new caps failing after their lifespan (which should be much longer than the old ones), or electromigration in the semiconductors.
Salespeople hate nothing more than people who won't be spending money. Make it clear you're just there on a whim, lunch break, hanging with friends.... whatever.
"I don't have a dime to spend today". That might not even be true but it will make desperate salespeople fuck off. And at Best Buy they are desperate.... which is why they won't waste their time on a non-starter.
No problem.... I never shop there, but went in to buy a camera recently. I found out fast why I never go there - a bunch of idiots that do not know what real customer service is. Had to call their 800 number to get real help. Bye Bye Best Buy!
Just askin'
This! A thousand times this! Hyperbole over exactly how much money has passed them by from the AC aside, this is why you aim for the best in customer service, and sadly this is seemingly becoming a rarity rather than commonplace. When the PHBs actually get it it will, of course, be too late for WorstBuy.
Caveat: As a Brit my only encounter with these guys was visiting relatives across the pond 9 years ago, and helping them shop for computer peripherals. Bestbuy's service was reasonable on that occasion (must have been lucky), but nothing particularly amazing
My utility company just sent me junk mail with "Dated Material - Open Immediately" written on the envelope.
For the low price of $17 a month I can "insure" all the appliances in my home and they will cover the repairs (probably not all repairs - even if they did I wasn't interested).
My appliances break less frequently than once a year and so far having a repairman come out and fix whatever problem I may have has never cost $200.
You've got to be kidding. User reviews are one of the best things about online shopping
I can't believe this. No xkcd link yet.
Well, since you think that user reviews are a good thing, yesterday's xkcd actually fits.
Okay, this is an old one (2006)
But if anyone hasn't heard of "improv everywhere" ,
or if you just would like to see what happens if you dress up in khakis and a blue polo and wander into a Best Buy:
imagine a flash mob doing just that!
Best Buy
A microwave is the only time where I managed to get an extended warranty to pay out. I usually don't buy them, but the warranty offed at the time covered the microwave for 9 years(!) and I knew it was pretty unlikely that a cheap microwave would last that long. And sure enough, it failed around year 5 or so. I almost wonder if their model was to assume that people would forget that they still had a warranty by the time it failed.
I've always wondered what they do when it doesn't make sense to repair the appliance. I mean, if my 17 year-old fridge breaks down it makes no sense to repair it. Is the insurance going to buy me a new fridge? Repair my old fridge anyway? Tell me that the fridge is a write off and not pay out anything?
One rare case where an extended warranty can make a difference is in the case of slow failure. The last major example of that I saw was the Nvidia GPU die bump solder flaw. Those tended to fail right around the 1 year mark or a little later on less frequently powered off machines. Rare enough that most of the likely causes are design defects serious enough to force a warranty extension anyway.
http://consumerist.com/2007/02/best-buys-secret-employee-only-in-store-website-shows-different-prices-than-public-website.html
Nope, reviews are better. Try buying a motherboard by holding, and petting it, and licking it. Doesn't work out.....now 70 reviews on NewEgg or Amazon; that is gold.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
I used online shopping to buy my first TV in 15 years. I was able to determine the best brand and model by reading reviews. I could have never done this in-store, and price would have held more sway over my decision than it should. I got a 42" LG for $20 more than a 37" LG (same model--different size) on Amazon. I thought I could get a better idea by visiting a store to look at the display models but I left without making a decision. I almost went with a VISIO but was able to see many reviews that mentioned the sound going out at random on all of their models. With this kind of purchase you need to avoid the royal pain in the ass of mounting and returning the POS for a warranted repair when it goes out in three months. These companies will learn one day that you can no longer skimp on testing and components because the customer will ruin your name online.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock