BladeVenom
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2005
- Messages
- 7,707
I only buy stuff at Best Buy if I have a store advertisement in hand. Otherwise I wouldn't trust them or their prices.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
This is why I use Fry's for all my tech needs - their prices and customer service are top notch (for a B&M store, that is).
This actually happens in Alaska a LOT. Went to buy an iPod Touch as a gift for someone, the site said $299.99 for the 8GB. I go to the store it is $319.99. I am like WTF? So I ask dude what the deal was, sure enough....he checks the internal site to confirm the $20 higher price.
I walk into the mall (it's attached to the store), go to my cell phone / internet providers store, pull up the site and buy the iPod online for the real price which was now $284.99 because of a new sale going on. I selected in-store pick up and went back to BB.
After I pick up my iPod Touch, I find the employee....and get this, he is pissed, literally MAD that I went and got it for the right price.
I've never had to deal with BB's customer service (thankfully, I rarely shop there), but I find it hard to imagine that it could possibly be WORSE than Fry's.
I work at Best Buy.
There are two websites: the local website, and the internet website.
When a person logs in and they go ot the website, there are literally two options to choose from.
One says "Bestbuy.com - Local" and the other says something like "Bestbuy.com - Nationwide."
They are clearly marked when you log in.
The normal internet website shows everything that Best Buy can possibly carry, or can order for you. The local website shows only what the store has in stock. Sometimes the sales only show up on the internet website, and if you see items on clearance, those will only show up in the local website because clearance items are based on how many of that particular item a store sells, so if they don't sell many, it will go on clearance be and be really cheap, where the store down the road sells a lot and it never goes on clearance.
It's not a scam, it's just dumb employees that don't know the difference.
I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't add up. The only reason a bby employee would try to decieve someone on the price is if they could get something out of it, right?OK, this is directed at you and other Best Buy employees with similar comments. THIS SHOULD NOT BE AN ISSUE. All of you can get high and mighty about how "prices should different nationwide" or "well I don't do this" or maybe even "customers should learn to read" but the fact remains, if you advertise a price online, you damn well better be prepared to honor it. It should not be the customers job to fight for the price that you advertised. Best Buy has no one to blame but themselves for this mess.
Circuit City has a slightly similar set up. They have in store prices that don't reflect online sales. However when you call them on it, they bring up their real website and honor the price difference. I shouldn't have to ask them to price match their own website, but when I do they don't try and deceive me. Notice a difference?
I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't add up. The only reason a bby employee would try to decieve someone on the price is if they could get something out of it, right?
If bby employees are all non-commission, what do they care if you get price marched on something? Personally, I wouldn't mind if every customer got a price match... they'd all be happy. I'd rather deal with customers who spend less but treat me better, than a jack-ass that blew his bank account. I'd get paid the same, but would have less stress with the former...
I'm sure Best Buy is doing everything they can to make sure all their employees know the difference between the two. But... Why do they make them both "BestBuy.com" and both look nearly identical. The Best Buy in my town had an actual inventory screen that's completely different from the interent site. It's only white text on blue screen that gives inventory information and a picture of the item(s) searched for. However the one in NLR uses the internet based internal site.
Trying to keep their numbers high?
So if we 'scammed' the customer and they went home and realized they found it cheaper online, they can come back and get the pricematch aswell as that 10%.
The issue here is the clueless employees and the clueless customers. The customers who use the Kiosk don't see the huge sign that the prices don't reflect online sales.
I mean I have had employess get really pissed when I pointed out that their memory prices were like 3-4 times the price at even Kingston own website.
You'd be suprisedHow many customers are going to bother? Not many, I'm betting.
Clueless? Or pulling strings on clueless customers to get their numbers higher?
went in to a Best Buy in the Indianapolis area about 3 weeks ago to purchase a plasma TV and use my rewards zone coupon that best buy mails out every so often. The TV was listed as on "sale" at their website. It did not state an Internet only sale. I went into the store and spoke to a sales associate who I later found out was the dept manager in TVs. When I inquired about the price difference he went to their kiosk and looked it up and it showed their in store price. I stated firmly that I just saw it on their website less than an hour earlier. He was adamant that the higher price was the correct price. I then called my wife who looked it up while I was on my cell in front of the salesperson. I had her refresh the page to ensure she wasn't looking at a cached page. She assured me that the TV I was looking at in the store was on sale. I told him I didn't believe that he was showing me their website but he persisted in the charade. I went one aisle over to triple check the model# with wife still on the phone. When I went back to the salesperson he miraculously had pulled up their "national site" When I asked him what he was looking at the 1st time he said the "local site" When I asked why he didn't check the national site the 1st time he just said he could price match the website price. Unfortunately the fun didn't end there. With my TV and coupon in hand I went to customer service. When the cashier rang up the TV and coupon the price reverted back to the non sale price. Why? Because they can't or as their operations manager later admitted won't do a "price match" to their own website and honor a coupon. (the coupon states it is good on sale priced items) After 10 minutes of trying to convince the highest authority in the store at the time that she was going to force me to walk out without spending 800.00 because she wouldn't authorize a 30.00 markdown I gave up and left without the TV.
I had to really and I mean really push this TV associate to pull the correct price up on his kiosk.
cant tell you how many times i've been at circuit city, ordered off the website in their store and then picked it up at their store because they will not sell it to me at the website price
that being said, i think these stores are really just trying to screw their own sales people
look at it this way, if i buy online, drive to the store and pick it up, then realy they only had to pay someone to walk to the store room and hand the product to me
if i go to the store and mess around comparing each product, i might waste a sales persons time and that would cost the store more.
they figure if they can get even half of their sales to be online then they will save alot of money in man hours, but if we go into the store then we pay a premium for the "help". its the equivalent of charging extra for a sales associate who probably knows very little about the product to sell it to you.
heh. I tested my local best buy with this trick I had. I wanted a 320GB hard drive that I saw online for $100 that was on sale for $20 off. So I grab my Iphone pull up the page and when to the store... Later at the cash register is rings up to $120 so I say, that not what I saw on your website, so she pulled the store site saying $120, Here comes the best part I take out my phone on the web page and show it to her. she said "we just change the price" then I refresh the page and still came up $100. So then I looked on her screen and showed that it was not the national site. It got to the point that the manager had to come and ring it for $100 but with all the coupons that I had, it came up to $80
Btw. It was planned out and I really wanted to screw them over with their BS.
As a BB employee, that is seriously messed up and you should definitely talk to a district manager about that.
I understand what you are saying, but it doesn't add up. The only reason a bby employee would try to decieve someone on the price is if they could get something out of it, right?
If bby employees are all non-commission, what do they care if you get price marched on something? Personally, I wouldn't mind if every customer got a price match... they'd all be happy. I'd rather deal with customers who spend less but treat me better, than a jack-ass that blew his bank account. I'd get paid the same, but would have less stress with the former...
So, companies shouldn't be expected to honor a price that they advertise?
This is the real issue at hand. Now I'm sorry that you have to deal with jack-ass customers, but so long as BBY continues to put customers through this bullshit, it's not going to go away. Well, there will always be jack-ass customers, but with this many customers that would be nice are forced to be asses.
So? You might be able to do all the stuff in that package yourself in an afternoon, but the mom's and pop's that come in can't, or just don't want to mess with it. If they have $150 ($85-$90 of which is software and materials costs) to burn to have someone else do it, who are you to judge?just today i was in best buy and saw some sales rep trying to sell these poor people buying a computer all this antivirus and driver restore disks for over $150.....
No they shouldn't match prices unless they promise to. And NOWHERE does ANY company promise to match online prices, not BestBuy, not Circuit City etc... It is a business, and as I explained before, costs on a given unit CHANGE depending on the area of the country you are in. So the question is, who should pay the difference; you or the company? Obviously you say the company, and the company says you. But they set the prices, so it's up to them. The point is, if you don't like a store's policies, shop online, because store policies are largely the same from place to place. What differs are the exceptions a store will make. My store will price match BestBuy.com ALL the time, period. It's the GM's policy. Others won't.
It's up to each store individually.
And it's up to each customer to read the damn fine print. If they don't, and get shoveled what they feel is crap, it's their own fault for being uninformed.
The customer is always right, unless they bring it on themselves
through laziness, stupidity or ignorance.