Ever shop at BestBuy ?

[theantiquetiger]

I have been in there twice in five years, once when they 1st opened, looking for a fridge, turned around and walked out, not happy.

Now I am in the market for a HD TV. I hit a few places and wind up at BestBuy. They have a nice 40" Sony Bravia 1080i for $2000. I am thinking hard on this thing and the salesman tells me if I find a better price, they would beat it by 10%.

I tell them I will think about it and go on to Conn's. I find the exact TV on sale for $1800, so I haul my butt back to BestBuy and tell them it is $1800 at Conn's. The salesman calls Conn's to verify and said OK. I tell them I will take it. They start to ring it up, and it rings up at $1780. I tell them it should be $1620 because you said you will beat the price by 10%, or $180. They then tell me they only beat the difference by 10%, and that the salesman told me wrong. I call over the store manager and he tells me sorry, its $20 off, not $180. I tell them I understand their mistake and I don't expect the $180 off, but they could do something better than $20, but they don't budge. I ask for the corporate office and talk to the complaint person. They ask me what they could do to make it right and I tell them I understand the $180 mistake, but they could do better than $20 and they don't budge either. I ask him then why did you ask me what you could do to make it better and say no thank you, my $1800 is going to Conn's.

[Dave Mc]

I hate the price matching crap. If I can buy it here for that price, it should be MARKED that price. Otherwise, I'll just go to the guy that has it MARKED the lowest and I wont have to play any BS games.

[theantiquetiger]

When the store manager was talking to me, I ask what he could do, I don't expect the $180 off, but something better than $20, its almost a slap in the face. He says he can't do any better, he is already giving me $220 off. He couldn't comprehend he was only giving a $20 discount. he was still thinking about their over priced TV's.

I told him I would rather spend an extra $20 at Conn's than give him my business, and I told the corporate person the same thing.

[MegoSteve]

With those price guarantees, it's typically 10% of the price difference that they'll beat a price by, not 10% of the total sale price. I think Sears has a similar policy, and so does Circuit City. That the salesman doesn't know how to express their policy doesn't surprise me. What do you expect from someone that makes less than $10 an hour?

I tend not to get too worked up about those kinds of mistakes, but I just went through something similar yesterday. I ordered something online to pick up at Circuit City, which has signs all over the store with their 24 minute guarantee... if your order isn't ready within 24 minutes, they give you a $24 gift card.

Well, I placed the order at 12:15 and when I arrived at the store at 1:15, it wasn't pulled, so I figured I'd take my chances and ask for the gift card. If I got it, cool, if not, no big deal, since I wasn't sure how it worked exactly. The salesperson told me their policy was 24 minutes from the time I was waited on in the store, which seemed kind of fishy. I didn't think much of it, because I'm not really willing to pick a fight for $24. Then, out in the parking lot, I glanced down at my printed email that said explicitly "24 minutes from the time of this order confirmation," so I walked into the store and pointed that out and he gave the card to me while complaining.

What it boils down to is that consumers have shown time and time again that they're willing to put up with crappy service to get a low price, which means the downward pressure on prices forces companies to pay their employees very little. As a result, salespeople are generally underpaid and don't know store policies or anything about their products, because there's no incentive for them to... it's not like working at Best Buy is going to be their career. I just pretty much accept bad service as the baseline, so if someone gives me good service, I'm happy. If not, no big deal... at least I got a good price.

[theantiquetiger]

If they would have just beaten the Conn's price by $50, i would be setting up my HD TV right now

I forgot to mention the best part:

When I was 1st talking to the salesman, he said the TV was on sale, $500 off the $2000. All I would have to do was to buy a $400 HD DVD player, and the TV was only $1500!!

I was born at night, not last night!! :biggrin:

[MegoSteve]

So if you bought the TV and the DVD player together, it would have been $1900?

Couldn't you have taken the $400 HD DVD player and put it on eBay for $200 and got your TV even cheaper then?

[theantiquetiger]

:wink_y::wink_y::wink_y:

Didn't think of that. I will have to go get the model number of the DVD player and see what they go for on ebay. If it's $400 at BestBuy, it is probably $300 everywhere else and even cheaper on ebay.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Best Buy is run like a car dealership. They say they don't work on commision, but I don't buy it. I hate going in there. As much as I hate feeding the Wal-mart machine, at least you can walk in there and buy something without some sales guy tailing you the whole way bugging the crap out of you.

Chris

[megocrazy]

The actual match policy is 10% of the difference. There was a $180.00 difference and they should have given you the matching price plus $18.00, which is pretty close to what you're saying they were going to charge you. The policy is on the wall at my Best Buy in the customer service department. I bought a 52" Hitachi HD there last September. Circuit City was doing one of those great deals, "sorry were out, no rainchecks, can I interest you in this more expensive models?" It was $1200.00 marked down to $850.00. I took the flyer to BB and they had the same model but not in stock which was normally $1000.00. They gave me the $850.00 minus the $15.00 for the difference. They had it 48 hours later. Don't always look at the price. If a store is offering free shipping BB will waive their shipping charges also if you bring proof. Two weeks later Sears marks this model down to $750.00 doing the same thing CC was doing two weeks earlier. I went to Sears and had the nice sales boy print me out a copy of the model flyer with their price on it and went back to BB. They credited my account $85.00 to match the new lower price plus $8.50 for the difference. All said and done $1200.00 starting price was finally at $740.00. I had a similar experience with my wife's refrigerator where we got almost $100.00 back after purchasing it because Best Buy had a lower sale price a couple of weeks later. I usually try to get the stores policies in writing before I go shopping for big dollar items. I have had many stores that don't have a match policy in print, match simply because I asked. Employee's at these stores do not have a clue about the matching policies for the most part. If you're looking at spending $2000.00 ask for the manager on the floor. If he doesn't know the policy then run out of the store, as fast as you can, with your hands above your head and screaming loudly. You should never go back so what does it matter what they think as you leave. Also the BB Rewards program is great. It has a annual fee but if you're buying an item higher than $400.00 you break even with the reward certificates on the first purchase. The rest of the year is bonus. I got like $50.00 in certificates for the TV and the fridge.

[MegoSteve]

:wink_y::wink_y::wink_y:

Didn't think of that. I will have to go get the model number of the DVD player and see what they go for on ebay. If it's $400 at BestBuy, it is probably $300 everywhere else and even cheaper on ebay.

Don't bother. I looked at the web site and it's $500 off if you sign up for DirectTV AND buy an audio system AND buy an HD-DVD player.

I wouldn't bother shopping there... it almost seems like they're training their salespeople to lie.

[toys2cool]

Best Buy is run like a car dealership. They say they don't work on commision, but I don't buy it. I hate going in there. As much as I hate feeding the Wal-mart machine, at least you can walk in there and buy something without some sales guy tailing you the whole way bugging the crap out of you.

Chris

I know it feels like they do work on commission,but they really don't.My cousin works there and he only makes $8.75 an hour,but the reason why they have so many young kids working there is because they get great benefits,they are paying for my cousins college tuition,I love bestbuy for the dvd's,but I never buy any electronics there,Check if they have a place called Brandsmart USA where you live,I went to buy an LCD tv 3 weeks ago and found an open item 46" Mitsubishi Tv 1080p HD marked from $3000 to $1000 with no remote or box and because it was the last one in the store,when the guy in the back brought it out,he gave it to me in the box,so i figured hey they found it,when I got home they had given me a brand new one never opened,I called them back thinking they might charge me the $3 g's and they said to come back,I said sorry you have to come pick it up and deliver the old one to me,they said forget it just keep the new one :grin:

[mitchedwards]

www.bestbuyssux.org

[theantiquetiger]

Spelled wrong above:

http://bestbuysux.org

[megoat]

As a general rule I try to avoid all the big box stores if at all possible. Best Buy, Wal Mart, Target, Circuit City, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond etc etc. I always feel like a schmuck the second I step inside one of 'em. If I can, I take my business downtown.....

[theantiquetiger]

As a general rule I try to avoid all the big box stores if at all possible. Best Buy, Wal Mart, Target, Circuit City, Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond etc etc. I always feel like a schmuck the second I step inside one of 'em. If I can, I take my business downtown.....

For what I am in the market for, these big box stores are the only ones that carry it. I could shop on-line, but I am alittle reluctant to buy something of this magnitude on line.

[The Bat]

I LOVE Best Buy! It's one of My favorite Store's. When I went looking for My HDTV...I had just checked the Flyer in the Sunday Paper...and it was listed for $2,499.00. But when I got to the store it was $1,999.00...I bought it emediately! It was August...so They were probably liquidating that Year's stock(it was not a Floor Model)...but that was fine with Me!:biggrin:

I'm also a BIG fan of the 2 Year replacement Warrenty on Electronic's...believe Me, it's cost Them, more than it's cost Me!:smiley1: I'm on My 3rd Xbox 360...and I get a new controller every 3 Month's.:smiley1:

[thunderbolt]

BB's dvd selection has gone to the dogs over the years. Last time I was there, not one single MST3K set. And all of it was way overpriced. As far as buying big ticket stuff goes, I go to the local WalMart for the cheapest price. They've already run all the mom and pop stores out of town here.

[Adam West]

I have purchased big ticket items from reputable internet dealers and never have had a problem. The pricing is also a whole lot cheaper than any of the Best-Buys or Circuit City's.

Although most extended service agreements aren't worth it (vcr/dvd player,etc.), I think there is some merit to purchasing one on a high ticket item. I got a 3 year EMA on my Dell computer as part of a package deal and we definitely have gotten our money's worth out of it. I don't know how many times my wife has called because one of the kids have hit some button that has messed our machine up and we even had our hard drive totally blow on us....we got a new hard drive and even though they are easy to install, I made the Dell rep. install himself and take the time to reload all of the software.

For DVD's, Wal-Mart is the best place to go for new releases but you have to buy it the week they come out. For TV Series or box DVD's I usually find Target to be better and Costco is really good (they have all of the Soprano's seasons for $47.99 I think). Of course for more obscure DVD's, I hit Amazon, Overstock.com, or deepdiscount.com. I just bought a ton of dvd's with their 20% sale going on right now. Really good prices once the 20% is factored in.