why you should stay away from Best Buy

A recent Wall St. Journal article (subscription required) reports that Best Buy wants to make its worst customers go away. The Inquirer recently had a few words about it, too.

We have a somewhat different take on this.

Best Buy calls its "bad" customers "devils." Hmmm, what a nice nonjudgmental term!

Are you a devil? According to the article:

"The devils are its worst customers. They buy products, apply for rebates, return the purchases, then buy them back at returned-merchandise discounts. They load up on "loss leaders," severely discounted merchandise designed to boost store traffic, then flip the goods at a profit on eBay. They slap down rock-bottom price quotes from Web sites and demand that Best Buy make good on its lowest-price pledge."

I don't think anyone ethical would defend the first category of customer. It's at least understandable that the second category of buyers are gaming the system and often end up taking all the items on sale before regular customers even know they'll be on sale.

But the third category falls dangerously close to "How dare you use our policies?" Even worse, the article says that up to 20% of Best Buy customers are "bad" customers, and the article implies that "bad" goes a lot further than the above.

"Mr. Anderson [the head of the company] put his chief operating officer in charge of a task force to analyze the purchasing histories of several groups of customers, with an eye toward identifying bad customers who purchase loss-leading merchandise and return purchases."

That sounds an awful lot like customers who just buy sale items at Best Buy are "bad customers."

It goes on to say:

"He maintains that Best Buy will first try to turn its bad customers into profitable ones by inducing them to buy warranties or more profitable services."

In plainer terms, earn your keep or else.

What happens to "bad" customers? Best Buy plans to cut back on promotions and sales tactics that attract the undesirables, and knocking them off mailing lists. There's nothing terribly objectionable to that.

Word to the Wise: Maybe you ought to double-check the policies of the store before buying anything new there, if you're counting on price matches or price guarantees. What was the policy before may not be the policy now.

Besides that, though, it also apparently also wants to make the customers it has left more profitable. They want to turn customers into "angels." Angels are "customers who boost profits at the consumer-electronics giant by snapping up high-definition televisions, portable electronics, and newly released DVDs without waiting for markdowns or rebates."

"Angels" sound more like zombies with wallets to me, but just how is Best Buy planning to do this?

"Staffers use quick interviews to pigeonhole shoppers. A customer who says his family has a regular "movie night," for example, is pegged a prime candidate for home-theater equipment. Shoppers with large families are steered toward larger appliances and time-saving products. . . . [At one store using the new approach], on Tuesdays, when new movie releases hit the shelves, blue-shirted sales clerks prowl the DVD aisles looking for promising candidates. The goal is to steer them into a back room that showcases $12,000 high-definition home-theater systems. Unlike the television sections at most Best Buy stores, the room has easy chairs, a leather couch, and a basket of popcorn to mimic the media rooms popular with home-theater fans."

So salespeople will interview shoppers, and if you're so unfortunate as to admit you like to watch DVDs regularly, off to the home theater section you go, or so is the plan. Like you buy a plasma every week.

A Wake-Up Call

One silver lining in this cloud is that a policy such as this might tell some people who think they are the most valuable customers in the world that they aren't.

I see some people talk about themselves as customers like they were deities, that store personnel should prostrate themselves over the extraordinary honor and privilege of selling them something. You often see this when a place misprices an item, it sounds like, "Of course ____ should sell me that $500 monitor for $5. I (who have never spent $100 in the place before and probably never will) am a valuable customer!!!"

Uh, no, you're not.

 

lol... sounds like something got slipped that shouldnt have

*cough* Fight the big box power!! *cough*

 

Oh well.
hehe. I only buy stuff there when its at a "way good price". hehe.

I want to build again, BTW, and I plan to buy everything for the next box at Newegg.com, except for the case. There's a really cool Chinese dude that has a computer shop around my town. Its worth an extra $10 or so just to say "Hi" to the guy every 2 years or so when I build.

(He's a real tweaker. Old school, to.)

 

Although this does sound nasty, I think many companies have similar views, only they aren't stupid enough to make those views public. And although upfront, many business may tell you that every one is treated and thought of equally, it just isn't true. I've worked for a few multinational corporations, and as horrible as this sounds, I agree with their philosophy. When you're trying to make money, you have to cater to those that will make you money, not those who cost you money. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean you ignore or give substandard service to those who cost you money, but you really have to turn up the charm for the ones that have the potential.
As for the qualification process, a lot of other companies do the same thing, again...they're just not stupid enough to make it public. If a company does their research properly, they know who is more likely to buy and who is not. And I don't think anybody could argue the point...if it was your business, who would you want to deal with?

 

best buy is an evil evil company. i was reading an article in the WSJ about how they are now intentionally alienating any customer who shows interest in using cupons or special deals.

edit: i should probably at least read the first post before replying. lol

 

A company will do what it takes to turn profits, and this will be there policy everytime. Whether the customer likes it or not.

I have actually liked best buy and still shop there for games and dvd's.

Although HHGregg i really try to warn all my customers that this is a bad company to deal with! I work as a electronic technician for a warranties on Sony, Pioneer, Mitsubishi, and Nintendo, I see it over and over again that customers that have spent bigger dollars on items like TV's get screwed by HHgregg if anything happens to it Shipping or just fails, I've heared the horror stories about how the guys drop it off the loading truck or scrape it while carrying it and still will just give it to the customer like the nothing is wrong with the merchandise they just ruined. Also i've seen this company cope out when it comes to fixing items, there techs are very very bad! A tech will come out and tell a customer that it needs a part, so at that point the customer says how long will it be, they tell them a few days and the customer accepts this, three weeks later and a very pissed off customer that hasn't been updated on the situation then just gets dropped by HHgregg and then they call us. We come to find out the part has never even been ordered and even worse sometimes isn't even the bad part inside the unit!

They will always try to find a way to blame it on someone else, they've even tried to blame their mistakes upon my company which has done nothing but fix their problems. So i warn all about HHgregg about how they do business!

So with some steam being blown off I would still rather deal with a local business when it comes to large merchandise, and work with best buy with the smaller items. But always check reviews of products and credentials of a company before dealing with them. A good allocation of returns are due the customer not being aware of what they need or want because they lacked on finding enough information on the product they bought and will it fit the needs and wants.

 

They are rumored to be selling a 27" TV for $29 on Black Friday. That is the shopping day after Thanksgiving in the US. 11/27 this year.

Another company (no need to make this a trash the big box thread) with dismal employee relations and even worse customer relations has the best shopping on BF. I have a new in the box laser printer from last year (moved and still burning out ink in deskjet). My $99 price is still lower than the same printer now being offerred for $119.

There are some who buy the loss leaders on BF then return them. That is a fraud, and the article should apply that someone who intends to profit from the day misses out on why they lower prices in the first place.

FWIW, I have my hotel reservations and in another tab am plotting my day of shopping for this year.

 

I know for a fact they hate my wife and me.

They were selling the new Final Fantasy XI Expansion 10 dollars cheaper than anyone else on sale when it first came out. The sale was for only one weekend. Well they advertised it and what not, then got the shipment late, after the sale ended.

They tried to not honor the sale, saying that it was over.

A few threats later, we walked out of Best Buy with two new expansion packs at rebate prices. I can tell you right now, nobody else got the rebate unless they fought for it.

Almost 2 years ago we dropped off a Sony Vaio to have the CD-RW replaced. They told us it would take 5 weeks to fix

5 weeks later, no computer. We call them up, and they told us it would be in the next shipment.

A couple days later, no computer.

Called them again, it will be on the next truck.

A couple days later, no computer.

Called them up, and they told us, well we showed it arrived two days ago. However, we dont see it. It will be on the next truck. I then proceeded to make sure they heard me yell in the background about what idiots they were to not keep track of crap.

A couple days later. This time we were pissed and went into the store. The computer was in. We tried to pick it up. After standing at the service area for OVER an hour, they came back up.

Apparently, the idiots tried to get even with my comment and us bugging the hell out of them. For reasons unknown to the store manager (heh), the computer was shipped back to them, not on their own delivery truck, but by UPS. With no packing.

It was destroyed.

So I went from a Sony Vaio P4 1.8ghz, 512mb PC133 ram and other crappy specs to an Athlon XP 2800+ machine, DVD, writer, 120gb hard drive and 512mb PC2700 ram, FOR FREE.

They tried to get even, and it cost them, LOL.

I know Best Buy hates us.

EDIT: Oh and Best Buy lies.

They say they don't charge for online orders until they are shipped.

I pre-ordered Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 for my dad on 10/30, and was charged, THAT instant.

It was not scheduled to ship until November 21st.

 

I've had nothing but good experience with Best Buy. I was there twice over the weekend even. It's not always the best place as I have a few other places I go more often, but I do still spend a good amount of money there.

 

I go to those places for the hands on only experience. Then I order it online from a trusted vendor. Unless it's something stupid simple like thermal paste ..

 

I just saw a thing on CNN about this last night. From what I could tell it is just not best buy that may be doing it. They never said a specific retailer just "retailers".

I never even thought of the idea until they brought it up. Ebay here I come!!!

 

Its because of these abusive customers some compaines a starting to reign or abaondon in their return policies. There are stores that track returns and will refuse the return if exceed some unknown threshold. Some people use stores for free rentals and its hurting the bottom line.

As for BB - Hey, I'll buy from any legit outfit that gets me the best price for good merchandise.

 

Several years ago, a Best Buy opened up by my folks'. We had one here in Chicago, but hadn't bought from them before. After visiting the one at my parents' place and having a great experience with the service, I told Eric that we should shop there next time we needed something big. We were in the market for a new receiver and found the one we wanted in the sale flyer of another store, but wanted to give Best Buy the business, so we brought the flyer and went in to get the receiver. We ended up waiting for a couple of hours while they tried to contact the store from the flyer to see if they actually had the receiver in stock. Of course we didn't know whether they did or not, we just wanted to do business with BB! And why should it matter anyway? They're the ones who have the policy that they'll beat anyone's advertised price! I finally started complaining loudly that they ought to stand behind their policies and not make good customers wait for HOURS to get service. We left with our receiver and a VERY bad taste in our mouths. I've stayed away from them for the most part since then for any large purchases. So yeah, I guess I'm a "bad" customer.

 

I bought a 50 pack of sony 8x DVD-R's for $30...same price as the 25 pack of the other brands. I also bought a 100 pack of TDK 48x CD-R's for $15. i'd say i got a pretty good deal. i won't shop there for my big purchases though.

 

i still say theyre evil
PLUS!!!!!
they bought out future shop
and now they have future shops, and best buys in Canada, but their owned by the same compony.
MAKES NO SENSE!!!!!!!

 

Pareto's Principle, ABC rule, 80/20 rule (or whatever you like to call it) states that 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of customers. It may not actually be 80/20, could be 90/10, or 70/30, or 60/40, or whatever applies to your business. The next step is to identify what customers provide the most $$ and try and quit the rest. Standard business practice in some businesses. Supermarkets put this into practice when determining what products sell best and what products to closeout. That is why products vanish off shelves, and you can no longer find that product YOU like but others didn't like as much.

In the mining game that I am well acquainted with (4 multi million dollar Inventories in 3 countries), around 2% of line items accounted for 70% of the $$ value of the items issued. 7-10% of line items accounted for 90% of issue dollars. This applied to 4 mines and 1 whitegoods business. Line items ranged from 5,000-32,000 SKU's. It didn't matter how long the business had been in operation (2 years to 30 years), Africa, PNG and Australian businesses. The percentages will differ depending on the type of business and it's efficiency, but Pareto can be applied to just about everything. 80% of the clothes you wear are the same 20% of clothes. 80% of the wear area on your carpet occurs on the same 20% of carpet. 80% of the meals you eat are the same 20% of meals, etc. Bazza

 

all companies think in the same way ...and it is to get as much margin from every customer as possible...and that is they try to sell accesories and service with all products..both of which are very very high in margin

 

All corporate retailers are the same, period.
I only shop at stores like Best Buy, when I can get a great deal.
Sometimes to get a great deal, you have to know how to take control of the situation.

Remember this:
The Squeaky Wheel, Always, Gets The Grease!

 

i have friends that have worked there... they say it was the worst job that they ever had.

 

it comes back to an old saying buyer be ware. Best Buy and other companies exist to make money. Do you go to work for free, no