Chuck Bartowski would never do such a thing. It seems that Big Mike is putting the squeeze on the Buy More staff!

It’s also known that TV models numbers may change a letter or number to to distinguish between retailers, to it not unusual that model number PU50-77DX in one store may be denied price matching at another store with model number PU50-77CX, even though they have the same exact specs on the basis that they are different models.

Call me crazy, but I don’t believe it to be very honest in leading a salesperson on to believe you will buy extras like warranties and cables to get the sale.

I’ve worked in electronics retail and have seen first-hand customers try this tactic. When you try to return the warranty and cables, the front counter will prevent the return because you will have received a “special deal.” They will call it a “package deal.” You are asking for trouble by being dishonest and leading a salesperson on.

It also isn’t a good idea to waste a salesperson’s time, letting them ask questions and figure out what TV you are looking for. Many of these salespeople earn some form of commission and their sales are heavily tracked. Once you pull out that ad from a competitor, they will quickly catch on to what you are trying to do and will quickly become uncooperative. You probably don’t appreciate people wasting your time, so don’t waste theirs either.

Also, the Best Buy price match policy says very clearly that if the competitor that you are wishing to price match is out of stock, the price match will not be given. The reason for this is simple. The idea behind the price match policy is to reward loyalty. It is not in place so that people can rush to Best Buy when a competitor has ran out of a product that was greatly reduced in price. Best Buy wants to reward their loyal shoppers, not those that are choosing them second. Put yourself in their shoes — would you want everyone running to your store and cutting your profits because your competitor chose to put something on sale and ran out of stock?

To read the price match policy, visit the following link: http://www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=cat12098&entryURLType=&categoryId=cat10011&type=page&entryURLID=&contentId=1118843518460

Remember that these salespeople are often young kids that are trying to make some extra money. They are often college or even high school students and under an immense amount of pressure. Every thing they sell is heavily tracked and their quotas are very intense. Try to be respectful when shopping in these stores and try putting yourself in their shoes. Be honest and straight-forward. Tell them what you want, and don’t waste their time. And yes, do your research by reading the company policies clearly published on the company website, rather than on blogs that often misinterpret the policies.

I worked in a competitor to Best Buy for over four years. I began in high school and was extremely successful while working there. However, I did it honestly. Reading blog posts like this often disgust me because it completely ignores the store perspective. Companies like Best Buy are in business to make money. However, the industry is highly competitive and margins are not just slim, but oftentimes negative. The only way for them to make money is through a warranty or some accessories. While some accessories are an obvious ripoff, some warranties aren’t half bad ideas. Believe it or not, TVs will break and HD Guru is not going to fix it for you when your pathetic 1-yr warranty expires. And if you don’t want to pay to fix it, you might want to think twice before you “stick it to the man” and say no to everything being offered to you.

Chris,

I have worked in retail in a number of positions including sales on commission. Best Buy sales persons are not commissioned sales persons, they are salaried.

As mentioned in the article, using techniques described is stooping down to their level of dishonesty . I find it quite unfortunate that Best Buy appears to put employees in a position where they need to lie about policies in order to keep their jobs.

When a customer gets murfed, the person is less likely to remain a loyal customer, a very short term view. In my opinion, if the Best Buy executives feel the price match policy hurts profits, they should simply eliminate it and not force its employees to come up with fake excuses.

BTW, all accessories in Best Buy are itemized on the receipt, therefore, a salesperson can’t “pack the deal” (as it is known in retail) by discounting one item and adding it on to another. 

HD GURU

It’s also not a bad idea to make a written complaint to your State’s consumer protection agency. You probably won;t get immediate satisfaction from them, but receipt of multiple complaints will eventually lead to an investigation and in some cases prosecution.

I’d also suggest having a small recorder tucked in your shirt pocket during such discussions. It’s not going to be admissible in court, but it comes in handy when you go back.

Don’t tell them you have it while you’re there – they’ll just confiscate and wipe it (and possibly have you arrested!) claiming they ‘thought’ you had shoplifted the device.

Later on, you can inform them you recorded your earlier conversation and will be contacting your local news as well channel as well as featuring it up on YouTube.

If you found a better price elsewhere… why not buy it from the cheaper source without supplying business to the sleazes?

those of us with best buy cards would rather get the points and the price match if possible… well, i’m going to try to get a pricematch today in 2 hours or so after work, panny’s p42x1, best buy has it for 800 but pcrichard has it for 695, i’m thinking it will go thru and i’m not even going to go there with the ad

I would like to correct a glaring error in your reporting. You state that:

“Asking Chuck to write up the sale and include the Best Buy free delivery as advertised (for any HDTV $999 and up, this HDTV was over $1000), Chuck replied, “delivery and hook-up would cost $100 additional,” claiming the chain’s price match policy exempts free delivery. Once again, Chuck falsely cited a non-existent policy!”

This is not true. This policy very much exists and it kind of makes me wary of the rest of your story if you can’t get simple facts straight. Best Buy’s website clearly states that:

“How do you handle a price match if the Best Buy price includes a promotional offer such as a free gift card or rebate?
The Best Buy net purchase price is calculated by deducting the value of all instant and mail-in discounts such as rebates, free offers and promotional gift cards. Existing rebates and free offers associated with a product purchased at Best Buy will not apply if a price match is executed.”

READERS PLEASE NOTE:

N8DOG’S IP SHOWS HIS COMMENT ORIGINATES FROM BEST BUY HEADQUARTERS IN RICHFIELD, MN.

“The delivery, hook-up and recycling are now included when you buy any HDTV $999 & up.” according to Best Buy’s weekly flyer. It is not a “free offer” it is included service. Shopping carts are provided in Best Buy as a service to its customers, I don’t believe one would consider a use of a cart a “free offer”. As stated in the article, a Best Buy customer service rep (at its headquarters) said the service should have been included with the purchase.

HD GURU

While I partly agree with Chis, it really isn’t the sales guys fault they are doing what they are told to keep their jobs. However it doesn’t excuse the company from being all doushy. If you have a price match policy honor it even if it bites you in the ass at times. If that policy is horking your profits too much then pull it off.

As for the extended warranties, total rip-off that is why they are such money makers for the store. In my almost 40 years of life over half spending as much as I could get away with on electronics never would such a warranty helped me. The only time I had a piece of major electronics fail it was well within the manufacturer’s warranty and was fairly quickly replaced (a sony audio receiver). Other then that everything lasted long enough that it got replaced and sold off before going TU. Now I know there have been some that have by some stroke of luck actually benefited from this type of deal but over all it’s basically like gambling at a casino, sure you could come out ahead… but the house always wins in the end.

While I understand they are in this to make money, I would rather they increase the prices of everything a bit, rather then try to use sucker ta tics to bait the less informed into bad deals or over priced extended warranties.

And just out and out trying to weasel out of your own policy? That’s just dumb, and deserves all the bad publicity such things garnish in today’s world where every other person will quite happily post their bad experience online for all to read.

If a store is going to go through the trouble of blocking price matching to a customer, they deserve what’s coming. If you’re not going to honor your word, don’t offer the policy at all.
I swear, if you walked into a old mom and pop shop and they had a policy like this, they wouldn’t hesitate to honor it. Yeah, it might suck to be the salesman, and it may not look good on your numbers, but it’s the Customer who you look out for. The new generation of kids seem to forget this.

I see you went to 3 Best Buys but I’ve had luck in the past getting the price match for the same item at another Best Buy. You might even try a different sales person at the same Best Buy. Obviously, if this has been raised to the level of corporate policy, my suggestion won’t work but it doesn’t hurt to try.

One word…. Newegg.

It amazes me that Best But, Office Depot etc, are the biggest electronic retailers out there. Simply crazy and sad really. I’ve been going through Newegg for most all my tech goodies for the last 10 years. They by far have the best prices, best customer service out there….and it gets shipped to your home or office. I don’t know if they have a price match policy, but it seems as if they don’t need to because they always have pretty much the lowest prices out there. People who are reading this and who shop at these big chain stores really should check out Newegg. It sounds like I work for em, but I don’t. They simply are just the best.

After being “Murfed” at Best Buy several times, I have refused to shop there any longer. I do occasionally and intentionally buy products with the complete intent of returning them at that location purely to affect their loss numbers. Some times I goto the hassle of purchasing a product at another Best Buy location and return it at the location that “Murfed” me. That is my way of sticking it to the man.

Well you can always buy off the web and forget about the pricematch or go to sears and they will pricematch they have been pretty reasonable when I pricematch at sears. Or just buy off the web where it is normally cheaper and notax and free shipping. I just went to my county new and only best buy to purchase a Alpha Starter Kit which has a Case and a Battery for $99.99 I found it at Buy.com for $67 with free shipping I asked if they would pricematch and they told me no online pricematch I said ok see you at your liquidation bye which was a bit rough but they got my point I used to have managers take something off because most of that stuff is high markup to begin with. Oh well another sale fro Buy.com and nothing for BestBuy, we shall see how long before we are seeing Bestbuy closing stores. Just my Op.

Chris
Posted on 16th March, 2009

Call me crazy, but I don’t believe it to be very honest in leading a salesperson on to believe you will buy extras like warranties and cables to get the sale.

I’ve worked in electronics retail and have seen first-hand customers try this tactic. When you try to return the warranty and cables, the front counter will prevent the return because you will have received a “special deal.” They will call it a “package deal.” You are asking for trouble by being dishonest and leading a salesperson on.
__________________

OK Crazy, there’s a flip side to this. Sales shouldn’t tell customers that Monsters cable are the best HDMI and sell them a $150 three foot cable. Unless you can provide me with scientific facts that a signal will travel better in a Monster cable. Also, sales shouldn’t put fear into the customer into buying a black tie warranty. If a product is going to fail, isn’t it the first year that it will. Sales should sell something a customer doesn’t need.

Oh come on. Everybody knows, or SHOULD know what kind of a retailer Best Buy is by now. Who else would have had a website dedicated to documenting their sleazy practices, (bestbuysux.org), which no longer exists, but did an amazing job of revealing just how many people were treated shabbily by this retailer. What was it the top management called bargain hunting customers? Oh yeah, Devils.

I feel like I just got done reading an ad from National Enquirer. You saw the office depot ad and jumped on the band wagon by making up a story about margins on other products besides PC’s. “Your source tells you” lol

Google Murfed and see what comes up!!! Nothing, because you made it up! If anyone who reads this wants tech info or retail info, go to http://www.twice.com.

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Alessandra

http://www.craigslisttool.info

I would like to take this opportunityto respond to HD Guru’s response to my original comment. You are wrong. It is a free offer. That service normally comes with a 100 dollar price tag and has a unique sku that is rung up and package priced with the purchase. It is not something that was always offered with a purchase over 999 dollars, nor will it always be. No matter how you would like to interpret the wording it doesnt change the fact that you are wrong. As to shopping carts, they arent rung up, they dont have a sku, they arent an item that best buy otherwise offers for purchase. It is a weak analogy at best, and at worse intentionally deceptive. In fact, if you would quote the entire wording on the flier you would see that that it allows the option of 100 dollars off any other Geek Squad service should you choose that instead, further cementing its place as a free offer. As to what a “Best Buy customer service rep (at its headquarters)” told you, quite frankly, it doesnt matter, they were mistaken. And the fact that you are so willing to believe that person, who is no less likely to make a mistake than the sales associate at the store (who was in fact following the written policy of the company) makes you out to be the worst type of journalist, the type who cant distinguish there own personal bias from the facts.

READERS PLEASE NOTE:

N8DOG’S IP SHOWS HIS COMMENT ORIGINATES FROM BEST BUY HEADQUARTERS IN RICHFIELD, MN.

Chris,

I too worked in an electronics retailer throughout college and understand how the business works. Of course we were pushed to sell high margin items, make returns a bit more “difficult” for the customer, etc. But we never completely lied to the customers by making up false policy provisions as what apparently happened here. This crosses an important line.

When a store or chain of stores publishes a policy like a price-match, and then chooses not to honor it for completely bogus, unpublished reasons, I simply will not shop there. EVER. I choose to be honest in my transactions with retailers, and I expect my seller to also be honest with me as well. A level of trust is necessary in a buyer/seller relationship, and I do not have that with BB.

If the price-match policy isn’t working for the stores, it needs to be modified or eliminated.

Shop amazon.com, newegg.com.

Went to BB on Sunday the 15th. Used a Fry’s Price Match for the Samsung LN52A650. It was $330 less than the existing BB sales price. Although they had to get two levels of managers to approve, they did so without any real hassle. Took less than 10 minutes to approve. Got the free delivery, free recycle, and supposedly triple reward points (yeah it is my birthday month). Delivery scheduled for tomorrow. Other than the high priced accesories they tried to get me to buy (HDMI, Surge, cleaner products, warrenty) I have no issues.

HDGuru,

I appreciate your reply to the comment, but there must have been some miscommunication in what I wrote.

At Best Buy, the price-match policy DOES NOT apply to when the competitor has run out of stock of the product the customer is asking to price match. Again, this is to establish loyalty, not become a second choice when the customer’s first choice has ran out of stock.

In regards to the items being itemized on receipts, you are right that they are itemized. However, but retailers have the ability to comment tickets, so when pulled up by another associate, notes left from the sale can be left on there to show that despite the items being itemized individually, the sales associate can note that items were given at particular prices as a “package” and cannot be returned individually. So again, it’s probably not a good idea to try to negotiate a particular price based on the agreement to buy accessories and warranties if you are planning to return them and keep the TV.

Also, I did not notice this before in your original post, but you also missed something in your free delivery trouble you ran into. When you ask to price match something, it is an “apples-to-apples” offer, meaning that by taking the price match, you are giving up any Best Buy deals. In other words, you can’t double-dip. An example would be that if Best Buy was giving a free cable with the purchase, but the local store was lower in price but didn’t give the cable for free, you couldn’t get the free cable and the lower price. This applies for free delivery. Some competitors may not offer free delivery, and this needs to be considered.

Your comment about how sales people are inaccurate as well. Best Buy pays its associates on an hourly wage, not salary. The managers are paid on a salary. However, the hourly wages are packed with bonuses along the way for both managers and associates. The store I worked for routinely gave away TVs, gift cards, even vacations to TV sales associates if they sold certain TVs or particular accessories. Towards the end of my time with the company, TV associates were paid an hourly wage, but also received bonuses if the entire department reached its target margin.

Bret, yes, salespeople shouldn’t sell accessories that aren’t necessary. And without a doubt, Monster cables are overpriced, and tests have proven that the video quality is not noticeable. However, on the flip side, Monster cables are also manufactured to a much higher standard than other cables. So for customers that simply want superior quality, Monster is the way to go.

By no means am I trying to defend Best Buy. I do not give them my business either. There are many salespeople out there that might be dishonest. And there are many accurate posts out there that exploit some of these dishonest sales associates. However, many people also confuse policies (ex. Best Buy not matching out-of-stock competitors, “double-dipping” offers, etc). I completely support the idea of being informed of the price matching policies, as well as other policies. Customers should also do extensive research on the products they wish to buy. However, they also need to keep an open mind on products and services offered to them, some salespeople actually have the customer’s best interest at heart, and when a customer has complained that they have had reliability issues with past electronics, have had to return to the store many times to get things they didn’t get with their purchase, or had tons of questions about how to hook everything up, the salesperson might end up offering accessories to prevent the customer from having to come back, an extended warranty to prevent costly repairs, and installation services to ensure the product gets hooked up right without customer frustrations. Quick Fact: The leading reason the store I worked at took returns was because the customer didn’t know how to use the product or hooked it up wrong. People have no idea how much product gets returned that is fully functional.

A retail store has the right to refuse your business.

Also, it does specifically say that they do not honor limited items.

Exclusions:
The Price Guarantee does not apply to our or our competitors’ free offers, limited-quantity items, items for sale November 28th & 29th, 2008, open-box items, clearance items, Outlet Center items, mail-in offers, financing, bundle offers or pricing errors.

They are also not obligated to offer you free delivery. You can’t expect to get another stores price and their budle offers (free delivery). HDguru is losing their crediability with posts like this.

Exclusions:
The Price Guarantee does not apply to our or our competitors’ free offers, limited-quantity items, items for sale November 28th & 29th, 2008, open-box items, clearance items, Outlet Center items, mail-in offers, financing, bundle offers or pricing errors.

The last time I went to BB was to buy a cheap laptop bag for future eBaying. The time before that, BF 2007. As you can tell, I don’t go very often. Why? It’s much cheaper to buy online. Seriously, the only things I’ve found cheaper in stores are food, liquid items and heavy car parts because they use a delivery truck instead of UPS/FedEx.

Nearly everything electronic can be purchased cheaper than any PM deal can get in store- put it on your AMEX and you’ve got full protection if anything goes bad.

Monoprice for your cables, and slickdeals and fatwallet for your TV deals. Done.

I run a computer business and the prices I get through actual distributors (Ingram Micro, D&H, Synnex, Tech Data) are sometimes higher than larger online dealers, because they have the volume and direct deals with manufacturers to make up for it.

There should be no reason to ever step foot in a BB unless you’ve got a huge wallet to burn (in which case call me ).

BTW, all accessories in Best Buy are itemized on the receipt, therefore, a salesperson can’t “pack the deal” (as it is known in retail) by discounting one item and adding it on to another.

HD GURU

While they are itemized, BBY can discount one item and add to another. Take a look at a receipt with a package deal, they have the deal ID and ******* showing the package. Items can be discounted/adjusted separately or together. Do you remember the HD Advantage scam? That had to do with this problem. While it shows on your receipt as a PS3 for 0.00, when you return the install service, your receipt is readjusted and the package no longer applies. Research your statements next time so you don’t end up with so much egg on your face.

Here’s another thing you can do…go to the store with the lower advertised price and purchase it there.

Why would you want to hassle and try and get a store to lower their price when it is clearly lower at another store?

This story is fraught with errors.

Simply put:
A three day sale is considered a limited quantity offer. If the TV to be price matched was on the same time frame as Best Buy ads, Sunday to Saturday, and in stock at the particular store, they would have happily price matched.

Best Buy retail employees (with the exception of managers) are on hourly wages.

Free delivery was null and void when you asked for the price match. You can have one, or the other, but not both. Price matching is done with the understanding that you forfeit all other offers, and vice versa.

Greedy.

You’re an idiot. Whatever source you had is clearly also an idiot. Best Buy doesn’t encourage employees to screw over customers by not honoring the company’s own policies. A few idiots with incorrect interpretations does not amount to a big conspiracy. Get your head out of your ass and stop trying to get your page more traffic by posting something you think’ll get a lot of hits from Digg, Reddit, and Consumerist.

This is why I did not even shop at Best Buy when I bought my TV. I bought my TV at a local Warehouse club where it was cheaper and there was no pressure for me to buy items that I did not want. I was able to load my new TV into the back of my station wagon and drive home and watch it that night.

I shopped online and compared “general” prices and not specific models. Some retailers like HHGregg don’t even display their prices online. I did not even go to the HHgregg store to see what they had in stock.

The warehouse club was 20% cheaper than all of BestLie’s online prices and there was no hassle, hype or misinformation involved.

Also, this nonsense a few comments up about a “scam” involving being charged for a free PS3 you got as part of a package when you RETURNED part of the package… who’s the one trying to scam someone? You got the PS3 because you purchased the package. Break the package by returning something, and you no longer qualify for package pricing.

If the price is lower at another store, why not go to that store instead of trying to get a price match? If it’s a local mom and pop store, wouldn’t it be better to spend your money locally anyway?

I recently got BB to price match an online vendor (which is against their policy) and reduce the price of a TV I was buying by more than $1200 from BB’s sale price, and $1900 off MSRP (it was a Pioneer Kuro Pro-151FD). It did require manager approval, but the manager was very accomodating and did not try to shove a 4-year warranty down my throat for the price match (although he recommended it).

I did need to buy a Stand as well, and I paid full price for the stand from BB, which was not entirely unreasonable since I needed one anyway (I later went back and price matched the stand). I also was asked to spend $125 for the stand to be assembled by Geek Squad for the deal (which was a waste of money, but they are putting it together for me).

Free delivery was given, and 36 months 0% financing too.

I have in the past worked similar deals at BestBuy by bringing an online ad in, and asking the sales person to “come close” to the advertised price. This was the first time that they directly matched the price, but BestBuy has always come down closer to the online price when I asked.

One of the keys, I’m always nice – I always mention how I have bought big ticket items from them before (verifiable through my RewardZone card).

I’ll always go to Best Buy first when making big ticket electronics purchases and see if they’re willing to come close to the prices I’ve found online — and I’d rather spend $100 more for an expensive TV so I have the peace of mind that I can bring it back to the B&M if there’s a problem.

Okay first of all there are packages the computer automatically takes money off. Items when baught with others, those are always advertised. Second, regular associates don’t get bonus mgrs and supervisors do. It’s simple bring in a local competitors add we will match it. I am a supervisor at 1 location Iquiz all my employees making sure they know the price match policy. I absolutely love the people who think a 19 year old kid trying to make some money for mcdonalds after school, is out to ” screw you over” and about service plans… If you ever went to a bar or party I’m sure you have seen a camera or phone drop well if that person would have spent 35 dollars more on the camera they wouldn’t be so upset… I’ve replaced so many products it’s insane… I’d say 25% of my interactions are replacing something via a service plan. Yes it makes us money no doubt most profitable thing we got doesn’t mean it doesn’t come in handy when shot goes wrong. To repeat what someone else said why are you doing price matches why not go to al’s tv and see how it goes hope it works out for you.

What is most puzzling is whether or not these price match deals are below Best Buy’s cost…

Suppose the COST on the item is $1000.
Best Buy regular price is $1700
Competitor has it on sale for $1100.

Best Buy is turning away $100 profit for… what reason exactly? They’d rather have the customer take their business elsewhere rather than get the profit?

I am baffled by this and would expect that Best Buy is using specific statistics to measure performance like profit % per item etc. and not looking at the bottom line: how much profit in hard $$$.

(Of course selling below cost to match a competitors price is not fun, but Best Buy must have top-tier buying power with ALL consumer electronic vendors, up there with Wal-Mart, Sears, etc… so if another retailer is selling at a lower price, they’re very likely making less profit, but Best Buy can STILL afford to price match.

Always amazes me when Retail Morons (ie: Worst Buy) still don’t even have the common sense to look around them and see their bretheren (read: fellow lowlife retail morons) falling for the VERY SAME poor customer service that Worst Buy excels in. And they actually wonder why people dance in the aisles when they go under. Poor little uneducated retail morons

Best Buy is a dishonorable and dishonest company plain and simple. They have lied to me and to other customers dozens of times in my visits about HDMI cables and life expectancies of plasma TVs among many other things. Not too long ago i asked them to pricematch a DVD recorder that Sears had for $199 ($50 less than BB), the salesman brought up a screen on his terminal that had several icons and selected “Employee Tools. From there, he brought up very real looking but fake Sears website that showed the same exact model to be $80 more than the real Sears site i’d been looking at at home only 15 minutes prior. The address bar on his “browser” said “about:blank”. He refused to type in http://www.sears.com instead. I told him off, went straight home, looked at Sears website which still showed it at $199, then drove to Sears and bought it. These sort of scams have to be coming from the higher levels of management, it’s not some rogue website administrator or manager or salesman. I filed a detailed complaint with the Better Business Bureau, something i’ve never felt compelled to do before.

What cracks me up is that best buy will not price match ANY compusa prices (which are AWESOME) because they state that compusa is a wholesaler. BS. They just cant keep up with them. Welcome back CompUSA!

That does not happend in compusa or tigerdirect, they do price matching as long as we show an ad from a retail store or the lower price on a website which is rare because they carry the best prices everywhere.

They call it Best Lie for a reason….

You know i’m going to play devils advocate here, i’m not defending best buy per se because i hate them….but the general attitude that all stores owe you something.

I will confess that I work in a small independant electronic store, luckily most of our sales are custom installations and audio distribution.

However we do sell some tv’s…NOW What the hell do you people expect??, how about the store manager give you the shirt off his back as well, how much profit do you think is made on the average tv sale???…at best buys prices, they are lucky if they get 10%-12% profit. Factor in manpower and delivery and whats left, more often than not since last november…less than nothing??, do you people think that Circuit city went away magically??..No they were driven out of business by other companies falling all over themselves to see who could LOSE more money selling YOU a TV. woohoo you saved 250$ on a tv, but at what cost?? Thousands of Jobs LOST by your fellow countrymen, oh well at least you got a good deal on your TV.

Don’t you see that you are killing all the businesses that built your country?? keep asking stores to price match against each other, keep asking stores to price match online prices or ebay prices and you will have no brick and mortar businesses left.

Keep it up America and ALL you will have left is WAL-MART.

You did it to your selves

Same story applies to Best Buy Canada and Future Shop stores.

I remember trying to price match a speaker set sold by Dell. BB employee simply said “we cannot do it because Dell is not on our list”, whatever that meant. No mentioning of any “lists” in their price matching policy. You could tell the guy was making it up on the spot — this was Sherway BBYC in Etobicoke, Ontario. I decided to give my money to Dell instead of dealing with BB crooks.

To start with I want to say Alex Greene is an idiot.Pricematch to Dell? WTF does dell pricematch to BB.NO i have bought many many laptops and other things from DELL,I do not know of any store that regulary on a national level woud pricematch DELL.Where does DELL have retail stores? WHATEVER…Finally BestBuy is not always the most honest but which store in general is more honest? Walmart? HAHA Sam’s LOL what a joke. Circuit city? I has bought a DVD Player from CC when they were running a Promotion and so was BB.The reason i was buying it from CC is that i had a CC credit card and CC offered a 10% of the difference off the competitors price on a pricematch.I got the item for the discounted price.Both stores were running the % free dvds offer but the CC manager would not honor the free dvd’s.He said pay another $50 for the Player and I wil give you the FREE DVD’s. I took many pictures of the sign on my phone.They first said the free dvds didn’t exist there was no deal like that.IT was after showing them the sign that the manager told me to PAY $50 more for my FREE dvd’s.Corporate also would not do anything saying it was up to the manager. At least BB wi sometimes make corrections a the corporate level and will try to give good customer service when the store hasn’t. Do you really want WALMART to be the only store in town to choose from? I have seen it happen and have seen the prices go UP when they had no local competition left. Idiots.I do a lot of online purchases also but you can’t get customer service too often online when something is not right.

I couldn’t agree more with what Mike said:

—-

Quote: “However we do sell some tv’s…NOW What the hell do you people expect??, how about the store manager give you the shirt off his back as well, how much profit do you think is made on the average tv sale???…at best buys prices, they are lucky if they get 10%-12% profit. Factor in manpower and delivery and whats left, more often than not since last november…less than nothing??, do you people think that Circuit city went away magically??..No they were driven out of business by other companies falling all over themselves to see who could LOSE more money selling YOU a TV. woohoo you saved 250$ on a tv, but at what cost?? Thousands of Jobs LOST by your fellow countrymen, oh well at least you got a good deal on your TV.

Don’t you see that you are killing all the businesses that built your country?? keep asking stores to price match against each other, keep asking stores to price match online prices or ebay prices and you will have no brick and mortar businesses left.

Keep it up America and ALL you will have left is WAL-MART.

You did it to your selves”

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People have no idea how much money is LOST when people go crazy over these price-matching games. Everyone loves places like Sams Club, Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. They might not “pressure” you into buying “things you don’t need,” but they also aren’t going to be there to provide those “services you didn’t need” when you can’t get your TV hooked up. Nor are they going to be able to answer questions you might have about the product when you aren’t sure. I can’t tell you how many people played the game of getting all their questions asked at my store, then simply taking their business to a local Wal-Mart.

Bottom Line: Places like Best Buy exist because people demand a higher level of service. It’s more than just going in, pointing at something and saying, “I want it.” People are going to be really sad when places like Best Buy don’t exist anymore and all we have left is online retailers and wholesale warehouses. Sure, the geeks out there (probably most that read these blogs and comments) will be alright, but all those who do not see technology as a hobby or interest will be at a huge loss.

Just yesterday (3/17) I was in a Manhattan Best Buy. I had intended to go to B&H earlier in the day to buy a camera for a nephew but ended up working late.

I knew Best Buy sold the same Nikon D40 kit with two lenses, but at nearly $200 more. Normally, I would not buy a DSLR from Best Buy. I like to support the local New York stores, but I was not sure I would make it to B&H before seeing my nephew, so I asked about matching prices with the young saleswoman. When I mentioned B&H, you could see the wheels turning in her head.

BB “B&H? They’re a wholesaler, so, no, we don’t match their prices.”

Me “Wholesaler? You can’t be serious. I can walk right into their store and walk out with that camera.”

BB: “Okay. Maybe we’ll do it. But not if it’s like more than $50 or so.”

Me: “Huh?… Okay, I get it. Your policy is to make stuff up so that you don’t have to price match. Adios.”

It was clear she was trying to come up with reasons that were previously explained to her but that she couldn’t remember very well. This is clearly not an isolated practice. This is company policy.

As for the web pages that Best Buy shows in the store, they are already under the gun from the Attorney General of Connecticut for that very practice.

Circuit City went under for firing their best sales people when they needed to make sales. Best Buy will go under for abusing a program that is intended to build loyalty but in practice just alienates customers.

I suppose we deserve this treatment since we insist on the lowest prices all the time.

We are certainly getting what we pay for.

I live in the Pacific Northwest–here, Best Buy is by far the greatest store for customer service. I’m not an employee, just a loyal customer. I purchased an LG LCD tv a few weeks ago, it was an open box special, so they took $500 off. Before shipping, the manager called me up and told me there was one more missing item than they expected. This alone is better service than i’ve ever received. She went a step further and knocked $130 off. Long story short…I took that TV back, and they honored the already discounted price toward the same LG LCD, but brand spankin’ new.
I consistently get this type of great service from Best Buy—never once from Circuit City or any other box store. Sorry you have such terrible service in New England…

Best Buy does match wholesalers and it is in their price matching policy that they will do it. They used to not price match wholesalers years ago, but I believe that policy was changed a little over three years ago. As far as not price matching a competitor that was $700 less than them, the only reason I could see them not doing that was because they would be selling the tv under cost. If that was the case, then it makes good business sense not to price match it. Why would you lose money on something you sell? You don’t stay in business very long doing that. Now you may be wondering why one place can sell it that cheap as opposed to Best Buy not being able to? After all, they are the largest electronics retailer in America right? The reason is two words: Vendor Support! The way it works, is companies like Best Buy, Conn’s, H.H. Gregg etc.. will negotiate with their vendors like Panasonic, Samsung,etc.. What they do is that company will sell a certain brand at an extremely low cost for one week or a couple of days, possibly under the cost. Then the vendor will reimburse them for selling that cheap. If you’ve been in retail at all the term “Glossy is good” is what it’s all about. Usually every thing in a companies ad is being vendor supported so they are making that money back up. That’s why a lot of stores will not price match a huge discount because if they are not being reimbursed then they are just essentially losing money if its below cost. It actually makes them money by not selling it to you. As far as the free delivery, it is free offer. It cannot be combined with a price match.

Alex Greene Idiot!!!
Posted on 18th March, 2009

To start with I want to say Alex Greene is an idiot.Pricematch to Dell? WTF does dell pricematch to BB.NO i have bought many many laptops and other things from DELL,I do not know of any store that regulary on a national level woud pricematch DELL.Where does DELL have retail stores? WHATEVER…Finally BestBuy is not always the most honest but which store in general is more honest? Walmart? HAHA Sam’s LOL what a joke. Circuit city? I has bought a DVD Player from CC when they were running a Promotion and so was BB.The reason i was buying it from CC is that i had a CC credit card and CC offered a 10% of the difference off the competitors price on a pricematch.I got the item for the discounted price.Both stores were running the % free dvds offer but the CC manager would not honor the free dvd’s.He said pay another $50 for the Player and I wil give you the FREE DVD’s. I took many pictures of the sign on my phone.They first said the free dvds didn’t exist there was no deal like that.IT was after showing them the sign that the manager told me to PAY $50 more for my FREE dvd’s.Corporate also would not do anything saying it was up to the manager. At least BB wi sometimes make corrections a the corporate level and will try to give good customer service when the store hasn’t. Do you really want WALMART to be the only store in town to choose from? I have seen it happen and have seen the prices go UP when they had no local competition left. Idiots.I do a lot of online purchases also but you can’t get customer service too often online when something is not right.
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Ramblings from a retard. CC went out of business because capitalism works. I’ll gladly schooled you on capitalism if you want. WM will never be the only store in town because in the history of mankind monopolies have failed and never worked out.

Warlock said it… At least do some research before you post your garbage.

Dell does have retail locations in Canada. And yes, other stores do price match Dell. I’ve done it on a number of occasions.

And one more thing… Get help…

Another note. I read some real funny comments of the type “stores like Best Buy will go out of business if customers insist on price matching…” The idiocy of this is beyond me…

Here’s a tip — MODIFY PRICE MATCHING POLICY OR GET RID OF IT ALTOGETHER IF YOU DON’T INTEND TO FOLLOW IT. What Best Buy and Future Shop are doing is dishonest at best and criminal at worst.

“dishonest at best and criminal at worst” hmmmmmm….seems like i’ve heard that somewhere…does the Daily Show ring a bell???

I’ve worked as a cashier for Best Buy and as Computer Sales for Staples. Never have I been instructed to lie about quantity to a customer. I agree however, there is a high amount of pressure from my managers to sell plans. At Best Buy as a cashier, my managers would be on everybody case all day to see how many service plans were sold, or how many rewards signups we had, or how many magazine subscriptions we’d sold. They routinely do performance checks where a manager would grade your sales performance. At Staples on the sales floor, their is equal if not greater pressure to sell. I am supposed to attach Norton 360, MS Office, an Extended warranty, and an EasyTech Service(Staples version of Geek Squad). I would receive so much pressure from every manager in the store to attach all those and would be lectured to the point of harassment from some people. It makes for a very stressful job environment. So next time you are in a retail store, just keep in mind the pressure some of these associates are under.

HD Guru, I disagree with your position some of these techniques bring the consumer to a lower level.Why would you want to ‘show your cards’ be walking into a Best Buy or other store waving a competitor’s flyer? Consider it an ‘ace in the hole’, so to speak. Asking about extended warranties and such is not the same as saying I want it. The customer’s job is to spend as little money as possible. The saleman’s job is to get as much of the customer’s money as possible. You’re bound to get dirty when you jump into the ‘trenches’.
Hey, Best Buy started this merry-go-round when they started price matching. All’s fair, etc., etc.

If BestBuy won’t pricematch his $700 difference, why didn’t he just go to the other store and buy it instead of making a big deal about it? Sounds like someone was trying to pull a scam here!

All I have to say… is wow.

Oddly enough, I think that the demise of Circuit City has put Best Buy is a position where it’s only competing with itself and it doesn’t really know how to do that very well.

I’ve bought 4 HDTVs from Best Buy in the last 3 months (I’m a TV Geek) and the service was good. Then again, I only came in to buy what I needed and get out.

The last time I went in was over the weekend to pickup a 42V4100 for $799. The sales guy told me at first that it “wasn’t in stock.” What he didn’t realize is that I had already spoken to someone who told me to ask else first who told me that they were. I think these employees just don’t care. They don’t care enough to give good service, they don’t care enough to follow the rules, they don’t care to treat people correctly. Of course, I’m not talking about all of them, but with such a high turnover rate — I’m speak about a lot of them.

First off in regards to the Price Match Policy every electronics retailer negotiates pricing on a weekly basis with the manufactuers to produce the “best value” pricing for the customers. The problem is the retailer gets a vendor kickback at the end of the month or year based on these sale prices. For Best Buy to price match a $700 discount taken on a TV is not in the best interest of the company simply because I’m sure that takes the price down below cost, therefore, the company looses assets because they don’t get the kickback in the end. Look at it this way, cut out your annoying adverts on the site and pay for the hosting and all costs associated, you’d be losing your tail because it’s not sensible. You’re encouraging people to lower their values because of a poor experience you had at a few bestbuy stores in New York of all places.

I was “murfed” by BB recently when I attempted to get them to match an offer from Sears on a 40″ 650 series Samsung TV. I ended up going to Ultimate Electronics a few weeks later and bought a 46″ Z-series after they matched BB’s price on the set. BB may shirk their responsibility to honor their promises, but there are others that stand behind what they say, and those companies get my business…

First off, I do work for Best Buy so anyone can feel free to disregard my point of view on their belief that I’m out to screw people.

In response to service plans being a huge rip… I work in the Geek Squad and have for years. There is a very different experience customers have with and without the extended plans. My store sells maybe 10-15 notebooks a day. We get about 5-7 broken notebooks a day that are no longer covered under the manufacturers warranty, about half of which do have a plan. Of course, some of them need multiple repairs over their life and most people never have an issue. So when you look at the general case, yes, we do make money on the service plans. However that doesn’t mean it’s still not a value to the customer. That would be the same thing as saying “hey, don’t get duped into buying car insurance or homeowner’s insurance. Those companies exist solely to make money!” Well, no crap. All companies exist to make money. That doesn’t mean they purposefully provide a bad experience. Insurance is about making a small amount of money and providing peace of mind and affordable payments for the ‘what it’.

So, sure, don’t spend the extra money on the service plan for your tv. That’s your choice. In the event that you get a power surge or the circuit board fails, or whatever else may happen just remember you chose to force yourself to buy a new tv. Sure, it won’t happen every time. It won’t even happen most of the time. That’s why the plan isn’t the same cost as the tv. Also, yes there is some pressure put on sales people to OFFER service plans and services. However, they are not on commission and their job and hours are not dependent on selling those (which is why Best Buy got where it did). We are going to coach the employees on selling them though because that is one of the few places where we can marginally increase profits (or get out from a loss on ad-item notebooks). Also despite what all of these websites say, many of those options ARE good for many of our customers.

That’s what irks me most about these dredge articles and the people who post on them is that it’s a bunch of tech geeks out to demonize the industry. Well, like it or not you aren’t our most numerous or our best customers. Of course we will take care of you the best we can, but the customers we get most often are the same customers who find value in our services. That’s the customers we cater too, those that expect extra service. Just remember, if you don’t find value in something it doesn’t mean that it’s worthless.

Last note about the actual pricing of inventory. If you spend a dollar in a retail establishment, that place has to turn around and buy that item, pay the credit card fee, pay the cashier, pay the sales person who helped you find your item, pay the inventory person who stocked and priced it, pay the truck driver who delivered it, pay for the truck itself, pay for the distribution center, pay rent, utilities, supplies, cleaning crew, property tax, etc. In the end a retail store is doing well if they have two pennies to rub together. Three is doing extremely well. Then of course, we turn around and pay tax. Having ‘$300′ profit on a TV, is most certainly NOT $300 all said and done.

Thanks,
-Eric

Best Buy serves a useful purpose… It allows us to see an HDTV in person before we buy it somewhere else at a cheaper price!

I have succesfully priced match items at stores and have unsuccessfully tried to price match items at stores. I take it with a grain of salt if the retailer won’t price match I goto the store that has the ad in the first place.

Just like a retailer tries to make as much $$$ as they can a consumer has the right to save as much $$$ as we can.

I’m Canadian so I have the Bestbuy and Futureshop sceneros. Same company as BB owns FS. Anyways I wanted a game that was listed in FS as 39.99 but at BB it was 59.99. All I did was bring the game upto the cashier and without proof told her FS price to my amazement I got the price match without any confirmation and walked out with the game even cheaper than FS as BB pm’d 110%.

There is a success story.

Also you can price match online prices in some instances but the price match will include any shipping charges so say an item is

99.99 online w/ 7.99 shipping

now say said item in store is

102.99

the price match will not go through for 99.99 because w/ shipping the total is 106.99 and the instore price is 102.99 already beating the price.

Say insted of the instore price being 102.99 its 119.99 then the price match for 106.99 would be met.

You win some you lose some but arguing about a PM only wastes everyones time

HD GURU, you can’t be serious you call yourself knowledgeable??? you probably sit at home getting paid by walmart and office depot and others to bad mouth competitors. Why do you get a real job instead of acting like a know it all. I shop at best buy all the time and I always get price matches. Try doing actual research instead of making up fairy tales.

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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and you’re cheap. Real nice way to get a business to want your business.

I went to BB to purchase a 360 elite for $299.99. I had an ad from Microcenter which offered a $50 gift card on top of a 360 elite purchase. It seemed like a straightforward price match.

When I went to price match the customer service for a price match, they first lied to me about not being allowed to price match gift cards. I had a copy of their polices which states they will do so.

After waiting around for 20 minutes they notified me that they could not meet the price match as the price match cost would cause them to lose money.

After some forward and back negotiating they offered me a $285 price cut. I found that unacceptable and decided not to pursue it any further.

I just want to point out that BB can sell at or below cost and still make money. What people fail to realize is that BB gets a volume rebate from the manufacturers they carry to sell their product in a BB store. This is quite common in all volume retail. Sell 45 billion (2008) in and get a modest 3 percent (likely more around 5) back at the end of the year from the manufacturer, thats 135 million just for offering it. So BB has discretion of how much they want to sell the product for. They try to sell it for as much as possible and at the end of the year they’ll get a kick back from the manufacturer for selling a certain volume. So don’t EVER think that cost is “true” cost and believe that if you make BB honor their price match below cost, that you’ll actually hurt them. BB has an awesome market share and if a manufacturer wants BB to sell their product, BB demands they get a rebate at the end of the fiscal year. Bottom line. So I don’t feel sorry for them. They do the same sh!t to the manufacturers! God forbid they get a taste of their own medicine!