Under pressure from state investigators, Best Buy is now confirming my reporting that its stores have a secret intranet site that has been used to block some consumers from getting cheaper prices advertised on BestBuy.com.
This actually happened to my husband a few months ago, he saw a DVD advertised online for a certain price, asked about it at the store and they took him to this kiosk and showed him a page that looked just like Best Buy's website, but had different pricing.
He just drove home, bought it online for the advertised price and in store pick up, then went back to the same store to get it.
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Best Buy should just make a disclaimer that prices vary between online and physical stores.
The way they are going about it is totally wrong but I can understand them needing to have different pricing for online and ground stores. Online is always cheaper. That's why many of us buy from Newegg. It's hard to penalize Best Buy because they have ground stores. I appreciate the very few places I can go to physically buy electronics now. CompUSA just closed down all of its stores in the Phoenix Metro area and I guess half of their stores nationwide. They can't compete with the two Fry's Mega stores in Phoenix and with Newegg and other stores online.
I'm OK with higher prices in Best Buy stores and understand that I'm paying for convenience and the extra cost of paying for the store location, it's employees, the transportation, etc.
Best Buy needs to be up front about it. The fake web site is lame. Wireless access is gaining in popularity so soon people will be able to access the net easier on a device they can bring in the store and pwn them on the spot.
It's nothing new really. Other sites have similar things built in. Try Dell's sites. I get one set of prices through my employer's access site, and another (for the same specials) through other mailing lists through Dell directly.
Also, Best Buy employees are (generally) more open about this around here. It came up a few times, and they explained that it is due to the lower overhead with online business, although you can still get the prices advertised online by doing the in-store pickup option. There were some situations that I have even heard them recommending that a customer use that option.
Boogahz wrote:
Also, Best Buy employees are (generally) more open about this around here. It came up a few times, and they explained that it is due to the lower overhead with online business, although you can still get the prices advertised online by doing the in-store pickup option. There were some situations that I have even heard them recommending that a customer use that option.
I did it all the time... and I got bitched at for it repeatedly..and loved every second of it..
I worked at Bestbuy for three months and fuckin hated it.. the first time someone told me they saw a cheaper price online than in store i checked it out for myself and found it...asked a co-worker and she told me the deal.. so from there on i told people to just order it online and pick it up in store..
Needless to say when I put in my two weeks after finding my new job they told me it wasn't needed.. Couldn't complain about the week vacation though!
Yeah, it was on the Marketplace Morning Report for March 6. Basically the prices on the internal website are different from the external website. It really has nothing to do with various stores. It's a pretty clear bait and switch if you ask me.
Fuck Best Buy. Oh, and fuck their extended service plans. Unless you get a customer service manager for the store, some pimply faced fuck will screw you over like you wouldn't believe.
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Yeah goodluck.... the customer service manager at our store was the most cold hearted bitch i had ever met... i really contemplated shooting her for the good of the country..
those extended service plans are pretty clear cut actually.. i mean you can do just about anything to say your ipod or digital camera and they'll just replace it with a new one...
Vaemas wrote:Yeah, it was on the Marketplace Morning Report for March 6. Basically the prices on the internal website are different from the external website. It really has nothing to do with various stores. It's a pretty clear bait and switch if you ask me.
Fuck Best Buy. Oh, and fuck their extended service plans. Unless you get a customer service manager for the store, some pimply faced fuck will screw you over like you wouldn't believe.
It's only a bait-and-switch if they actually refer to the internal site as the internet site you had checked before. If you are having them reference it to confirm a deal you saw online, and they pull up the internal site to show that it isn't available. This is why I said it can differ between stores. The three I frequent are very open about the difference between the two sites. One is geared to the store itself, and the other is geared to internet shopping. I have actually found coupons from their kiosks that were not available online.
The extended warranty is not something I would normally endorse. For some products such as consoles, mp3 players, etc. they are not a bad idea. I have had a good experience in any returns I have taken in myself. The only poor experience I ever had was when I was taking care of an issue with my sister's old Compaq desktop. They kept shipping the PC to be repaired with the same type of defective drive rather than doing anything in-house, but that has more to do with the service contracts they have with the manufacturers than the actual store staff.
I had researched online, found the product I wanted and saw it in-stock at the local Circuit City. At the store, the told me up front they couldn't give me the same pricing as the online ad.
So I called home and had my daughter order it online for in-store pickup and told the dude he had 24 minutes to get my order out. A manager walked up and asked what the deal was and I explained it. He told the dude behind the counter he was a moron and they could meet any online price and even showed him how to check it.
Anyway, I got the item I wanted at the online price within 24 minutes:)
