Why Best Buy is Going out of Business...Gradually

eggrock said:
Broad, but not deep. Case in point, I looked at their headphone selection (out of curiosity) and they had.. Bose, Skullcandy, Beats, Sony and a handful of others--pretty much all overpriced junk compared to what I've been able to find online at cheaper prices.

True, I can't listen to a pair of headphones that Amazon sells, but I sure as hell can read reviews and ask questions in communities dedicated to audio--in other words, the *real* experts.
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If you go back to their music section, where they sell guitars they have real stuff like sennheisser. Though like you said it is of course stupid that these items are not cross merchandised in the music section.
 
I have walked out of BB on a couple of occasion for the reason stated in the OP. Unfortunately I keep coming back because here, in the great white north, there isn't anywhere else to go.

Personal Anecdote. I had a student in my class that never showed up, thought he was master of computers (because he had discovered 4chan), and was basically a waste of space .... guess where he works ... yup.
 
Meh I wouldnt be to heart broken if best buy went under. I find myself going there about once a month but often leave without buying anything. Besides purchasing my laptop for school I only spend about $25~30 a year there. Tried to buy a TV there last year but they completely screwed that up (ordered online for instore pickup, sold last unit to someone else) so I ended going to target and got a much better deal. I mainly buy PC hardware online unless I need it right now and in that case i got a few local mom and pop PC stores. As for TV's I prefer to buy from Costco, target, sears, etc.
 
mjz_5 said:
people have to realize that many times people like seeing a product in person. Who wants to buy a laptop or cell phone without ever trying it out. There were many laptops that i was interested in but after is played with the keyboard i was not interested anymore..
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This is important. It is an area best buy has a chance in. But lets look at them and see honestly that they are failing here too. Best buy did not get the ASUS transformer till damn near dead last. They could have been selling it like hot cakes. Instead they choose to only push the iPad, oh well guess what ever other freaking store in town had those and since the price was locked they had no advantage. Go into a best buy and looks for other cool devices like the Acer W500 nope they don't have that.

The problem with best buy is they act like a big electronics retailer that is going to deliver products that only electronics stores have but in fact you fine almost all the same junk at walmart. They have hundreds of TVs and some of them are good but their staff is too uneducated to tell people what is good about them. On top of that they only push the high profit ones and not the good ones.

As another poster said I just find them to be totally worthless when I go in there.They have so many laptops and they are all just slight variations of each other. They are totally missing the cool stuff like the various iconias with dual touch screen. If they had this they could charge alot more for it and people would buy it who do not shop online.

Second a retail outlet should never be at a disadvantage when selling high volume items. IE it cost less for you to pick an item up and to exploit the supply chain than it does for amazon to deliver it to your house. Yet they do not understand this. Notice how walmart never has a problem, because some items are so high volume it is cheaper to ship them in bulk to stores than individually to each person.
 
WorstBuy is just a horrible place to shop. Period. Their floor people are tards, the management even more tardy. They constantly use bait and switch tactics. Their in-house tech dept. have several shady practices that have been highlighted here on the H and elsewhere. They constantly run out of product. Their mark-ups are ridiculous. Their own employee policies and procedures are draconian.

Between them and fry's I'd like to see them both go under and give the little guys a fighting chance again like it used to be back in the day. More community, less immunity. The only saving grace of fry's is their liberal return policies. Beyond that, they are basically WorstBuy in white and red.
 
Sixthsense said:
I guess I'm the minority here? I'm not a big fan on shipping back items at my own expense or paying a restocking fee.
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For one you have never shopped at amazon or simply do not know that amazon does neither. Free shipping back and no restocking fee..

Second if you order any volume of items, you simply make out better no matter what. yes every now and then between myself and close family members (20 people) we need to ship things back. but the time, and money saved on all the products that worked is way more than what we would lose in time and money buy going into best buy and buying all the same products.

Even with companies like monoprice that do not pay return shipping you still save so much money you cannot compete. For the $30 minimum it would cost you to buy an HDMI cable at best buy, you could buy 10 or more HDMI cables from monoprice of all different lenghts and styles and I guarentee not all 10 of them would be broken.

It is the same way with the warranty they sell at best buy, don't buy it because you wont use it in most cases. And in the few cases you would have you saved enough money on all the other warranties you did not buy you can afford more than a whole new item.
 
The annoyance factor is what really bothers me about them.

You go in, find the product you want which may be at a reasonable price. All I want to do is pay for it and leave. But first the salesperson wants to upsell you to a better product. Then they want to try and convince you to buy the extended warranty. Then they want to try to sell you on accessories, many of which are insanely overpriced and just prey on uneducated consumers (like the earlier mentioned HDMI cables).

When you finally can ditch them and head up front, the cashier tries to sell you on the same shit, and more! Would you like to extend your warranty? Would you like to sign up for a Best Buy credit card? Would you like to enroll in our rewards program? Which of these free trial magazine subscriptions would you like?

That last one was the straw that broke the camels back. First they started offering the trial subscriptions and asked you at checkout, which was annoying.

"Would you like a free trial subscription to one of these magazines?" Hell no, now take my money and let me leave.

Then they changed the phrasing.

"Which of these magazines would you like a free trial subscription to?" Which one? Ooh, I have a choice?! Piss off.

Again, they're preying on uneducated consumers, or shy/weak personalities. I'm sure they make a pretty penny on these "free" subscriptions, so they have all the reason to try and coerce people into getting one. Making it sound like you have to pick one is bullshit.

It's now cringe worthy to have to shop at Best Buy, so I just don't go there. If they die, I'll only notice from reading about it on the web, but I'll drink to their demise.
 
ghostee said:
The annoyance factor is what really bothers me about them.

You go in, find the product you want which may be at a reasonable price. All I want to do is pay for it and leave. But first the salesperson wants to upsell you to a better product. Then they want to try and convince you to buy the extended warranty. Then they want to try to sell you on accessories, many of which are insanely overpriced and just prey on uneducated consumers (like the earlier mentioned HDMI cables).

When you finally can ditch them and head up front, the cashier tries to sell you on the same shit, and more! Would you like to extend your warranty? Would you like to sign up for a Best Buy credit card? Would you like to enroll in our rewards program? Which of these free trial magazine subscriptions would you like?

That last one was the straw that broke the camels back. First they started offering the trial subscriptions and asked you at checkout, which was annoying.

"Would you like a free trial subscription to one of these magazines?" Hell no, now take my money and let me leave.

Then they changed the phrasing.

"Which of these magazines would you like a free trial subscription to?" Which one? Ooh, I have a choice?! Piss off.

Again, they're preying on uneducated consumers, or shy/weak personalities. I'm sure they make a pretty penny on these "free" subscriptions, so they have all the reason to try and coerce people into getting one. Making it sound like you have to pick one is bullshit.

It's now cringe worthy to have to shop at Best Buy, so I just don't go there. If they die, I'll only notice from reading about it on the web, but I'll drink to their demise.
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I've honestly never had anyone pester me about up sells. I simply shoo away the employees if I don't need help or get them to direct my to something if I do and then politely shoo them away.
 
rudy said:
For one you have never shopped at amazon or simply do not know that amazon does neither. Free shipping back and no restocking fee..

Second if you order any volume of items, you simply make out better no matter what. yes every now and then between myself and close family members (20 people) we need to ship things back. but the time, and money saved on all the products that worked is way more than what we would lose in time and money buy going into best buy and buying all the same products.

Even with companies like monoprice that do not pay return shipping you still save so much money you cannot compete. For the $30 minimum it would cost you to buy an HDMI cable at best buy, you could buy 10 or more HDMI cables from monoprice of all different lenghts and styles and I guarentee not all 10 of them would be broken.

It is the same way with the warranty they sell at best buy, don't buy it because you wont use it in most cases. And in the few cases you would have you saved enough money on all the other warranties you did not buy you can afford more than a whole new item.
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What is this then?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=901908#tv

Note: Returns of TVs purchased from a seller, but fulfilled by Amazon, that aren't the result of our error will be subject to a return shipping fee which will be deducted from the refund.
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I'm a long time shopper at Amazon, this is one of the reason why you do not get a TV at Amazon. There are times when it's better to walk into a B&M store opposed to ordering online this is one of those reasons. Keep in mind if the TV you want is not eligible for white glove delivery and it broke during transit you're basically screwed. I'll pay a little more thank you for bigger ticket items. If you know when to shop for certain items the pricing is not bad at all.(ie: buying a TV after the super bowl). I don't see B&M stores going the way of the dodo anytime soon
 
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phobos512 said:
This is going to make me seem like an awful person but with the population of the United States being (according to census.gov at this moment) 312,804,318, 200,000 works out to 0.06% of the population.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the US working age population is 237,830,000, so 200,000 works out to 0.085% of that group. The most recent unemployment rate is from November 2011 and that was 8.6%.

In other words, a total, complete, immediate shutdown of Best Buy would be a statistical drop in the bucket for the greater economy. In fact, it would probably stimulate (on a very minor scale) the economy (consumer spending) in the short term because you can be assured they'd have a huge inventory liquidation sale.
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:eek: Did anyone else notice this? This says 312 Trillion people in the US alone?!? I think you might have a few too many digits there maybe... ;)
 
drumr04 said:
:eek: Did anyone else notice this? This says 312 Trillion people in the US alone?!? I think you might have a few too many digits there maybe... ;)
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I think you might have seen that comma between the 300 million and the 200,000 wrong.
 
Well that is one thing I think Amazon could do better but I quickly learned on big ticket items that I do not use anyone but shipped and sold by amazon. If that is the case I have never had a problem. And just for the record even though newegg has specific return policies in general they will take care of you for free on bigger ticket items if there is a problem. I know they must have lost $200 in shipping on me one time for a HTIB that was replaced and returned all for free meaning a total of 4X shipping for giant box for them.

Best buy on the other hand on multiple occasions has forced me to fight to get a return even though a sales associate said it would be no problem. If tax and shipping included I can get an item for slightly more at a local shop of course if it is a TV that is huge I will often do it. But I have had plenty of TV deliveries from online places without a problem too.

As the article stated the cool thing about Amazon is they get it, they know what their weakness is and try to fix it the best they can by doing almost everything they can short of building brick and mortar stores.

I certainly never have said of felt there is no place for brick and mortar I jsut recognize the fact that the brick and mortar stores are doing a TERRIBLE job making themself relevant and the best thing that could happen at this point is just to watch them go bankrupt and see what springs up in their place.
 
Also I should mention with big ticket items like large TVs, the sales tax is a bigger deterent for brick and mortar stores, but people feel uncomfortable with returns. I am sure everyone in the right mind would prefer to buy such items locally. In fact I think almost everyone every where would prefer to buy everything locally. Who does not want to go in and see a product in person? Which is part of why brick and mortar stores are soooo pathetic because people want to like them but they are so bad they still make us hate them. One can only say wow what a total failure.
 
rudy said:
Also I should mention with big ticket items like large TVs, the sales tax is a bigger deterent for brick and mortar stores, but people feel uncomfortable with returns. I am sure everyone in the right mind would prefer to buy such items locally. In fact I think almost everyone every where would prefer to buy everything locally. Who does not want to go in and see a product in person? Which is part of why brick and mortar stores are soooo pathetic because people want to like them but they are so bad they still make us hate them. One can only say wow what a total failure.
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Why does anyone need to see commoditized products in person?
 
PersonalJ said:
Why does anyone need to see commoditized products in person?
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I am just saying if you had the choice to walk into newegg or amazon and browse around for what you want then buy for the same low price but maybe add tax, and take it home right then and there and support a local company I think you would do that quite a bit.

I would, and I know alot of people would. And then if you had to return it just take it back. That is the advantage best buy has, in fact they do not even need to pay shipping the customer pays shipping nearly all the time.

Toilet paper, oranges, steak, tooth brushes, almost all of it is similar why do we need to see it in person? Why don't we just order it all online? Why can walmart deliver the product cheaper than most online stores?

On one level it is about flow but on another level it is just about bad choices alot of brick and mortar retailers like best buy make over and over.
 
rudy said:
I am just saying if you had the choice to walk into newegg or amazon and browse around for what you want then buy for the same low price but maybe add tax, and take it home right then and there and support a local company I think you would do that quite a bit.

I would, and I know alot of people would. And then if you had to return it just take it back. That is the advantage best buy has, in fact they do not even need to pay shipping the customer pays shipping nearly all the time.

Toilet paper, oranges, steak, tooth brushes, almost all of it is similar why do we need to see it in person? Why don't we just order it all online? Why can walmart deliver the product cheaper than most online stores?

On one level it is about flow but on another level it is just about bad choices alot of brick and mortar retailers like best buy make over and over.
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Some of that walmart stuff is simply a loss leader to get you in the store. Compare Best Buy laptop pricing to Newegg, Best Buy has them generally beat simply because they want foot traffic.
 
That is neither here nor there, newegg, amazon, everyone does loss leaders for exposure. Sometimes newegg does $50 coupons to new accounts when there is no way there is that much profit in the eligible items.
 
tuksonrider said:
Honestly, there are very few superbox electronic brick & mortar stores. There will be less. What's left other than BB?
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I live just outside of Chicago. They opened up a Fry's out here. And it's absolutely killing every BB store within about 20 miles.

I can count on 1 finger the number of Fry's electronic stores there are in the entire state of AZ, and it's a 110 miles from me.
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Betting if a few more of the big-box stores go "dying cockroach" you'll see more.

Don't get me wrong. Fry's is perfect or anything. But comparing them to BB? Fry's is a 5 star restaurant and BB is a Whammy Burger and D-Fens is walking through the door with his bag of guns.
 
you mean how usually about 10 kids working at crapbuy gathering up around customer service counter and chat about stupid highschool or college stuffs with pants down their ankles and tats and earrings on their faces and have no clue about anything stocked or knowledgeable or even care about customer service is the downfall for crapbuy? no way or even how they would have one cash register open or lie about services and tech specs
 
I need to feel "safe" when I'm shopping.

When I walk into a Best Buy store, because I dropped my dataplan, I can't price shop and they don't have an outlet to check prices online.

If the prices were reasonable, say a 10% markup from what I could find online rather consistently, then I would continue to shop there for the convenience. But its not, they have some items with unbelievable markups.

I saw 3 foot HDMI cables for $50, power strips for $80, and Windows XP Home for $300... one license, not a three pack.
 
sprtnbsblplya said:
Absolutely. That is the biggest frustration when I shop for parts on Amazon. That and I have to filter by "Prime Option" so it only lists Amazon sold merchandise so I know I'll get hassle free returns and free shipping. Third party sellers, usually not as great an experience.
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I would say my biggest frustration is the ATTEMPT to filter by Prime. It doesn't work when dealing with searches that will result in few items. So, Amazon decides to be "helpful" and add not quite relevant items and non-Prime items(Even though I can see the Prime filter checked!).



If I am looking for a part, I use NewEgg to find it. Then I paste the part number into Amazon. Dirty, I know, but NewEgg rapes on shipping, quadruply so when shipping APO.
 
am i the only one who shops for TVs at best buy? their prices on small things suck but i usually can't find better deals on TVs anywhere.
 
The comments of that article are absolutely remarkable. There's dozens of Best Buy employees criticizing the article because the author mistook an annoying DirecTV representative for an annoying Best Buy representative.

What they and their managers and middle management and executives completely fail to understand is that the annoying DirecTV and Comcast reps are part of the Best Buy experience. They're entirely focused on their own duties and covering their ass, because no one wants to be blamed or take responsibility, that they've completely missed the point. A customer driven business understands that each step of the process needs to work in order to achieve a positive buying outcome. If third party reps are driving customers away, then they're destroying the process. Saying "but I did my job well" is meaningless in the long run, because as long as one of the parts is failing, you won't have a job in the long run.

This is the most pertinent line from the entire piece, and why old style business models are failing:
Best Buy does what would be most convenient for the company for consumers to want but don’t, then crosses its fingers and prays.
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Yep that is a trend the article points out. Best Buy like most companies will never admit wrong doing they will always try to push the blame on someone else.

But they forget that much of the public does not even understand what a rep is. Any person helping in a best buy is a best buy employee to them. (sometimes that is even customers). And lets be honest it may very well be Best Buys financial issues that are causing them to allow the reps to set up tables in there and annoy customers.
 
A lot of the comments I've seen made in this thread are surprising.

You cant "wait for them to shutdown".

"Their PC Gaming section is too small now."

"terrible service" <-- well i agree with this one, but this seems to be most all big box stores now.


I DO shop at best buy, but its normally only for things like TVs, appliances, and maybe even a printer.
I prefer to purchase my TVs and appliances from there for several reasons, but the most important is the fact that I WOULD NEVER want to purchase a TV without seeing the picture first, and its just much easier to make a return on such big items when you can carry back in the store instead of shipping it and paying out the ass for shipping costs.

I purchased a 46" samsung from BB last year and my first one i brought home was defective, so instead of waiting a week for the shipping and RMA process I got to run it back down to the store and exchange it out. Done Deal.

Same thing for my washer and dryer. Luckily I didnt get a defective washer and dryer, but I got to physically go into the store and check it out.

I also want to address the statement made about the PC gaming department shrinking.
I dont think their is much money to be made with a big PC Gaming department in a retail store like that. Hardware changes too much, Console games are more popular these days, and I just think its just to pricey with not enough return from the customer. I hate it, because I only game on the PC (unless its a football game with a buddy on a console).

Do i believe they need to get better with customer service? Yes. Because it can be shitty.
Do I want them to close down? Heck no. I love being able to physically walk into a store and test items. Plus 180k+ jobs is just too many to lose.
 
I will add that i do HATE the vendors that harass the ever living shit out of you though. They have got to go.
 
It does not matter if there is not as much money to be made in PC gaming the fact is if you are the only store in town selling the stuff you have a monopoly on local sales. Heaven forbid any of your managers be smart enough to try to educate consumers and get them to want to upgrade or build their own machines. Best buy is losing business because there is very little in there I cannot see somewhere else in my town.

Second TVs hardly have any profit either yet you see they fill the store with them. Why is that? well for one they can sell you monster cables, second if they did not have all those TVs, there would litterally be no reason to goto best buy. Because of the reason I mentioned above.

Appliances? Their selection is no better than anyone else. Home depot, sears, lowes.
Phones? All US carriers have TONS of stores in every town which all sell exactly the same phones.
Computers, the funny thing is while best buy has more than most they do not have a variety. All their computers and parts are like the same. They do not have much of the unique stuff. Took them forever to get the transformer, they still do not have several of the cool acer iconias.
Monitors, every monitor is a cheapo basic TN panel half the time staples or office max has just as many. How about you get a 30 inch beast in there and show people what it can do, will they buy it maybe not but if they see one for 2k they might think the 24 inch IPS looks like a good deal.

And you know what my favorite part is when you go into buy something they try to sell you on one of the items everyone offers. Go in for a tablet they want you to buy an iPad, oh good idea dont pick one of the ones you have exclusively in the town.

See best buy does not get that if you are going to be a specialty store you need to have special products and a special reason for people to show up. Other wise the only thing that matters is the lowest prices.
 
I cant remember the last time I actually bought from best buy. I go in probably once a month. But never buy due to pricing. Cables can had for a decent price somtimes at Frys but never at best buy, then you get smarter and think hmmm what about amazon or newegg. I do like to see stuff in person though. So somtimes I buy from Frys and maybe pay a little more because I dont want to wait and appriciate being able to put my hands on it in the store. (My last major purchase at best buy was my 9800radeon on sale for a good price at the time.)
 
rudy said:
Monitors, every monitor is a cheapo basic TN panel half the time staples or office max has just as many. How about you get a 30 inch beast in there and show people what it can do, will they buy it maybe not but if they see one for 2k they might think the 24 inch IPS looks like a good deal.
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BB used to stock high end 24" and 30" monitors in store but 1) barely anyone bought them and 2) people who did were cherry picking. Now they just sell them online.
 
I gotta agree with the difficulty of not losing my temper in a Best Buy store.

Online shopping is't great through them though. Many times, item's I've wanted to get through them are back-ordered for weeks, when they're readily available through Amazon.

And games are an insult, unless you're a Reward Zone member.

TLDR, they have shit for service in my local store... just like Borders did, down the street from it. If they go under, I won't be bothered by it.
 
The story I hear in here are pretty much the same as in Sweden. Actually one of the big retailers just went out of business. The most successful store does have an online shop with competitive online prices. The prices in the actual stores are still marked up. It's pretty funny to order something online and then go and pick it up with the store pricetag still sitting on the product....
 
B&M is not the reason best buy sucks so bad. They're just a shitty company I refuse to support.

<3 Fry's for b&m stuff.

Still amzn/newegg/etc get most of my business :(
 
What's the matter Best Buy? Butt hurt much? Can't cope with the competition?

The true Best Buy experience:
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The sooner Best Buy dies, the better. Maybe Micro Center will finally build a store that's closer to where I live.

I've driven two hours to the nearest MC to buy parts for multiple builds. Why? Because it's a fun place to go, and their CPU bundles are great. Oh, and NOBODY ever tries to sell me random crap or extended warranties. They know better. Are the prices higher than online? Yeah, but they at least try to be competitive. I can deal with paying a bit more for the convenience.
 
Did anyone forget to mention hhgregg? We just got one where I live and where I go to school. If BB was to die now, we would at least have that B&M alternative.
 
Sorry for double post.

But I don't want to see Best Buy go. Do I hate their customer service and lack of knowledge? Absolulely. Do I despise how awful they are when they take advantage of an uninformed customer and charge out the ass for services ($50 to install a wireless router, set up your PS3 and download all the updates), you bet your ass I do.

But at the same time, sometimes they have decent sales on small stuff that it's easier for me to just go to the store than to wait for shipping. I'm a huge fan of owning physical media (gasp!) for movies. When they're first released they're no more expensive at BB than Amazon or anywhere else.
 
Geek Squad + Pushy Sales People + High Prices = Death
More than once I have easily fixed a PC problem that Geek Squad was not able to repair.
More than once I was lead astray by "knowledgeable" sales people.
Never found a Best Buy at Best Buy. Not once.
 
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