Best Buy Gives Bonuses For Not Price Matching?

+1, the only B&M even worth going to is MC and they're not even that great. They do pricematch computer products, but for the average consumer I wouldn't recommend them since it took me 10minutes for me just to find someone to print out the newegg page for me. Now I bring my printed price match directly to the register and tell them I had someone in the computer section print it out for me. Saves me 15minutes or more lol.
 
I've actually had great luck with BB price matching. A month or so ago, Conn's (a regional electronics store here in OK, TX and LA) ran an ad for the Arcade 360 for $149. My local BB gave me no problems at all when I requested a pricematch and showed them the ad. I've price matched other items as well using the same strategy i.e. going to customer service and not the normal registers.

I think more than anything else, it is store specific in that some BBs are better than others. My local BB actually has somewhat knowledgeable people working there who actually know the products fairly well.
 
ShagnWagn said:
Thanks for the Economics 101 lesson. :rolleyes: There may be a 5 yr old on here that may learning something. :p

Of course they don't have to price match. The "crying" is because they say they do, but rarely honor it - even when we shove the advertisement in their face - from their own damn store nonetheless. If they are going to have all these stipulations, then they better put it in legible print so customers know what to expect.

It all doesn't matter much to me personally, since I don't buy from them any more.
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I kept it simple because it is simple. It just doesn't appear so by the drama that this post is inflicting on people:D WOW!! RARR!!!

Keep it up guys maybe you can run BB out of business to. Lemme guess internet boards and bandwagoning mad fat nerds had nothing AT ALL to do with CC going out of business. I would take that argument on.
 
Modred189 said:
Best Buy, for example, covers all manufacturer's warranties in-store. SO if you have a video card with a lifetime warranty that you bought there that died, they will cover it.
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Not anymore. At least not at my local store that I used to work at. I went from an x850xt agp, to a 7800 agp, to a x1950pro agp, to a 8800GTS 512, to a 9800GTX to a GTX 260 for basically $10 or $15 bucks here and there and when I took my receipt for the GTX 260 back to price match the sale price on ad the manager told me I couldn't do that stuff any more and that videocards only had a 30 day return policy, even if they had a lifetime warranty through the manufacturer.

Its fine though, since I ended up going from a 9800GTX to a GTX260 and Best Buy paid me $45 bucks to boot.
 
I don't really care for Price Matching. I am not going to go beg a store to lower their price to match someone else. I will go to who has the best deal which is someone on the internet 90% of the time and Micro Center the other 10%.
 
A good thing to remember with Best Buy, is while they will sometimes fight price match, they do have to follow the posted low price guarrantee, of going back in with the add to get the price match and 10%

A bit more of a nuicance, but something that you can still do.
 
Steve said:
Not only is Best Buy getting beat over the head with allegations that they routinely lie about price matching, new documents in the court case claim managers get bonuses for not matching prices. All I want to know is how do you document (and get paid) for transaction that never took place? Think about it, if you didn’t honor a price match, there is no documentation saying this is a "non-price match" sale.
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I guess Terry sent you that :p
 
kdw1975 said:
I don't really care for Price Matching. I am not going to go beg a store to lower their price to match someone else. I will go to who has the best deal which is someone on the internet 90% of the time and Micro Center the other 10%.
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It comes in handy when you need it right away, and there's no Micro Center or Fry's near you.

I wish there was, I really really do wish there was one near me.
 
I'd like BB to offer customers a badge they can wear that says "will pay an extra dollar per purchase not to put up with b.s." I'd pay an extra buck not to get the run-around on price matches, no warranty sales pitch, no offer for "free" magazines, etc. Make it a membership club or something.
 
The main western warehouse for MSI is out here in SLC, UT. Best Buy told me they wouldn't match their prices because they were a wholesaler, even though they will sale direct to local walk-in customers only. Makes sense, and now I just buy from EBC when I can't wait for something to come through UPS. They have three counters now too :p
 
No this is not true, they do get bonuses and its based on hitting budget on sales, gross margin, services, low shrink numbers but nothing specifically for not doing price matches. Also if you read the fine print on the price match policy they can legitimately get out of price matching just about anything.
 
Mav451 said:
Lol. This is beyond dumb. Rockville location wouldn't match CC's L4D price. Took my business to the local Shady Grove location. Gee, guess which manager actually got the sale? Stupidity at best.
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Actually it's smart business, because we Americans are lazy. If you walk into a store you know has a higher price asking to match it, they say no and the lower price store is 1/2 hour away... is the $5 worth it? Usually not. I know a few retail chains where the management get spiffs and bonuses for not price matching, or for selling a certain amount of an item that's marked down at other chains that month.

I run a business now, and have some of the lowest prices for our products in a 3 state area. When someone mentions to me "Well X has it cheaper", I immediately reply with "Well, I'd say go to X then. That's a good price. They may not provide the service we do, but the price is there".

Usually, the people leave, come back in a lil while (or another day, when one of my employees are working) and buy their items.

If they lose a sale that gained them $15 gross profit, over $5 but gained $20 because 4 people were lazy and didn't want to waste the day driving around, they still win, Mav451. Don't forget that.
 
I worked at best buy for 4 years (quit in 2006 after abusing the discount with the money from my real job) and I never heard of managers getting bonuses based on denying price matches.

They got bonuses based on profit margin, but nowhere was it specifically targeting price match denials. We would always call the store with the advertised product to make sure they had it, but if they did we would honor it. We didn't honor web deals or mail in rebates, but that is any store.

Now I will admit there was the fake internal bestbuy.com, I noticed this years before it was made public knowledge. That was probably the shadiest thing I noticed while working there as the internal bestbuy.com didn't have the sale prices.
 
Mav451 said:
Lol. This is beyond dumb. Rockville location wouldn't match CC's L4D price. Took my business to the local Shady Grove location. Gee, guess which manager actually got the sale? Stupidity at best.
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You're beyond dumb. Why would a store be happy about not making a profit? Best Buy doesn't give a crap about $40 sale if they lose $3 on it.
 
OpStar said:
Not anymore. At least not at my local store that I used to work at. I went from an x850xt agp, to a 7800 agp, to a x1950pro agp, to a 8800GTS 512, to a 9800GTX to a GTX 260 for basically $10 or $15 bucks here and there and when I took my receipt for the GTX 260 back to price match the sale price on ad the manager told me I couldn't do that stuff any more and that videocards only had a 30 day return policy, even if they had a lifetime warranty through the manufacturer.

Its fine though, since I ended up going from a 9800GTX to a GTX260 and Best Buy paid me $45 bucks to boot.
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That is a shame, all the geeksquad agents took advantage of that, I went from a 6800gt to a 8800gts 640mb for $20. That was the last time I took advantage of it as the people that I still knew there that would order the good cards all quit.
 
i feel bad for those who never learned that the internal site was bogus, but they're paying with their wallet, hopefully they learn someday.

the problem with your reasoning phoenix is that more and more people are realizing that BB has horrible prices, and worse CS. Most lazy people are switching to amazon or newegg, the last B&M that might survive is MC, but I'd say they're still riding a fine line since they're best prices only match newegg and thats on computer parts.
 
bubbakja said:
You're beyond dumb. Why would a store be happy about not making a profit? Best Buy doesn't give a crap about $40 sale if they lose $3 on it.
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Um, read my post again before calling me dumb. I went to another Best Buy location (one that was along my commute home), so in the end they still got the sale. I'm saying that the dick manager got no sale, the accommodating manager got the sale.
 
Last year Officemax had a clearance in their weekly brochure on their Logitech X-530 for $10.

I bought it over to Bestbuy and fought really hard to get a price match. The manager call up the Officemax and try to check if I was kidding. He eventually ask their "UPC" code and it was off by a few different numbers. I told him it does not matter both are the exact same thing... Logitech X-530 = Logitech X-530. He wouldn't budge after that.

I should have won right?
 
DTN107 said:
Last year Officemax had a clearance in their weekly brochure on their Logitech X-530 for $10.

I bought it over to Bestbuy and fought really hard to get a price match. The manager call up the Officemax and try to check if I was kidding. He eventually ask their "UPC" code and it was off by a few different numbers. I told him it does not matter both are the exact same thing... Logitech X-530 = Logitech X-530. He wouldn't budge after that.

I should have won right?
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Darwinism and capitalism wins. That manager and his location deserve lost sales and lower revenues for stupidity.
 
OpStar said:
Not anymore. At least not at my local store that I used to work at. I went from an x850xt agp, to a 7800 agp, to a x1950pro agp, to a 8800GTS 512, to a 9800GTX to a GTX 260 for basically $10 or $15 bucks here and there and when I took my receipt for the GTX 260 back to price match the sale price on ad the manager told me I couldn't do that stuff any more and that videocards only had a 30 day return policy, even if they had a lifetime warranty through the manufacturer.

Its fine though, since I ended up going from a 9800GTX to a GTX260 and Best Buy paid me $45 bucks to boot.
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LOL, well if you abuse the system, that is a different story. check the back of your reciept for the policy ad go to a different store.
 
Righty said:
You tards realize best buy doesn't even have to price match. Best buy could just not price match altogether. That would keep you guys from crying wouldnt it?
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The problem I have with this statement is that THEY DO pricematch, and they have it in WRITING. They also ADVERTISE IT!

So either they yank away PMs or they need to take away the advertising for it.
 
Righty said:
Its called capitalism. They can do what they want. Dont shop their if the prices are to high:rolleyes: This has nothing to do with morals. Something is worth what someone will pay.


You tards realize best buy doesn't even have to price match. Best buy could just not price match altogether. That would keep you guys from crying wouldnt it?
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Bernie Madoff called, he wants his lessons in economics back.
 
I severely dislike BB, but I work at a local computer shop in Seattle and BB is a bit of competition for us so I am biased.

This is pretty pathetic though. BB fail.
 
Mavvok said:
whether it's true or not does not change the fact that it's seemingly the most logical explanation of why they're so shady with their price matching.
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Or maybe each and every store is having a tough time in this economy and is trying to maximize margins...Especially knowing you have no alternative store to shop at now...
 
mdameron said:
With circuit city gone, they don't really have to give a shit anymore.
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seriously, they don't. they jacked up the price of an Acer monitor (Acer H233hbmid) $80 after they had had it in stock for 2 months or so, i.e. $219 (which is the typical selling price at basically every other store) to $299

also, they had a samsung monitor priced at $469 when the MSRP was $299.
 
There is only a few things I buy at best buy... stuff like monitors and such i like having local in case there is a issue with it out of the box and shipping it back to a e taler can be a pain and cant really save much moneyh then with the shipping costs back.

Funny thing is, I got a good deal if you talk to them... and open boxed Geek squad 1500 VA UPS... for...99 bucks. Nothing wrong and the damn thing was not even out of the plastic either... I was like... cna you do better.... and the guy said yep... how about 99... Zing... sold. Didnt even think twice :)

On top of that its fun taking the kids there too... they get to oogle at stuff along with dad... call it bonding I guess.
 
p4gs said:
seriously, they don't. they jacked up the price of an Acer monitor (Acer H233hbmid) $80 after they had had it in stock for 2 months or so, i.e. $219 (which is the typical selling price at basically every other store) to $299

also, they had a samsung monitor priced at $469 when the MSRP was $299.
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which samsung? I got the 240 HD one... been very very please with it... though the monitor was on sale when I got it too
 
Water feels wet and the majority of people can't solve the prisoners dilemma: News at eleven.

Not to be an ass about it but this happens at most retail stores. It's an us vs them mentality which left unchecked results in serious PR problems. Hell, when I worked at a electronics retailer way back in the day we did this and more and it was encouraged by management and corporate.

Some of the crap we pulled was the stuff of legends... using code words for idiot customers and potential marks. Lying about product use, stock levels and prices. Double charging for labor to install memory and the like. Overselling a game pc to someone who needs a word processor/email pc. Upselling cables and unnecessary accessories with HUGE markup. Re-shrinking returned items and selling them new. Good times. Good times.

Do I feel bad about it? Not really, I was young and greedy and I have since matured; besides, a fool and their money are soon parted. So here are some pro-tips: People lie. The salesperson is not your friend. Know going in they will categorize you into a "good" (dolla dolla billz yall) or "evil" (pricematching, loss leading buying scum) customer. Prepare accordingly.
 
you know what the sad part is?

BB states a policy and then uses all sorts of exceptions to get out of it

Personally I belive that if you have a pricematch policy you should honor it

and btw the reason most stores have different model #s for the same item is so the manufacturer knows who they shipped it to

for example product abcd-1 might be for target and abcd-2 might be for walmart and acbd-3 might be for BB. I think it is deplorable that stores would use the well it a abcd-2 instead of a abcd-1 so we are not going to match it.....
 
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