Best Buy Still Using In-Store “Website” On Customers

[pfunkman]

I don't buy it. If a company is going to advertise a price, they should be prepared to honor it. I don't really care how much it costs to get into the store, that's not my problem. I'm not talking about price-matching the Circuit City website, I'm talking about BBY giving me the price that they said they would. If they won't then they should consider making BestBuy.com a separate company from Best Buy...

I do understand that retail employees take a lot of crap about completely ridiculous things. However I'm not going to sympathize on this one.

Agreed, unless on the site it says ONLINE ONLY PRICE then as far as im concerned its an advertised price from that company and should be good no matter if i buy online or in the store.

But then again i have always had trouble getting BB to price match the last time i was trying to price match it was with a compusa ad and they tried denying it because the compusa in town was closed and they couldnt call to verify it. Nevermind the fact i had the full ad in my hands and even pointed out the dates its good for.

 

[Modred189]

Agreed, unless on the site it says ONLINE ONLY PRICE then as far as im concerned its an advertised price from that company and should be good no matter if i buy online or in the store.

But then again i have always had trouble getting BB to price match the last time i was trying to price match it was with a compusa ad and they tried denying it because the compusa in town was closed and they couldnt call to verify it. Nevermind the fact i had the full ad in my hands and even pointed out the dates its good for.

THAT's something I never understood. The whole 'subject to availability clause'. Why should it matter if the competitor has it in stock or not? They should just match it...

 

[LoneWolf]

THAT's something I never understood. The whole 'subject to availability clause'. Why should it matter if the competitor has it in stock or not? They should just match it...

I disagree with you on that one, as someone who once worked in retail, over a decade ago. Any store chain could play games with another by selling an item extremely cheap, then only stocking a small quantity, and then forcing their competitors to price-match on a larger quantity then lose money. Retail stores are taking reasonable steps to protect themselves, and I don't fault them for that.

As a colleague of mine back then told a customer who asked about this policy, "When we're out of stock, we give them away for free". He did this knowing the customer had a sense of humor, and they both laughed at it, but that's the best way I can explain it.

P.S. I'll echo what someone else said here previously --if Best Buy was truly serious about this thing about pricing being done by region, then their website ought to have you input a zip code; then they could reflect proper pricing by region without screwing around and having this separate in-store "web site" with higher prices. Instead, you can buy straight from their real website for the low price, then pick it up at the store. For that reason, I call BS on the story their corporate office has told us about this practice.