An Insiders Look at Best Buy

[Joe503]

I love Best Buy for the occasional deals

I've bought a lot of stuff there over the years for less than I could find it online. I bought a projector, discontinued floor model, for about $500 less than the cheapest it could be had online. I bought a 5 speakers set of Vienna Acoustics speakers, floor models, for far less than any used prices I'd ever seen, I bought a receiver for a fraction of the new price, must've been a return. The typical prices aren't that great but it you're looking for the best performance for the money they will sometimes let floor models go really cheaply. The best deal was probably the VA Mozart Grands I got for $490/pair. You can't find a used pair for twice that. They weren't in bad shape either. They've started putting the clearance stuff online now so maybe they're trying to avoid letting stuff go for so little.

 

[panteragstk]

Had they focused on customer experience instead of "if we sell a lot of random things, people will buy something" they wouldn't be in the situation they're in. Customer service goes a very long way, and it's sad that so many companies have thrown it out the window. I will go out of my way to get to some stores due to how fantastic their service is. I'll even pay a little extra to buy something from someone that actually cares about me as a customer.

 

[ousooner2]

You obviously need to do some research.... Microsoft is a bunch of junk. You never needed to run a adware scan or complained because your SW runs slow on your PC? PCs are cheap for a reason! The parts are better on a Mac, you can trouble shoot your problems a lot more compared to a PC, you can keep your Mac booted up for weeks without it taking a crap on your desk when you try to wake it up. You don't need anti virus SW which you need to renew and which bogs down your system. The entire back end on a mac is so much more powerful than a PCs... It's not built on... DOS but rather a unix/linux background. My Mac doesn't suck. It's a 2007 and it's been in the shop once because it started running slow. How many of you PC users out there can say the same?

Congrats!

You might be the dumbest person I know. What has been the easiest OS to crack BY FAR for the last 5+ years? I could go ON and ON and ON and ON about how ridiculous your post is....but I'm just going to let you do the research

 

[Hobbit]

Congrats!

You might be the dumbest person I know. What has been the easiest OS to crack BY FAR for the last 5+ years? I could go ON and ON and ON and ON about how ridiculous your post is....but I'm just going to let you do the research

well apple hardware is pretty. But I've had to work on my wife's mac more than I've had to work on my PC. I still don't see what's easier about it either? They seem more the same than different. Just a tool...

I think the OP missed my point entirely, got caught up in brand loyalty. He brought a broken item to a store and was upset they wanted to charge him to fix it. So the store, in his words, sucks. Yet, he still loves his mac even though it broke....

There's a luxury brand car that rates one of the highest via owners polls. Yet, it rates down near the bottom in repairs per miles and cost of repairs. Brand loyalty.....

 

[Wayde Robson]

Funny story. Best Buy now owns Future Shop, which is basically Best Buy Canada before Best Buy went ahead and bought it.

A few years ago some friends and I used to make "consumer electronics" videos, reviews and smart *** comments, trying to be funny and such. We did this thing where we'd sneak a video camera into best buy and I'd secretly be recorded talking to sales staff about their products. Each episode would end in us getting kicked out but we had a couple of good ones.

Once, I was looking at Plasma HDTVs and I asked the sales person if their Plasma TVs were sealed, because my wife would kill me if I bought one of these and the plasma leaked all over the carpet and created a bloody mess. The sales person assured me that they keep the plasma sealed inside the TV so it won't leak.

Another time I found a side-by-side comparison between Monster cables and 'standard' cables with a clear difference. But upon closer inspection I found the Monster was actually HDMI and the "regular" cable was S-Video. I did a blog post and Audioholics article on it a long time ago on the "Monster Difference" and it got a bit of attention.

I still think the plasma dude was hilarious. It feels bad to make of someone for not knowing, but he seemed so sincere in his answer assuring me that the plasma was sealed inside the TV and wouldn't leak onto my carpet.

 

[yettitheman]

You obviously need to do some research.... Microsoft is a bunch of junk. You never needed to run a adware scan or complained because your SW runs slow on your PC? PCs are cheap for a reason! The parts are better on a Mac, you can trouble shoot your problems a lot more compared to a PC, you can keep your Mac booted up for weeks without it taking a crap on your desk when you try to wake it up. You don't need anti virus SW which you need to renew and which bogs down your system. The entire back end on a mac is so much more powerful than a PCs... It's not built on... DOS but rather a unix/linux background. My Mac doesn't suck. It's a 2007 and it's been in the shop once because it started running slow. How many of you PC users out there can say the same?

I wish there was a facepalm icon for crap like this. This whole post was so glaringly filled with one sided, incorrect information that I'm going to dissect this line by line simply out of boredom.

You obviously need to do some research.... Microsoft is a bunch of junk.

So are all the other operating systems, if not managed and understood properly.

You never needed to run a adware scan or complained because your SW runs slow on your PC?

Some people I'm sure have, but I've personally never had an issue with adware. There is a difference between adware, spyware, bloatware, and tupperware. And no matter how fast the machine, everything is still slow to me. So yes, even on my Mac; my Win7/Ubuntu laptop, it's still slow.

PCs are cheap for a reason!

Yeah, there are a lot more of them made by every other manufacturer. More competition drives prices lower, to a certain extent. Also, I blame the use of substandard (and quite horrid) Aztec power supplies.... (I'm looking at you HP.) But seriously, cheap PC power supplies are crap, and that's one thing that needs to improve.

The parts are better on a Mac,

How are the parts better on a "Mac" when even moreso nowdays they share glaring similarities to their "inferior" PC bretheren? Foxconn, for example, is a major supplier to Apple. Foxconn also happens to be a supplier to Dell and HP. So you are going to tell me that a possibly unscrupulous Taiwanese company is going to care who they sell to? They are making product, and making money; as long as the money comes in, they could give a fart who's name is on the order sheet. Apple desktops and "PC's" are using X86 architecture... the difference in component quality lies with cost, feature set, and QC (which can be done with the mobo manufacturer and the company that handles final assembly).

you can trouble shoot your problems a lot more compared to a PC,

Troubleshoot problems a lot more? You mean I'm going to have more problems with a Mac? Isn't the reason we bought a Mac to have less problems?

you can keep your Mac booted up for weeks without it taking a crap on your desk when you try to wake it up.

Well, I guess I'll have to get more toilet paper for my PC's then. Then again, I don't leave any of my personal machines on for weeks, because there is simply no need. But, my old Poweredge Server never took a dump in it's 4 years of 24/7/365 operation running Win Server 2k3...

You don't need anti virus SW which you need to renew and which bogs down your system.

I've never used it. I think it's all a scam. A scam by the A/V providers to distribute these trojans, viruses, worms, and then sell you the cure. Genius! It's like a drug dealer getting you hooked, and then he has your fix. I've only had one problem in 7 years related to that crap, and it was... guess.... Java related. Now I don't have to worry about that... hehe.

The entire back end on a mac is so much more powerful than a PCs... It's not built on... DOS but rather a unix/linux background.

Are we talking about back ends such as badonkadonk or kernel? Now, the Windows kernel is a bit limp wristed when it comes to modification, and it's just in general more unpleasant to modify to your liking. All the 'nix flavors and Mac OSX are easier in that respect. Now, as far as HAL, MS has always had in my opinion great legacy support. Generally, most old components that can plug into the machine, can work. My old HP Laserjet II, over parallel in Win7, works perfectly. It's slow though.
Now, another misconception. Win7 takes command cues from DOS, but the DOS I know died along with Win98. I'd say they have pretty much killed off most of the old DOS by now.

My Mac doesn't suck. It's a 2007 and it's been in the shop once because it started running slow. How many of you PC users out there can say the same?

A 2007? Wow, that's not old at all. I still have my second built machine, back from 10 or more years ago with a Gigabyte board, GA-7VTXE; KT-266A NB, Athlon XP 2000+, 512MB ram, 80GB WD HDD, ATI Radeon 64MB DDR(the cool one), and the usual assortment of optical and magnetic drives. It still boots every time, and it's never been to the shop. It also plays Unreal 2 at high resolution quite nicely (either 1600x1200 or something else, I haven't played Unreal 2 on it for some time). I even have an old Leading Edge that runs Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and DOS, with the original Quantum Fireball still stuck in there ticking away. I say tick, because for whatever reason, that stupid arm likes to track across the platters every 5-10 minutes for whatever reason. I think the arm gets bored and keeps itself awake... lol.


Pizza rolls sound good right now.

 

[Irishman]

The problem with Best Buy is that they lost their original focus and went nuts selling anything and everything to include cokes, candy etc.... and then hired kids that knew nothing about their products or their inventory. Too big to fast, no direction, no focus which is a perfect example of cooperate greed and a failed operating plan.

Certainly BBY has gotten carried away by the growth in the first decade of the 21st century, and just continued to plan as though that boon would never end. Which, of course, it did, and they took far too long to adapt to the new realities.

Price-match Amazon.com and 18 other online retailers? Great move, but it should have happened 5-6 years ago. The store employees knew back then that online sources were stealing business from BBY. But management continued to build new stores into new markets, and over-saturate existing markets. Cue 2009 when Brian Dunn took over and things took a downturn, he and the board saw the train going over the cliff, had their "oh ***!" moment, drew back in horror, but were far, far too slow to react. If they'd started closing stores one or two every six months, and announced it when they were going to, that would have been part of a strategy. As it was, it came across motivated by fear and a total failure to grasp the realities of retailing in America, which is what it was.

I look at HH Gregg, who themselves aren't doing great, but they have an assortment that is vastly simplified and makes sense. 80% of their stores are Audio/Video on one side of the store, and Appliances on the other. They've got some other things in there too that they sell, but it's not something they spend megabucks on to support in terms of employee education. (i.e. clock radios at Gregg are grab and go items).

Best Buy needs to ditch the musical instruments, the "As seen on TV" stuff, DVDs, Blu-rays and CDS (except for new releases), exercise equipment, Sodastream crap, etc. and get back to the core of their business from the beginning. They need to **** or get off the pot in gaming, and beef up their displays in appliances in a way that inspires visitors to the stores, and improve their vendor agreements so that turn-around time on commonly-ordered appliances is more palatable.

About major appliances - one of the lessons that HH Gregg has learned is this: Appliances are a category that have been largely immune from margin compression. What I mean is this: as profit margins have shrunk to infinitesimal levels in computers, TVs, and the like, you pay largely the same for a side by side fridge that you did 10-15 years ago. It's pretty amazing when you realize it, but it feels sometimes like BBY doesn't know how to manage that part of their business. When you look at competitive differentiators Lowe's has (more in-stock items, and in-store contractor discounts), BBY still has room to improve.

Best Buy spends too much time looking for the "next big thing" that's going to take off, instead of building their business the sensible way by balancing it with things people will always need, and making it easy to get them.

 

[moves]

Congrats!

You might be the dumbest person I know. What has been the easiest OS to crack BY FAR for the last 5+ years? I could go ON and ON and ON and ON about how ridiculous your post is....but I'm just going to let you do the research

tsk tsk now! I assure you, I did my research during my degree. Are you denying anything in my post? Please... go on and on.

 

[Grador]

Will all of you please stop it with this ridiculous mac vs pc junk?

 

[j_garcia]

My daughter worked at Best Buy. My son worked at Frys. Internally, in terms of their sales force, how they expect them to sell and sell "intangible" (almost pure profit) options like useless warranties/replacement plans, etc... are pretty much identical. Skill levels - Frys usually has a few who know what they're talking about and the rest don't. Best Buy - it is a challenge to find anyone who knows something of use these days. They put the same "unwritten" pressure on the sales force.

Frys has always been a "One stop shop" where you could get almost anything along with your computer parts. Best Buy tried to do the same thing but their demographic and positioning in the market is different, so that didn't really work. Frys actually started with FOOD stores The first Frys was THE computer parts place. When they started selling soda and snacks, it was a no-brainer to go there to grab RAM, a hard drive and a snack at lunch because it was "one stop". They used to be experts, but today they hire the same people as Best Buy and I think the article described that very precisely.

Magnolia was a good store until Best Buy bought them.

 

[fmw]

The internet is impacting brick and mortar stores inexorably. The electronics superstores are pretty much replaced with electronics web sites. I recently bought a TV from Best Buy but I bought it on line. I doubt there is anything they can do sensibly other than begin closing stores and getting more competitive with their web site. The old days are disappearing.

 

[mtrycrafts]

... The old days are disappearing.

I am glad horse transportation was replaced as was the black and white TV. Oh, and a lot of other things.

 

[fmw]

If only they would get rid of voice mail and neckties. Well, I guess neck ties have been around for a while. I loved the good old days but I understand that they are gone. Alas!

 

[DarkTactics]

I've had good experiences at some local best buys with open box speakers and deals. Beyond that, I haven't bought or done much through them. I usually just browse to squash my electronics curiosity.

 

[mpompey]

I agree with many of the posts regarding the failure of Best Buy. Poor customer service, lack of knowledgeable staff, prices too far out of line with Internet retailers; and there is a recipe for disaster.

I only go to Best Buy now to buy Movies and bargain blu-rays.

 

[Daniel Martin]

I ask you this then. Why do think Best Buy's stock is at its highest it has been in almost 20 years? A bit disgruntled aren't we? Lol

 

[panteragstk]

I ask you this then. Why do think Best Buy's stock is at its highest it has been in almost 20 years? A bit disgruntled aren't we? Lol

You're taking a post written 4 and a half years ago and responding to it with a current view? Come on man.

 

[shadyJ]

You're taking a post written 4 and a half years ago and responding to it with a current view? Come on man.

The internet is timeless. Its never too late to make a point here.

 

[panteragstk]

The internet is timeless. Its never too late to make a point here.

Good point.

I will say I'm somewhat surprised that BB changed their ways enough to remain relevant. Price matching anything online went a long way I'm sure.

It'd still be nice if their staff had more knowledge.

 

[lovinthehd]

Good point.

I will say I'm somewhat surprised that BB changed their ways enough to remain relevant. Price matching anything online went a long way I'm sure.

It'd still be nice if their staff had more knowledge.

The reduction in B&M store competition probably helped as well....