Best Buy - how bad/good are they?

I just read the following article - http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrydownes/2012/01/02/why-best-buy-is-going-out-of-business-gradually/ - on how Best Buy's business is slowly going down and they only have themselves and their anti-customer attitude to blame.

It's pretty interesting, as I'd heard again and again that Best Buy sucks, but not too many detailed reasons why. What do you guys think? Anyone here have opinions on the matter, or good/bad experiences with Best Buy?

They opened a large one in Pearl City a few years back, and it's pretty good. They need a few more customer reps on the floor to scoop up customers off of the floor from just idly wandering around looking for a rep, but other than that, they seem pretty friendly and helpful. I went in, knew what I wanted, got it, and I was out in ten minutes, no muss, no fuss.

Plus, with Circuit City gone, what does that leave us? Ordering crap from Newegg all the time? Best Buy is pretty much the only dedicated electronics store where I live. Target has some selection, but it's only a few asiles, and Wal-mart has only basic stuff.

Good article, though. I guess I've been getting lucky in our store.

edited 5th Jan '12 11:55:30 AM by pvtnum11

Eh, it's like any other big box store. You go in, buy your crap, and leave. If something goes wrong, you have to argue with the clerk about why you need a refund, because business in America is less about customer service and more about making money.

The problems with Best Buy aren't unique.

edited 5th Jan '12 11:47:00 AM by DrunkGirlfriend

In many respects it's symptomatic of the way that the modern American public-traded company runs: more focused on the stock price and analysts' chatter than actual profits, more concerned with market share than profit margin, and having complete lack of focus as to where they actually want to go.

Amazon's certainly no wonderful place to work for, by all accounts, but at least they appear to have a clue about how to run a business and make money, and I'd take assholes who know how to run a business over assholes who don't know how to run a business either.

I've found Best Buy employees to be the least knowledgeable about the technical attributes of their inventory of any of the chain superstores. My understanding from somebody who works there is that the (lack of) training and information provided to the employees (for cost reasons, I would guess) is the primary cause of the problem.

I've found the employees to be wildly uneven in how much they know and how helpful they can be.

There's a Best Buy in the shopping center ~1 mile from my house. In the three times I've been in there, the employees have been unhelpful, rude, and/or just plain ignorant. An eSATA cable is not the same as a SATA cable, and especially when the customer knows exactly what they're looking for, "Yeah, sure this'll work" is not the answer we want. They are also typically overpriced for almost any identical product I have seen at another store. The only reason I've ever shopped there is when I was looking for something that I did not want to wait for shipping costs that wasn't carried at my local Wal Mart.*

They are my last resort for shopping for electronics.

For all the convenience that online stores have to offer, when I buy a big ticket item like computers or T Vs that will cost several hundred dollars or more, I want to be able to take a good look at the product, touch it or even fiddle around with it before buying it. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but that's something that I can't get at Amazon. The store doesn't have to be best buy, but I'm gonna need some big box retail store to cater to that fetish.

edited 5th Jan '12 4:35:15 PM by nightwyrm_zero

I miss Circuit City. ;_;

Oh huh, I never had that problem with Best Buy. Actually most of the people there (or at the chain they bought out "Future Shop") are kinda lazy really. They just stand around and do nothing until you approach them and they otherwise try to find the product you want and then that's it.

@ DG

Man don't get me started on investor-based corporate behaviour. Analysts are even worse with their completely random up and down grades on stocks. "Hurr I think tomorrow nobody will buy computers, therefore I'mma downgrade Intel".

@Forlorn Dreamer Wrong. It's Fry's Electronics that's the worst. At least, the one in my county.

Fry's is mostly Southwest and Indiana, I think? Fortunately, I've not been cursed with the opportunity to visit one. As it is, I've been to ten-ish Best Buys between New York and the Midwest, and only two had competent people in the relevant department I was visiting. My most consistent problem has been the employees seemingly lying to me just to sell a product without really knowing the answers to my questions. I would greatly prefer a honest "I don't know."

My understanding is that, even though Best Buy employees don't work on commission, preferential hours are given to those with the largest proportion of sales. Then again, my source for those beliefs is Internet hearsay, so...

I think it's probably too expensive to train employees at big chains for precisely that reason. It's much easier to tell 'em to bullshit the customer into a potential sale than provide the customer with unwelcome information about product limitations.

edited 6th Jan '12 2:33:59 AM by ForlornDreamer

See, I was one of those salesman you were talking about. And yes, I mostly bullshitted because the company didn't teach me shit. On the first day, they kinda just threw me on there with no training whatsoever.

We got commissions though...well on certain products.

edited 6th Jan '12 2:29:15 AM by TheWesterner

My local Best Buy's employees are actually really nice. I've always kind of liked them, just because of that.

Same here. Their level of knowledgeability is like a sine wave, but that's pretty much any store you'll go in.

Regarding B Sing customers, wouldn't that be a good way to lose future shoppers, pushing them into an inferior product only for them to later get pissed off about it?

I wrote a post on Best Buy (citing the same Forbes article) in Yack Fest, but it got locked because I went too negative. So I'll just calmly relate an experience I had with them recently.

I have been holding onto an old laptop for a number of years, but recently decided that it was time to dispose of the thing. I heard about Best Buy's recycling program and figured that would be better than seeing the thing end up in some landfill, so I took my machine to the store.

Now, I wanted to keep the hard drive for security reasons (and apparently that is something that they always do), but in addition I wanted to hold onto the video and sound cards. Keep in mind that I am already giving best buy what is essentially a slightly gutted but nearly free computer, something that they will probably make a rather large profit off of, so in my mind this request seemed perfectly reasonable. I could have even done it myself, but I would have had to buy the proper screwdrivers and didn't feel like spending time opening the computer up.

Instead of being grateful and willing to retrieve that sound and video card for me, the employee went on and on about how its basically impossible to retrieve these parts for me because its an integrated circuit. While that is true for many laptops, it was not true for this particular model (I had checked myself earlier), yet the man refused to listen to me as I explained this to him. The argument escalated, and ultimately I did not recycle my laptop at best buy. Why the unnecessary, condescending attitude on the part of this employee, especially since I was trying to do his company a favor?

I've seen it before from other best buy locations, too. My mother wanted to get a computer "without all the fixings" as she put it, but the conniving salesmen insisted that she purchase proprietary anti virus software from best buy. Even after making herself perfectly clear, they basically threatened her, telling her that her machine will get attacked by viruses if she did not load an anti virus program. When she finally put her foot down, they relented - but still went ahead and loaded on several proprietary "amazing best buy deals" programs that were basically glorified adware that loads popups whenever she starts up her machine (I've yet to figure out how to delete the damn things, too!). All she wanted was a clean, out-of-the-box machine devoid of any unnecessary garbage, and best buy couldn't even give her that.

I just went to Best Buy to pick up a new Wii Remote Plus, and they forgot to disable the anti-theft protection. There wasn't anyone at the door that I could find, so I had to get back in line to get a clerk to disable it for me. This was the day after Christmas, so of course the lines were insane.

Amazing. That kind of service really deserves to doom the company - or at least that particular branch. Who would want to buy from them again after that? Shoving those spyware "deals" on her computer sounds over-the-top, but sadly believable.

Same. Then again, I don't typically need any more assistance than "where'd you put the games since last time you remodeled".

Weird. We've got a Fry's just outside Portland, and as far as I can tell it's one of the best stores in the state. Really helpful people manning the hardware section, helped us track down all kinds of parts.

The Fry's I visited in San Diego was also helpful, and the staff far more knowledgable than Best Buy. Up near Seattle, I'm rather stuck that I either hope one of my IT-involved friends has spare parts I can acquire, or I have to go to a Best Buy that is, at best, kindly clueless.

Last time I went to Best Buy to buy...I think it was a wifi range extender or something, while I was there, I opened up Amazon to check reviews and found that it cost less than half what best buy was charging, and wasn't even on sale for anything. Don't think I've been by there since.

Last time I went into Best Buy the cashier was great, but supervisor was stupid.

I shop only at Fry's now since they're closer, better service, and better selection.

I shop online. Or I shop at a local U.S. Microcenter

I'm pretty sure BB is one of those retailers that matches prices if you show them that something is less expensive elsewhere.

Either way, that's all on you for not checking the price elsewhere before buying it. Never buy something without knowing that it's the best quality for the cheapest price possible (and if not the best or cheapest, then at least pretty damn close).

EDIT: Whoops, I REALLY misread your post. I thought you said you checked AFTER you bought it. Apologies, sir or madam.

edited 13th Jan '12 11:40:33 PM by 0dd1

As far as I'm concerned they're best goddamn thing on earth since sliced bread. Why? Simple really; they're the ONLY major tech store that's willing to ship almost anything to Guam, be it small electronics, entire PC systems, or even a 37 inch HDTV, with absolutely no shipping fees and cheaper prices than the stores around here.

To give you an example? I bought the computer I'm using today from Bestbuy at around $1,100, and it was the top-of-the-line back then - hell, it still is. But the best competitor here on Guam? The thing cost over $1,400, and was FAR weaker and outdated than the system Best Buy was offering!

Now, if an online shop like New Egg or Amazon would become willing to ship large electronic goods out here, THEN they might have some competition...