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Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

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Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#51

Post by LyndsySimon »

This is rather off-topic, but the only thing that saddens me about Best Buy is that it just doesn't feel the same walking in as it used to.

I remember when I got my first job, at age 14, in 1998. I cut, baled, loaded, hauled, and stacked hay in a barn for a local farmer. It was extremely hot and tiring work for an overweight geek, but it paid better than anything else I could have gotten at that age - I was paid by the bale and I want to say it worked out to about $6 / hour. I saved all summer with nothing in mind other than "I want to buy a cool tech gadget!"

At the end of that summer I convinced my grandfather to drive me ~90 miles to the nearest Best Buy, and walking in that day was the best feeling in the world - a whole store full of cool toys that I didn't have! I walked out that day with one of the first MP3 players, a Diamond Rio PMP300, and a 32MB SmartMedia card. I spent about $350 on them, which my family thought was absurd.

I proceeded to go home and fill it with songs I downloaded from UseNet, and took it to school. I went to a rural school, and I don't think anyone had a clue what it was - several people asked me if it was a MiniDisc player. I explained to them what an "MP3" was.

I wish I could recapture the feeling of walking into Best Buy in the 90s. These days I have pretty much every tech item I want, and there are very few things there that can hold my interest. It makes me a little bit sad to walk through the doors and not be excited about what I'll find. It's pretty much the very definition of a First World Problem, but it is what it is.

Back then, I wasn't really wanting "toys" as much as I was thirsting for knowledge and fields to explore. That little MP3 player introduced me to UseNet, then Napster, and finally Gnutella. It ended up being a pretty big part of what got me interested in technology in general and development in particular - I went from "Hey, this is cool, free music!" to "Hmm... LimeWire is open source, I wonder if I can figure out how to fix this bug..." over the few years following.

Ultimately, it led me to my career. I wouldn't quite go so far as to credit Best Buy with that, but it's fair to say that the store contributed a great deal to building my interest in a technology.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#52

Post by rootusrootus »

jmuguy wrote: post #25
josefresco wrote: post #15

Like most Americans I order a shitload from Amazon. However the last item I bought from Best Buy was a TV (my old LG just ... died). Ordered online, chose to pick up in store. Drive 35 min to store Pickup process takes 10-15 min Drive 35 min home. Left after dinner, was watching it that evening. The only condition that would have prevented me from using this model would be traffic, as it could extend the trip by 60-9…

I ordered a TV from Amazon. They use a third party service that schedules delivery with you. Two dudes came out with TV, unboxed and set it up (put on stand, plugged in power to verify its working). A few days after delivery I noticed a red line running along the top of the screen. Contacted Amazon about replacement. There was some issue with doing a direct replacement so they had me purchase another TV and then refu…

I wonder what size TV you have to buy before that is how it works. I bought a 55 inch TV from them and it arrived shattered, shipped by UPS. The return was painless enough and the replacement was undamaged, but still, UPS and not a couple guys with the TV on a truck.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#53

Post by emodendroket »

axaxs wrote: post #18
taeric wrote: post #9

Why should it be dead? Poor management and bad money practices of some other competitors does not mean the retail segment is dead. Just that over leveraged companies are risky. No?

Best Buy used to have extremely shady practices, and to some extent still does. They used to have lower prices online, and higher in store, and IIRC not match their own website, nor online competitors. As I understand it, this has changed, their policy looks sane now. Last time I walked in to purchase a laptop, the only ones available had a small packet taped to them of 'upgrades' or antivirus or whatever that cost a…

They gave me a free antivirus product I never installed with my laptop.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#54

Post by classichasclass »

What was the "reality check" part about Ms Kordash's day at the end? She sold a TV, provided what appeared to be prompt and complete customer service, and the customers seemed to like her. The main drawback -- a relatively older clientele which may not necessarily be big consumers of the latest shiny -- was more due to the area she was serving. Certainly the level of service is expensive to provide, but it seems like Best Buy is either able to handle or at least reasonably aware of that cost.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#55

Post by emodendroket »

adventured wrote: post #22
taeric wrote: post #9

Why should it be dead? Poor management and bad money practices of some other competitors does not mean the retail segment is dead. Just that over leveraged companies are risky. No?

It shouldn't necessarily be dead. The floated premise doesn't actually make any sense. It's a media panic click-bait parade that has been going on for 20 years (only briefly pausing after the dotcom bubble implosion). The death of physical retail! When the media serves up that headline, they get an easy win every direction. If it becomes true, they're on the money with their fear mongering. If it doesn't come true, t…

To be fair, retail is different than it used to be; there is now little role for professional salespeople who really know their product (like a high-end, dedicated stereo store would have had in the past). At least this is my impression.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#57

Post by [deleted] »

kop316 wrote: post #10

I can't speak for the Geek Squad (as I have never needed to use them), but they price match to Amazon (and several other online stores), and will generally have what I am looking for (at least for consumer electronics). I know that I will get it that day (vs. Amazon's "two day shipping" that regularly turned into three or four days) at an Amazon price, it will certainly NOT be a counterfeit, and I don't have to give…

[deleted]

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#58

Post by the_watcher »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #23
gzu wrote: post #12

You really can't beat going into a physical store for a large ticket item purchase. No waiting for shipping, easy to return, viewing the product in store. Recently purchased a MBP from Bestbuy. The first one I received had noticeable back light bleeding near a screen corner. Walked back in the store the next day to return. The process from an online retailer would have taken weeks.

It's great for a big-ticket, low-margin purchase like an MBP, but poor for cheap, high-margin items like cables and accessories. Which is, of course, where they really make money. They'll price match a laptop to Amazon, but cannot price match a $2 Ethernet patch cable because they're retail space, not a warehouse.

All that said, if what you need is a cable to get your big-ticket item working right now, a lot of us will find the markup on the cheap, high-margin item well worth it.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#59

Post by ohitsdom »

jurassic wrote: post #42
kop316 wrote: post #10

I can't speak for the Geek Squad (as I have never needed to use them), but they price match to Amazon (and several other online stores), and will generally have what I am looking for (at least for consumer electronics). I know that I will get it that day (vs. Amazon's "two day shipping" that regularly turned into three or four days) at an Amazon price, it will certainly NOT be a counterfeit, and I don't have to give…

Lately my items generally show up on time but badly packaged. I would say 9 of the last 10 books I bought on Amazon have had some kind of visible damage, from minor cover dings to folded covers and ripped pages. The worst is when they put a single book into a bubble envelope that is so oversized the book can slide around and rotate a full 360 degrees inside the packaging. This is essentially a trade paperback book in…

Fire customers? I've never heard of that. My household is a heavy Prime user, and we make returns pretty frequently (few times a month). We've never had any issue.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#60

Post by sc00ty »

kop316 wrote: post #10

I can't speak for the Geek Squad (as I have never needed to use them), but they price match to Amazon (and several other online stores), and will generally have what I am looking for (at least for consumer electronics). I know that I will get it that day (vs. Amazon's "two day shipping" that regularly turned into three or four days) at an Amazon price, it will certainly NOT be a counterfeit, and I don't have to give…

> but they price match to Amazon

As long as the SKU matches. A lot of products tend to have a Best Buy specific SKU which prevents you from price matching on amazon, because amazon doesn't sell the same exact product. I had this happen a few years ago when purchasing a router.

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