Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#61

Post by jmuguy » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #45

jmuguy wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Did you pay extra to have it unboxed and turned on? How much was the TV? I'm wondering at what level, or price they offer this service? The TV I purchased was not expensive, and the Amazon alternative was one of their "house brands" with Alexa integrated so I wonder if they'd provide the same level of service. Did they schedule the delivery with you or did they just show up?

It was a 65 inch Samsung KS8000, I think about 1500 at the time. The delivery, unboxing, etc, was all free (prime). I scheduled the delivery on checkout, you picked the day and from several 2 hour windows.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#62

Post by zpr » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

One of the main benefits being reported here is the instant purchase, however with Amazon Prime Now (1-2 hour delivery of some items in metropolitan areas), this somewhat goes away. I recently used Amazon to buy new computer parts to upgrade my PC, and when they arrived and I started assembling it, I realized I had gotten the wrong RAM. So even at 9pm I was able to order 2 sticks of decent 8GB ddr4 ram and get it delivered that same night by 10pm and finish the build.

What I prefer about Amazon are the reviews and selection. Even when I'm in Best buy, I'm on my phone reading Amazon reviews for the products I'm considering and exploring alternatives.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#63

Post by brazzledazzle » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #40

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…

I also was recently in the market for a laptop and the listings for Amazon were so confusing and full of pitfalls it reminded me of the bad old days of eBay. Like three-line item titles making it hard to discern what model you were buying. I ended up buying from Best Buy.

I was shopping for a monitor and the specs that were displayed varied between items. Finding the frame rate they were capable of became a chore.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#64

Post by paulgb » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #20

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…

I've had a lot of "two day" Amazon shipping turn into 3 or 4... the arrival date even on Amazon will show in the past for a few days. What used to be a sure thing from Amazon, I now just think of as "maybe". Having said that the crazy mess (tiny isles and disorganized) and $20 USB cables were Best Buy stores made me give up on them a long time ago. I've visited a few times recently to hopefully get a look at some lap…

I almost bought a calendar on Prime today only to see that it "usually ships in 1-2 months(!)"

Increasingly it feels like as a Prime subscriber I pay for shipping twice: once with my prime subscription, and a second time with the shipping cost built in to the price compared to other retailers. I ended up getting an equivalent item from Target, which ended up being cheaper even without "free" shipping.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#65

Post by PuffinBlue » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:57 PM UTC

ohitsdom wrote: post #59

jurassic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's more a ratio thing I think. If you buy a lot you can return a lot and still have a low return ratio. Plus it makes a difference if you buy and return only vs buy, return and get a different or replacement product.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#66

Post by scarface74 » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:58 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #40

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…

I also was recently in the market for a laptop and the listings for Amazon were so confusing and full of pitfalls it reminded me of the bad old days of eBay. Like three-line item titles making it hard to discern what model you were buying. I ended up buying from Best Buy.

I would never buy a laptop from Best Buy, Amazon, or any other third party retailer. Consumer PC laptops are like most Android phones -- full of third party crapware.

I only buy either the business line of laptops from Dell or HP or I'll buy from the Microsoft Store - either online or physical store.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#67

Post by axaxs » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:58 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #53

axaxs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

to be honest, I don't remember what it was now. If I remember right it was some slip of paper that indicated Geek Squad had optimized it and put antivirus on it. IIRC it was around $100 extra. And it wasn't clearly indicated, I didn't even notice or find out until checkout.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#68

Post by sonnyblarney » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:58 PM UTC

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…

"I don't have to give my information so I don't feel like I am being tracked."

Uhhh, you for sure will.

First - BB is very aggressive on getting this stuff from you cleanly, i.e. name, addy, phone number - so they can 'track you'.

Second - VISA/MC transactions will absolutely be used for that and they'll try to match up their in-store with online experiences. FYI - Visa/MC/Amex will literally sell your transaction data to almost anyone. I went in to do a deal with Amex, their only concern was selling us all sorts of your buying data.

But it's nice to get stuff 'same day' :)

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#69

Post by gmiller123456 » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:59 PM UTC

I actually think it's Amazon that has the poor business model, and I'm puzzled how it's working for them. They are usually not competitive on price compared to other sites, and sometimes it's the same price off the shelf at Best Buy. Big ticket items from Amazon usually have free shipping, but it's a 3-4 day wait unless you pay for "free" shipping by joining Prime. But I quit Prime a few years ago after 10 out of my last 10 orders arrived late. I can understand the convenience of using a single website, but when you can find the same items elsewhere for $30-$40 cheaper, I don't see why more people aren't shopping around.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#70

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 2:59 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]