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

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#151

Post by parenthesis » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:32 PM UTC

byproxy wrote: post #114

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…

I recommend buying used on AbeBooks. You can find what you want in pretty good quality for cheap and will have no trouble accepting a couple of dings.

AbeBooks is owned by Amazon, so they'll still get their cut!

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#152

Post by j45 » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

I'm not sure why electronics stores should be dead.

They provide a discovery layer Amazon can't, including a hands on exposure, as well as Same-day ownership.

It might get interesting if Amazon opens their own electronics stores carrying their wider selection, though.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#153

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

gameswithgo wrote: post #86

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.

A while back we had a refrigerator die, and I was like "no problem, I'll run to home depot and get one". they could NOT handle it. Everyone seemed annoyed that I wanted to do this. They have refrigerators on the floor but only a few are for sale, and they can do delivery in theory but they didn't seem to know if their delivery guys were available or not. I went over to Lowes next door and it was the same deal. I was…

[deleted]

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#154

Post by vlunkr » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

Looking over the comments, it looks like no ones thinks Best Buy should be dead. I don't either. Although I usually avoid it because I can't get through the store without several employees badgering me, it still has a place. Especially for non-tech people who actually want someone to sell them a TV/tablet/laptop because there are an overwhelming number of options now.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#155

Post by Marsymars » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:37 PM UTC

segmondy wrote: post #107

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've bought plenty of SD cards online for my raspberry pi and dashcam. They all die and start giving errors within a month or two. Even tho I went of my way to buy name brand, and not the cheapest 4 star cards. :-/

Look into high endurance cards for dashcams. There are a few different brands with them.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#156

Post by kss238 » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #101

jamra wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you putting ‘same day’ in quotes? Are you not getting products from Best Buy on the same day?

Because without quotes it would just be improper English and poor grammar; 'same day' is a term, not proper language. I would have to write "It would be nice to get stuff without waiting" or "nice to get stuff on the same day that I purchased" etc..

Or you could write "same-day"?

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#157

Post by prepend » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

bachmeier wrote: post #128

throwawaymath wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2017/06/17/sixty-four... tl;dr: As of June 2017, 64% of American households had Amazon Prime. 43% of all American dollars spent online are spent at Amazon.

Hate to be that guy, but I have Amazon Prime in my household because my wife uses it just enough to be worthwhile. She makes only a small percentage of her purchases there, and the others in our household make none. The 43% figure is more relevant, and that's 43% of a relatively small share of all consumer spending, with much of it being done by a small group of large Amazon customers. So I don't think it's accurate…

Amazon’s US retail revenue was $318B for 2017 [0]. There are 126M households in the US in census’ 2017 data [1]. Thats $2,500/household. That’s definitely a shitload bought by most people.

Comically shitloads are pretty cheap and are $210/ton (a big pickup kid) if you’re in New Hampshire [2]. So pedantically, we’re all buying 10 shitloads.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/15/amazons-us-sales-to-match-wa... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-househo... [2] https://www.milessmithfarm.com/farming-products.html

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#158

Post by Stubb » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:40 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 was sold a set of counterfeit Powerbeats3 headphones at Best Buy about a year ago. No reason to be suspicious initially, but battery life, range, and pairing were never great. They stopped working after a month, and I brought them back to Best Buy. The attendant looked carefully at the headphones and told me that they wouldn't accept the return because the serial number on the headphones didn't match the one on the box or receipt.

Anyone want to tell me how that could happen?

In any case, I called Apple, and they said that the serial number on my headphones was a duplicate and sent me a new set. Range, battery life, and pairing with the legit model are now all great.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#159

Post by LargeWu » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

at-fates-hands wrote: post #3

I worked at the Richfield HQ in 2010 before Joly came in and it was a disaster working there. Environments would go down and stay down for hours or days. I would come in at 8am and not be able to work until 1 or 2pm. They had such a consistent turn over, they would have 3rd party vendors and have no idea who the contact was or what company actually operated large chunks of their network. They essentially had a 70-80%…

I did a couple of 2-year stints there as a contractor; about a dozen years ago, and a few years ago. When I worked there most recently, my team was at first given a lot of leeway to use our own toolsets and and processes, things were going well, but then we got caught up in some turf battles between the IT and BBY.com organizations and everything kind of fell apart. Everybody left or got let go and they eventually offshored our team. Regardless I think things are way better than the Brian Dunn years.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#160

Post by post_break » Thu, Jul 19, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #24

mfer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That generation has nothing but problems with their devices, it's like a mini game for them. This isn't a generational thing. I know folks from all generations who have trouble with technology. Sometimes this is because things really are broken. It's not like a lot of things are high quality. Sometimes it's because stuff is hard to use. For those of us in tech we have a higher tolerance for learning pain and have e…

This is an interesting point. Is it more that the younger generation prefers to figure out the problem themselves, possibly due to fear of social embarrassment, whereas the older generation doesn't share those fears, and thus are more willing to engage in public conversation about their technological shortcomings?

Or maybe it's willful ignorance? They "don't have the time" to figure it out so they just want someone to give them the answer. It's like asking them for their password, they don't know it, but it's written down on a post it note somewhere. Vs the younger generation has it memorized.