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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

#221

Post by ceejayoz »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #211
ceejayoz wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(and maybe yank your Kindle collection and AWS resources at the same time...)

Which is why you should have a separate account for AWS vs your Amazon.com account, and you should download and rip the DRM off your Kindle books.

Part of the appeal of Kindle for me is that I'm really shitty at keeping backups effectively.

Separate AWS account won't necessarily save you - if they can connect the two by name, address, credit card, etc. they're at risk. If you've got a business, having it under the business name might do the trick, but that's still a risk.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#222

Post by pascalxus »

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…

you should definitely return those things. I've never heard of them firing their customers. I don't think Amazon got to where they are by offering a terrible service. And even if they do ban you, you can always go to a indie book store and there's plenty of other places online that sell books.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#223

Post by scarface74 »

dpark wrote: post #147
scarface74 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a desktop Gateway from BestBuy awhile back. It had Best Buy specific crapware and the "special edition" Dell was the same price from the MS store as it was from Dell's website. Buying the business line from Dell gets you better local support and no crapware.

That’s interesting. I’ve never seen that. That means Best Buy has some deal to get a special Best Buy Crapware SKU from the manufacturer. P.S. Gateway still exists? P.P.S. Wikipedia says Gateway is defunct. How long ago was this experience?

It was 2013.

Gateway was bought by Acer and stop selling online and sells (sold?) exclusively through third party retailers.

Support was decent though. The hard drive crashed and I had to ship the entire computer back to them.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#224

Post by [deleted] »

chuckkir wrote: post #112
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…

The flip side of this is that they charge $50 more than Apple for an iPhone. Why make all your customers demand a price match for something so widely known? It seems like it would irk most people in the hopes of extracting a few bucks from a handful of folks.

[deleted]

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#225

Post by tmaly »

parenthesis wrote: post #151
byproxy wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I use bookfinder.com to reach other places. There are cases where I have been able to find cheaper or out of print books

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#226

Post by scarface74 »

superflyguy wrote: post #180
scarface74 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple products never have third party crapware. I was referring to Windows computers

You don't need third party crap when you're getting a machine with Apple Maps and iTunes. Don't Microsoft make it easy to remove all the crap ware these days?

Crapware == Crippleware where the OEM bundles third party trial software with the intended purpose of getting you to purchase the full version.

Notepad, the regular old command prompt, or IE is not generally considered "crapware". No matter how bad they are.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#227

Post by eganist »

pascalxus wrote: post #222
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…

you should definitely return those things. I've never heard of them firing their customers. I don't think Amazon got to where they are by offering a terrible service. And even if they do ban you, you can always go to a indie book store and there's plenty of other places online that sell books.

> I've never heard of them firing their customers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/banned-from-amazon-the-shoppers...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/mar/18/banned-by-amaz...

As for terrible customer service, see the below for my reasons for cutting off Prime:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16937290

In particular:

• Prime shipping is no longer certain to be two days.

• Those which are assured to arrive within two days don't always do so, but I never get a credit for that delay against my prime membership for a failure to meet their SLA even though I'm supposedly covered with some sort of guarantee.

• Prime shipping is no longer certain to source from Amazon warehouses.

• And worst of all: Amazon commingles Amazon-sourced with FBA merchandise. I've had numerous issues with counterfeits from "sold by Amazon" listings in the last two years because of this.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#228

Post by mnm1 »

mimimihaha wrote: post #90
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…

Honestly i’ve bought and returned plenty of stuff from Amazon. I never deal with their shit when something comes to me less than par. When I pay for prime, I expect to be paying for any mishandling of my items as well. Nearly every item i’ve wanted to return i’ve been told to just keep and i’ve never had any trouble with them. I always tell them i’m more than happy to send it back but they always refuse and just tell…

I have no doubt you'll get flagged at some point. I felt the same way before I even knew they would close my account. It didn't matter that the account was created in the 90's or early 2000's or that I had been a prime member for years or that I was spending around $10k a year there. They even kept my prime payment and didn't refund it. It's just a game of chance with their systems. You simply will never know what you did that triggered them but eventually, I think many prolific Amazon users get their accounts closed. Never mind that all the returns/problems are because Amazon carries fake shit, garbage products, and lately, won't even attempt to deliver packages with their shit ass Amazon delivery service (those assholes should all be fired). This is no doubt why Best Buy is flourishing.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#230

Post by mimimihaha »

superflyguy wrote: post #169
mimimihaha wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly i’ve bought and returned plenty of stuff from Amazon. I never deal with their shit when something comes to me less than par. When I pay for prime, I expect to be paying for any mishandling of my items as well. Nearly every item i’ve wanted to return i’ve been told to just keep and i’ve never had any trouble with them. I always tell them i’m more than happy to send it back but they always refuse and just tell…

It's not that you won't get the money back this time, but that they will refuse to sell you anything in future.

Oh yeah. When you get flagged in their system it’s pretty brutal. But you have to be extremely malicious to have it happen to you. Especially if you have a strong background with the company (member for many year + prime member for many years). Not only will they black list your address but every address on the account you own, meaning if you sent your friends a gift from amazon they will not longer be able to use amazon anymore. They go above and beyond for the abusers of the system. But to be flagged for that abuse, it typically is extreme circumstances. You can be very liberal with their return policy as long as you’re not malicious you’ll be okay.
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