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Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

nytimes.com

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Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#101

Post by dstaley »

jonknee wrote: post #80
drivers99 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me. For example, I’m currently legally rewatching Game of Thrones before the new season comes out even though I don’t currently have an HBO subscription. It is a durable copy that doesn’t buffer, is high quality, isn’t modified after the fact (such as when they removed the George W. Bush prop head-on-spike). For a one time price, I own it for life. I can and have lent it out to others. When I watch it, my analytics a…

> When I watch it, my analytics aren’t tracked Unless you watch it on a smart TV. It's a shame you can't get the features of a modern TV without content tracking.

I mean, just turn off the internet on your TV. Most TVs have terrible built-in software anyway. My TV isn't connected to the internet, so it can't track what I'm watching.

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#102

Post by inferiorhuman »

balls187 wrote: post #63

BestBuy is a step down from frys, which is itself a depressing experience. Poor inventory, mislabeled items, disinterested staff. I happily shop with New Egg simply because of they stood up to patent trolls: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/newegg-fought-it...

Newegg is now as bad as Amazon with that third-party reseller bullshit. The nail in the coffin for me was that when I ordered a hard drive from them recently I had two shipping options: free FedEx smartpost/surepost/whatever from New Jersey or pick it up in Southern California. Essentially it felt like I was being bombarded by scammy vendors and penalized for choosing free shipping. No thanks.

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#103

Post by Antonio123123 »

Sylamore wrote: post #73

Sometimes you want to actually check something out before you buy it and that's the value that a Best Buy can provide that Amazon can't. Recently I am needing to replace my failing 15 year old color laser printer and I've been trying to find a local store that has them models I'm researching in stock (want to print Tabloid for woodworking drawings - so not a large number of stocked options). Both Staples and Office D…

You can watch reviews of printers online, and they show quality of print.

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#104

Post by dstaley »

seattle_spring wrote: post #30
erichocean wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who care about audio. Netflix streaming audio is shit. A Blu-ray has incredibly good audio tracks—usually 24-bit/96kHz lossless.

This got me really curious about what quality Netflix actually streams its audio, but the only thing I came across were tech support threads regarding low quality streams. Does anyone know of a good comparison of Netflix vs physical disc quality, and/or any hard numbers? FWIW, I have an extremely good system and I've always thought that streamed audio sounds great. I honestly wonder if I've been missing out on the ne…

From what I've found, Netflix's highest quality audio is a lossy 640 kbps Dolby Digital+ (E-AC3) stream. For comparison, the highest quality BluRay audio would be the lossless formats Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. Both of these formats support variable bit rate encoding, and from my personal library I'm seeing average bit rates of 4727 kbps for Atmos TrueHD and 2525 kbps for DTS-HD MA.

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#105

Post by general8bitso »

CalRobert wrote: post #99
general8bitso wrote: post #23

Not a fan. Used to work there during college. If we didn’t sell enough PSPs (extended warranties), we were not allowed to leave at our scheduled time. Also, we moved all the laptop inventory to the back of the store, so if a customer wanted to buy a laptop that was in stock, but did not want to purchase an extended warranty, we were instructed to lie to the customer and say it was out-of-stock. Also, the whole incent…

Seconded. I worked in the photo department and a woman had damaged the kit lens on a first or second-gen Canon Digital Rebel she'd bought a day or two before (I'm old, OK?). I mentioned offhandedly "we don't carry them but you can find them for about fifty bucks" and my boss was apoplectic that I hadn't pointed out she could -still- get a PSP (bullshit fake warranty) up to 30 days after the purchase for ~$200 and get…

Were we coworkers?

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#106

Post by general8bitso »

diminoten wrote: post #81
general8bitso wrote: post #23

Not a fan. Used to work there during college. If we didn’t sell enough PSPs (extended warranties), we were not allowed to leave at our scheduled time. Also, we moved all the laptop inventory to the back of the store, so if a customer wanted to buy a laptop that was in stock, but did not want to purchase an extended warranty, we were instructed to lie to the customer and say it was out-of-stock. Also, the whole incent…

Moving laptops to the back was almost certainly detected by corporate when their laptop sales plummeted for that store. The fact that they didn't do anything about it (if it kept up for more than a week) is on corporate. Entirely detectable.

Laptop sales dis not plummet, only laptop sales with no additional add-on items or other purchases in the same transaction ($30 USB cables, etc.)

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#107

Post by tomhoward »

gruez wrote: post #64
FiveSquared wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they are hella racists and discriminating. https://www-m.cnn.com/2016/02/29/us/bh-photo-lawsuit/index.h...

Can anyone explain why this comment is being downvoted? Is it a matter of "yeah but Amazon does it too/is worse"?

Perhaps because it includes multiple breaches of this line in the HN guidelines:

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

There may be a case for introducing information like this when a company is recommended, but the comment would need to be worded with more civility than that one was.

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#108

Post by giancarlostoro »

general8bitso wrote: post #23

Not a fan. Used to work there during college. If we didn’t sell enough PSPs (extended warranties), we were not allowed to leave at our scheduled time. Also, we moved all the laptop inventory to the back of the store, so if a customer wanted to buy a laptop that was in stock, but did not want to purchase an extended warranty, we were instructed to lie to the customer and say it was out-of-stock. Also, the whole incent…

> we were instructed to lie to the customer and say it was out-of-stock.

Odd, I never get asked if I want that till after the employees are checking me out. Must be that particular location then maybe? Sad.

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#109

Post by giancarlostoro »

CalRobert wrote: post #99
general8bitso wrote: post #23

Not a fan. Used to work there during college. If we didn’t sell enough PSPs (extended warranties), we were not allowed to leave at our scheduled time. Also, we moved all the laptop inventory to the back of the store, so if a customer wanted to buy a laptop that was in stock, but did not want to purchase an extended warranty, we were instructed to lie to the customer and say it was out-of-stock. Also, the whole incent…

Seconded. I worked in the photo department and a woman had damaged the kit lens on a first or second-gen Canon Digital Rebel she'd bought a day or two before (I'm old, OK?). I mentioned offhandedly "we don't carry them but you can find them for about fifty bucks" and my boss was apoplectic that I hadn't pointed out she could -still- get a PSP (bullshit fake warranty) up to 30 days after the purchase for ~$200 and get…

> Also, trying to push Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated subscriptions on people who just wanted to buy a damn printer in peace

I responded a similar comment to the parent comment, but this has never happened to me, must be a specific location or something? Or are these just really old practices I was fortunate enough to avoid? I live in Florida, and have never seen some of these things at Best Buy. The extended warranty has been useful for me in regards to computer monitors, mine went bad, then they refunded me the money, and when the replacement went bad I was refunded the money as well and bought a monitor that outlasted the previous two for a little bit extra (I upgraded from a roughly $160 monitor to a $299 Dell monitor).

Re: Best Buy’s Secrets for Thriving in the Amazon Age (2017)

#110

Post by robohoe »

nfriedly wrote: post #60
whoopdedo wrote: post #38

The article says Best Buy didn't have to layoff employees. But why would they ever? Retail has a high turnover rate already. All they had to do was not hire replacements when people left on their own. Or hire a part-time worker when a full-timer quits. Is there any national retailer other than Walmart that has not been forced to reduce their labor budget as a response to Amazon? None that I've looked into.

Maybe Costco, I hear they've been doing well.

Any Costco in my area is packed to the brim Fri-Sun to the point that you have to drive around looking for spots.

It isn’t empty Mon-Thurs either.

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