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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

#431

Post by Retra »

megy wrote: post #425
gnicholas wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason Best Buy is still alive is that they effectively price discriminate between online buyers and in-store buyers. I saw a deal for a 48” Vizio TV on bestbuy.com for $206 (in 2016, this was a screaming deal). I ordered for in-store pickup. When I went to the store, I saw the TV was listed for sale at $400 or so, with no indication of a better price online. So Best Buy makes tons of money off folks who wander i…

You think it is free to have that building, that staff, the parking lot, the electricity??

You need all that even if you're just running a warehouse.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#432

Post by baddox »

394549 wrote: post #359
widowlark wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are people getting all these chinese knock offs? I have never had this happen on Amazon I am curious what products people are getting

> Where are people getting all these chinese knock offs? I have never had this happen on Amazon I am curious what products people are getting Here's a 1 TB microSD card [1]. No such product legitimately exists [2], so it must be a data-destroying counterfeit. 4.5 stars, $80. That one was easy to spot, but it's my understanding that pretty much every MacBook charger on Amazon is a kock-off counterfeit [3]. They get th…

> This item is only available from third-party sellers.

I know that it’s not fair to expect customers to distinguish between legit and shady listings, but I consider this effectively a “do not buy this product” warning.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#433

Post by jhgaylor »

kevindqc wrote: post #367
LyndsySimon wrote: post #51

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 t…

Wow 32MB? Fills up after what, 10 songs? For 350$, which is like 500$ today? :( I understand your family reaction lol

I suspect the recording were either much smaller (Let's call it 30 songs which seems insane still if compared to an ipod but it wouldn't exist for several years.) or there was audiophile quality hardware in it in which case carrying 1 album HiFi wasn't too bad. You could change it out after school the day you get bored of it.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#434

Post by Torn »

dropfrog wrote: post #172

But that call-in "customer support" is a deal killer. I made an online purchase, a cheap antenna (thank goodness). It arrived in a box with my address taped on it but with customized shirts inside. Boxes were damaged during shipping and when put back together, someone got my stuff and I got theirs. UPS - "it's not on us, contact Best Buy". So I decided to use this to test Best Buy's customer support. I call. Foreign…

Conversely, Amazon customer support is world-class. I've had multiple instances of things arriving DoA, or breaking some months later, and every time I've hopped on the text chat Amazon has just shipped me a new one without asking for the old one back

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#435

Post by HillaryBriss »

kop316 wrote: post #406
sokoloff wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write them anyway. I’ve had that BS, usually from USPS or UPS Mail Innovations (which is horrific service), and a quick email to CS gets me the credit (money or a month of Prime).

At this point I already cancelled my prime with Amazon, and generally try to buy things from other sites if possible. The counterfeit issue alone makes me avoid them whenever possible.

hearing about these kinds of experiences makes me wonder if we have already reached peak Amazon

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#436

Post by csdreamer7 »

losteric wrote: post #318
widowlark wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are people getting all these chinese knock offs? I have never had this happen on Amazon I am curious what products people are getting

What have you done to verify you never received a knock-off? I checked every one of my SD cards when I learned about Amazon's problem with fakes... Turns out I'd bought two fake SanDisk cards. They looked and worked like the real ones but the serial numbers were invalid. Maybe they'd continue working fine, or maybe one day I'd lose 64GB of photos in the middle of a vacation... who knows? Needless to say, that destroy…

Was it shipped and sold by Amazon or by a 3rd party?

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#437

Post by mnm1 »

megy wrote: post #421
mnm1 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why but I just got an email that said that my account might be in violations of their return policy. I stopped using them and a couple of months later, they sent another email saying the account was closed. Whatever I did, it was very typical shopping behavior for a small household and small business. There were a number of returns of fake / broken items. I figured that was Amazon's business. Selling a t…

> There were a number of returns of fake / broken items. This is not typical at all.

You clearly haven't shopped at Amazon. It's the most typical Amazon experience there is. That's what they sell:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazo... http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-find-fake-products-onl... https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/30/17301714/amazon-counterfe... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-walmart-newegg-third-par...

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#438

Post by astura »

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.

https://nypost.com/2018/05/22/amazon-banning-customers-for-t...

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

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#439

Post by astura »

larkeith wrote: post #399
Cd00d wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to turn off bluetooth on your phone too.

Huh, I wonder if that means you should disable WiFi discovery too. Never thought I'd be that glad to be in the habit of mobile data only (not that there aren't problems there too...)

Yes, WiFi discovery can be used to track to too.

Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon

#440

Post by bo1024 »

CharlesW wrote: post #200
MichaelApproved wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like most Americans I order a shitload from Amazon. I do too but can we say "most" Americans? Are there any stats available on their customers? I wonder, how many Americans have purchased at least one thing on Amazon? How many have in the past year? What's the average spend per customer per year?

> I do too but can we say "most" Americans? Are there any stats available on their customers? "Most" is almost true if you only look at ecommerce. "This year, the online shopping juggernaut will capture 49.1% of the market, according to eMarketer's latest forecast on the top 10 US ecommerce retailers, up from a 43.5% share last year. Amazon now controls nearly 5% of the total US retail market (online and offline)."[1…

49% of sales might be very different from being used by 49% of people, though.
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