I used to work for Best Buy about 10 years ago and had written them off as going under. Pleasantly surprised they turned the ship around. I shop there often because of what many people had said here - no counterfeit products, get it immediately, see it for myself, etc. I shop there too because I am supporting a business OTHER than Amazon. I hate seeing monopolies. Plus, Best Buy never treated me badly and overall was a good experience.
Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon
461–468 of 468 posts
Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oddly, I've had the opposite experience (in Canada): the online price would be the same as on Amazon. I wanted it now, so I went to the store (even though I hate driving to the suburbs/shopping mall), only to see that the item was 10% cheaper in the store. (we always pay taxes for online purchases, so taxes are a non-issue)
How strange! I’d think that anyone who caught onto this pattern would check the in-store price before completing the pickup. If the price is lower in-store, you could just cancel the online order and purchase off the shelf!
Ah, to clarify: I would not bother ordering online, so it was a pleasant surprise to find the lower price in-store.
Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been the secret in my experience. Pay for Prime, and only buy Prime items. For me the convenience is worth it, even though I know I’m feeding directly into what Amazon wants; to not fix their massive counterfeit problem.
> This has been the secret in my experience. Pay for Prime, and only buy Prime items. For me the convenience is worth it, even though I know I’m feeding directly into what Amazon wants; to not fix their massive counterfeit problem. That won't really help. There are prime-eligible counterfeits shipped from Amazon's warehouses due to the Fulfilled by Amazon program. Even buying from a known trustworthy seller is not en…
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
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:…
From your link it says, "Though Walmart remains king of sales with $495.8 billion in annual revenue and U.S. sales of $318.5 billion (a 3.5 percent increase year over year) for the fiscal year ended in January, Amazon is growing at a faster pace in the United States." You are claiming that Walmart's revenue is Amazon's. You misquoted.
Oh wow, thanks for the correction. I misread the link and Amazon’s 2017 US sales are only $186M, not $318.5B.
Still a literal and figurative shitload for the average American household, but Acosta half as much as my original calculations.
Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
All that said, if what you need is a cable to get your big-ticket item working right now, a lot of us will find the markup on the cheap, high-margin item well worth it.
You save time by getting it right now, so that's worth something.
I'm not sure you save time: That round trip to the store might take an hour. Conversely, you could defer the task that needs that cable until the day after tomorrow, take 2 minutes to buy it on Amazon, and spend the next 48 hours on other stuff.
To me, the hour trip to go to the store is much more burdensome than 2 minutes on my computer plus 48 hours of doing everything else that I have in my life...I run my brain on a round-robin scheduling algorithm, and there are plenty of other tasks that can keep me busy while I wait for that interrupt to return!
Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, this absolutely happened. Since I no longer actually bought many things from Amazon due to price, I would only buy something from there if I really needed it fast and couldn't buy it locally. They were usually cheap, fairly rare items. Looking at my order history, they're things like some transistors, tent stakes, and printer ink. I imagine that played a role in the fact that they arrived late. Since I needed the…
How is this possible? The last 10 out of 10 items for me arrived on time or earlier. Many times, 2-day-shipping ends up being 1-day-shipping. It could be your items weren't marked as "prime"
They were. Specifically said things like "Get it Tuesday" which was a requirement for me ordering them since I needed them by a specific time.
I will add that even without Prime, a lot of shipments still arrive in one or two days even with standard shipping. But they're usually more expensive items like $100+ items.
Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon
#467I 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…
> they are known to fire customers with too many returns
I think you are being overly cautious. I've been buying with Amazon for many years and returned a bunch of stuff for various reasons, and only times I had issues were third-party vendors, but Amazon never objected or gave me any trouble with returns. Of course I guess if you actively abuse it they have some triggers, but I don't think honest use has high probability of triggering it.
Re: Best Buy Is Thriving in the Age of Amazon
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon is a small miracle. They stock everything, it comes right to your door, the prices are competitive in general and with Subscribe and Save you are doing even better. E-books are also incredible and with Prime you get Instant Video thrown in for free. I'm sure bad experiences happen but compared to driving to the big box suburban wasteland to browse through a limited selection, Amazon is a godesend.
In my experience, Best Buy’s return policy and process has been awful. Granted it’s been years because it was so bad. Literally the worst of any store I’ve ever shopped at. Last time I bought a router from them it was defective. I had to stand in line for over an hour. The clerk was surly and didn’t believe it was defective. Kept opening the box, pulling everything out, looking at all the pieces. Putting it all back.…
> Then he didn’t said he couldn’t accept it because the receipt was ripped. He said they could take it back, but I wouldn’t be able to make any other returns.
Looks like somebody being told by the manager not to accept returns or over return quota or something. Something shady definitely going on there... I never had such experience with local BB store, but I guess it depends a lot on local management.