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

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

#71
I've had no success with Best Buy recently. They never have quite what I want. Here are some recent examples:

An HD capable portable radio. (ended up buying Sangean HDR-16 from Amazon)

A keyboard synthesizer (I know they carried these in the past).

I upgraded three car stereos and they didn't have anything I wanted in stock. (Ended up buying one from Amazon and two from Crutchfield).

An unlocked Samsung cell phone. They did not have the lower cost "J" ones (this was a year ago- even now on their website I see that only a few stores display them). I think we ended up buying from Microcenter- we are very lucky to live near one.

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

#72

In my experience, no other category is so heavily gamed by shady marketplace sellers on Amazon than electronics. Search for wireless headphones on both Amazon and Best Buy and it’s night and day what you see returned. I’m bullish on Best Buy simply because it’s not a free-for-all of cheap foreign knockoffs. Retail of yesteryear might stand a chance because employing buyers who actually curate merchandise to be sold w…

That's why I like B&H Photo now too. All genuine products, sold by them, with real reviews. Their shipping is a little slower and they close Friday/Saturday which is frustrating but overall a good experience. They even do price guarantee if you contact CS which Amazon discontinued.

B&H is nice for Boston: buy on Friday, it arrives on Monday, free shipping (UPS ground I think).

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

#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 Depot had the printers, but none of them had ink in them and the store managers refused to install ink. This was frustrating because I wasted easily 2 hours between both stores waiting for the manager to even be available.

Best Buy had only 1 printer model but it had ink cartridges installed at least, but had no paper. A store associate helped fix that, but apparently the printer wasn't printing with black despite showing it had black ink. The associate kept wanting to demonstrate the printer not by printing a nice mixed content page but by copying a sales tag.

Needless to say I haven't been able to get print samples from any local retail establishment and I'd pay (reasonably) more than Amazon prices to get an good idea of the output quality before buying plus the instant gratification of being able to take a new printer home immediately. Hell since it's an ink jet I'd probably even buy the PSP/Extended Warranty without a fight.

All of these retail business are blowing their primary advantage by not having well working demo units available.

I may still end up buying from Best Buy or Staples but only because I can return to the store instead of having to ship back and pay for that return shipping like with Amazon.

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

#74
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I like B&H Photo now too. All genuine products, sold by them, with real reviews. Their shipping is a little slower and they close Friday/Saturday which is frustrating but overall a good experience. They even do price guarantee if you contact CS which Amazon discontinued.

B&H is great, agreed. They are an extremely honest company, so taking a few days longer is worth it in my opinion - you are going to get exactly what you ordered in my experience. On Amazon, that's only guaranteed if Amazon is the seller (not to be confused with "fulfilled by Amazon", of course). B&H is also closed on all Jewish holidays.

B&H is excellent. I was going to CES, and needed video and audio recording equipment that had to have some pretty specific characteristics, so I chatted with B&H rep online, and sure enough they were able to help me. They know their stuff.

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

#75

In my experience, no other category is so heavily gamed by shady marketplace sellers on Amazon than electronics. Search for wireless headphones on both Amazon and Best Buy and it’s night and day what you see returned. I’m bullish on Best Buy simply because it’s not a free-for-all of cheap foreign knockoffs. Retail of yesteryear might stand a chance because employing buyers who actually curate merchandise to be sold w…

Yep. It’s too much the Alibaba affect. I stick to the used market or known retailer’s online stores.

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

#76
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I like B&H Photo now too. All genuine products, sold by them, with real reviews. Their shipping is a little slower and they close Friday/Saturday which is frustrating but overall a good experience. They even do price guarantee if you contact CS which Amazon discontinued.

B&H is great, agreed. They are an extremely honest company, so taking a few days longer is worth it in my opinion - you are going to get exactly what you ordered in my experience. On Amazon, that's only guaranteed if Amazon is the seller (not to be confused with "fulfilled by Amazon", of course). B&H is also closed on all Jewish holidays.

I'd say the only way to guarantee you're getting the correct product is to buy from the manufacture's page itself. Anker for example, everything is sold by them instead of sold by amazon.

Also been noticing a lot less companies allowing amazon as a "trusted online merchant" for returns.

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

#77

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...

100% no way Frys is better than Best Buy. All Frys is now is as-seen-on-tv junk and no name knockoffs like you get on Amazon. Frys might have some older or more obscure items, but that's not enough to make them a better store.

As for Newegg, I really want to like them but they have a habit of cancelling my orders because they think it's fraudulent. I just opt to order elsewhere and not waste time calling in to try to prove it's legit.

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

#78
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I like B&H Photo now too. All genuine products, sold by them, with real reviews. Their shipping is a little slower and they close Friday/Saturday which is frustrating but overall a good experience. They even do price guarantee if you contact CS which Amazon discontinued.

B&H is great, agreed. They are an extremely honest company, so taking a few days longer is worth it in my opinion - you are going to get exactly what you ordered in my experience. On Amazon, that's only guaranteed if Amazon is the seller (not to be confused with "fulfilled by Amazon", of course). B&H is also closed on all Jewish holidays.

> They are an extremely honest company

B&H have been sued several times, most recently by the Labor Department, for discrimination in treatment of employees. Even I have heard about that, in the UK. They have paid out at least $8 million to settle the cases.

Instead I'd recommend keh.com

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

#79

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...

And then they were sold to a Chinese company, Liaison Interactive. I used to swear by them also, but had to stop after needing to return DOA electronics, which they wouldn't.

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

#80
post #14

I wonder who buys dvd/bluray anymore... after netflix.

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.

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